Making your own candy is a very creative way to express yourself and share homemade gifts with others, particularly during the holidays. Making rock candy is a great way to get started with candy making, as it teaches a lot of the basic skills and techniques that you will use for other types of candy. Beyond just making candy, being able to eat the end result is a big plus, and you will have fun just watching the sugar crystals form and grow.
Let’s Get Started!
Making candy is just the start, and decorating your candies and creating unique packaging boxes for storing and presenting them to your friends and family are the finishing touches. The best way to start in the wide world of candy making is to find some recipes and start with the most basic. After making a number of candy recipes, you will be pleasantly surprised at how your skill level increases after making only a few batches of candy at home. You shouldn’t have any restrictions in your creativity with these recipes, either! Look for a familiar recipe, such as a basic hard candy, that can be customized. If you start with a hard candy, which is basically just sugar with additives such as flavoring and colors, you can make them unique with your own original touches. A simple hard candy for home could be lollipops, clear mints, fruit drops, or even candy canes.
Soft Candy
Soft candies are another favorite that can easily be made at home. They do, however, call for slightly more sophisticated skills. With help and a little luck, you can make nice marshmallows and jellies of your own the first time. Many people don’t realize marshmallows are technically considered candy but they are, in fact, part of the category known as soft candies. Marshmallows consist of a combination of egg whites with a lot of air whipped into them, sugar, corn syrup, and gelatin. All soft candy is mostly sugar, and it is worth noting that none of these recipes contain more than 5% other ingredients. Cotton candy is another fun and excellent example of a soft candy, which includes nearly pure melted sugar spun with various colors added.
More Advanced Candy Making
Another type of candy contains a lot more ingredients and requires more complex candy making skills. This category includes chocolates, such as the fancy ones you see in holiday boxes, fudges, caramels, pastes, and chocolate-covered fruits or nuts. Some people misunderstand what is meant by candy pastes, but this type of candy is just like the familiar Marzipan, which is a paste containing egg whites, sugar, and mashed almonds. Fudge is an excellent intermediary candy to make at home, and what you can do with fudge to make it more fun, better tasting, and extra attractive is amazing! Just get the proper amounts of vanilla, milk, sugar, butter, corn syrup, and chocolate or peanut butter (or both!) together and heat it up! Be sure to cool fudge fully to acquire the proper texture. You might have to practice a bit to perfect it, but this is surely a case where practice is tasty fun. You’ll love the results!
Starting Out Right
With so many levels of candy making, make sure you start with the basic skills before you take on the more advanced techniques. Never fear, there is a candy you can make regardless of your initial level of skill or experience, and you can work up from there. At the very basic level, rock candy is a fantastic recipe to start with, as it’s easy and teaches the basic skills of more complicated candy making, like boiling sugar syrups and keeping temperatures consistent. Once you really get the hang of it, you can attempt nut brittles, fudges, and other candies without problems.
