REC: Candy Canes
Forum Home Page: Archive Swap 401-500
Re: Famiy Traditions involving baking or cooking (Jamie Deere)
Previous Message: Have you ever made candy canes? (carma)
Next: Dateballs and pretzels (Dori Farthing)
Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 15:57:59 GMT
From: carma (chri8960@varney.idbsu.edu ())
Recipe for candy canes
6 c. sugar
3 c. cold water
2 T. light corn syrup
1/8 t. salt
1 t. cream of tartar
flavoring OIL (peppermint, etc., found
at pharmacies and specialty stores)
food coloring
Combine sugar, water, corn syrup and
salt in a heavy 6/7 quart pan. Heat
and stir until sugar crystals are
dissolved, then stop stirring. Bring
to a rolling boil and wash down the
crystals, then add the cream of tartar.
Boil rapidly to the hard crack stage.
Pour two-thirds of the syrup out quickly
onto a slab or greased flat pan. Pour
the rest into a buttered glass pie pan.
and do not move until partly set. Turn
the edges in on each portion and add
flavoring to each..about 6 drops of oil
to the large portion and 3 to the small.
Add food coloring to the small dish.
As soon a humanly possible, start to
pull the portion in the large container
until pearly-colored. (It will be really
hot. .butter your hands and set it
down when it gets too hot!) Form it
into a ball. Meanwhile gather up the
colored portion and form it into a rope
and wrap it around the ball. With one
person on each end, start to stretch
and twist the ball in opposite directions
to form a long rope
with the traditional stripe. Cut into
lengths as necessary. When the
desired diameter is achieved, cut and
form into canes (roll it on the board to
get it smooth). If it gets too cold
to work with, put on a wooden breadboard
in a warm oven to soften.
Hints: I hate to suggest a temperature
because of the problem of altitudes (and
at this moment I can't find the copy of
the recipe that has the temperature I
use.) Even two degrees too hot can make
it virtually impossible to work with. Too
cool and it doesn't set up hard, although
it's still good. My second batch is
always better than the first one. Hope
you like it!
Forum Home Page: Archive Swap 401-500
Re: Famiy Traditions involving baking or cooking (Jamie Deere)
Re: Recipe for candy canes (carma)
Previous Message: Thanks (Liss)
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 03:03:07 GMT
From: carma (chri8960@varney.idbsu.edu ())
Here's the scoop on candy canes!
Having just made four batches of candy
canes yesterday, I feel much more
comfortable giving more guidelines.
First, get everything ready before
you make
the candy because things move FAST
once they get going. That means
butter the slab or cookie sheet and
one or two metal bowls (according to
whether you want one stripe or two).
Add a couple of drops of food
coloring and about 4 drops of
flavoring oil (some flavorings are
stronger than others)to each of the
bowls.
Also butter a heavy duty spatula
or putty knife, a spoon for each
stripe color, and a couple of pairs
of scissors. Next, cook the candy
to exactly 78 degrees above where
your candy thermometer reads when
you put it in water and bring it to
a rolling boil.
When it's cooked to the proper
temperature, pour 1/3 of it into
the bowls for the stripes and pour
the rest of it slowly out onto the
slab. Immediately stir the coloring
and flavoring into the stripe(s),
then leave alone while you get the
white part ready. Drop 6 or 8 drops
of flavoring onto the 2/3 part
(white) and don't let it cool too
long before starting to turn in the
edges with the spatula or the edges
will get too hard. As soon as it is
humanly possible, butter your hands
and start to pull it--we use tag
team pulling with each person
pulling it two or three times when
it is really hot. Pull it until
it starts to get pearly colored and
begins to get hard to pull, then
shape it into an egg shape.
Meanwhile, scrape the colored part
out onto the slab and shape it into
a strip about 1" wide and long enough to go
around the white part ONCE the long
way. If you have two stripes, do
the same with the other stripe. Lay
the white part onto the stripe and
turn it over so it goes all the way
around. Turn it 90 degrees and do
the same with the other stripe if
you have another one. Twist and pull
it carefully (rolling it on a wooden
board or a vinyl tablecloth) until
it gets about 18 inches long, then
cut into two pieces and continue
until you get the sizes you want.
To make a nice shape, keep rolling
it on the table. Cut into pieces
and shape the hook. If you live in
an area with high humidity, as soon
as they cool, package in sandwich
bags. Each batch makes about 35 or
45 medium canes.
NOTE: I think the perfect number of
people to do this with is 6 and
only one of them really has to know
what they're doing. The ingredients
are cheap--sometimes it takes two
batches to get everything operating
as fast as it needs to go to get real
ly good canes. We had 3 adults
and about 10 teenagers doing this
yesterday and the kids were all
commenting on how much fun it would
be to do for dates.>
