<h3>Cherry Hills (EJM x Chef's One Shot)</h3><h4>Description</h4>Hey, this is the recipe release for a discontinued one shot at Chef's Flavours in the heartrendingly beautiful EJuiceMakers line. Shoutout to Chef's and everyone who picked this one up.

The original description was: "Chewy candy with a classic blend of cherry, strawberry, orange, and lemon.  Stellar and explosive."  What I couldn't say was that this is a starburst recipe.  But like all the starbursts at once.  Whatever.  It was a good recipe.

I figured it probably needed some actual development notes, so here goes...

I had been playing around with the platonic concept of "the starburst" for a long ass time. And I thought I was making some headway.  I had originally posted a simplified version of this recipe as BURST.  The key part of the recipe, for me at least, was trying to nail down the texture.  And I feel like we mostly got there.

**The Base**

This base wouldn't have been possible without guidance/wholesale theft.  Kopel originally put me on to the **Vanilla Swirl** as a taffy base idea, and yeah, it works.  Most taffy has a background vanilla, and a vanilla swirl has this weird waxy, thick texture to it. I remember going through revisions and nailing down 2.5% as the amount of vanilla swirl you could add without the maltol in the flavor muting everything to shit. **Marshmallow** is added to further bring up that chewy, waxy texture.  TPA Marshmallow is another flavor that mutes, so .5% is about as high as I could stomach for the integrity of the mix.  The **Greek Yogurt** was ripped off from Steam's appermelon gummy recipe.  I still don't 100% understand why it works, but a touch of FLV Greek Yogurt really does add to the chew of a recipe, and the butyric notes steep out really, really quick.

Those three flavors together make for a hell of a chewy candy base when slammed up against big, bright fruit flavors.

**The Fruit**

A traditional american starburst mix is cherry, strawberry, orange and lemon.  **FW Starburst Type** (or Star Candy or whatever non trademark infringing name they are selling this under this week) has a pretty damn accurate starburst orange and lemon vibe.  I don't get any strawberry or cherry from it, but the citrus parts are bold, bright, and sweet with a pretty intense bite.  The muting properties of the base soak up some of the bite, but I think it still gets the point across.   **TPA Strawberry** isn't the best strawberry for the job here, but it does work.  I needed a big, pink candy strawberry with some softer edges.  **JF Sweet Strawberry** at 3% works better. Maybe use that one if you have it, but the TPA still delivers.

...AND THE CHERRY.  You can hack together three cherry-ish flavors for something that doesn't taste like gasoline and almost looks like a cherry in the right light.  Or you can just use **TPA Cherry Extract** if you can deal with a weak, candied cherry flavor that isn't garbage. It's weak though! And it has some water in it!  So you'll never get a bold, vibrant cherry out of it, but it works as a complement and that's all I needed here.

This only has .5% of FW Sweetener in there.  Feel free to sub in CAP SS.  The recipe works with it.  I think this was from a transitional period before I fully embraced sweetener for candy-type vapes.  If I had to do it all over again I'd probably switch to SS at .5% or FW Sweetener at like 2%.

So, this is my best attempt at a normal-ass starburst recipe. I liked it.  Steeping with this recipe is a bit tricky though.  I think it needs at least a week for everything to settle down and thicken.  And I think it gets too muted after 3-4 weeks.  So it's definitely not perfect, but it's the closest I've tasted to a mouthful of classic starbursts.  

<h4>Recipe</h4>FLV Greek Yogurt &nbsp; &nbsp; <strong>0.25%</strong>FW Starburst Type &nbsp; &nbsp; <strong>4%</strong>FW Sweetener &nbsp; &nbsp; <strong>0.5%</strong>TPA Cherry Extract &nbsp; &nbsp; <strong>4.25%</strong>TPA Marshmallow &nbsp; &nbsp; <strong>0.5%</strong>TPA Strawberry &nbsp; &nbsp; <strong>3%</strong>TPA Vanilla Swirl &nbsp; &nbsp; <strong>2.5%</strong><p>Total Flavor: <strong>15%</strong></p>