How To Make Your Own Hard Candy

Homemade hard candy is a highly personalized gift perfect for birthdays, weddings, bat mitzvahs, holidays and a wide variety of other special occasions. Creating homemade confections is also a great bonding activity for kids and parents to do around the kitchen table.

Hard candy, unlike milk chocolate or other types of candy, are made nearly entirely from 100% sugar, giving them their weight and consistency. By boiling the sugar syrup and adding food coloring or other flavors, the confectioner can then pour the syrup into the mold of their choice. Once the syrup cools, you've got hard candy.

Here is a simple recipe for making custom homemade candies of any shape, size, color and flavor.
Materials and Ingredients

• Your favorite candy molds
• Lollipop sticks (optional, depending on mold type)
• A straight-edge spatula
• A candy funnel
• A candy thermometer
• Non-flavored spray baking oil
• 1/3 cup of glucose
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1/8 to 1/4 tsp. of candy flavoring oil — choose your favorite flavor
• Food coloring

Step 1

Choose your favorite hard candy mold and lightly spray with baking oil.

Step 2

Combine sugar, glucose and water in a saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat. Use the spatula to stir and to scrape the sides of the pan to prevent sticking.

Step 3

Once the mixture begins to boil, stir with the candy thermometer to get an accurate temperature. Be careful not to touch the bottom of the pan, as that can skew the reading. Once the mixture reaches 300 degrees, remove the pan from the heat.

Step 4

Wait for bubbling to slow down, and then begin slowly mixing in food coloring. Start with a small amount. You can always add more until you get the desired color.

Step 5

Use a dropper to add in flavoring oil. This step will likely produce a lot of steam, so hold your head back as you stir.

Step 6

Use the funnel to pour the hot liquid into the molds. If you’re using a mold designed for suckers or lollipops, immediately insert the sticks an inch or so in after pouring.

Step 7

Set aside to cool. Once candy is near room temperature, you can gently bend the molds to release your homemade candy!

Step 8

Eat your treats right away or wrap them in airtight plastic for later. The candy may become unpleasantly sticky if left out in the open.

Once you've mastered the art of making basic hard candy, challenge yourself by adding in nuts or trying some chocolate creations and other recipes.

What are your favorite tips for making hard candy at home? Let everyone know in the comments below!

Summertime Treats Kids Can Make

If you have children, you’ll hear “I’m bored” several times this summer. To combat that boredom, keep a list of ideas that will get them excited and keep them occupied, from outdoor games to rainy-day activities. One fun way to keep kids involved this summer, especially they’re stuck inside, is to get them involved in making treats. They’ll have something fun to do, with the added bonus of a snack-time treat.

1. Popsicles: These are an easy summertime staple, and you can make them with whatever you have on hand. Fruit juices, yogurt, and homemade smoothies all make healthy homemade treats, and you can add chopped up berries or bananas for an extra serving of fruit. If you don’t have a popsicle mold, you can even use an ice cube tray and some toothpicks. Simply fill the tray with your liquid, cover tightly with plastic wrap, add toothpicks as handles, and freeze. (If you have trouble getting the toothpicks to stay, wait until your liquid has partially frozen and then add.)

2. Cookies: If it’s not too hot to use the oven, shaped cookies are always fun. The cookie cutter section of our store has a large selection of cookie cutters to fit any interest, from spiders and ball caps to teddy bears and bunnies. Kids love using cookie cutters to press out their favorite shapes, and they’ll especially enjoy getting to choose what shapes you use each time you bake together. There are even letters and numbers, so your little ones could turn snack time into learning time.

3. Frozen Bananas: Another healthy treat is homemade frozen bananas. Our online store is a great source for the sticks and melting chocolates — just supply the bananas. First, insert a stick into a ripe (but not too ripe) banana and freeze for an hour. For toppings, you can roll in melted chocolate and then nuts or sprinkles, or use marshmallow fluff or sundae toppings. Return to the freezer until hardened.

4. Fruit Pizzas: Whip some cream cheese with a little sugar and vanilla, spread on a sugar cookie, and add sliced fruit. Best of all, the customization possibilities are endless. Make a family-sized pizza or let everyone create a personal pizza. Experiment with brownie crust or other cookie flavors. Fruit suggestions include strawberries, kiwi, blueberries, raspberries and mandarin oranges.

Have fun creating and eating this summer! What are your kids’ favorite treats to make during the summer? Leave us a comment and let us know!

