I am making hard candy for the first time ever. I am never comfortable around boiling sugar, and I have frankly no clue about all the different stages sugar goes through. But this time around I decided to make a candy basket for my cute li'l niece.
There are a lot of recipes out there, mostly using corn syrup. But it's not easily available here, so I used honey instead, and a dash of lemon.
Just when I thought I had a candy thermometer, it turned out that the maximum temperature it reads is a 110 deg C, while I need somewhere around 160. So I had to use the old method, where you drop a bit of the boiling sugar in cold water and see if it becomes brittle.
The recipe is from here : http://makethingsforkids.blogspot.com/2011/08/make-yummy-old-fashion-lollipops.html , I just added a twist of lime to it for flavor.
The following is a great resource if you don't have a candy thermometer: http://candy.about.com/od/candybasics/ss/candytempsbs.htm
I found some plastic thing with rounds in it, I cut off the edges of three of the circles and used it as a lollipop mould
Others drying on greased butter paper, without a mould
I don't have a picture of the finished candy yet, as they are still drying out(fingers crossed, they'll turn out ok). You will get to see the candy basket soon!!
*Update: I totally messed up the caramels I was planning to add to the basket....To top it, I pulled a few lollipops before they could set(impatient me), so now all I have is 3 good ones.....and no time to make more....so bye bye home made candy basket...it's not your time yet !!! But I will make another attempt quite soon!!
3 comments:
What a fun thing to do! They look fantastic. And very clever use of the plastic thing to make a mold, I'm impressed and inspired. And you used honey too, that's waaay heathier than corn syrup. I always wondered how that substitution would work...
It tastes very nice, esp the honey and lemon...I dont know how corn syrup tastes or how its made, but I miss out on a lot of recipes because we dont get it here, maybe honey is a good substitute there too
I must say,You are creative. Wishing you a sweet sweet Diwali.
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