The Art of Making Gourmet Twizzlers: A Journey of Trial and Error

As I sat in front of my workbench, surrounded by various tools and ingredients, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and trepidation. Today was the day I would attempt to make homemade Twizzlers, a snack that had always eluded me. With a mixture of determination and skepticism, I set out to create a gourmet version of this classic treat.

My first step was to gather my ingredients and equipment. I had all the necessary supplies: cherry juice, strawberries, bread flour, sugar, corn syrup, extracts, and a candy thermometer. But as I began to prepare the ingredients, I realized that making Twizzlers wasn't just about throwing some stuff together – it required finesse and patience.

I started by reducing two cups of unsweetened cherry juice and one pound of fresh strawberries in a large saucepan until the liquid had thickened to almost nothing. This process took several minutes, during which time I couldn't help but wonder if I was on the right track. The aroma wafting from the pan was intoxicating, but I knew that the end result would depend on my next steps.

Once the mixture had cooled and the fruit concentrate had been strained out, I sifted 100 grams of bread flour into a medium bowl, setting it aside for later use. Next, I combined the sugar, corn syrup, extracts, and fruit concentrate in a separate saucepan, bringing the mixture to a boil and clipping a candy thermometer to the side of the pot.

As the mixture reached 240 Fahrenheit, I carefully added the flour, water, and red gel food coloring, whisking vigorously over medium heat until the mixture thickened and became glossy. This was the part where most people would give up, but not me – I was determined to see this through. After transferring the hot mixture to a greased surface and letting it cool until it was firm to the touch, I realized that I needed to create a custom die and auger attachment for my Kitchen Aid pasta attachment.

With the help of some hot glue gun-wielding skills (and a few minor mishaps), I managed to create a makeshift Twizzler mold. As I sprayed the attached pasta with non-stick cooking oil and fitted it with my custom die, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride. This was getting real.

Trimming the finished Twizzlers to 6 inch lengths, I placed them on a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper. The result was a batch that looked almost – but not quite – like store-bought Twizzlers. But as I sampled one (and promptly spat it out in disgust), I realized that this was where the magic happened.

"You failed me," my mom would later say, taking one bite of the disappointing Twizzler. "This tastes nothing like a real Twizzler." And while she wasn't entirely wrong – the flavor was slightly off and lacked the signature chewiness of its commercial counterpart – I couldn't help but feel a sense of accomplishment.

After all, making gourmet Twizzlers from scratch had been a journey of trial and error, not to mention a lesson in perseverance. And who knows? Maybe with a few more tweaks and experiments, I'll finally nail this recipe. Until then, I'll just keep trying – for the sake of science, if nothing else.

Four days later, with my batch of homemade Twizzlers no longer than the initial attempt (due to an unfortunate yet enlightening experience with the hot glue gun), I had one last chance to redeem myself. Would this be the one? Only time would tell.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyeah if you had to ask them on what this was they would guess this is they make Twitter lawyers guys hey everyone I'm Claire we're in the v8s kitchen and today we are making gourmet twist lers so it's been a minute since I've had a twizzler but I do like them a lot so twizzler is licorice it's firm it's a little stretchy has this shiny appearance this is the classic so it comes in these sort of lengths of rope with this kind of twisted and texture on the outside but it does kind of have a flat surface on the bottom and also it's hollow on the inside if you when you were a kid did what did what I used to do which is like cut off the two ends and try to drink soda through the Twizzlers a straw we know that it's hollow I really like using and isn't evidencing flavor of any particular fruit although I think that it is cherry Beth it's a strawberry it's not really tastes like strawberry I'm gonna taste the black licorice right this is the original it's good that just intense herbal flavor of the anise kind of balances out like the sugar I just love how chewy they are I love the pullin peel I just like love playing with my food doing and doing that it's so good I love it this one screams to call orange creamsicle it scent appears to be filled you can see that don't you really like this one I think we have to start with like the 1.0 version and stick with the classic I'm gonna start with attempting red Gaby what is it about the texture that we have to aim for I wish it was more together looks like it stayed in one piece isn't it I don't this have to be Hollow it has to have those little crimped pinches