Ok, hard candy is not dangerous when its hard, its the cooking part that is dangerous. It is so very hot and of course you can get burned. I had never made hard candy before except for that one time in science class about 28 years ago. (not telling my age, not telling my age)
So like other things, I wanted to give this a try. Seemed pretty easy reading directions and all. My first batch I made was root beer.. and Oh yum.. it was so good. But a bit of a pain to break apart. The pan I used was my smallest cookie sheet.. so the candy was very thick. My next batch was just and experiment for my son who loves sour candies. For some reason I was doing all sorts of experiments with this batch. The flavor I was using for this batch was Koolaid, which Im sure you can do, but didn't work well for what I did. Also, trying to get the candy to cool faster I put the hot cookie tray with the boiling 300 degree liquid sugar on top of a pan of ice. Well that flopped.. I noticed the ice melting not evenly and the candy was about to pour all out. So I picked up the pan and started to move the pan to the counter, in the mean time it started to pour out and drip all over my jeans and my foot, my bare foot.. OUCH! I will say that it was a horrible experience. No visits to the ER or anything like that.. but was unable to wear socks or shoes for a couple of days.
The candy pictured here is the actual candy that burned my foot, and also did not taste as well as my other candies I have made since. But oh boy did it look pretty. I thought it looked a lot like Italian glass or Sea glass.
So I give this candy 2 stars, but only this one bad batch not all the others I have made. My husband is patiently waiting for me to make him a batch of butterscotch hard candy.
Dangerous Hard Candy
Ingredients
3 3/4 cups white sugar
1 1/2 cups light corn syrup
1 cup water
1 tablespoon extract or 1 dram of concentrate extract
Cookie Sheet
non stick foil
Directions
Use a med saucepan and stir the sugar, corn syrup, and water. Cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves, and bring to a boil. Without stirring, heat to 300 to 310 degrees F (149 to 154 degrees C) Hard Crack stage.
Remove from heat and stir in flavored extract and food coloring, if desired. Pour onto cookie sheet with non stick foil. Let cool, and break into pieces. Store in an airtight container or a zip lock bag (freezer type). You can also dust with a bit of confectioners sugar to prevent from sticking, however we just kept ours in the fridge and that works well too.
As a kid I had the unfortunate experience of interupting my mother as she made candy. Like a fool I used my finger for a taste. Very poor decision!
ReplyDeleteOh my.. that is horrible! But I sure can see how a child would do this...
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