ahoteinrun wrote:
Coming from a long line of candy makers... I feel it best to warn people against doing this without the proper knowledge, or supplies.
Making candy is a finicky process, at least making good candy is, and boiling sugar is a very volatile substance should you get it anywhere on your skin. My mother who has been making candy since she was little slipped making peanut brittle a few years ago, and poured boiling hot brittle over her thumb. The candy burned down to her bone. This is NOT a joke, and it is very serious. Candy has a tendancy to stick to your skin when it burns. It is NOT a safe process.
If you don't have a candy thermometer and you aren't used to watching sugar boil, and you don't know the signs, you could easily over or under heat the recipi and it will not turn out. Time has nothing to do with how long sugar boiles. Temperature does.
Hard Crack, soft crack, hard ball, soft ball are all words you should know.
This recipi, has none of them.
Ontop of this, you should be using a very heavy pot to work with candy, my mother and I use old pressure cooking pots (the massively thick, heavy ones), to do so. To heat Candy to the proper temperature can warp many newer cheaper pans.
This recipi is for suckers, not for skittles. You're boiling a thin syrupy substance down. There are better ways for making proper candy then this. And I suggest you research the proper ways on how to make candy. Rather then playing on your own.
DERN, Ahotenrun. Down to the bone? OUCH, I understate.
I once burned myself making sugar glass. But it wasn't nearly that bad. It didn't even leave a mark.
I've got a kit for making chocolate, root beer, lollipops, rock candy, and gum. I haven't used it yet, although at a friend's house I did make gum with the same kind of kit. It's really good until you add the flavor, for some reason.
Personally, I just want to make flavoured honeys, candy's too dern dangerous.