yeah crucial okay it's gotta be hollow inside I've earned keep saying that well hello you're eating pizza you got a can of coke or you got Twitter you got straw like that I'm just gonna pretend like a no one saying hollow because I don't know about that most important they have to do there's one person I think who loves Twizzlers more than anyone and that's my mom my mom wait uh yeah you're on camera just so you know I'm gonna try to bring you some Twizzlers of the homemade variety do you think it has to be Hollow okay good that was the answer I was looking for okay I'll talk to you later okay bye but first of all what what are you talking about with that texture she's like it's soft and creamy and it melts in your mouth I was like are we talking about the same thing time for my favorite part reading off the ingredients corn syrup enriched wheat flour flour niacin ferrous sulfate thiamine mononitrate riboflavin and folic acid sugar corn starch contains 2% or less of palm oil salt artificial flavour mono and diglycerides citric acid potassium sorbate preservative artificial color red forty sulfur dioxide to maintain freshness mineral oil soy lecithin glycerin it's a lot of ingredients you know the Internet's always a good resource so I want to go see if there's any recipe videos or any footage from like the Hershey factory of how they're made go take notes okay wheat there's wheat in it which is absolutely fascinating I've never known a candy that had flour in it so that's super interesting the sugar mixture and flour and the flavoring that's all cooked together initially it's extruded and then it's cooked again or dehydrated twisting every inch interesting I have to first focus on what the flavoring will be first I'll start concentrating fruit juice to puree I might try a combo of cherry and strawberry the shape we do have a pasta extruder that we bought for previous episode and only is once and it kind of failed they all got smushed so I'm gonna get that out and see if there's a shape that would even kind of remotely approximate this twist I don't know high hopes but that's that's a plate where I'm gonna start so I'm going to basically use this tart cherry juice to cook down some of the strawberry think I'll strain it it's good I'm gonna try to get away from corn syrup so I'm going to use brown rice syrup butter sugar flour y'all food coloring look at the color it's not that far off right it's starting to firm up pretty nicely so I want to make sure to start extruding it before it gets too hard but quick taste I got some issues but I just wanna try shooting it I made macaroni I made macaroni out of licorice textures not right flavors not right nothing nothing is right it just doesn't really have any kind of notice the bulb through flavor at all it's too firm but I might have to cook it less change around the proportions of the ingredients we'll meet back here tomorrow and try a bunch of different variations one thing I will definitely add today is citric acid which I think will really help bring out a lot of the fruit concentrate that we made yesterday I have strawberry inge and cherry oils I'm just gonna add a drop of each I do want to experiment with using gelatin to achieve that texture and I think it could work really well great you know it's definitely a lot softer than the texture of the Twizzlers I'm ambivalent about the gelatin definitely taste the fruit texture wise it's not there gelatin is not the right texture for Twizzlers right all right maybe ditch the gelatin and instead use corn syrup you know although it's more process than brown rice syrup I just want to try it and see what it does for this not working really the flower it's lumpy didn't smooth out I want to cook everything together none of this adding flour at the end or the gelatin or anything any eye burning we do the exact same thing and cook everything together except for the flour while I'm waiting for this mixture to cool I'm gonna try to pipe these out and kind of see what happens give a little taste it doesn't taste like Twitter Lars but that's not the point we're just going it really feels like I got nothing done and made no progress this I rolled out by hand these I piped this mixture is quite soft still so I'm gonna put it in the dehydrator just to see what happens overnight I'm really curious my mom she's gonna be really mad if I don't bring her something so I better figure it out so we're gonna check on the two batches that I left overnight these have they're still pretty soft they are even still softer than these so today I'm gonna really try to dial in the firmness and also try to work on shape here's I'm thinking none of these disks is really the right shape so maybe like a pastry tip we can kind of MacGyver our own shape she's gonna make it sound like a real nerd nice to do like a lot of Wired jewelry making when I was a kid those skills are really going to come in handy let's try it Oh Oh No hey stop yeah I busted through the opening i'm just comforted to know that this whole sequence is gonna be like 20 seconds long in this video because I would be bored Brad would not approve Brad would be like Claire what are you doing mmm I love jasmine tea you changed it because this doesn't work disorders used to be straws when I was a kid the opening is closed so make any sense time to go cook that mixture again okay so this time around maybe just trying the extra flour Wow let's try it what's happening now the color obviously from all that added flour it's not where it needs to be so I have to add back in that red food coloring I think they're a lot cooler you know I try to drink my iced tea out of one as a straw and I don't I think they'd change the formula because doesn't work they're like one side is like totally closed anyway here try it try one of these little nubs they're like two flowery tasting oh sorry our director keeps telling me that I just tell people what they should think when they try something instead of letting them form their own opinion it has that little chalkiness to it yeah like the flowery chalky like the flavor just seems a tiny bit dull at 1/4 of like that is drag more of a fruit punch to that fruit punch okay it's fruit that kind of punch I'll consider it I'm so it needs to be firmer it's not quite there yet I think what I have to do to achieve a firmer texture is cook the sugar a little bit hotter cook the flour more keep it over the heat to try to get rid of some of that starchiness so we're gonna go for it if we've gone this far might as well go what is it take it into the end zone I called an audible sir all the things brad has taught me we're gonna try to extrude yeah hmmm whoa oh my god okay Kevin why don't you say what's happening they they're looking good there's still too soft unfortunately that flat side right there is kind of similar to what happens on the Twizzlers coming off the conveyor belt it doesn't kind of spring back the way does the Twizzlers do it's a lot chewier so I'm happy about that I had to just cook the sugar hotter we made some progress today I feel good about that and hopefully we'll nail it on Monday so have a good weekend yay I'm really reinvesting in this project and doubling down because now we have the glue gun here's what's happening this is the piece that comes straight out of the extruder so I was going to try to hot glue a skewer right down into the knotch feed through the end of that nozzle tip so that whatever they screwed it has a hollow Center but I think I'll also have to create a bar going across this place too to kind of stabilize the center so that it's not like off to one side I can't believe that this is gonna be a video people care about this is this whole thing really there has to be a better way to do this oh I like this Reagan making a little drill auger to drill out the hollows what I'm sorry we're gonna use layperson terms odd little skewer to the like turning piece and then I made my own diet so see this piece I cut into it I wrote it this is too big with this thinner one through it yeah Claire really wears the kind of a careful young drill that why don't we drill a hole the power of Christ compels you we're really pushing on this bamboo getting very brittle of fibers in it but a little bit of pressure do that extruding machine are you paying it I hope I'm trying to order lunch you can you drill through metal yeah let's go let's use a metal skewer oh yeah all right come back in like five minutes great hey Brad you want to be around for this oh it's coming it's coming are you ready it's looking kind of hollow Claire wait Fred oh yeah careful careful okay snip snip and then Latham you're doing a really good job okay all right we have to immediately soak this because the sugar is gonna hurt don't try it yet already yeah but don't touch it what are yours I'm coming out yeah I think she'll lose but I'm not that worried about that because the twins alert is in like look at the twizzler well don't look at that end but like one of the ends is like sealed Brad you want to see this print do you say no no thanks you've got the nice little braided ridges pretty good Claire you're brilliant thank you that you've any idea how much that means to me yes this is day for you it already is so much chewier than the last time less starchy yeah I'm happy you're already with the texture it's getting pretty twizzler e yeah if you get that texture firmed up it has a little bit of that bounce to a little bit of chew snap that whack finish you did pretty damn close Eric they're great so I'm gonna make one more batch and let these chill in the fridge and we're gonna come back and check in like let's say in like an hour video process do you put it right what are the homemade Twizzlers it's a little tiny little limb full sauce really the other batch was better Thank You Ruby uh-huh this feels wrong yeah you sure these are the right ones so we go down and check out some others yeah yeah this one these are better try that good try that but snot that chewy right there's still no hole okay well though all right they're never they're never gonna be Hollow thank you the flavor of these is red yeah because it's it's kind of a mix and that's true it's great to think it has a nice chew and then they're ridges yeah did you get out