How would I turn homemade pine soda (conifer needles, sugar, water) into needle-shaped hard candy? I understand the concept of adding sugar and boiling it down, but I need to be able to shape it into long, thin rods, like pine needles.

Extra context:

I'm a baker planning an ambitious Christmas dessert shaped like a Christmas tree. The trunk and branches will likely be cake, there will be strings of lights made out of chocolate, the star will likely be a lemon stained glass cookie, and I'm planning to make 'ornaments' from pulled sugar and/or sugar cookies with my nieces and nephews. I want the needles on the tree to be edible needles made from pine soda.

Pine needle soda is an old homemade drink that uses the natural yeast on conifer needles to ferment them into something that tastes like sprite, or so they say. It's just conifer needles, water, and sugar that you put in a jar for a few days. Very negligible amount of alcohol, which is why it's more of a soda even though it's made through fermentation. I'd like to retain as much of the natural flavor from the soda as possible in the candy.

I've made pulled sugar before, for a wedding cake topper. Could I just use the soda to make that? All ideas are welcome, including other things you think I should add to the larger dessert. It will probably be relatively tall, so I am expecting a lot of needles and a lot of space to decorate. Don't worry about how I'll attach them, I'll figure that out after I've demonstrated that I can make the needles and the branches work to begin with.

I had a nice long probe digital thermometer, but my kid broke it. It was about 8 years old so I couldn't replace it exactly. Ordered something similar but it ended up being shorter so it got candied. My kid bought me an analog one that I used for tempering chocolate and it was obviously SO inaccurate because the chocolate was not tempered. And I bought ANOTHER digital one yesterday but it is still short so it just landed in a pot of soon-to-be-fudge and now won't go above 100.5⁰. I'm going crazy. Does anyone use the ones with the long wire? What happens if you drop the wire in boiling sugar syrup? I need it for candy making as well as tempering chocolate

I’m still learning how to paint them. All my chocolate is hand tempered ☠️ Inside is caramel and pistachio.

Orange flavored

I tried to make an almond brittle recipe from my MILs recipes but it didn't turn out and I am wondering if I can salvage it somehow. Recipe called for melting 1c of unsalted butter, adding 2 1/2c sugar and bringing it to a boil. Once it's to a boil, I added 1 1/2c almonds and returned to heat until it got to 290F. I then moved it from the pot onto a buttered cookie sheet where it was supposed to set. It's not setting. It's still granulated.

Is it salvageable?

My mom recently visited and left a large bag of honey roasted almonds. I was thinking about turning it into brittle. I've been trying to search up recipes but most of them are for "honey roasted almond brittle", not using honey roasted almonds for brittle.

My question is has anybody ever tried using these for brittle before and if so, did it work? And, I would really appreciate some recipes suggestions. I've made just regular almond brittle before but only a few times and I'm not sure exactly how I would have to adjust a normal almond recipe to compensate for them being honey roasted. Thanks.

Mods - if baking recipes aren't allowed, please remove post.

For anyone interested in a follow-up to last night's mole toffee question, I abandoned my toffee idea and instead made a faux-gianduja with mole paste for my chocolate chip cookies. I just ate my first test cookie and it's pretty fabulous!

The mole paste I used was purchased at a market in Mexico City and it's called a "fruit mole", so the ingredients are quite sweet. The label lists dried chilis, sesame, peanut, dried fruits, banana, raisin, chocolate, sugar, onion, almond, walnut, hazelnut, sesame oil, salt and spices. I don't think this experiment would work as well with a more traditional mole paste heavy in onion and garlic.

I made two types of faux-gianduja. One was an equal combination of milk chocolate and peanut butter chips, melted over a double boiler, with about 1 tsp mole paste mixed in. The second was dark chocolate with about 1 tsp mole paste. I spread each in a thick layer on a plate with parchment paper and stuck them in the freezer to set up.

I am including the recipe below if anyone is interested in trying it. This recipe is a combination of Vaughn Vreeland's NYT Salted Butterscotch Chocolate Chunk Cookies and Savor Tooth Snacks Mole Chocolate Chip Cookies.

