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Hello all! My wife has always made candy for the holidays and this is the first time I have been involved in the process. Turns out its real easy! I am going to list out the basic method for candy making and then any neat recipes I find. First things first, you need a candy thermometer. Most of you already have Thermapens or instant reads with is great in a pinch, but you want to buy one that clips onto your pot so you aren't holding it forever. Amazon and local purveyors have tons of them. I highly recommend digital, unless you have grandma's laying around. I have used a number of analog thermometers and they are either off significantly from accurate, or the deteriorate quickly because modern manufacturing and all that. This one is 24-ish bucks on Amazon and works well: https://a.co/d/8oFO7Qj A lot of recipes will tell you "heat on medium-high for 12 minutes" or whatever. Ignore that, its all lies. Burner size, pot material, burner type, what the hell does medium high actually mean, etc all make those types of directions worthless. Always aim for the temperature given, or that is appropriate. As for that....  Making candy is just heating sugar up into a uniform blob, and then cooling it. How high you heat, and how you cool it is what determines what type of candy you get. You can make things like fudge and caramel, or you can make a candy that is hard like a jolly rancher. Taffy is also like this but has a whole lot of pulling to incorporate air and stretch it out to make it chewy. So you have your thermometer, you have your sugar in its various forms, the next thing you need is some flavoring. How you flavor will depend on what you are making, but in general you can use flavor oils and extracts to make almost any flavor of anything. Lorann is a popular maker and you can find them in Walmart, Michael's etc. They are usually in the craft section by baking and candy making stuff rather than in grocery. I buy this pack for the holidays: https://a.co/d/aDscETN. I also bought a different brand for other flavors. The upside is you can mix and match flavors when candy making, we just made a chocolate marshmallow hard crack that is fantastic. The downside is that because your candy is very hot when adding flavor, it is not advisable to check the taste. Also, generally speaking adding flavoring is the last step in almost all candy making, so its hard to get an idea if you need more or less until its too late. Here is our recipe for hard crack candy: Add 2 cups white granulated sugar to 2/3 cup of light (white) corn syrup and 3/4 cup of water. I like to measure out the corn syrup first, pour it out, then add the water to the cup, mix it up to get all the corn syrup out. Set it over heat until it hits 250 F or so. At this point add your food coloring if you like. Once it hits 300, kill the heat and remove from burner and add the flavoring. If using a flavor oil or extract, it will release a puff of steam that will be a superconcentrated burst of whatever you are adding and often unpleasant, so don't stand directly over it when you do. Stir once or twice then pour in molds. If you don't have molds, just pour it onto a greased baking sheet and let it cool. Once it cools and hardens, use a mallet or anything solid and smash to make it into little pieces. Take those pieces and put them in a bowl with a some powdered sugar. Gently toss to coat the candy so it doesn't stick when in bags or such. Congrats, you have made candy, enjoy your diabetes. One other thing I forgot to mention is the cold water test. Take a cup of ice cold water and drizzle your mixture into it. Fish it out and try it, testing for consistency. Also, make sure your candy thermometer is suspended in the solution, and not touching the bottom or sides of the pot. I am currently making a bunch of fudge and once I have ironed out the wrinkles in those recipes, will post more! So far this year we have made chocolate marshmallow, cinnamon roll, passion fruit, and mango candies. We will probably do a few more like clove and peppermint that are more holiday related too.
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Nov 29, 2023 17:09
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| # ? May 2, 2024 18:16 |
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My family loves to make fudge, candy bark, dulce de leche pie, and peppermint ice cream for Christmas! Also, a couple years back, I learned how to make butterscotch-cinnamon pie, because I'm a huge nerd, and it's delicious. I love candy. Teach me your candy secrets, everybody!
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Nov 29, 2023 23:49
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I make marshmallows every year and people treat it like black magic. It’s honestly baby’s first candy. So far I’ve done vanilla and sweet mint this year, but flavoring it however you like is super easy. Just wait until it’s about halfway whipped up and then add your flavoring. I use the King Arthur recipe because it has a higher corn syrup to sugar ratio and I don’t want to deal with crystallization. My family also does angel food candy, which is an acidified carmelized sugar syrup to hard crack, then you mix in baking soda and pour it into the biggest, widest pan you have as it explodes in foamy lava. Wait for it to cool completely, break into chunks, and dip in chocolate.
