These sweet hard candies are perfect small treat, full of flavor, that slowly melt in your mouth.
I really like sweet hard candies. The most classic of these candies are jolly ranchers. Hard candies are great for slowly dissolving and giving a long and lasting flavor. And they are easy to make so that’s all the better.
One great thing about hard candies is that you can really make them into any shape. This is also a not-so-great thing because you can also, accidentally, make them a bit to big to keep in your mouth. And too much of one ingredient can cause the candy to stick to your teeth if you chew on them. This is a candy to dissolve and not chew.
Check out the Make section of MCG for more fun recipes like desserts and savory dishes.
Ingredients
There are not a lot of ingredients in these hard candies. It’s mainly sugar and corn syrup. So just sweet and sweet. The ratio between the sugar, water, and corn syrup is very important because it is easy for the hard candies to become very sticky, especially to teeth.
Process
The process for making hard candies is relatively simple. It’s mainly boiling the ingredients together while paying close attention to the temperature. I am starting to believe that this is the main trick for making a lot of candies.
The initial mixture is a combination of water, sugar, and corn syrup. First, I wanted to warm up this mixture over a low heat to dissolve the sugar. Heating the mixture too quickly can cause the sugar to not dissolve evenly and cause some granularity in the final candy.
Then, I brought the mixture to a hard crack temperature. This is where it will come to a hard candy but before it will caramelize. I wanted caramelization last week but it’s not what I want for these hard candies.
After removing the mixture from the heat, I added in the food coloring and flavor. While the temperature difference did cause a bit of a fizzle, there wasn’t enough of the coloring / extract to cause rapid cooling issue. I also learned that there are many different extract flavors available so there are a lot of options for flavor.
Finally, I poured the mixture into a silicone mold and let them cool. The cooling process took a bit so it’s better to let them harden overnight. Or at least find something else to do while they cool. Turning the hard candies out of the molds was surprisingly easy. And the results were delicious.
Reflections
I really enjoyed making these hard candies, they were very yummy to snack on when I wanted a sweet treat. I do wish that I had originally brought them to a higher temperature though. The hard crack temperature is between 295° and 310° Fahrenheit, and I aimed for about the middle around 300. I think going to the higher end of the temperature range could have gotten better results. It would have caused the candies to be even harder which would prevent the sticky teeth problem.
Lessons
Being Careful with Color
Adding color is important for candy. It can increase the attractiveness of the candy as well as be an indicator for flavor. We associate colors with flavors a lot due to candy. Adding the right amount of food coloring is important because too little won’t achieve that proper color and too much will make a mess.
The mess of adding too much will not be immediately apparent. Instead, it will appear when you are enjoying the candy. The food coloring will not have completely integrated with the hard sugar mixture and will have some leakage getting coloring on your fingers as well as going even more extreme on your tongue.
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