I had such a great time with my mom, aunt, and niece here. It is always so hard when family leaves... makes me want to live closer. But then I know this is the life that the Lord has given me and I am where I am for a reason! :) I can't wait to see them again though. We did a lot of things when they were here and one of the things we did was visit the Sacramento Zoo. When it was over we went into the Gift Shop and my niece found some Rock Candy that she wanted. We talked her out of it for two reasons-- I didn't want her to eat it in the car and my baby would want one of the two she got for $6. I promised her we would make it one day this week. And make it we did!
You are going to need a pot, measuring cups, and a cookie sheet.
Ingredients:
3 3/4 c. SUGAR
1 1/4 c. KARO SYRUP
1 c. WATER
OIL FLAVORING (cinnamon, peppermint, oil) We used chocolate
FOOD COLORING (We picked red)
So the first step is to mix ALL ingredients and boil it for about 10 minutes. You want to boil it until hard crack stage which is between 300-310 degrees F. on a candy thermometer. I actually boiled it for about 15 minutes because I could not find my thermometer.. Then I did the cold water test (google it, it is simple).
So the niece chose to use chocolate flavoring. I highly recommend NOT doing that. It really wasn't that tasty... to me! She also wanted to do red. It made it super dark and you could only tell it was red in the direct light- but it was very pretty!
Once it has reached the hard crack stage you add the oil flavoring and coloring. And mix it!
Before you put it on the cookie sheet put powdered sugar on it. Then you will let it cool as it hardens. This took about 15-20 minutes.
I also put powdered sugar on top of it for fun! :)
It is recommended that you put pieces in a bag to break it up. I RECOMMEND doing so as well. I started doing it with my hands and the first break I cut my hand.. and it cut! It even scabbed over. It was very, very sharp. But I ended up getting our meat beater kitchen tool out and used it to break it apart. It worked well.
You can see me moving the rock candy and breaking it into bigger pieces before breaking into the smaller rock candies.
WOW! See that shiny side.. it was so sharp. CAREFUL NOW!
Below you see the final result- our rock candy. The niece was a bit disappointed that it didn't look like store bought rock candy, but I would do it over in a heart beat. We had so much fun. There are tons of other recipes out there and if I ever try this again I will do one that takes longer to make. We only had a few hours and we needed it finished since we waited until the last night to do it! :0 So I searched for a FAST rock candy recipe. I do plan to try this again though and would like to master it. I am sure the niece would love to have some... that looked right! This rock candy looks like broken glass...
I miss them like crazy. I can't wait to visit with them again- either here or there!
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