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Nov 30, 2023 00:22
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Here's a good caramel recipe from departed goon Shortcut Caramels Prep Time: 15 mins | Cook Time: 15 mins | Servings: 81 servings Ingredients: 1 cup butter 1 16 ounce package (2-1/4 cups packed) brown sugar 1 14 ounce can (1-1/4 cups) sweetened condensed milk 1 cup light-colored corn syrup 1 teaspoon vanilla Directions: 1. Line a 9x9x2-inch baking pan with foil, extending foil over edges of pan. Butter the foil; set pan aside. 2. In a heavy 3-quart saucepan melt the 1 cup butter over low heat. Add brown sugar, sweetened condensed milk, and light corn syrup; mix well. Carefully clip candy thermometer to side of pan. 3. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until thermometer registers 248 degree F, firm-ball state. Mixture should boil at a moderate, steady rate over the entire surface. Reaching firm-ball stage should take 15 to 20 minutes. 4. Remove saucepan from heat; remove candy thermometer from saucepan. Immediately stir in vanilla. Quickly pour the caramel mixture into prepared baking pan. When caramel is firm, use foil to lift it out of pan. Use a buttered knife to cut candy into 1-inch squares. Wrap each piece in clear plastic wrap. Makes 81 pieces or about 2-3/4 pounds.
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Nov 30, 2023 18:52
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I made torrone for Christmas one year, but i didn't know that humidity will make it not stiffen up properly, so I ended up with very delicious goo. I don't know if I would try making it again.
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Dec 1, 2023 18:15
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I usually make pecan toffee, divinity, cherry mash, fudge, peanut chews and canned hot fudge to give away as well as glacé cherries and pineapple for fruitcake and torrone. Might make cherry cordials this year since I have homemade maraschinos to use. Toffee is a great place to start with since it doesn't need a candy thermometer and is pretty forgiving in general. Happy to share recipes.
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Dec 2, 2023 01:20
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I love the idea of this thread so you're getting stuck for a while!
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Dec 5, 2023 02:42
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Adding another that I just won a competition with Brandy Old Fashioned Balls 3 Cups Crushed Vanilla Wafer cookies (1 11oz box) 3/4 cup Confectioners sugar plus extra for dusting 1 1/2 cups finely chopped pecans Zest of one orange 15 maraschino cherries, drained and chopped fine 3 tablespoons light corn syrup 1/2 cup brandy Crystalized lemon and lime powder (true lemon/lime) or zest from lemon and lime In a large bowl combine crushed cookies, confectioners sugar, pecans, orange zest and chopped cherries Drizzle in corn syrup and brandy, and mix with a rubber spatula until well combined Roll into balls of preferred size In a separate container combine 1 cup powdered sugar and lemon and lime crystals or zest Roll the formed balls in powdered sugar mixture. Store in airtight container in the fridge
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Dec 5, 2023 15:54
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It's been a few years since I made divinity but I'm gonna this year if the weather is right. It's either rainy and very humid or bone dry around christmas and if its humid meringue based candies don't hold up well at all.
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Dec 5, 2023 18:58
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What are the best nut candies? I’d like to make some since I love roasted nuts so drat much. I don’t like brittle though, the hardness doesn’t do it for me.
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Dec 7, 2023 05:33
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Turtles! You make a rich caramel, blob it on top of a pecan, then dip in chocolate! You can also do custom spiced candied nuts, though I'd start with almonds-- walnuts are pretty fragile and break up easily.
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Dec 7, 2023 18:47
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Eeyo posted:What are the best nut candies? I’d like to make some since I love roasted nuts so drat much.
