In the evergreen forests of northern Norway, a strange thing happens each and every winter night. The forest goes to sleep and the northern woodland fairies come out and set to life the dirt beneath their feet and everything it contains, including a certain brown mushroom which is transformed by the fairies’ touch into a magical chocolate substance. The final touch of the fairies’ wand on its smooth surface imbues the chocolate gummies with the slightest, most delicious aura of peppermint, and with it the happy beings traipse forth to enjoy a night of freewheeling romps throughout the forest.
A cohort of gummies, entering the forest
In little armies of chocolate minions the gummies dance through the forest, pirouetting over each other and the stumps of sleeping trees, spreading chocolate and peppermint aromas everywhere and covering the forest in a delicious layer of round nobs. They hold conferences in thickets of everwoods, bouncing up and down and creating a pitter-patter of sound through which many ideas for future romps are communicated. They jump from the branches of trees and bounce themselves off of trunks and boulders. They play with the fairies who come down from their perches in the forest canopy to ride the gummies like small round steeds into pretend battle, which is more like a dance as fairies gallop around each other in a twirl of bright colors. When the fairies sit atop the gummies, the gummies sparkle with iridescent fairy dust, green and glittery brown, the colors of the forest, a nocturnal phosphorescent color palette.
Frolicking in their natural habitat
As it nears morning and the dawn light creeps up over the forest, the fairies’ spells wear off and the gummies begin to slow. They plod through the forest, back to their starting points, losing their illumination. Some of them don’t make it back to their burrows before the sun comes up, and lie fallen on beds of leaves, to be found the next morning by trained pigs, who hunt out the brown nobs and bring them back to their nearby masters, townsfolk who prize the chocolate gummies for their minty scents of forest. Those who eat the gummies feel lighter and less ache-y, as the lingering fairy magic relieves the weight from their souls. They are considered a kind of medicine among the northern Norwegian villagers, and go for a high price at the market.
As for the gummies themselves, they live contentedly, happy to be creatures of the forest, blessed with fairy spirit during the oh-so-long northern winter nights, content that even when fallen they bring joy and good joint function to those who consume them.
- 3 tb grassfed gelatin
- 2 cups coconut milk
- 4 tb cocoa powder
- 4 tb maple syrup
- 2-3 drops peppermint essential oil
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- Bloom gelatin in ¼ cup coconut milk.
- Heat up remaining coconut milk on stove with rest of ingredients until mixed.
- Pour over gelatin and incorporate gently.
- Pour into molds and refrigerate until solidified.
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