Making Hard Candy

The day after Thanksgiving we went to Hagerstown to make candy with the Spichers. Barbara's family makes hard candy every year and this year we were invited help out. It is an tricky process, and for them, serious business, but with a lot of people helping it goes quickly and can be loads of fun.

While the candy is cooking, large granite slabs are cooled outside on the porch (if the weather does not cooperate, ice is used). Next, the slabs are covered in shortening to help keep the candy from sticking and to make it easier to fold in flavoring and food coloring. Finally the candy is poured out.

After a few minutes the candy is almost cool enough to handle without being burned. It gets chopped into large chunks and tossed into piles of powdered sugar. As it cools, helpers are treated to scorched fingers as they cut it into bite-sized pieces with kitchen scissors. The powdered sugar helps keep it from sticking to the counters, or to other pieces, as it cools down to room temperature.

All told we made 14 good batches and 4 bad batches. It turned out that one of the thermometers was off by 60 degrees and the sugar syrup never hit "cracking" temperature (310). The bad batches stayed too sticky and could almost pull filings out if you tried to eat them.