Friday, December 26, 2014

Holiday Bonus Post: Making Holiday Candy

Howdy, Readers! I said I might post some of the projects I've been working on this holiday season in lieu of regular comics, so here I present some holiday candy making. You may recall a similar post on On the Side After Five if you are a long time reader. That post clearly suffered from a lack of home photos, so I have plenty for you, today!

Supplies:

-3 plastic molds (I used Make'n Mold molds--2 break apart bar molds and 1 mold with stars and trees)
-parchment paper
-double boiler (microwave works fine with an appropriately sized bowl)
-candy melts (I used Make'n Mold melts this time: 2-12 oz bags of Milk, 1-12 oz bag of Dark, 1-12 oz bag of White, 1-12 oz bag of Red, and 1-12 oz bag of Green)
-Pretzels Pieces (I crushed these up myself.)
-Peppermint Pieces (I bought these at a craft store pre-crushed)
-Walnut Pieces
-treat tins and boxes



The directions for making are actually on the packages, but the basic idea is that you clean your molds, put in any mix-ins, melt the candy, spoon in the candy, chill for 10-20 minutes, tap/pop out of the molds, package. In my case there was also a step where I broke apart the bars. I experimented with a bunch of combinations of peppermint, pretzels, and walnuts. 

Here's a shot of my double-boiling in action:


I mixed one bag of Milk and one bag of White, here's the mid point of that process: 



Here's what my batches looked like after coming out of the molds:





You can see that the parchment paper started to get quite messy! 

Here's one batch after I broke up the bars:


Then, I assembled my tins and boxes:



I had a wonderful afternoon, and really enjoyed doing this. It was very easy. What I need to work on is pouring neatly and getting the amounts in the molds right. Now, what combinations to try next?!

--LJE




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