Old Fashioned Candy Recipes - Easy Candy Ideas to Tempt Your Sweet Tooth (2024)

FAQs

Is it better to make candy with butter or margarine? ›

Butter is best. Margarine and low-fat spreads do not result in the correct texture because of emulsifiers and other ingredients added to their formulas. Do not double candy recipes. Extra ingredients may prevent mixture from cooking properly.

300° F–310° F

The hard-crack stage is the highest temperature you are likely to see specified in a candy recipe. At these temperatures, there is almost no water left in the syrup. Drop a little of the molten syrup in cold water and it will form hard, brittle threads that break when bent.

Divinity is a confection made from egg whites, corn syrup, and sugar. It's similar to nougat, fudge, or marshmallow. Tip: replace the sugar with brown sugar to create "sea foam." Other ingredients can be used to give the candy other tastes, like chopped dried fruit and chopped nuts.

Use salted butter. Salt seems to stabilize the mixture. If you use unsalted butter, add ¼ teaspoon of salt per stick of butter in the recipe.

Creaming simply means mixing your butter and sugar(s) together until well blended, leaving you with a fluffy light yellow mix. Just do not over mix! Butter and sugars are over-mixed when the butter begins to separate. The reason we 'cream' butter and sugar(s) together is to create little air pockets in our dough.

Cream of tartar can prevent your homemade hard candy, caramel, and toffee from forming a gritty texture due to sugar crystallization. Adding a pinch of cream of tartar to your sugar syrup will help break down the sugar molecules and stop them from crystalizing early on.

Let the fun begin as you and your friends enjoy the unique sensation of Pop Rocks' popping, fizzing, and crackling sounds. It's like fireworks in your mouth! And here's the best part – Pop Rocks are free of gluten, peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, fish, and shellfish.

Combine light brown and white sugars, water, corn syrup, and salt in a heavy 2 quart saucepan. Cook covered until mixture boils rapidly. Remove lid, place candy thermometer in pan, and cook without stirring to 260 degrees F (127 degrees C). Remove from heat.

It's normal for the mixture to rise and then fall some in the pan. Let cool completely. Flip pan over and shake gently to remove block of candy. Use a knife to cut and jab candy into pieces.

Nougat is a confection made with sugar or honey that's cooked and then whipped with egg whites to aerate it. It often contains almonds or other nuts, candied fruits and chocolate, although it can be left plain. Nougat can be soft and tender like marshmallow but is more often dense and very chewy.

What does vinegar do to candy? ›

Vinegar is acetic acid, which reacts only with certain kinds of substances and sugar is not one of them. In fact candy might dissolve more slowly in vinegar. Since acetic acid molecules don't dissolve sugar as well as water. Acids don't break up compounds in your food.

In hard candy making, it is important to cook all the water out of the sugar/corn syrup/water mixture. If the sugar mixture is not cooked to the proper temperature (the hard-crack stage 300-310° F {149-154° C.} or if you are working in a kitchen with high humidity, chances are your candy is retaining too much moisture.

This is crystallization and it is sometime happens with hard candies. Crystallization can happen from storage conditions or other factors. There is very low moisture content in hard candy, which prevents mold from growing.

In baking, melted margarine could work in recipes that call for melted butter, but in recipes that call for softened butter, swapping in tub margarine may change the texture; for example, cakes will be less tender, and cookies will generally spread out more and be less crisp.

Margarine often tops butter when it comes to heart health. Margarine is a blend of oils that are mostly unsaturated fat. Butter is made from cream or milk. The type of fat found in animal products, such as cream, is mostly saturated fat.

Butter's high fat content is also what gives baked goods their texture. Margarine, which can contain more water and less fat, may make thin cookies that spread out while baking (and may burn). Butter is also the better choice for frying.

Butter yields better results in baking and has qualities that give it a greater depth of flavor, like how you can brown it, giving it a nutty, caramelized flavor, or use it as a thickening agent. It is also made from cream, so it has less ingredients and is minimally processed compared to margarine.