Sweet Valentine’s Day

February 14th, 2014 by ninja

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lollis 2014_Valentines_Tobin 2014_Valentines_Mika

For Valentine’s Day this year, we ventured into hard candy making. It turned out to be quite a science, and we have learned a lot along the way. For starters, light corn syrup is 100% glucose, and NOT the same as industrial high fructose corn syrup (the bad stuff). Glucose is needed to keep the candy from crystallizing and getting gritty. We tried various natural flavorings and essences, and ended up using raspberry as the flavoring for our red lollipops (with a pinch of citric acid for a lemon-fruity sourness). They turned out pretty good, but winners of the taste test were the less Valentine-y colored butterscotch caramel pops. Nothing beats good old sugar/cream/butter/vanilla. We had more than 40 caramel pops (2 batches), and set them out in the lobby of our house. They were gone before the end of the day!

Posted in Crafts



3 Comments

  1. Fred responded on February 18th, 2014 at 4:27 am


    Very cute idea!


  2. ninja responded on February 18th, 2014 at 10:34 am


    @Fred – I actually saw this idea last year, and thought the same thing! If you use store bought pops, like dumdums, it’s much less of a production, and just as cute.


  3. Ryniee responded on February 24th, 2014 at 11:03 am


    Love it! I bet the kids did too!