Learn how to make candy with this easy recipe for hard candy. The hardest part is waiting for the sugar to reach the proper temperature. Be patient and use a candy thermometer for perfect candy. This recipe can easily be adjusted by using different flavored extracts and food colorings.
I'm just a beginner, so I thought this would be a good one to try. Its great! With food coloring, its very pretty. Instead of flavored extract, I added a tbl of water to a packet of kool aide (cherry) and put that in. Yummy!
Read Morei must be doing something wrong because it's been 18 hours and it is still in a stage between liquid and hard candy.
Read MoreI'm just a beginner, so I thought this would be a good one to try. Its great! With food coloring, its very pretty. Instead of flavored extract, I added a tbl of water to a packet of kool aide (cherry) and put that in. Yummy!
We are using this recipe to make our wedding favors. We were able to spray candy molds and use a candy funnel with stopper to put just the right amount of mixture into each mold. We now have beautiful, inexpensive, calla lily candies. I omitted the food coloring and chose almond flavoring. The candies are stunning and our guests will absolutely love them!
Great recipe! Used it to make a candy bowl!Tips on improving your luck with candy making. 1. If it's still a liquid, you either added too much water or you didn't reach the needed 300°F to reach a hard crack candy. 2. If your candy holds up but is kind of sticky when you eat it, you've made a soft-crack candy which forms at 275°F. Keep it on the heat longer. 3. Temperature is EVERYTHING in candy making, be patient and let it get as hot as it needs to be. Investing in a candy thermometer is useful but not entirely needed. If you don't have one handy, try out the drop-technique. Dip a spatula or spoon into your boiling sugar and drizzle it into ice cold water. When the strands come out brittle and glass-like, you've reached a hard-crack 4. Use a flavoring that's made for candy making! Not all flavorings are made to hold up at 300° in fact, most burn off completely before that leaving your candy flavorless. Lorann Oils is a great brand for hard candy. 5. DO NOT let uncooked sugar granules touch your candy before it hardens; it will cause the entire batch to quickly crystallize and become grainy. This includes the granules that splash up on the sides of the pot in the beginning! Keep those scraped down! 6. For a quick and easy cleanup, fill your pot with water and put it on the stovetop to boil. You can also throw in any candy coated utensils you used along the way!
I've made this recipe twice now and one time I thought I would make banana flavored candy with banana extract (have used this before in other recipes and is delish!). I put in even a little more than the recipe called for and it smelled great and everything. But come time to break the candy and try it, it tasted like nothing, just sweet. Not even a hint of flavor, no smell, nothing!!! Bleh! Now another time I took another reviewer's suggestion and used one and a half packets of Kool-Aid dissolved in just a bit of water and this was much better... unfortunately I ruined the batch by putting it in a glass pan thinking I could cut it into squares before it cooled... dumb idea. Anyhow, I will try this again using another flavor of some sort, I'm not sure if it was the recipe or just that banana is a bad flavor to make candy with!
Excellennt. I scaled it back to 12 servings and doubled the flavoring. While it was still hot but touchable, I cut it into strips and twisted it around chopsticks, to make ribbon twists, and they looked great. If it is sticking in your teeth, you didn't let it heat up quite enough, try going all the way to 310 degrees using the (lowish)medium heat. This will normally take 20-30 minutes to heat after the boil is reached. If your burning it, turn your heat down to the low side of medium heat and take your time, it'll come out fine. Good luck!
Super easy! I make this every year and everyone loves it, although I usually double the flavoring.
i must be doing something wrong because it's been 18 hours and it is still in a stage between liquid and hard candy.
This is a very Good Hard Candy Recipe!An very Easy! Thank You!!!
Great hard candy base recipe. I made several flavors. Favorite is cayenne ciannamon.
Great and simple rescipe!!! Wonderful for beginners. I used lemon for one batch and strawberry for the other. Both turned out perfect.
I made this last year at Yule and it was a huge hit with all my guests. One tip I can share is just after pouring use a pizza cutter to add horizontal and vertical lines to the candy it make it break into nice uniform pieces.
i kept burning it until i started taking it off the heat at 250 degrees, but i think that is soft candy. I also put at least 1 tbs of flavor instead of 2 tsp. This stuff is really good.
I have always loved Hard Candy. This little recipe is my first homemade candy and I am extreamly pleased witht he results!
I made this and it was very easy. My kids loved helping and picking out the colors and flavors. Be sure to use a large saucepan instead of the medium or you'll have a big mess to clean up.
My Mom and I just used this recipe for our first ever hard candy making adventure! It was a decent size batch, so half will stay at home while the rest will follow be back to college. Our advice: be patient as the sugar boils (it took longer than we expected, and we even thought our thermometer was broken at one point!), use wooden (versus plastic) utensils, and for raspberry flavoring at least, we were glad we used an overflowing teaspoon. Thanks for the good recipes and great memories!
I like this recipe. The only thing I'd change is using a large pot instead of a medium sized pot. I spent two hours hovering over the mixture in the medium sized pot, having to decrease the heat when the bubbles began spilling over the side, and then turning the heat up when it all subsided. Very frustrating! Once I transfered the mixture to a large pot, it was ready in 10 minutes. I used this recipe to make a candy rainbow for a cake top. I used 4 cake pans decreasing in size (12", 10", 8", 6", and then a ring from the lid of a canning jar), sat them, greased, one inside the other. When the mixture was ready, I quickly poured some into a large cup, added the color, and then poured into the space between one pan and the next. I did this for each color. I was happy with the result seeing as it was an experiment.
This recipe is VERY simple and easy to follow. It does take patience. If you use Kool-Aid as suggested (one packet to a TBSP of water) the flavor and color are great. I wanted root beer candy and used 1 TBSP of extract as in the recipe, but it does not taste like anything. Next time I'm going to use 2 TBSP of extract for sure. **EASY way to clean your pan: Wait a few minutes for the pan to cool a little (to avoid warping the pan) and boil some water in that same pan.
I have made this candy a few times and enjoyed making it each time. But, I want to say this, who ever wrote the directions for the recipe didn't take into account that a novice candy maker like myself would try it or they assumed everyone would know this because they weren't very detailed with their directions and don't say exactly at what point you should add the extracts or oils for flavoring. And I have noticed a lot of people saying the flavor wasn't very strong. Try waiting for the boiling to completely stop before you add the liquid flavoring. If it's still hot enough to boil you loose most of the flavor to steam vapor. You may find you don't have to double the amount you use after all and you don't have to be forced to use koolaid as flavoring either.
I have made this many times and it usually comes out great. For some reason this time the candy sticks to your teeth soo bad that it makes it hard to eat... Does anyone know why its sooo sticky to eat this time. Oh and its sticky to eat not to the touch...
fun and easy. as a new cook i didnt know it would take so long to get to 300 degrees, so just a heads up it takes like 10 minutes.
First time trying this and it came out wonderful. The only difference I made was in the flavoring. At Walmart they have these little flavor packs in the cake icing dept. as they are used to add in white icing to make different flavors and they are about 89 cents each. They come in great flavors such as bubble gum, strawberry, orange, and others. They work great as they are already colored. The bubble gum came out the prettiest shade of pink....just like bubble gum.
I loved this recipe! I did have to change the amount of extract from 1 tbsp to 2 tbsp. My first batch of strawberry was mostly sweet, so I doubled the amount of extract in the orange and it turned out perfect. I live 7000 ft. above sea level and it still worked great!
What a great hard candy for beginners! I doubled the extract, and it came out perfect! I will recommend this to anyone who wants to try and make their own hard candy.
Love this! We have made red/cinnamon and green/wintergreen for our kids teachers each year at Christmas. So easy they have been able to help since kindergarten...they are especially good at cracking the candy into pieces. TIP: to make waiting for 300 degrees easier, keep a lid on the pan (easy if you have a digital thermometer) or wrap foil across top if using regular candy thermometer. It makes it go quicker.
I love this recipe but instead of greasing the pan i generously line the pan with powdered sugar
Made this for Christmas. It was very easy to make. I used orange and strawberry extracts. Very good candy.
