Make-Your-Own Halloween Candy

   By savvyjulie  Oct 28, 2011
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With Halloween coming up in less than a week, fun-sized candy bars are everywhere. And while they certainly can be fun, why not try making your own?

Not only will your homemade candy be delicious, but you’ll have full control over the ingredients list. This means no hard-to-pronounce chemical preservatives. Plus, you can use higher-quality chocolate and ingredients for an even better-tasting candy.

And as an added bonus, you’ll like appreciate your handmade treats more than you would ever enjoy the store-bought variety. Between allowing fillings to cool, tempering chocolate, and waiting for the chocolate to harden, candy can take a long time to make. When you know how much time and work went into it, you will savor each piece that much more.

A few tips for your candy making adventures:

1. You have two options for melting your chocolate. You can microwave it for 30 seconds at a time, stirring well after each session in the microwave. Or, you can use a double boiler, which is typically a better option. If you don’t have a double boiler, rest a heat-safe bowl over a pot of simmering water. The water should come up to the bottom of the bowl, but not touch it. Place your chocolate in the bowl and melt, stirring often.

2. For many of these recipes, a candy thermometer is vital. For the Butterfingers recipe, for example, the syrup for the peanut butter filling needs to be heated to 310F, a temperature that most regular kitchen thermometers can’t read.

3. Grease your pans well, but not too much. There is nothing worse than a cooled batch of candy that can’t be freed from its pan or dish. But if you grease the pan too much, your cooled candy will be greasy and oily.

Here are some recipes to get you started:

Have you tried making your own candy? 

Photo by Calgary Reviews, Creative Commons 2.0

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