Have I talked about my candy store on this website before? I want to learn how to make candy, but I know I won’t be any good at it. Plus, I don’t have any time for it. My store will be called Terrible Candy. I won’t be open very often and I will have an extremely limited selection of sub-par homemade candy. There will be a cover charge to get in, and you will be obligated to buy something. It will be very expensive and very bad. Gotta pay that electric bill.
My first batch was apple cider caramels. I mostly used this recipe, and I would just like to pat myself on the back for not halving it and messing up. I did almost everything according to plan, except I didn’t reduce my apple cider down enough (bad) and I didn’t put in all of the salt (good).
Basically, you boil apple cider (mine was pre-spiced) until it’s a syrup, then add white sugar, brown sugar, butter and cream.
Then you boil it until it gets to 252 degrees, but I’ll never know that becuase I once stupidly left my candy thermometer in the oven and then baked a pizza. There’s no recovering from a 450-degree shock like that. I made my best guess using the ‘blob of sugar in cold water’ test method. I do not have that perfected.
Let’s just look at butter melting in sugar lava.
When it’s ‘ready’, you add some cinnamon (I didn’t add much) and salt (I used less than half of the recipe), pour it onto some parchment, let it cool and cut it up. The recipe said it would be soft, but mine was very, very soft. I sprinkled the remaining salt on half of it and it’s too weird-tasting, but the rest is pretty good. I kept the remaining squares in the fridge and have been nibbling on them. I might even make a second batch.
See you at the store.
Brad says
Heh. I would try your Terrible Candy.
Gretchen says
Here is a must-have for your store: it takes any hard candy and turns it into cotton candy! Jolly ranchers, root beer barrels, candy canes…we have been going cotton candy crazy! (That reminds me: I need to find a dentist…)
https://www.vat19.com/item/hard-candy-cotton-candy-maker
Lloyd says
I am VERY pro cotton candy. I tried the carmel right off the assembly line. It was good, but I need to try the harder ones too.
Kristi says
Will this be the main seller for Terrible Candy?