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!
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!
i made this but i used cherry jello mix it tastes great
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.
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.
i must be doing something wrong because it's been 18 hours and it is still in a stage between liquid and hard candy.
