So you want to make candy. Here's a primer.

Don’t use a glass container to make candy. Use a metal pan for my instructions. Stir with a wooden spoon not metal, rubber, or plastic. Remember you are making a super saturated sugar solution, and any sugar crystals on the side after it starts to warm up can ruin the candy, especially fudge. Use a wet cloth to remove sugar crystals from the sides and lip of the pan before you start the heating. The thermometer needs to be immersed until the tip is close to the pan bottom (half an inch clearance), and not against the side or bottom of the pan. You need a metal pan a couple inches deep that the candy pan can be set into for a cold water bath. Put cold water and ice into the water bath pan. Remove the ice cubes that remain about 10 minutes before the candy will be done. The ice cubes will get in the way of your candy pan when it’s critical nothing goes wrong. You need to use oil based flavoring in candy making, and the moment the flavoring hits the hot candy a big hot cloud will whoosh straight up out of the pan. Basically never put your face above or close to the melted hot candy. It’s easy to end up with small drips of hot candy on your finger or hand. Before you pour it into the buttered pan, you should be sure a bowl of cold water is a couple feet away. In case of accident immerse the candy covered appendage immediately, and don’t try to wipe it off with your other hand, or put it in your mouth. Don’t make it if children are home, or the kitchen has other people in it.

As boiling sugar water loses water the temperature rises at which boiling occurs and more water can escape. You then know how hard your candy is by using a candy thermometer. The pan will not stop losing water the moment you remove it from the burner. The temperature will go higher until steam stops coming off the candy. Watch the thermometer at the approach of the critical temperature. This is the pass or fail point people. Remove the pan as the temperature is just approaching the chosen hardness temperature. Immediately set the metal pan into the cold water bath. Stir the candy until it stops boiling and the thermometer says the mixture is going down in temperature. Let it cool a bit until the thermometer indicates it is going to continue cooling after the removal from the water bath. Add your food coloring and essential oils now. Pour into a well buttered pan where you will leave it until cold. Be very sure it’s not near a place where someone can knock into it, or children reaching up can put their hand in it.

Hard sugar candy:
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cup Light Corn Syrup (Light as in not Dark)(Not as in low calorie)
1 cup water
1 dash of salt (Take a salt shaker and give a strong shake of salt into your hand and dump it in.)
¼ teaspoon flavoring
Heat to between soft hard and hard crack stage on the thermometer.

Soft Crack is like a jolly rancher, and welds to your teeth.
Hard Crack is very brittle, and it’s easy to burn.

Awesome! I was just surfing around for some candy-making instructions last night!

How hard is that hard sugar candy? I’ve been looking for a recipe for these colourful, sugary lumps I used to buy in bags every Christmas, where I’m from, they were called “French creams” (or “cremes”?) They melted somewhat in your mouth, yet were still a little hard. Not nearly as melty as maple sugar candies, they took a little longer to dissolve. Usually they were just a simple vanilla flavour, but the overwhelming flavour was, well, sugar.

Just asking, because this recipe looks similar to the ones I found, but I don’t know if the name is exactly correct, and none of the recipes showed pictures.

Thanks for the primer! I’m really interested in making my own candies at home! This is really, really useful.

I want to add that you can sugar the cold candies to prevent sticking together. You can score the candy with a knife when it’s almost set. That will make it easier to break later. Use any flavour you like.

I’m glad to hear some feedback. I use it to make Anise candy. It’s a clear hard sugar candy. It’s like say Lifesaver’s roll candy.

The procedures are relavent to other candy like the caramels, and fudge. You’ll need a different recipie for those, but this has the pointers you need to know. Fudge is not for a first time candy maker either. You can end up with runny syrup to chocolate crystalized sugar.

I took some of those chocolate candy melts that are sold by various craft stores, and placed them on a cookie sheet, leaving plenty of room between the individual disks. Then I made some raspberry flavored hard candy, and poured it over the melts. I tried scoring the candy sheet, but I didn’t do it very well. Nevertheless, the chocolate-raspberry candies tasted VERY good.

I completely agree with the OP’s warnings. Hot sugar syrup is dangerous, and tends to stick to one’s flesh, so be careful.

If you want to know how to make candy, I have several recipes on my website. Chocolate dipping. There are 3 for soft candy centers, toffee, truffles, and so on, and instructions for hand-dipping the candy. If you like that sort of thing, enjoy!

(Me, I’m off to bed, having just finished 5 trays of toffees, amaretto truffles, almonds, and marshmallows. Tomorrow I’ll do the last batch and be done!)

Oh, except in the instructions for the candy fondant, I always add the flavoring (and any color) while stirring the candy, not when I knead it and shape it into centers. That can make the centers too hard to work with, and it’s easier to do it during the stirring. I should fix that.

I’m happy to see this is getting some use.

The nice thing when you make it yourself is you can add more of what you like into the candy, or make flavors you can’t buy.

Lynn Bodoni could you correct the original text for this please. It’s like having an error in you chemistry book at school. I don’t want it to confuse the cook on this one. Thanks.

wrong - Heat to between soft hard and hard crack stage on the thermometer.

corrected - Heat to between soft crack and hard crack stage on the thermometer.

I widh my aunt had read this stuff at some time in her life. We dreaded the annual arrival of her “Candy.”

I can personally attest to the melting of the rubber spatula bit.

Kids-don’t try this at home!
:wink:

Here’s a little hint if you keep getting crystals in your sugar syrup, or your fudge comes out “grainy.”

Substitue one tablespoons worth of sugar for one tablespoons worth of corn syrup.

It’s a Christmas thread bump time.