of spaghetti machine like a Oh Carla like a pasta Oh Carla we that was involved so anyway yeah so I didn't quite nail this one the way I nailed Oreos but I learned a lot along the way had a lot of fun with the hot glue gun this one's a wrap it's okay four days is our cutoff says me here's how you make a gourmet twist ler sort of cook down two cups unsweet 100% cherry juice and 1 pound fresh hold have strawberries in a large saucepan until reduced to one cup of liquid strain and let fruit concentrate cool sift 100 grams bread flour into a medium bowl set aside in a medium saucepan combine 100 grams sugar 50 grams corn syrup a quarter teaspoon each natural cherry and strawberry extracts and a hundred grams fruit concentrate cook mixture over medium high heat stirring to dissolve sugar bring to a boil and clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pot cook to 240 Fahrenheit brushing down sides with a wet pastry brush immediately add flour 2 tablespoons water and 1/4 TSP red gel food coloring and whisk vigorously over medium heat until mixture is thick and glossy transferred to a greased surface and let cool until mixture is firm to the touch and hold its shape extremes of the pasta attachment of a Kitchen Aid sprayed with nonstick cooking oil and fitted with a custom die and auger use the hot glue gun at some point try to make them Hollow but it might not work trim to 6 inch lengths and place in rose on a rimmed baking sheet lined with grease parchment paper twist Twizzlers lengthening ropes then trim edges with a bench scraper let's sit at room temperature until set I'm going home on Friday I have to bring one to my mom she's gonna be like this is garbage somethig this is not taste like a twizzler you failed me I'm sorry I'm sorry mamayeah if you had to ask them on what this was they would guess this is they make Twitter lawyers guys hey everyone I'm Claire we're in the v8s kitchen and today we are making gourmet twist lers so it's been a minute since I've had a twizzler but I do like them a lot so twizzler is licorice it's firm it's a little stretchy has this shiny appearance this is the classic so it comes in these sort of lengths of rope with this kind of twisted and texture on the outside but it does kind of have a flat surface on the bottom and also it's hollow on the inside if you when you were a kid did what did what I used to do which is like cut off the two ends and try to drink soda through the Twizzlers a straw we know that it's hollow I really like using and isn't evidencing flavor of any particular fruit although I think that it is cherry Beth it's a strawberry it's not really tastes like strawberry I'm gonna taste the black licorice right this is the original it's good that just intense herbal flavor of the anise kind of balances out like the sugar I just love how chewy they are I love the pullin peel I just like love playing with my food doing and doing that it's so good I love it this one screams to call orange creamsicle it scent appears to be filled you can see that don't you really like this one I think we have to start with like the 1.0 version and stick with the classic I'm gonna start with attempting red Gaby what is it about the texture that we have to aim for I wish it was more together looks like it stayed in one piece isn't it I don't this have to be Hollow it has to have those little crimped pinches yeah crucial okay it's gotta be hollow inside I've earned keep saying that well hello you're eating pizza you got a can of coke or you got Twitter you got straw like that I'm just gonna pretend like a no one saying hollow because I don't know about that most important they have to do there's one person I think who loves Twizzlers more than anyone and that's my mom my mom wait uh yeah you're on camera just so you know I'm gonna try to bring you some Twizzlers of the homemade variety do you think it has to be Hollow okay good that was the answer I was looking for okay I'll talk to you later okay bye but first of all what what are you talking about with that texture she's like it's soft and creamy and it melts in your mouth I was like are we talking about the same thing time for my favorite part reading off the ingredients corn syrup enriched wheat flour flour niacin ferrous sulfate thiamine mononitrate riboflavin and folic acid sugar corn starch contains 2% or less of palm oil salt artificial flavour mono and diglycerides citric acid potassium sorbate preservative artificial color red forty sulfur dioxide to maintain freshness mineral oil soy lecithin glycerin it's a lot of ingredients you know the Internet's always a good resource so I want to go see if there's any recipe videos or any footage from like the Hershey factory of how they're made go take notes okay wheat there's wheat in it which is absolutely fascinating I've never known a candy that had flour in it so that's super interesting the sugar mixture and flour and the flavoring that's all cooked together initially it's extruded and then it's cooked again or dehydrated twisting every inch interesting I have to first focus on what the flavoring will be first I'll start concentrating fruit juice