Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Creative Nanny: Sea Glass Candy


Making Sea Glass Candy
by Alice Shaffer


As a child, when I visited my Grandparents in Pennsylvania, we would get a candy called "clear toys" They were clear candies in the shapes of animals and so forth. When I came across this recipe for Sea Glass Candy on the Not So Humble Pie blog, I had visions of the "clear toys" I had grown up with.

I would say this is definitely a recipe for older kids and teenagers as you are working with liquid sugar and a candy thermometer or a cold water test.



To read the recipe go visit
Not So Humble Pie: Sea Glass Candy



If you would like to not use corn syrup as a commenter asked, Ms. Humble responded with the following
The primary purpose of the corn syrup in the recipe is to prevent crystallization. At 300°F the syrup is almost 99% pure sugar and can crystallize very easily. Sucrose (sugar) has a hard time crystallizing in the presence of glucose (corn syrup), which helps keeps your hard candy from becoming a gritty mass.

I've seen some sites recommending substituting cane syrup, golden syrup or simple syrup for corn syrup. However these sites miss the point entirely, since all of these syrups are sucrose based and won't do the job of corn syrup.

Honey IS glucose based, however I don't use it in candy making given the strong flavor and tendency to absorb moisture.

Agave syrup might be the better choice, as it is both fructose and glucose based (both of which prevent sucrose crystallization). I've not personally used it for candy making, but I did dig up a recipe for you on the web:

http://funkyfoodallergies.blogspot.com/2009/01/children-and-candy.html

This hard candy recipe should work fine for making sea glass.

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