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Dec 8, 2023 01:54
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That time of year where I bust out the Christmas-only recipes and go ham on making twelve different kinds of things to ship as gifts/feed to coworkers/family. jingle all the way motherfucker
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Dec 15, 2023 03:57
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Sehkmet posted:That time of year where I bust out the Christmas-only recipes and go ham on making twelve different kinds of things to ship as gifts/feed to coworkers/family. Mooncakes!
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Dec 15, 2023 04:17
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Mooncakes! A version of, at least. The outside is a sugar cookie dough; the filling is fresh cranberry, dried cherries, brown sugar and five spice cooked down to a jam, then cooled, and blitzed with white chocolate chips and pistachios. They are a huge hit.
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Dec 15, 2023 22:00
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So I ended up making jamoncillo with a ton of nuts added. https://inmamamaggieskitchen.com/jamoncillo-mexican-milk-fudge-candy/ I think I beat the candy too hard before pouring. I think I hit the temp right but it was a bit hard to get an accurate reading. It ended up very crumbly, so it's either temperature or beating I think. I took it from shiny and smooth to starting to get grainy and kept going, which I think is not right. It tasted good during cooking, but a lot of the milk flavor disappeared after it cooled. Probably a lot of that is the texture. I made a double recipe and used about half a pound of toasted nuts (almonds, pecans, and pepitas) which was about right. I would have liked more nuts but at some point it becomes too much. A double recipe plus the nuts was just right for a 5x9 loaf pan, which was lined with parchment paper.
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Dec 16, 2023 02:46
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Do you maybe just want to make candied nuts drizzled with chocolate? Because that’s also an option, and a delicious one
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Dec 16, 2023 03:10
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i like nice words
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Sehkmet posted:A version of, at least. The outside is a sugar cookie dough; the filling is fresh cranberry, dried cherries, brown sugar and five spice cooked down to a jam, then cooled, and blitzed with white chocolate chips and pistachios. They are a huge hit.
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Dec 16, 2023 03:22
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Anne Whateley posted:Do you maybe just want to make candied nuts drizzled with chocolate? Because that’s also an option, and a delicious one Yeah, I think I’m going to do that with the rest of the nuts. Some nice spices and it should be good.
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Dec 16, 2023 04:30
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Sehkmet posted:A version of, at least. The outside is a sugar cookie dough; the filling is fresh cranberry, dried cherries, brown sugar and five spice cooked down to a jam, then cooled, and blitzed with white chocolate chips and pistachios. They are a huge hit. Would you be willing to share that recipe? All the treats look really good. Can you go over what everything is? Some of them I don't know for sure. I really like the blue icing on the snowflake cookies.
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Dec 16, 2023 06:10
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CzarChasm posted:Would you be willing to share that recipe? NO I MUST TAKE IT TO MY GRAVE - I actually believe that all family recipes should be shared out and remembered through making them; I hate it when people are like 'oooo secret family recipe I can't share it'. It's like 'when you die we will lose it and lose memories associated with you so please share so we can remember it'. https://www.food.com/recipe/five-spice-cranberry-mooncake-cookies-from-the-cookie-book-537592 It is NOT a short recipe and to get the pattern you do need a mooncake press/mold. To note: I use MUCH smaller molds (I think they're like 35g ones) because they do seem to expand in the oven. Maybe I overfill them but the filling is delectable. Also? For each single batch of dough, I make a double of the filling. quote:All the treats look really good. Can you go over what everything is? Some of them I don't know for sure. I really like the blue icing on the snowflake cookies. Okay, starting from the snowflakes and going clockwise: - Black Cocoa Sugar Cookie Snowflakes (the frosting is a lazy hack of swirling food colouring into thinned royal icing, it's great) - Cranberry Mooncakes with Orange Glaze - Peppermint Meringues topped with Peppermint Sugar - Gingerbread Businesspeople (eat the rich) - Melting Moments (similar to Mexican Wedding Cakes, but no nuts) - Spritz Cookies (using some random flavouring called 'vanilla butternut'; it's like vanilla and hazelnut) - Amaretti Cookie - Marzipan (family recipe: pastry bottom, jam smeared on it, rice flour cake with almond flavouring for a dense, moist cake, plus a milk-buttercream frosting) - Cream Wafer Sandwich Cookies topped with coloured sugar, filled with whipped Nutella buttercream - Chocolate Tahini Bites - Orange Cardamom Cookies with chocolate drizzle - Chocolate Fudge (middle) with and without walnuts I do this thing of making twelve types of cookies for the twelve days of Christmas. It's a nostalgia thing, started with my mom when we were poor and homemade treats were all we could give (there were a lot of box mixes involved then). I'm still poor, but I've upped the baking game; I ship to friends in the US/Canada and they look forward to their box(es) every year. Flattering, that.
