Something I’ve always wanted to try to do is to make hard candy. But I’ve always had a fear of the hot sugar. I decided to order some sucker molds recently, as well as some flavorings, and last night I decided to give it a whirl.
The lesson learned last night? Spray the molds with a nonstick spray before filling with hard-candy sugar syrup. I managed to pop out the larger snowflakes so the kids will be able to sample them after school today, but I doubt I’ll be able to get the smaller ones out, so they may just get rinsed down the drain. We’ll see though, I have a couple tricks in mind for sucker removal.
After my molds were filled, I had quite a bit of syrup left, so I poured that onto a cookie sheet lined with Reynolds Non-Stick Foil. I was worried about the kids walking up and touching it, so I kind of hovered over it while it cooled. It just kept calling to me, and I kept thinking of those Food Network challenges with the sugar sculptures. I wanted to play with it! So when I thought it had cooled enough, I threw on my rubber gloves for dishes and very carefully, picked at the candy. With the gloves on, I was able to handle it and pull it, and the kids had fun watching Mommy make little candy curly-q’s. It didn’t take long for it to harden completely, but I did tell Andy last night that I want some good rubber gloves and a heat lamp… I think that playing with that candy was pretty fun, and considering how easy it was to actually make the syrup… there may very well be more candy in my future.