Todsy I made for four new food candy kits from Japan. As you’ll see, some worked better than others…

This is called Nerikyan World (I don’t know what that means either) and is a kit where you mold taffy-like candy into various shapes.

The 5 candy blocks were slightly hard at first, but softened with a bit of kneading. It was easy to mold, but very sticky.

There’s no specific instructions: you can just make what you like. I used the mold for the corn but the panda was my original creation. The candy all seemed to taste the same – very sweet – and wasn’t bad at all. I actually ate most of it without even molding it!

I got creative with a squirrel, for which I combined black and white to make grey, before using the mold. It was extremely difficult to remove, which is why the final creation looks a bit derpy 🙂

I think kids would like this one.

Next was this Jelly Gemstone kit, which claims to make rainbow gummies. The packaging looked promising, but could I reproduce this level of detail?

This was the most complex kit, with steps including refrigeration and microwaving. It included 4 plastic trays, 5 bags of crystals and ‘rings’ made from cardboard in which to display the ‘gemstones’.

The method involved making a coloured suspension in water, then use a dropper to add it to a mold.

Various colours were made with different bags of crystal, but either the instructions were incorrect or (more likely) my translator made a mistake since only one type of colour required microwaving.

I did my best and thought they looked promising, and put them aside for ten minutes (as instructed) to solidify… which they didn’t! So I left them for another fifteen minutes after which most were still liquid.

I waited longer but only the above gemstone ended up solidifying. Or so I thought, since when I removed it from the mold it disintegrated quickly:

In other words, I completely failed in making the kit correctly! I tried eating it anyway, but it had an unpleasant chemical taste. Surely I mixed the ingredients incorrectly?

Maybe not one for kids, unless the parents want to supervise 🙂

Time for an easy one: Chiikawa Toy Beer. We’ve made a few drink kits like this before, but this was first time time it was beer and came with a stein!

As with previous drinks this was trivial to make: just add water and pour the single packet of crystals in. Stirring wasn’t even required.

It worked extremely well. The crystals dissolved quickly, creating immediate bubbles and a frothy cap, which rose so much I thought it would overflow.

It kept bubbling long after the froth had risen, and was slightly carbonated when drunk. Unfortunately the taste was disgusting, and down the sink it went 🙂

I think this one would be a hit with kids. Not only is making it fun, but it could teach them the ‘joy of beer’ at a young age, and they’d get a cute stein to keep forever.

Last was this one, which translates to Gummy Tangle. Humorously the packaging notes it’s ‘full of calcium’! I haven’t paid attention before but I wonder if all of these make nutritional claims?

This one was unusual. Looking at the packaging it seems you pull a gummy tape out of liquid?! As with many of these kits it comes with a tray, several bags of powder and a few disposable implements

One powder is dissolved to make a coloured liquid, and the other becomes a frothy foam. Then another powder is floated on top of the liquid while you use the straw to lift it out from below, which results in this:

It doesn’t exactly match the packaging, but it mostly works! This is a sour tasting product but I liked the foam a lot. It’s frankly a bit disgusting in texture but probably my favourite of the ones I made today.

I bet kids would love this one, because it’s weird and messy and a bit gross but ultimately tastes pretty good 🙂