I make several batches of this each year everyone loves it. It is much easier to use parchment paper in place of greasing pan. Also use 1/2 to 1 dram of flavored oil. You can find the oil at a decoraters grocer or online. Lots of flavors available. My personal favorite is amaretto.
Great recipe! This was my first time with hard candy, so I followed the recipe exactly. I chose a peppermint flavor, and it could have used more, so I would recommend using a little more than the amount that is listed.
Used blue jello and Fumaric Acid(commonly used in store bought candy) for flavor and color, amazingly good! This was my first attempt to use a recipe to make hard candy, I highly recommend using Fumaric Acid if you are making fruit flavored candy or just want to give it a little extra kick. Fumaric Acid is a natural chemical that gives fruit that tart kick.
Made cinnamon candy with this recipe and unfortunately will probably end up throwing it all away because it lacks flavor. I suspect it was because I used cinnamon extract and not cinnamon oil. I even double the extract quantity with only a mild cinnamon flavor as a result. I may try the "kool-aid" flavoring next time. Otherwise, the texture and ease of this recipe is spot on! Thanks!
blue food colouring turned green. Probably as the the colour of mixture was yellow. Still the suckers turned out. Use cookie sticks as ones for chocolate (plastic) don't withstand the high temperature.
I'm a beginner. This was super easy and came out perfectly with the Kool-aid. If you want a deeper color though, I would add color paste. I was able to pour into molds and the taste is right on!!!
its a great recipe but it taste better if you use a flavored oil not extract. extract just doesnt have the flovor in in for the little bit required by the recipe
This was probably my fault, but the candy didn't taste very good. I ended up tossing out the first batch (made with Kool-Aid powder as suggested by several reviewers), because it tasted really "off". I figured out that I probably had scorched the sugar syrup by cooking it over too high of heat. The second batch was "okay", but the flavor was still a little funny and wasn't strong enough (I used lemon extract this time, tripling the amount the recipe calls for). I think I'll keep searching for that perfect hard candy recipe.
This is awsome candy. I used 2 packages of Ice Blue Kool-Aid (because it was all I had) and 1 1/2 TBSP of water. It turned out perfect. I can't wait to make it agian with different flavors !!
I have never made Hard Candy before, and apsolutly loved this recipe, had no problem at all!
The recipe looked great and the texture was perfect but I suggest adding a lot more extract. I added a little more than a Tbl. and I can barely taste the strawberry.
This is so easy. My 4year-old and I made it together this year. It makes a great gift. Most craft stores or candy making stores will carry a variety of flavors. We love Butter Rum, Anise Oil, Root Beer, Clove, and Chocolate! Powdered Sugar is optional but add before candy cools!
I used this for candy molds and they turned out perfect! Easy to make and sugary results, great recipe.
Followed the suggestion of using an unsweetened kool-aid packet+1 tbsp of water. We made a batch of berry blue. It was a big batch, maybe half next time. Everything turned out great. Keeps in a sealed container very well, I did not use any powdered sugar either, seemed to be just fine. No complaints! Homemade jolly ranchers, yeah....
This is wonderful! Just as easy as it sounds, and tastes just like I remember it. I can't agree more about the waiting, it seems to take FOREVER, but it is well worth the wait. When I added the flavor I thought it would be ruined since the little bottles from the drugstore only contain about 2 tsp of flavoring (surprise!), but any more cinnamon & it would have been too hot. The flavor was perfect, thanks so much!
This looks like the recipe that I have for a candy called Stained Glass Candy. We made it every Christmas growing up. As teenagers we made it as a fundraiser near Christmas time for our church youth group. Some of my favorite flavors are: cherry, lemon, orange, cinnamon, butter rum and anise. We didn't powder sugar the top. It is great way to get your kids involved by having them help break up the pieces.
This is a great candy recipe,it was my first time making it,and I used lemon extract just because I love lemon.It was very easy to make,great recipe for candy!
great recipe!! I hadn't had this since high school and it is sooo easy!! I made cinnamon which was good however I like alot more cinnamon in mine but I'll know from now on still was wonderful I just want a lil more pow in it!! next up is strawberry banana flavor!! or Lemon can't decide may have to just make both lol.