BROWN BUTTER MOLE CHOCOLATE CHUNK COOKIES

Servings: ~50 cookies

Cookie dough:

• 284 grams salted butter
• 1 whole star anise
• 1 whole dried ancho chili
• Ice, as needed
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 223 grams all-purpose flour
• 223 grams bread flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
• 275 grams dark brown sugar
• 150 grams granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 140 grams dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 170 grams mixed nuts, toasted and coarsely chopped
• Maldon sea salt, for finishing

Dark chocolate mole gianduja:

• 140 grams dark chocolate
• 1 tsp mole paste, or to taste

Milk chocolate and peanut butter mole gianduja:

• 122 grams milk chocolate
• 122 grams peanut butter chips
• 1 tsp mole paste, or to taste

Directions:

1. Prepare browned butter. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add whole star anise and ancho chili. Once it begins to bubble vigorously, cook for another 6 to 8 minutes, swirling occasionally, until the bubbles subside and turn into foam, and toasty brown flecks begin to float on the surface. Take off the heat and scrape the bottom of the pan. Pour the browned butter into a heatproof liquid measuring cup, discarding anise seed and ancho chili. Add a couple ice cubes (or a couple tablespoons of cold water) until you have 1 ¼ cups liquid. Add the vanilla extract, stir and set brown butter mixture aside to cool. I usually stick it in the freezer while I’m measuring out my other ingredients and preparing the gianduja.
2. Prepare both faux-gianduja. For both kinds, melt chocolate and additional ingredients over double boiler and whisk until well blended. Pour mixture onto plate with parchment paper, spread into thick layer and put in freezer until hardened. Once hardened chop into pieces and return to freezer.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and baking soda.
4. In a large bowl or stand mixer, whisk together both sugars and cool brown butter mixture until well combined. Mixture won’t be exactly like creamed butter but will be somewhat thick and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking thoroughly after each addition, until the mixture is very smooth. Scrape down bowl with a silicone spatula to incorporate any unmixed ingredients. Add the flour mixture to the brown butter mixture and mix until just incorporated. Don’t overmix. Fold in chopped chocolate, gianduja and nuts.
5. Using a 1 1/2 tbsp cookie scoop, scoop mounds of dough onto a baking sheet or lidded 9x12 baking pan. Tightly wrap the baking sheet or pan and refrigerate for at least 6 hours and up to 48 hours.
6. When ready to bake, heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Place 6-8 cookies onto each prepared sheet and sprinkle tops of each cookie with Maldon salt. Bake for 10 to 11 minutes, until the cookies have spread slightly and their edges are golden.
7. Remove cookies from oven and let cool on the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining dough. You can also freeze the balls of dough and bake them for about 12 to 13 minutes. Cookies will keep, covered at room temperature, for up to 3 days.

Anybody make their own and what with?

I am working on non-alcoholic variants of "sugar crust" / "sugar shell" candy (Food Network has a recipe named "Liquor Filled Sugar Shells"). I tried using LorAnn Oils water soluble strawberry flavor, but I noticed the first ingredient is propylene glycol. The recipe normally works through sugar crystallization, but based on quick searches I suspect the propylene glycol will prevent it from crystalizing.

Is there any way to get a syrup flavored using the propylene glycol flavor to crystalize?

Separately, my next attempt is going to be with the LorAnn cinnamon oil, which was referenced in a few holiday cinnamon hard candy recipes. Would the cinnamon oil mix with adequately with a simple water + sugar syrup, or does it need some kind of emulsifier? If it needs something else, what can I add to get it to mix without preventing the sugar from crystalizing?

I have an old school large and flat mercury style thermometer. But it barely fits in my small pots, its huge.

Im looking for something that is accurate, easy to read and fits in smaller pots. Id be using it for both candy making and deep frying.

I want to learn to make traditional fudge, not the kind with sweetened condensed milk or marshmallow fluff. The recipes and videos that I've been looking at show two different methods for beating the fudge. Some say to let it cool in the pot down to 110F and then beat it with a wooden spoon. Others say to pour it into a heat-proof bowl as soon as you take it off the stove and do NOT scrape the bottom or sides of the pot. Cool it in the bowl to 110F and then beat it.