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Dec 16, 2023 18:49
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So I made peppermint marshmallows and put them on top of chocolate shortbread. I had planned on coating them in chocolate, but realized I'm at a loss of how best to do it. Is it possible to get good coating by pouring tempered chocolate over the confections? I had thought to dip but don't really have a good substance to stick into
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Dec 17, 2023 02:01
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Carillon posted:So I made peppermint marshmallows and put them on top of chocolate shortbread. I had planned on coating them in chocolate, but realized I'm at a loss of how best to do it. Is it possible to get good coating by pouring tempered chocolate over the confections? I had thought to dip but don't really have a good substance to stick into Coating the whole thing, or just the marshmallow? If it's the whole thing I'd go with a pour; if you have tempered chocolate it should work, I'd think.
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Dec 17, 2023 02:16
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A dab of chocolate between the shortbread and marshmallow will make them adhere and give you more options. The easy and uglier way is to sit it on a fork and dip. The more laborious way that gets them completely enrobed, but possibly still ugly, is to put them upside-down on a wire rack, pour, dry, flip, pour again
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Dec 17, 2023 03:15
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Ended up pouring but really turned out I needed another pound for full coating. They're look fine but not great. Love and learn, at least I got the temper on the chocolate done. Edit: adding in a photo of everything with made today. Clockwise from 11 o'clock, banana cookies, tahini/peanut butter with strawberry jam thumbprints, amaretti, the aforementioned peppermint marshmallow cookies, and lastly buttered popcorn marshmallows. Busy day! 
Carillon fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Dec 17, 2023 |
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Dec 17, 2023 03:54
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Carillon posted:Ended up pouring but really turned out I needed another pound for full coating. They're look fine but not great. Love and learn, at least I got the temper on the chocolate done. Very nice. The banana cookies sound interesting, can't say I've ever seen that before. Sehkmet posted:List of goodies I was way off on a lot of those, but they all look and sound fantastic. Thanks for sharing the mooncake recipe. As long as we're sharing cookies, every year for about the past decade, my MIL has brought all the kids/spouses and grand kids together for a big cookie baking weekend. From Thanksgiving through Sunday, pretty much from when you wake up til when you get to bed, cookie baking is on. This year I think we cracked 1500 cookies. Of those I probably did 500 myself. I tried a chewy gingerbread for the first time, and while they turned out pretty good, some of them didn't hold their snowflake shape. I tried a little improv on this guy   And now from the other side 
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Dec 17, 2023 07:03
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Anybody got a favorite recipe for candied pecans? The caramelized ones, not the ones that use eggwhites and the oven.
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Dec 19, 2023 07:18
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2 years ago I made spiced candied nuts my Christmas gift du jure, and did at least 9 batches that I can find records for. Here's my first comparison of 4 recipes - good news is all of them tasted good.  But if you want shiny, the final oven step described below solves it. Some say you need powdered sugar for that step, but nah. A Thermapen *and* an IR thermometer make your life easier, but a $15 probe works too.  Candied nuts 250g nuts roasted 6 minutes at 350°F, toss, 6 more minutes, cooled. 100g sugar and splash of water, add spices incl salt and 1/4 tsp cayenne, bring to 230°F (used 180 setting on my induction). Stir in nuts, back up to 220°F (used 250 setting), dump on cooling rack on a sheet pan Into 330°F oven for 11 minutes until IR gun shows nuts are 300°F or higher - this time I hit 310.