to puree I might try a combo of cherry and strawberry the shape we do have a pasta extruder that we bought for previous episode and only is once and it kind of failed they all got smushed so I'm gonna get that out and see if there's a shape that would even kind of remotely approximate this twist I don't know high hopes but that's that's a plate where I'm gonna start so I'm going to basically use this tart cherry juice to cook down some of the strawberry think I'll strain it it's good I'm gonna try to get away from corn syrup so I'm going to use brown rice syrup butter sugar flour y'all food coloring look at the color it's not that far off right it's starting to firm up pretty nicely so I want to make sure to start extruding it before it gets too hard but quick taste I got some issues but I just wanna try shooting it I made macaroni I made macaroni out of licorice textures not right flavors not right nothing nothing is right it just doesn't really have any kind of notice the bulb through flavor at all it's too firm but I might have to cook it less change around the proportions of the ingredients we'll meet back here tomorrow and try a bunch of different variations one thing I will definitely add today is citric acid which I think will really help bring out a lot of the fruit concentrate that we made yesterday I have strawberry inge and cherry oils I'm just gonna add a drop of each I do want to experiment with using gelatin to achieve that texture and I think it could work really well great you know it's definitely a lot softer than the texture of the Twizzlers I'm ambivalent about the gelatin definitely taste the fruit texture wise it's not there gelatin is not the right texture for Twizzlers right all right maybe ditch the gelatin and instead use corn syrup you know although it's more process than brown rice syrup I just want to try it and see what it does for this not working really the flower it's lumpy didn't smooth out I want to cook everything together none of this adding flour at the end or the gelatin or anything any eye burning we do the exact same thing and cook everything together except for the flour while I'm waiting for this mixture to cool I'm gonna try to pipe these out and kind of see what happens give a little taste it doesn't taste like Twitter Lars but that's not the point we're just going it really feels like I got nothing done and made no progress this I rolled out by hand these I piped this mixture is quite soft still so I'm gonna put it in the dehydrator just to see what happens overnight I'm really curious my mom she's gonna be really mad if I don't bring her something so I better figure it out so we're gonna check on the two batches that I left overnight these have they're still pretty soft they are even still softer than these so today I'm gonna really try to dial in the firmness and also try to work on shape here's I'm thinking none of these disks is really the right shape so maybe like a pastry tip we can kind of MacGyver our own shape she's gonna make it sound like a real nerd nice to do like a lot of Wired jewelry making when I was a kid those skills are really going to come in handy let's try it Oh Oh No hey stop yeah I busted through the opening i'm just comforted to know that this whole sequence is gonna be like 20 seconds long in this video because I would be bored Brad would not approve Brad would be like Claire what are you doing mmm I love jasmine tea you changed it because this doesn't work disorders used to be straws when I was a kid the opening is closed so make any sense time to go cook that mixture again okay so this time around maybe just trying the extra flour Wow let's try it what's happening now the color obviously from all that added flour it's not where it needs to be so I have to add back in that red food coloring I think they're a lot cooler you know I try to drink my iced tea out of one as a straw and I don't I think they'd change the formula because doesn't work they're like one side is like totally closed anyway here try it try one of these little nubs they're like two flowery tasting oh sorry our director keeps telling me that I just tell people what they should think when they try something instead of letting them form their own opinion it has that little chalkiness to it yeah like the flowery chalky like the flavor just seems a tiny bit dull at 1/4 of like that is drag more of a fruit punch to that fruit punch okay it's fruit that kind of punch I'll consider it I'm so it needs to be firmer it's not quite there yet I think what I have to do to achieve a firmer texture is cook the sugar a little bit hotter cook the flour more keep it over the heat to try to get rid of some of that starchiness so we're gonna go for it if we've gone this far might as well go what is it take it into the end zone I called an audible sir all the things brad has taught me we're gonna try to extrude yeah hmmm whoa oh my god okay Kevin why don't you say what's happening they they're looking good there's still too soft unfortunately that flat side right there is kind of similar to what happens on the Twizzlers coming off the conveyor belt it doesn't