Patriotic Treats for Memorial Day

At Sweet Treat Supply, we’re always looking for an excuse to make something tasty. Since Memorial Day is almost here, what better reason to make a sweet treat than honoring our country and soldiers? We’ve searched high and low for the tastiest stars-and-stripes sweets and here are our top picks for Memorial Day!

Patriotic Lollipops — This has to be one of the easiest and most impressive patriotic treats you could make. Use our How to Make Your Own Lollipops Guide and choose the perfect sucker mold for your party — we’d suggest these big flags or these 3-D stars — and you’ll have a treat that everyone will enjoy.

Red, White & Blue Whoopie Pies — Who doesn’t love a good Whoopie Pie? This recipe from NeighborFood Blog uses simple white cake mix, red and blue food coloring and sprinkles to get everyone in the holiday spirit. As an added bonus, these don’t take too much work, and they don’t require any special equipment. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Patriotic Cake Pops — This simple cake ball recipe relies on package cake mix, icing and chocolate melts to save you time. If you’ve never made cake balls before, Memorial Day is the perfect day to try it out, and you’ll love how easy this recipe makes it! To up the Wow Factor with your presentation, arrange the cake balls to look like a flag, dotting the blue balls with nonpareils and adding stripes of frosting to the red cake balls.

Red, White & Blue Rice Krispy Treat Pops — An easy way to make treats for a crowd, these rice krispy treat pops are one of our go-to recipes for any holiday. Red, white and blue are most appropriate for Memorial Day and the 4th of July, but save the recipe and change the colors to orange and black for Halloween or red and green for Christmas.

Jello Firecrackers — The cute and jiggly way to celebrate America, these Jello firecrackers are sure to be a hit at any party. Layer blueberry, unflavored and cherry gelatin in a plastic shot glass and stick a maraschino cherry on top as your fuse, and you’ll have these adorable and tasty treats ready in no time!

Red, White & Blue Chocolate Dipped Oreos — This fun patriotic dessert only requires a few ingredients: Oreos and red, white and blue chocolate melts. Start by completely covering the Oreos in white chocolate. Let the chocolate set, and then dip one third in blue chocolate and one third in red chocolate for a cute and quick treat the whole family will devour.

What’s your favorite treat to make for patriotic holidays? Let us know in the comments below!

How to Make Your Own Lollipops

We can all admit to taking an extra lollipop or two from the bank counter or the pediatrician’s office – and who can blame us? Lollipops have been a fan favorite for centuries for both adults and children alike! But did you know that lollipops are actually very simple to make on your own at home? Today we will walk you through the steps on how to make your own lollipops with only a few simple ingredients.

You will need:

• 2 cups of sugar
• 2/3 cup light corn syrup
• 2 teaspoons flavoring accent, such as vanilla or cherry
• Assorted sprinkles or candy
• Lollipop sticks

Prepare your station by lining two cookie sheets with wax paper and filling a large bowl with ice water – set both aside. Next, combine your sugar and corn syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat. Quickly stir the mixture and bring the heat up to medium high, stirring until all of the sugar is dissolved. Continue to stir your mix for five minutes, and immediately place the saucepan in the bowl of ice water, carefully making sure that no water seeps into it. Let the pan sit in the bath for 10 to 15 seconds to allow to cool. If you are using a flavoring accent, this is your time to add a few drops.

Speed is important in our next step – pour your syrup mixture into small circles, making sure to space them out wide enough so as not to mix them together. Immediately press the sucker sticks into the drops, and dust the lollipops with small candies or colorful sprinkles. We even love making glamorous-looking lollipops by adding tiny decorative edible pearls! Let your lollipops cool completely before pulling them off the baking sheet and enjoying!

If you want to skip measuring out your ingredients, try using our easy Isomalt Crystals for making your lollipops for other hard candies. These reduced calorie crystals are perfect for making guilt-free treats at only 2 calories per gram, and can be made just by adding water. Or, if you prefer chocolate over hard candy treats, try any of our chocolate and candy melts and pour into a Lolly Mold!

Have you ever tried making your own lollipops or hard candies? Was it for a special occasion or just an experiment? Share photos of your delectable creations with us on our Facebook page!

