Homemade Candy Making - Hard Candy Recipe

Candy making can be a fun and educational activity to do with kids or friends. With Dolce Foglia's concentrated flavoring oils, you can add unique and delicious flavors to your homemade candy. From hard candy to gummies and marshmallows, the possibilities are endless.

Did you know that making rock candy can be a fun and educational science experiment for you and your friends? By experimenting with different coloring and flavoring combinations, you can learn about the science behind candy making and have a blast doing it!

A game I like to play is to use a flavor that is incongruent to the color and have people guess the flavor. Usually when people see a color that doesn't match the flavor that they're tasting, it causes a lot of confusion and wild guessing. 

Hard Candy Facts

Fun fact: Glass candy is considered an amorphous structure which means that it has an irregular structure and no pattern. By contrast, a crystal does have structure and a pattern. 

Gummies and marshmallows are produced similarly. In the case of gummies, gelatin is added to the sugar syrup to give it a rubbery consistency. Marshmallows also contain gelatin, but air is whipped into the mixture to expand it into a foam—a mixture composed of gas bubbles dispersed in a liquid. 

Hard Candy Recipe: Cherry Flavored Candy

There are a ton of sugar candies out there but homemade rock candy recipe tends to be the simplest to make, although it does require a bit of patience. All you need is sugar, water, food coloring, and concentrated flavoring oils. 

Ingredients

• 2 Cups water
• 6 Cups granulated sugar
• 2 to 3 drops of food coloring, optional
• 10-15 drops Cherry Flavoring

Equipment

• Candy Mold
• Pam
• Medium Sized Sauce Pan
• Spatula

How to Make Rock Candy Fast

1. Gather ingredients above
2. Spray Pam onto the Candy Mold. This lubrication enables the rock candy to cure in the mold without sticking.
3. Pour the 2 cups of water into a medium sized pan
4. Bring water to a boil
5. Begin adding the sugar a cup at a time and most importantly stir after pouring until the sugar dissolves. 
6. Once all the sugar has been added and dissolved, remove the pan from the heat. 
7. Add 2 to 3 drops food coloring and stir to make sure that the coloring distributes evenly. 
8. Add 10-15 drops of Dolce Foglia flavoring oils and make sure to keep a bit of distance from the pan as the scent can intensify as it rises from the steam. 
9. Allow the sugar syrup to cool for 20 to 30 minutes. 
10. Pour the colored and flavored syrup onto the candy mold and use the spatula to spread it out. 
11. Thereafter, place the filled candy mold in a cool place that it can be undisturbed.
12. After 2-4 hours the sugar crystals should form. Once the candy has reached the desired size, break the top layer of the crystal up with a form before removing the candy from the mold. 
13. Remove the candy from the molds and allow it to dry for 1 to 2 hours
14. Now put on a movie and enjoy your hard candy 

Flavors for Candy

The beauty of creating candy from scratch is that you can literally experiment with varying flavors and flavor mixtures. 

My favorite candy flavors are a mixture of blueberry and raspberry to get a nice blueraspberry flavor that I'll mix with the color blue. Runner up is watermelon & passion fruit - super fun and summery.

Lollipop Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 3 ¾ cups white sugar 
• 1 ½ cups light corn syrup
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon orange creamsicle

• ½ teaspoon food coloring (Optional)
• ¼ cup confectioners' sugar for dusting

Equipment For Lollipop Making

• Candy thermometer

• Pam

• Candy Molds

Directions

In order to make certain your lollipops come out perfect, it's imperative to make sure your thermometer measures accurately. A good indicator is to boil water and put the the thermometer inside and it should read 212°F or 100°C.

Secondly, assemble all the ingredients and tools. I highly suggest keeping your tools and ingredients at an arms distance. 

Grab your candy molds and spray it down with the pam so the hard candy won't stick to the mold. 

1. In a 2-quart saucepan, mix together sugar, corn syrup and water. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves. 
2. Insert candy thermometer if using, making certain it does not touch the bottom of the pan. Bring mixture to a boil without stirring. 
3. Allow the syrup to cook without stirring until the temperature reaches 260º F; add drops of food coloring until desired hue is achieved. The heat boiling the syrup will distribute the food coloring throughout. 
4. Turn the heat off when it reaches 300° F. Once the boiling has stopped, it is now time to add the flavor concentrate and stir.
5. Make sure that your candy mold has the pam on it and start to cautiously pour the syrup into the molds. *Do not refrigerate*
6. Allow the syrup that is setting too cool down in room temperature.
7. Once cooled, you can break the hard candy into smaller pieces and add dust power.

Storage

Store in airtight containers between waxed paper. If making lollipops, do not dust with powdered sugar, but place in sucker bags and secure with twist ties. Store hard candy in a cool, dry place. Do not refrigerate.