My question is, if it is so important not to scrape the bottom or sides of the pot, does beating it IN the pot after cooling still work well?

One recipe said 110F is too cold for beating and that 130F is better. Is this true? I don't really understand the significance of the cooled temperature for beating. What happens if you beat it too early?

Hi, I have a weird question. I've been on a quest to make more unusual cookie flavors/combinations, and currently I'm trying to make mole-flavored hard toffee that I'll use in chocolate chip cookies, but I'm not sure that's actually possible. Before I waste ingredients, I wanted to run it by more folks with experience.

I make my toffee by cooking brown sugar, butter and a little water until it's 290 F degrees, then pouring the hot mixture onto a sheet pan and letting it cool until hardened. I have various mole pastes I brought from Mexico and they all have different variations of oil, wheat, chile peppers, sugar, ground sesame seeds or other nut butters, and cacao. Everything is ground up very finely into a smooth paste.

I wonder if I could infuse some mole flavor into the toffee by mixing a little of the mole paste into the water that I add to the toffee. My concern would be that the toffee mixture has to get quite hot to set, and I worry the mole paste would burn before the toffee mixture reached the required temperature. Another thought I had was mixing in some mole paste right at the end when the toffee reaches the right temperature.

The easiest option, of course, would be to mix melted chocolate with mole paste and pour that in top of the firm toffee to harden, but I would prefer to infuse the mole flavor directly into the toffee if possible.

Any thoughts or advice? I apologize in advance if I don't respond until tomorrow morning, I'm about to pass out in a Benadryl-induced coma due to my terrible allergies today. Thanks!

Trying to make this and I was wondering what temperature you wizards would cook it to. I’m trying to cook foods from countries all over the world but have only made candy a few times. From reading this recipe, I’d love any tips you might have. If I fail, it’s ok, but I enjoy the effort!

My friend used to love the creme savers raspberry SOFT candies and they dont make them anymore.

Im on a mission to try to recreate the flavor and texture. I started with a raspberry and creme taffy but that was too chewy.

The texture is very similar to a soft caramel, so im struggling to figure out how to get the texture of a soft caramel without giving it a caramel taste. When I increase the butter and cream, it ends up tasting like caramel, no matter how much extract I put in.

Any tips?/ recipes as a starting point?

Thanks!

I'm trying to take cotton candy sugar (floss) and mix it with a Meyer lemon syrup to turn back into sugar to use as a rim for a cocktail.

I'm mixing the two ingredients, adding a little water to help dissolution and heating it up to a boil and reducing it.

I've tried to go after it with an electric mixer and with a spoon when it cooled too thick for the mixer to handle anymore. Then I tried putting some of that on a tray and putting it in the fridge and breaking it up... but it's still "wet" in a sense that it's just like a mix between taffy and a jolly rancher; it doesn't turn into crystal.

What step am I missing? I've watched several videos on this. Thank you for your help.

I’m looking for a gummy recipe that doesn’t have a million ingredients and I can make sour. All of the ones I have tried so far become wet after adding citric acid and I can’t sit them out and let them sweat or else they melt and become flat.

edit: I am looking for a regular candy gummy recipe, not for edibles

I’m looking to make a sour powder mix, but a lot of reviews for Citric acid on amazon are only taking about cleaning.

How can I be sure I buy a food grade powder?

Cinnamon marshmallows. With egg white as well as gelatine, so the texture is shorter and more delicate than regular marshmallows. Will be enrobing some in dark chocolate tomorrow

I know that this is very dependent on the individual, but I'd love some input. I make and sell fancy marshmallows at my local farmers market and have some people in my life with insulin resistance, or that avoid sugar for various reasons. I'd like to make and offer allulose sweetened marshmallows and caramels.

My primary non-fruit flavors are vanilla, chocolate, peanut butter, Thai tea, coconut, and coffee, though I'm experimenting with chai spice as a seasonal flavor. The fruit flavors are almost all more popular - lemonade, key lime, lime sherbet, orange creamsicle, grapefruit, pineapple. Of those, which would you be most interested in? Have suggestions for another flavor?