This was a fantastic recipe! It was easy, didn't take a lot of ingredients, and tasted good! For those whom are adding flavoring, I would definitely recommend adding more flavoring then less. I put in the amount recommended and it wasn't as sweet as I would have liked. Other than that, it's a great, fun candy to make!
OMG, this is exactly how my grandfather made it every holiday season. He used to make red, green, white and yellow. Each got stored in a coffee can right next to the fruit leather and other dried fruits. My favorite was always wintergreen and anise.
recipe is great but for best flavor i use loran flavored oils and the taste is awesome
This is like the recipe I grew up making everyyear for xmas. And if you want, once u add the food coloring and the extract. Put the confectioners sugar on counter (or baking sheet) Pour the candy onto this and then take scissors and start cutting it into pieces and then roll those pieces in additional sugar... COMES out GREAT
This is one of the best hard candies I have ever made. My famly loved it and I've made it 4-5 times. Great for Christmas. Another way it to change It from orange to lemon. Lemon is a little more tricky, because the extract is so strong. But in the end I loved it
I tweaked the recipe for my specific needs (mainly I had been given six lbs. of gummy bears and needed to get rid of them). Instead of flavoring, I added a couple of handfuls of gummy bears. Also, once it had cooled a bit, I pushed gummy bears into the (still liquid) candy for garnish. It's fantastic! It's very sweet but very, very good.
I made this recipe last night for the first time using butter and rum flavoring, and it turned out great! Will definately be making more and giving some as gifts.
I'm just lucky that I pay attention so that when it did boil over, I was able to move it to a cool plate and quickly scrape away the spillage from the hot cooking top. It smoked a lot though and almost became my first ever fire alarm breach.
My biggest problem was putting in a foil lined cookie sheet. I did not "sift" my powdered sugar which turned out lumpy and probably didn't properly dust the pan, therefore the candy stuck to the foil and had great difficulty getting it off. Will try parchment paper next time. Also candy didn't quite reach 310F but used the "dropping"into cold water and it was hard strands. Sticking to teeth. Will wait till 310 degrees next time. Thanks for all the comments which really help. :)
This candy never got hard for me. I obviously did something wrong since everyone else gave it a good rating. I wish it worked, but I probably wont be trying this again any time soon.
I had to make a cake that looked like a beer mug with a suspended can of beer pouring a stream of beer into the mug. I used this recipe for the stream of beer effect. It was so easy and worked amazingly well. Looked like the real thing!
I used this recipe today and it turned out great! I used Rum flavoring and no coloring. It tastes so good, my family and I can't stop eating it. I am going to try other flavors too.
Great recipe. Didn't even have a thermometer, but by following the directions it set up perfectly. My only complain - couldn't taste the orange flavoring. Next time I will try doubling the extract.
Great recipe! As long as you know how to get to the hard crack stage, you won't need a thermometer. Also - needs lots more flavoring than stated! I needed two vials per batch, the recipe only calls for one.
Been using this type of candie recipe for years add colors for the holiday's and flavors that go with the holidays
This is the first time I made hard candy with it turning out great. I also doubled the extract. I used cinnamon with red food coloring, and peppermint with green extract.
Perfect! I suggest being really alert when it is hardening because the first I made this I totally flunked that part! I also don't think the dusting was necessary. Thank you for sharing!
This was short and easy. I usually wake up in the night and want something sweet. Tonight I didn't have any hard candy. This was an excellent 2 am fix.I did use vanilla instead of orange only because I didn't have any. Next time I will try the kool aide. I do need some suggestions on how to make it so it doesn't stick to your teeth.