Essential Supplies for Beginner Candy Makers

So, you’ve recently decided you want to make your own candy. Great! We’re so excited! Making your own candy is a rewarding and delicious process, and it’s sure to be a hobby your friends, family, neighbors and coworkers will love! Like any new hobby, though, making your own candy can be a little intimidating. Where do you start? What skills do you need ahead of time? What kind of tools will you need to do it right?

At Sweet Treat Supply we like to help anyone take up this delicious new hobby, so we’ve created the ultimate guide to essential supplies for beginner candy makers.

1. Candy Thermometer — The most important tool in your arsenal will definitely be a candy thermometer. Many candies require just the right temperature to set perfectly, so find a thermometer that will hook on to your candy-making pans for accurate measurements. Depending on the types of candies you may decide to make, there are two different candy thermometers you might need: a classic one, such as this Taylor Candy Thermometer, or a Chocolate Tempering Thermometer for chocolate-based candies.
2. Candy Molds — While it’s possible to make candy without candy molds, it’s pretty difficult to get that perfect shape you’d want. When you’re first starting out, choose two or three different shapes that you think you’ll use time and time again. You’ll likely want to add to your collection as you become more skilled, but having a few different shapes to use while you’re starting out is a great strategy. Additionally, be sure to consider whether you’d want hard candy molds or flexible ones, which are typically used with chocolate and other softer ingredients.
3. Candy Funnel — This tool might not immediately come to mind when you think about candy making, but it’s sure to save you on cleanup after your candy is made. Candy funnels allow you to disperse the perfect amount of candy, ideal for pouring into molds. We highly recommend this one-handed candy funnel made specifically for chocolate melting wafers.
4. Chocolate Melting Wafers & Candy Melts — It would be difficult to make candy without the main ingredients, so make sure you have plenty on hand. If you plan to make chocolate candy, you’ll want chocolate melting wafers or disks, which come in a variety of types and are especially easy to temper. Candy melts can be used as a main ingredient in a candy or as an easy coating.
5. Isomelt Crystals — Isomelt crystals are an easy sugar substitute for hard candies. We love using them because they offer a lot of control over the candy’s final color, don’t have as many calories as sugar and are super simple to use in hard candies.
6. Candy Writers — Sometimes, your treats will deserve a little extra decoration, whether you’re planning to write letters to spell out the birthday girl’s name, draw bunnies in time for Easter or decorate just because. That’s where candy writers come in! These look a lot like icing tubes and come in a wide variety of colors, giving you total control over the finished product!

Do you have any other questions about how to make your own candy? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll do our best to help you!

Essential Baking Supplies for Beginners

If you’ve decided to start learning how to bake, congratulations! You have a fun — and delicious — hobby ahead of you. Baking is a great creative outlet and a wonderful opportunity to make tasty treats for friends, family, coworkers and more! To get started with baking, you’ll need a few tools to help you make the most gorgeous and scrumptious treats around.

Here are our top tools for beginning bakers:

1. Measuring spoons and cups — Especially in the beginning, it’s important to measure every ingredient in your recipe. Consider purchasing two sets of each, so you don’t have to do without if a crucial measuring spoon is in the dishwasher.
2. Graduated measuring cup —Just like with dry measuring cups, graduated measuring cups will be essential to your baking success as you learn how to bake. Graduated measuring cups are for liquid ingredients and have a handy pour spout.
3. A silicone spatula — Silicone spatulas offer excellent heat resistance and are most often used for scraping dough off the sides of mixing bowls. We rely on spatulas that are all one piece, rather than ones that have a separate blade and handle, as they hold up better.
4. A straight spatula — Completely different from silicone spatulas, straight spatulas are often made from metal and are used to shape icing while decorating cakes. As you continue with baking, you may want other icing spatulas, but at the beginning, an 8” straight spatula should do.
5. Decorating tips, assorted — Often referred to as piping or frosting tips, decorating tips help you get just the right design of icing for your cake. As you can see from our selection, there are a ton of decorating tips to make your icing into the perfect shape. We’d recommend starting with a small set and moving up from there.
6. Disposable pastry bags —Paired with your decorating tips, disposable pastry bags enable you to ice your cakes, cupcakes and cookies perfectly every time. (Quick tip: We have a 100-pack of these on sale for only $9.99.)
7. Thermometer — If you’re considering also making candy, a candy thermometer is a must. If you’re not interested in candy making, consider purchasing an oven thermometer to ensure your oven is the correct temperature for your recipes.
8. Cake pans, assorted — This is obvious, but having a good cake pan is essential to making a good cake. However, don’t forget that you might need more than one pan, whether to have different shapes — don’t forget a cupcake pan if you plan to bake cupcakes, for example — or to be able to make layer cakes.
9. Timer — While you may not need a whole new tool for this (your oven timer or even your phone may do), it’s important to figure out what you’ll be using as a timer before you begin baking.
10. Whisk — Many recipes call for whisking ingredients, so don’t forget this vital tool. After a few times baking, you may decide you’d like to have a few whisks of various sizes to help you make your treats even more perfect.
11. Sifter — While fewer recipes you’ll find these days require the sifting of ingredients, you’re still bound to run across a few that ask for sifted flour or other ingredients to make the treat lighter and airier.
12. Baking sheets — Baking sheets are essential to baking cookies, pastries and other delicious treats. Here’s one of our favorites.
13. Cooling rack — Having a set of cooling racks will help you prevent cookies from overcooking and enable you to use your baking sheets while the previous batch of cookies are still cooling.
14. Bowls, assorted — You’ll probably always be amazed by how many bowls you use while baking (we always are!), so go ahead and stock up on a variety of different sized mixing bowls now. You’ll thank us later.
15. Rolling pin — A good rolling pin will help you make bread, cookies, pie crusts and more. We’re partial to the French variety of rolling pins, which are tapered to aid in rolling out thin, uniform circles of dough.
16. Pastry brush — Recipes that require an egg wash or other liquid brushed along the top need a pastry brush. It can spread butter, oil or glaze on food, giving the tops of your baked goods a delicious look and taste.
17. Pastry cutter — Essential for pie crusts and a number of other doughs, pastry cutters help avoid overworked dough while cutting the chilled ingredients, such as butter, into one another.
18. Parchment paper — Parchment paper is ideal for baking. It protects your baking sheets (does anyone want to spend all day scrubbing dishes?) while helping your treats bake more evenly without having to grease the pan beforehand. Our favorite parchment paper is made by NORPRO, and we love it because of its environmentally friendly design.
19. Wax paper — Just like parchment paper, wax paper is an absolute must for some recipes. You’ll use wax paper in recipes like no-bake cookies, candy making and more.
20. Electric mixer — Okay, so maybe you can do everything an electric mixer can do by hand, but do you want to? An electric mixer can help you get the job done faster and easier. Don’t feel like you need to buy a stand mixer right away, though: For many beginning bakers, a hand mixer does the job just fine.

Did we forget any tools you’ve found to be absolutely essential? Let us know in the comments below!

Top Homemade Treats for Valentine’s Day

A month has passed since the last of the pecan pie was scraped from the dish and the stale gingerbread house was tossed out for the birds. Now, with Valentine’s Day on the horizon, we are excited to share some of our favorite ideas for festive candy and treats to share with your friends, family and coworkers!

With so many school Valentine’s Day parties, we have found the perfect treat that your kids can help to prepare for their classmates. These white chocolate dipped wafer cookies absolutely scream Valentine’s Day joy! We love the strawberry-flavored wafer cookies for their bright and cheery pink color, but the vanilla and chocolate flavors will work as well. All you need to do is heat some white chocolate wafers until smooth, dip one end of the cookie into the mix, and then dip into a small bowl of sprinkles. Lay on wax paper until dry, and then wrap in a clear cello bag with a bright length of ribbon. Kids will love choosing their favorite sprinkle combinations and sharing with their friends.

Conversation Hearts have long been a divisive Valentine’s treat – you either love them or you hate them. However, we doubt anyone would turn down one of these adorable conversation heart cookies inspired by Martha Stewart. Easily cut homemade or store bought sugar cookie dough into a heart shape using one of our cookie cutters, and choose your own fun sayings to print on the top!

Sweet Treat Supply also has a huge variety of candy molds that are perfect for Valentine’s Day! Choose any of the classic heart molds in both drop and lollypop forms, or choose a flirty shape like our chocolate lips mold for your crush. Whether you choose to fill your mold with chocolate, colored candy drops or hard candies, they are an easy option that anyone will be thrilled to receive.

Regardless of the treats you choose to create for your crowd this Valentine’s Day, Sweet Treat Supply has all of the tools to make your items even more festive! From pink and red oil-based food colorings to edible glitter, sprinkles and pearls, you can create a work of art for your sweetie this year. XOXO!