One of Chicago’s best pastry chefs is making THC-laced edibles inspired by her favorite desserts

These bright, earthy, cantaloupe-hued jewels started like many of Segal’s best dessert ideas: as a sorbet. “A lot of times I do sorbets like a flavor study,” she says. “For this one, I take cantaloupe or muskmelon, pour honey over it and let it sit for like a week; then I make a sorbet out of that.” The resulting gummy delivers the rich, macerated essence of honey-drenched melon, with floral lychee notes. As Segal puts it, if you’re into “austere and off-the-beaten-path” flavors, then this is your gummy, hipster.

“Kiwi is underappreciated. It's beautiful, with juicy, tangy fruit and a great texture with those seeds,” Segal says. “And whenever I eat key-lime cheesecake, I think of kiwis and I don’t know why.” While workshopping what’s become a crowd-favorite confection, Segal wondered what would happen if she made a key-lime cheesecake packed with kiwi flavor. She starts by juicing fresh kiwi, which she folds into the batter before spreading it atop a graham cracker base glazed in key lime-kiwi curd. Once baked, she garnishes the cake with lemony oven-dried kiwi slices to further intensify the flavors. The result is creamy, bright and balanced like the gummy it inspires; both exude lush tropical sweetness with a citrusy edge and—wait—is that a hint of banana at the end? “Whenever I eat fresh kiwi, I taste banana,” Segal says. Here we go again.

Bursting with the pure, jammy taste of mixed summer berries, you might not suspect that this gummy—inspired by peak-season California and Pacific-Northwest fruit—is the most complex of Segal’s lineup. She starts by whipping up several preserves and compotes (think strawberry-rooibos tea and raspberry-red wine) before sandwiching them inside shortbread cookies to let those unique flavors shine. Finally, she mixes all three preserves together and layers them into a pistachio-orange blossom linzer torte, a traditional Austrian pastry. “I’m essentially leading you down a path on a flavor journey that ultimately brings all the berries together,” Segal says. “So when you eat the gummy, you take off in this berry hot air balloon.” We’d take a ride.

Most chefs will tell you that nailing down a fierce orange flavor means going beyond simply juicing said citrus. To get this flavor just right, Segal calls up a powerhouse bench of supporting players, like kumquat, tangerine and clementine. Then she starts candying rinds like mad. “One thing that makes me really giddy is candied citrus zest,” she says. “So when thinking about this flavor, I was like, let’s take all different beautiful citrus—clementines and kumquats and minneola tangerines—take the rind off and keep a little of the flesh, and candy them. That process creates this intense, smack-you-in-the-face orange flavor.” Perhaps she’ll take that pile of sugar-coated candied peels and garnish an elegant white chocolate mousse cake. Or she’ll distill them into a gummy that packs a flavor wallop as juicy and bright as its traffic-cone hue.

Segal reached for the liquor cabinet while dreaming up this clean, fresh and lightly botanical gummy—which is the candy embodiment of a Greyhound cocktail. “Seriously, what is better than grapefruit and gin?” she says. She juices white grapefruit, a tart-sweet cross between pomelo and sweet orange, then adds straight gin—just enough to enhance the fruit without really tasting the booze, and churns the mixture into sorbet the color of cloudy-white seaglass. Pithy and zingy with a whisper of juniper, this gummy’s heady citrus aura washes over your palate like that first sip of a bright, ice-cold summer cocktail.

Cherry-flavored confections might be a staple of the American candy world, but that doesn’t make them good. “I wanted to do a cherry flavor that doesn’t taste like cough syrup,” Segal says. Instead, she decided her ideal cherry candy would capture the essence of the fruit when it’s poached. She simmers tart and sweet cherries in poaching liquid made from kriek lambic tinged with vanilla and orange peel until the composition becomes thick, rich and glossy, like the fancy Luxardo variety. The resulting gummy avenges the medicinal flavor with sensual, almondy sweetness accented by hints of vanilla, citrus and cocoa. Seemingly spent on verbiage as she pops this final, fittingly decadent gummy, Segal instead imitates hitting a home run and watching, satisfied, as it sails out of the ballpark.