Day 69: Homemade Candy Corn

Yield: 30 huge cookie sized candy corns
Time (Start to Finish): 45 min

Ingredients:
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup corn syrup
5 Tbsp butter

2 ½ cup powdered sugar (SIFTED)
1/3 cup powdered milk
pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp lemon extract
7 drops yellow food coloring

2 tsp orange juice
5 drops yellow food coloring
2 drops red food coloring

Directions:
1. You need to work fast with this recipe, and I had an extra set of hands. I say having 1 or 2 other people will make this whole project not only more fun, but less stressful.
2. SIFT the powdered sugar, powdered milk, and salt and put in a bowl
3. In a saucepan, add the sugar, corn syrup and butter
4. Heat on med/ med-high until it reaches a boil, and boil for 4 min, no more! Or it will become too hard
5. Pour into the bowl with the powdered sugar and stir until it becomes a ball.
6. Watch out at this point, it is HOT, keep a cold rag or counters near by to cool your hands
7. Tear the dough into three pieces of different sizes, one for the white, one for yellow and one for orange
8. The smallest piece, with our hands, make a little bowl and pour in the vanilla. Mix with your hands and roll into a log. This is the job for friend #1, and remember, it is HOT
9. With the second largest piece, add the orange juice, 5 yellow drops and 2 red drops to make orange and mix up. Roll into a log as well. This is the job of friend #2
10. With the largest piece add the lemon extract and the yellow coloring, mix and roll into a log. This is job for person #3
11. When its all mixed, make sure to work fast before it hardens, but the logs together and form into a triangle shaped log.
12. With a knife, slice it like you would a log of cookie dough and shape each candy with your hands. They are larger than usual, obviously
13. When they are done, place in a covered container to keep them from getting too hard. Enjoy!

Rating: 4 strawberries
Notes: So I added the flavoring to make mine different, but you can just add vanilla to all of it to make it taste traditional. The lemon was the best, but the orange didn’t taste like orange. If they feel a little hard when rolling them, you can add a tsp of water to soften it. These were super fun to make, and thanks Meghan for the use of your hands. We both had sensitive skin from the heat afterwards, so seriously, be careful! Meghans favorite candy is candy corn, so I had to make them for her. It was a fun experiment and thanks alley for showing me the basic recipe! There are others that include honey, which would be good, but this was nice and simple. I cooked mine a little too long and they got hard, and they still tasted good, but hard to eat, so try not to overcook it, and happy holidays! October in Portland is pretty freakin awesome…so many colored leaves!