I think of Hallowe’en fondly, however I choose to spend it. During my childhood, it was usually spent round a friend’s house. One night, however, I was woken up by my mother at around midnight; my father had come home from work and was carving a pumpkin for me. Afterwards, we looked at the night sky, which – touched up by nostalgia – I remember as being thickly dusted with stars. I remember writing about this afterwards, as I liked to do as a child. I don’t think I much cared that not many people would read my little article – things obviously haven’t changed much!
Anyway. I felt compelled to make home made candy corn after seeing Cakespy’s post on Serious Eats.
Here’s my wrongly coloured alternative, using golden syrup:
The recipe went sort of wrong on two points: the use of golden syrup meant the candy was a pale gold, so I couldn’t make traditionally coloured candy corn. That’s no big deal, it is just cosmetics after all, right? But then, I found that I had cooked the sugar a little too much – most of it had hardened into a hot, crusty ball of fudge after I had mixed the dough. I had to knead water into the dough to get it pliable again. Google confirmed my suspicions – cook it on a lower heat.
They candy corn was still very tasty despite that hiccup, though. Buttery and almost toffee-ish. I’ve no idea what real candy corn tastes like…
I would recommend you assemble the candy corn with friends and/or family; although this recipe is a micro-batch, it still yields a great amount of these sugary morsels. You can vary the sizes as you like. Store them in single layers between sheets of paper, or they will stick.
Here is the recipe in metric:
Home Made Candy Corn
Makes unseemly amounts.
- 300g icing sugar
- 25g powdered milk
- generous pinch of sea salt
- 150ml golden syrup – this will result in yellow candies; if you want traditionally coloured candy corn, find some white corn syrup (available at speciality shops), use glucose or make a simple light sugar syrup substitute.
- 200g caster/granulated sugar
- 75g butter – if you like salted caramel, use salted butter in this candy – there won’t be too much salt, I promise.
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Red and yellow food colouring – or, indeed, the colours of your choice…
Also: get plastic gloves. I had brightly coloured fingertips for several days.
1) Sift together icing sugar and powdered milk, mix in salt. Set aside. If the icing sugar is very lumpy, run it through a food processor.
2) Put the syrup, sugar and butter in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan. Bring it to the boil over a medium-high heat – it will foam and bubble. Immediately reduce the heat to low, let it bubble for 5 minutes, scraping at the edges now and then to prevent scorching. Take off the heat at once, add vanilla extract.
3) Mix in the icing sugar and powdered milk one half at a time so you aren’t covered in a cloud of sugar. Scrape the bottom thoroughly to make sure there aren’t any hidden pockets of sugar – make sure it is completely smooth. Leave to cool until it is just warm enough to handle, about 20 – 40 minutes.
4) Put on your gloves. Divide the dough into 3 equal pieces. Do not worry if it is slightly crusty. Leave one third uncoloured. Drop by drop, make one third yellow and the remaining third orange. If the dough is quite dry and doesn’t take the colour easily, knead in some drops of water and cover the remaining pieces of dough with a damp towel.
5) Roll the coloured dough into ropes – if you want bigger candies, make bigger ropes. Use two hands to gently distribute pressure or the dough might do strange things. Press them together. Press the flat of a knife on top of the dough to help them flatten and adhere. Cut out triangles as shown, shaping with your fingers for neater kernels.
