When I was young, I was all about trying to cook before I was old enough to use knives, stoves or ovens. This resulted in a lot of dishes involving melon balls, and one unfortunate microwaved substance I had intended to be a peanut butter cookie. I lusted after the Easy-Bake Oven (and never got it). If only my young self could have had some Naru-naru Mi Ni Naru Mikan flavor. (Mikan is mandarin orange.) Targeted at kids with culinary aspirations but no access to knives or heat, this is a candy you make yourself with a series of powders in packets. I decided to try it out and finally pursue my Easy-Bake dreams of making sweets using only mysterious packaged ingredients and plastic utensils.

The kit came with three kinds of powder, a mixing tray and a plastic utensil you snap out and assemble yourself. Powder 1 looked like Crystal Light, Powder 2 looked like Jell-O and Powder 3 was just colored sprinkles. I felt like I was engaged in some sort of chemistry experiment. Crystal Light + Jell-O = ???

While you'd think I would be able to easily follow the illustrated instructions written for children, I could not. Putting together the Magical Gummy Wand (my name, not theirs) was fairly straightforward and reminiscent of assembling childhood boardgames like Mousetrap, but I made a mistake when mixing the powder with water. The instructions clearly show Powder 1 being added to the water, but since I had already dumped the powder into the tray so I could take a picture, I added the water to the powder, which caused a silty layer of Powder 1 to remain stubbornly undissolved at the bottom, no matter how assiduously I stirred with the Magical Gummy Wand. For some reason, I thought tilting the tray a bit might help, but all it did was dump some of the water-powder mixture into Powder 2, creating a disturbing bright pink crater which immediately began to coagulate into a gelled mess. I covered it with more Powder 2 and tried to pretend like it didn't exist.

Forging ahead, I began to spin the Magical Gummy Wand first in the water-powder mixture, then in Powder 2, back and forth. The tray has a little shelf on each side for resting the wand as you spin. I was amazed the first time I went from Powder 2 back to the water -- I had expected some of the powder which had collected on the wand to dissolve away, but instead it turned translucent and firmed up instantly. It really was a Magical Gummy Wand!

But after going back and forth maybe five times, the crater I had created early began to emerge, a depressing reminder of my inability to follow basic instructions, and I started to feel kind of repulsed by the powders and sticky, growing gummies. I decided to sprinkle on some Powder 3 and taste my Mikanstein (Franken-gummy?) creations. They were soft, similar to warabi mochi or coffee jelly, and not too sweet. The mikan flavor was barely discernible but, really, you're going to buy Naru-naru Mi Ni Naru Mikan for the fun of making your own gummies, not for the gummies themselves.

I suppose it's for the best I never got that Easy-Bake Oven. Don't let my awful-looking final product scare you off. I fully believe that if I were a Japanese child, I could have made beautiful, perfect gummies. I mean, the kids can make dorodango; gummy mikan should be easy. Also, check out the wonderfully weird commercials for this candy and its cousin, Neru-neru Neru Ne!