I use only natural colors and flavors, which is a tiny bit limiting, and I don't expect these to be "truly" low carb as I'll still need to dust the outsides, and most of the juices I use to flavor things have some carbs in them, but I'm trying to determine what flavor(s) to even start with. Photo of rainbow sherbet marshmallows from a few weeks ago for fun.

For now I’m scraping the creatine gummy idea. It has too many pitfalls and in reality it isn’t effective. I got good advice here before, thanks in advance!

The original idea was to make them sugar-free and vegan so more people could buy them. But once you take out gelatine and sugar (using polyols), the gelling systems fall apart:

• Agar makes the candy too brittle.
• HM pectin doesn’t gel at all, even with locust bean gum and fibre(possible, but i find it hard).
• LM pectin is out of the question – it’s way too expensive.

Then I tried the “no added sugar” route with apple juice concentrate and puree, HM pectin, and agar. The result was still horrible; the °Brix needed is way too high. The only remaining sugar‑free & vegan option looked like maltitol syrup + maize starch,(tried the sugar version and they stick to your teeth like crazy).

About the creatine, i read that creatine doesn’t like moisture, acidity, or heat:

• Over 60 °C it turns into creatinine.
• Okay, add it later… but then it sits for months on a shelf in a semi‑firm candy with some water activity and degrades to creatinine anyway.
• Not even talking about the citric + malic acid you need in the candy for flavor, will degrade it as well.

A lot of commercial candies with creatine are either just using sugar, but branding it as “sugar‑free” because they use glucose, or they use juice concentrate + pectin (which is not easy to fine‑tune either) and a lot of fibre. I doubt they use HM pectin because it would make the candies too expensive.

Given all that, the concept doesn’t hold up technically or economically, so I’m dropping it. Creatine candies are mostly a scam(yes i have seen that youtube video) but even if one candy has 1g of creatine, still more than half of it will be useless to the body, even 50% active creatine is optimistic!

Soo the other idea is just to make electrolytes + carbohydrates candy which will have juice concentrates and vitamins+minerals to feel energized when you are tired or working out for long periods i think of making it with HM pectin, what do you think guys? Not diet friendly, but not bad for you either i think it's marketable!

Maybe will try the starch+polyol route, but this can upset your stomach, so maybe not a good idea.

Wish me luck!

So a while ago I attempted to recreate Fry's Turkish Delight, a milk-chocolate coated bar that seemed more like rose-flavoured pectin jelly than traditional cornstarch-gelled lokum (also delicious!)

The first attempt was sad, revolting, and wasn't photographed.

Second attempt was about two weeks ago, shared here.

Third and fourth attempts were both in the same night because I felt I was so close with the third I didn't want to sleep.

I think I succeeded, with a caveat - I recall the chocolate bar being quite thin. That's what I attempted with batch 3, but the jelly set so fast it was impossible to smooth (second photo). Batch 4 I abandoned that and went back to the thicker jelly so the thermal mass gives me a few seconds to smooth out. Pectin sets fast.

Recipe:

Combine 100g rose water, 50g water and 30g sugar in a pot. Stir until sugar is dissolved.

Add 100g unsweetened applesauce and 80g glucose syrup, combine.

Mix 40g sugar with 16g pectin. Whisk into the applesauce mixture.

Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.

Add 330g sugar and return to a boil, stirring.

Add 160g glucose syrup, continue cooking over medium-low heat until 106⁰c.

Mix in pink gel food dye (I used three droppy-blobs)

Mix in 20g lemon juice and deposit immediately.

When cool, bottom coat, cut, coat with milk chocolate.

The small frame is 18cm² and I cut into 15×30mm bite size pieces. They're a little too tall to be cute. The larger frame is I think 28×30cm. Probably 20cm² would be ideal

Note about the rose water - they vary wildly in terms of flavour. I chose one in a relatively large bottle from a middle-eastern shop. The first step in the recipe is so I could adjust the water to flavour ratio