Very straight forward easy recipe. I cut the recipe in half and it still worked just fine. I found the extract amount to be just perfect - I was using pure peppermint extract. Worried if it was strong enough though (after reading other reviews) I did a hard ball test into water and then tasted the cooled ball to make sure the strength was there. After cooling it tasted just the same. I also used a silicone cake pan so didn't bother greasing it. The candy solidified and I could just stretch the pan off around it.
i replaced the water with home brewed (extra concentrated), green tea, and cut the flavoring, and got amazing results. i'm going to try with coffee and other teas in the future. as for anyone who doesn't want to make that much, i thirded the ingredients, sugar- 1 1/4 cups corn syrup- 1/2 cup water-1/3 cup, flavoring-1/3 tbsp. i know some people have trouble reducing recipes.
Great recipe! This was my first time making candy. I bought a $2.00 candy thermometer from Walmart. Just do not spray Pam in the bottom of the sauce pot if you have one of those expensive ceramic ones. It will burn!1
This is a great recipe and it makes a ton of candy. Unfortunately, I tried it with only one little bottle of the flavoring which was 1 dram or 1/2 tablespoon. I recommend the full tablespoon or two of the 1 dram bottles. I am going to try and half the recipe, except for the flavoring, because I want to make multiple flavors.
soooo fun and a huge hit! I cut the recipes in half and used a package of Blue raspberry coolade in place of the coloring and extract, forgetting to cut back the amount on the coolade. That turned out to be the best mistake I could ever have made! JUST LIKE A JOLLY RANCHER!
Super Easy recipe for Hard Candy! The only thing I would do different in the future would be to add more flavoring.
So easy! I didn't even put the flavoring in and they are great. If you try this it is easy to see when it is about ready. Boil it in a large sauce pan until it stops steaming and the boiling sounds different and that is it. good luck.
This is the first time I have tryed to make hard candy. it didn't come out the way it should have. I let it come to a boil on med heat tested it the way the directions said too. put in the molds & still hasnt harden any idea's
I am cheating. I have made hard candy before but, not this recipe. This recipe seens fine except, I think better results are acheived by using flavored oils instead of extract. The alcohol in the extract dissipates & the flavor is less intense in the end product.
This is the first recipe I made on here and I loved it!!!!!!! I did put a tablespoon and a half (using orange) and I could probably use a little more. Other than that this was amazing and super easy.
My daughter and I had so much fun making all kinds of flavors! We even cut them into thin strips when it was still soft and made ribbons. They were cute! Can't wait to do it again. The recipe was so easy, a couple of days later my MS aged daughter made 2 more batches on her own! Be sure to use non stick parchment.
It worked as advertised, and next time I will add some LorAnn oil to it to make it taste better
More color more hotter,& peppers to the water& one very hot pepper stays in .as for watermelon more color and watermelon in the water I cook the water before adding sugar.than put the water in a cup to see how much add or take.real good.
I absolutely love this recipe so easy to make and exactly how my aunt use to make it when I was a little girl
The recipe was easy enough. The problem I had with it was i nor anyone else could taste the flavoring. I used Lorann flavoring. If you use Lorann flavoring with this recipe you will need more than a one dram bottle. This recipe makes a lot of candy so it is really too big for just one bottle of lorann.
My daughter and I made this for her country Fair art project. All the family and friends like it . Let's see what happens with the judging.
I worked without thermometer, but suggestion given in directions was enough. It took me longer to get to the right temp as I worked slowly to build the temperature up, but the results are more than perfect. oh, and kids are happy too!! thank you!!!! :)
Turned out great but I think it's important to note how long it actually takes to get to 300°. Good thing I looked it up or else I would have taken it off way too early thinking my thermometer was broke or something. If you don't have a thermometer you can also put a drop of the mixture in a cup of cold water and if you can then roll it into a nice round ball with your fingers, it's done.
This is a great basic recipe for making any flavor, any color candy. I used this recipe for leftover prickly pear juice (from jelly-making). For the candy I didn't need flavoring or coloring, but I followed the boiling directions exactly as written. I was able to get temperature up to "hard crack" in about 40 minutes. My tips: use a deep pot for boiling. Cover cookie sheet with plastic wrap or large ziplock bag before breaking up cooled candy (this stuff flies when fractured!). The broken candy edges are sharp, so pieces should be small. They will stick to teeth, so finish completely before going to bed (unless you want cavities!)
I did double the flavor extract! It very good candy!!