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Dec 19, 2023 07:52
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Putting this here to help me find the recipe next year. And also maybe to help any last minute goons who need cookies without a lot of special ingredients. These are delicious crunchy cinnamon pecan things. https://www.food.com/recipe/crunchy-pecan-bars-4002 
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Dec 19, 2023 15:53
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BrianBoitano posted:Candied nuts I tried my hand at this:  I only had a candy thermometer to work with, so I was leaning hard on your timing being reasonable for the final bake. I also couldn't realistically measure when the temperature was back up to 220F after stirring in the nuts, because there wasn't any liquid to immerse the thermometer in. Is there a trick to getting the nuts well separated on the cooling rack? They start cooling and hardening pretty quickly. I was trying to separate them with a spoon and a fork, and it kind of worked, but you can see some pretty large chunks in there that are gonna be challenging to eat. Also, if you were to add vanilla, when would you do it? I just did cinnamon and cloves, since they seemed like safe bets, flavor-wise, and I know they can take the temperature.
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Dec 19, 2023 23:57
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Yeah, if you only have a candy thermometer you'll be best to cut the time short on each step - the first two sugar steps especially. Your sugar was too thick to flow off the nuts onto the tray, which is why it's like a nut brittle instead of candied individual nuts. If the candy is slightly under done before coating nuts, they can still reach hard crack on the last step. The coating will just be a touch thinner. I'd do vanilla with the sugar melt step. My favorite spices were just cayenne, cinnamon, nutmeg. I also liked espresso powder but it's a bit too bitter when cooked that hot for most tastes.
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Dec 20, 2023 00:23
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Cool, thanks! Maybe I'll get a chance to try again while I'm on vacation, in someone else's kitchen. It's nice that it's a pretty quick process, though the yield per batch is a little small. There's gonna be 14 of us and I'd wager most everyone will want some.
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Dec 20, 2023 00:49
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Oh yeah. That's a test batch size lol, forgot to say.
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Dec 20, 2023 01:35
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I followed this recipe for pecan pralines: https://www.lifeloveandsugar.com/best-southern-pecan-pralines-recipe/ However, before it reached the target temperature (286F / 141C) at around 130C the mixture essentially turned to sand. I've never done a sugar heating thing, what might I have done wrong?
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Dec 23, 2023 11:59
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Probably because the recipe says 236°F not 286°F 
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Dec 23, 2023 19:33
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What a loving twit I am.
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Dec 23, 2023 22:19
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I was just looking for a thread like this!  I'm sitting here trying to make some very basic marcipane balls with raspberry. The idea is to give them a chocolate cover but, as per christmas tradition, it's nothing but trouble with the chocolate. I can melt the chocolate but it seems like it never gets the correct viscosity and remains too thick and unwieldy. I'm thinking that maybe I am boiling off some of the water content from the liquid chocolate which thickens it and makes it hard to work with. I recall one year I tried adding a dash of water to the mix with the result it was much easier to use but also it never really solidified again. How do you guys cover things in chocolate?
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Dec 23, 2023 22:45
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Gonna share my toffee bar recipe, because it rocks. 3/4ths cup shortening 1 cup brown sugar 1 egg, beaten 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 cups sifted flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 12oz package of chocolate chips 1/2 cup chopped nuts Cream shortening and sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Sift flour and salt; add and mix. Spread batter in 2 ungreased 8" cake pans. Bake at 350F for 15 minutes. Sprinkle with chocolate chips, melt in oven (off, but still warm from earlier) 15 minutes. Spread chocolate with a scraper or spatula. Sprinkle with nuts. Cut while warm.
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Dec 23, 2023 22:54
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Dead Sex-Parrot posted:I was just looking for a thread like this! You need to temper chocolate if you want it to cover things properly. It at no point should boil. Here's an article describing several methods from stovetop to microwave. https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/how-to-temper-chocolate-356869
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Dec 24, 2023 05:39
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Thanks!  And reading this I see I've been messing up my chocolate for a good many years. Next year though, oh boy.
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Dec 24, 2023 11:15
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