kind of spring back the way does the Twizzlers do it's a lot chewier so I'm happy about that I had to just cook the sugar hotter we made some progress today I feel good about that and hopefully we'll nail it on Monday so have a good weekend yay I'm really reinvesting in this project and doubling down because now we have the glue gun here's what's happening this is the piece that comes straight out of the extruder so I was going to try to hot glue a skewer right down into the knotch feed through the end of that nozzle tip so that whatever they screwed it has a hollow Center but I think I'll also have to create a bar going across this place too to kind of stabilize the center so that it's not like off to one side I can't believe that this is gonna be a video people care about this is this whole thing really there has to be a better way to do this oh I like this Reagan making a little drill auger to drill out the hollows what I'm sorry we're gonna use layperson terms odd little skewer to the like turning piece and then I made my own diet so see this piece I cut into it I wrote it this is too big with this thinner one through it yeah Claire really wears the kind of a careful young drill that why don't we drill a hole the power of Christ compels you we're really pushing on this bamboo getting very brittle of fibers in it but a little bit of pressure do that extruding machine are you paying it I hope I'm trying to order lunch you can you drill through metal yeah let's go let's use a metal skewer oh yeah all right come back in like five minutes great hey Brad you want to be around for this oh it's coming it's coming are you ready it's looking kind of hollow Claire wait Fred oh yeah careful careful okay snip snip and then Latham you're doing a really good job okay all right we have to immediately soak this because the sugar is gonna hurt don't try it yet already yeah but don't touch it what are yours I'm coming out yeah I think she'll lose but I'm not that worried about that because the twins alert is in like look at the twizzler well don't look at that end but like one of the ends is like sealed Brad you want to see this print do you say no no thanks you've got the nice little braided ridges pretty good Claire you're brilliant thank you that you've any idea how much that means to me yes this is day for you it already is so much chewier than the last time less starchy yeah I'm happy you're already with the texture it's getting pretty twizzler e yeah if you get that texture firmed up it has a little bit of that bounce to a little bit of chew snap that whack finish you did pretty damn close Eric they're great so I'm gonna make one more batch and let these chill in the fridge and we're gonna come back and check in like let's say in like an hour video process do you put it right what are the homemade Twizzlers it's a little tiny little limb full sauce really the other batch was better Thank You Ruby uh-huh this feels wrong yeah you sure these are the right ones so we go down and check out some others yeah yeah this one these are better try that good try that but snot that chewy right there's still no hole okay well though all right they're never they're never gonna be Hollow thank you the flavor of these is red yeah because it's it's kind of a mix and that's true it's great to think it has a nice chew and then they're ridges yeah did you get out of spaghetti machine like a Oh Carla like a pasta Oh Carla we that was involved so anyway yeah so I didn't quite nail this one the way I nailed Oreos but I learned a lot along the way had a lot of fun with the hot glue gun this one's a wrap it's okay four days is our cutoff says me here's how you make a gourmet twist ler sort of cook down two cups unsweet 100% cherry juice and 1 pound fresh hold have strawberries in a large saucepan until reduced to one cup of liquid strain and let fruit concentrate cool sift 100 grams bread flour into a medium bowl set aside in a medium saucepan combine 100 grams sugar 50 grams corn syrup a quarter teaspoon each natural cherry and strawberry extracts and a hundred grams fruit concentrate cook mixture over medium high heat stirring to dissolve sugar bring to a boil and clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pot cook to 240 Fahrenheit brushing down sides with a wet pastry brush immediately add flour 2 tablespoons water and 1/4 TSP red gel food coloring and whisk vigorously over medium heat until mixture is thick and glossy transferred to a greased surface and let cool until mixture is firm to the touch and hold its shape extremes of the pasta attachment of a Kitchen Aid sprayed with nonstick cooking oil and fitted with a custom die and auger use the hot glue gun at some point try to make them Hollow but it might not work trim to 6 inch lengths and place in rose on a rimmed baking sheet lined with grease parchment paper twist Twizzlers lengthening ropes then trim edges with a bench scraper let's sit at room temperature until set I'm going home on Friday I have to bring one to my mom she's gonna be like this is garbage somethig this is not taste like a twizzler you failed me I'm sorry I'm sorry mama\n"