Fluid Gels: Master Fluid Gel with These Recipes

Fluid gel is a great way to add flavour and unique plating styles to your dishes, the best thing is, fluid gels are actually much easier to make than you might imagine.

Below we’ve collected a few recipes that explain the process of making smooth, shiny and delicious edible gels using a range of different fruits.

There’s a collection of short but highly informative recipes from ChefSteps for orange fruit gel, beet gel and even soubise fluid gel. There’s also a recipe for raspberry fluid gel created by Great British Chefs.

As you see from the videos, the recipes all make use of some sort of thickening agent: agar agar, gelatin and xanthum gum are some of the ingredients utilised by the chefs to produce thicker fluid gels.

In terms of plating presentation, these edible gel recipes are great for packing in some surprisingly strong flavours as dots, lines, circles and swirls, whatever you want. The great thing about cooking with fluid gel is that it’s so versatile.

Fluid Gels

All gels involve using a thickener, like gelatin, to create a structure in a gel that traps the liquid and makes it behave more like a solid. A fluid gel is a gel that thickens weakly, so it almost straddles the threshold between a liquid and a solid. In most cases, when it is at rest, it maintains its body and solid properties. But when it is disturbed by, say, the motion of chewing or stirring, it changes to a flowing liquid. This sought-after property is what makes the texture of fluid gels so unique.

Raspberry Fluid Gel Recipe

An easy fruit gel recipe that will add some perfect sweet tartness to your dishes. Raspberry fluid gel is perfect for decorative dessert flourishes.

Chef Michael Wignall:

Combines the ingredients (sugar, raspberry liqueur, vegetable gel water, and fresh raspberry puree.
Heats the mixture up on the stove top, lightly simmering for a minute and a half and stirring.
Swiftly pours the mixture through a warmed sieve onto a warmed tray.
Lets it cool, then cuts and serves.

Beet Fluid Gel Recipe

The colour of beet gel is amazing and unrivalled by almost every other ingredient. This is why it's one of the most popular fluid gels for chefs, you can also play with beets to have the sauce more earthy or sweet.

To make this recipe:

Peel, cut and juice the beets.
Run the juice through a sieve.
Add salt, low acyl gellan gum, and xanthan gum and mix dry ingredients
Pour balsamic vinegar into beet juice and stir in dry ingredients
Bring to boil, then pour over ice-chilled bowl.
Pass through sieve again.

Buttermilk Fluid Gel Recipe

Because everyone love buttermilk, imagine incorporating a buttermilk food gel into an elevated fried chicken plate?

Orange Fluid Gel Recipe

Super easy to make, orange fluid gel is great for two things: intense flavour and intense colour. The patterns you can draw on the plate with this fruit gel are amazing.

Soubise Fluid Gel Recipe

The final recipe shows that you can turn almost any ingredient you want into a fluid gel. Watch as a classic soubise sauce is turned into a delicious, useful, soubise gel.