Homemade Candy with Skull Flair

Carrie Carolin at Goth Shopaholic just went through the Sur La Table site and selected all the best Halloween cupcake accessories. I would not have even guess that Sur La Table would have spooky kitchenware, but they do.

So I’m learning how to make a health food version of Rice Krispies Treats this week. This means I’m learning how to make marshmallows from scratch. I always assumed that marshmallows were some kind of scientifically engineered modern food, but all those additives on the store bought ingredients list are basically preservatives. Traditional confectioners have made marshmallows for ages out of mostly just sugar and maybe some corn syrup, corn starch, and vanilla, plus maybe a couple egg whites if you want to get buckwild.

The key to what variety of candy you are going to create is how hot you get the sugar. Traditional confectioners have boiled sugar for a while, then spooned out a bit of boiling sugar water and dropped it in a bowl of cold water. They would then reach a hand in to the bowl of cold water to feel the current consistency of the recently boiling sugar. This was how they would tell when the sugar was hot enough. I assume traditional confectioners all burned off their fingerprints as well.

Another way to test how hot the sugar you are boiling has become is, ya know, a thermometer. So I also searched on the Sur La Table site for a candy thermometer. As expected, they had a selection of candy thermometers. Their site has a very personalized algorithm too. It also suggested I might need a skull timer.

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Posted by Amelia G on September 17, 2010. Filed under Trappings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry