Introduction: Monkey Brain Forbidden Fruits Edible Tide Pods

By The Necro Nomnomnomicon
About: Hands-on DIY lover and borderline crazy crafter. I love Halloween and creepy food.

Okay, let me start this post off by saying EATING LAUNDRY DETERGENT IS ABSOLUTELY STUPID.

Yes, there is a scientific reason why those little pods of poison look so tempting (monkey brains and forbidden fruits and all), but there are several really good reasons not to eat laundry pods…starting with it’s dangerous and idiotic, not to mention dangerous. Did I already say that?

Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be stopping people.

Luckily for me, I know fans of Instructables are some of the smartest people on the planet, and that none of you are even considering doing this moronic stunt…but I also know that some of you have friends that are a little lower down the scale when it comes to smarts, so this recipe is for them.

And since you can’t physically stop them…you can at least offer them an alternative that looks the same but tastes way better and won’t result in them ending up with chemical burns all down their esophagus.

May I present to you, the Monkey Brain Forbidden Fruits.

Step 1: Gather Your Non-toxic Ingredients

To make these little pouches of pure not lethal happiness, you will need:

  • 1 can of coconut milk
  • 2 tablespoons Agar-agar powder
  • ¼ cup Mango puree
  • 4 cups water
  • Neon blue food coloring
  • Neon purple food coloring
  • Yellow food coloring
  • Red food coloring
  • Crystal clear wafer paper
  • 1 cup sugar
  • Coconut oil
  • Light corn syrup
  • Cornstarch

You’re also going to need a heart-shaped mold.

Step 2: Getting It All Started

Start by first mixing your water and your agar-agar powder in a pot over medium heat. Bring the liquid up to a boil, mixing continuously to ensure that all the agar-agar powder is dissolved (about 2-3 minutes).

Once at a boil, add in your sugar and again mix to dissolve.

Transfer ½ of your liquid to 2 separate bowls, leaving the other ½ in the pot on the stove. From this ½ left on the stove, scoop out about 1/8 of a cup and set aside for later.

To the half on the stove, add in your coconut cream and mix well, making sure if you have any solid lumps of coconut that they melt completely into the agar-agar.

Add your mango puree to ¼ of your agar-agar liquid and mix well. To make the mango as orange as the laundry pods look, add in a few drops of yellow food coloring and 1 drop of red. Adjust as needed until you end up with a color you like.

To make the purple half of your laundry pod, mix in 2 drops of neon purple food coloring and 1 drop of blue. You’ll end up with a gorgeous, translucent color that is almost exactly like the laundry pod color.

Using a small spoon or ladle, fill half of your heart molds with the mango puree and the other half with the blue-purple agar-agar-agar-agar jelly. You don’t want to fill the molds up all the way, just a little under half will give you the shape you want.

Set these aside to cool in the fridge for about 10 minutes.

Step 3: Working on the White Stuff and Some Info About Agar Powder

Line a shallow pan with plastic wrap and pour in your white coconut agar-agar jelly mixture. Again, you don’t want it to be too thick. A layer of about ½ an inch is about perfect. Set this aside to cool as well.

A quick word about Agar-agar and why we’re using it for this recipe while we wait for all this jelly to set.

There are a few other recipes online for these laundry pods that use gelatin, which is perfectly acceptable, but I’m using Agar-agar for two simple reasons:

1. It sets up much faster and at a warmer temperature than gelatin. Agar-agar (or just agar) is derived from red sea algae and is a natural thickener that sets more firmly than gelatin and has a higher melting point. We’ll be doing some assembly with this recipe which means a bit of time out of the fridge as we cut and adjust and I want our recipe to remain firm enough to handle without being so firm as to be chewy.

2. Agar-agar is non-reactive when it comes into contact with oil. To make this recipe work, we’ll be using a bit of coconut oil in a later step. If we were using gelatin, it would react with the oil and start to break down almost immediately, resulting in a goopy mess.

Okay, back to our monkey-brain forbidden fruits.

By now all the agar-agar should have set up.

Remove your white coconut agar-agar from your dish by lifting up the plastic wrap.

Cut this into strips roughly 1 ½ inches by 1 ½ inches.

Step 4: Making the Swirly Stuff on Top

Pop your orange and purple agar-agar hearts out of the molds and cut these in half.

Using a small round cookie cutter, cut out the center of each of the right halves of your hearts to create the familiar swoopy design. We’ll only be using the right halves, so feel free to eat all the lefts. Mmm…tasty tasty laundry detergent fakes!

Place one orange and one purple swirl on top of each of your white squares and drizzle with just a little of the left over clear agar-agar we reserved from earlier (if it’s solidified by now, which is entirely possible, just pop it in the microwave for about 15 seconds and stir to melt. Allow it to cool for about 3o seconds before spooning it on so it doesn’t melt your swirl). The clear agar-agar will help to hold the whole thing together.

Step 5: Wrapping Up Your Pods

Now let’s quickly talk about the clear wafer papers we’ll be using next. Made of potato starch and soy lecithin, these things are so cool, but they’re also super delicate and hate water. Even just breathing on these things can cause them to start to dissolve so you want to make sure your hands are absolutely dry before touching them. Interestingly enough, while water makes them dissolve instantly, they are not as quickly affected by oil. Because the agar-agar we’ve made contains a lot of water, we will need to create an oil barrier between it and the wafer to prevent it from dissolving as soon as the two pieces touch, which is why the recipe called for coconut oil. While the oil will eventually make them dissolve, you will have a longer working time.

Gently remove three of your paper wafers from the container and place two on your work surface. Using your coconut oil, brush a square on the center of the top wafer and place one of your joined laundry detergent pods on top. Brush your third piece of wafer with a little more coconut oil and place on top of your laundry pod, gently pressing down to seal around the swirl.

Take a tiny amount of your light corn syrup and brush along the edges of your bottom wafer pieces and use that as glue to adhere to your top piece. Gently press the top wafer down over the entire piece, gluing and sealing the edges with the light corn syrup. Because there is some moisture inside the piece, the wafer paper will slightly soften and melt over your pod, creating the illusion that it’s been sealed in plastic.

Continue doing this with all your pods until they are all sealed.

Using a pair of sharp scissors, trim off the excess rice wafer and set your pods on a plate lightly dusted with cornstarch. This will keep them from sticking.

Step 6: Congrats...now Don't Be an Idiot.

Congratulations, you’ve successfully created monkey-brain forbidden fruit pods that won’t kill you. They also won’t do laundry, so we don’t recommend tossing them into your next load of darks.

And...because some people are stupid, here is a disclaimer to help cover my own butt from future Darwin Award candidates:

Dislaimer:This fake laundry detergent/Tide Pod recipe intended for entertainment purposes only. In absolutely no way do I condone, suggest, encourage or advise people to eat actual Tide Pods, or ANY laundry or detergent pods for that matter. If you do decide to eat them, it should be known that you are doing so of your own free will and that the author of this tutorial (me) is completely absolved any responsibility or liability.