Candy Corn

I’ve tried a lot of recipe’s for Candy Corn – and they all seem slightly off to me.  So here is mine.

Ingredients:

• 4 ¹⁄₄ oz ________________ Confection Sugar
•  ¹⁄₂ oz ________________ non-fat Dry Milk
•  ¹⁄4 tsp  ________________ salt (super fine salt)
• For the Syrup:
• 3¹⁄₂ oz ________________ granulated sugar (or caster sugar)
• 2¹⁄₂ TBSP _______________ water
• 3 TBSP _________________ unsalted butter
• 3 ³/₄ oz ________________ corn syrup (light corn syrup)
• ¹⁄₂ tsp  ________________ vanilla extract
• Food coloring – Orange (or red and yellow) for traditional.  Fancy icing color, candy coloring, or the regular grocery store stuff all work fine.
• Candy Thermometer (You should calibrate this with boiling water – 212°F at sea level. Mine is always low by 2 degrees.)
• large pyrex bowl
• Other bowls for mixing color
• Sheet pans, covered in wax or parchment paper
• Silicon heat proof spatula
• Latex gloves
• glove liners
• (possibly new cleaning gloves – depending on how sensitive you are to burning your hands)

Instructions:

• Sift together Confection Sugar, Dry Milk, and Salt.  Or you can food processor it – but I think sifting works better.
• Put try ingredients in a medium to large glass bowl (it helps hold heat) – and create a crater in the middle – push the dry ingredients up around the sides of the bowl.
• In a small sauce pan:
  • Add granulated sugar, water, and corn syrup – heat till it dissolves
  • Add the butter.  Dissolve and stir till it starts to bubble.
  • Put the candy thermometer in.
  • Keep a close eye on it.
• Put your hand protection on – gloves and liners
• Cook the syrup mixture till it reaches 235°F
• Immediately add vanilla and  pull from heat.
• Pour quickly in to the try ingredients.
• Using the spatula mix the dry into they syrup.
• Keep mixing till a dough starts to form.  Use your hands if you can stand it.
• Don’t worry if not all of the dry can mix in if it starts getting to stiff.
• Divide into thirds – into new clean bowls (2 actually – I leave the white part in the original bowl)
• Cover the bowls you’re not currently working with with plates or lids to keep it warm.
• Do the yellow first – add a few drops at a time while kneading it in till you’re happy with the color.  Cover the bowl.
• Next do the orange – usually 3 drops yellow to 1 drop red.
• Go back to the yellow – and pull pieces off and roll into snakes, and lay them out on the sheet pans
• WORK FAST
• Do all the yellow.
• Then do all the orange – pressing the orange snakes up against the yellow.  Make the orange snakes/ropes slightly smaller than the yellow.
• Change the latex gloves or wipe off any food coloring so that the white stays white.
• Make the white snakes, and press against the yellow-orange ones.
• You’ll now have long ropes of candy corn.
• Let it sit for a few minutes.
• Then get a cutting board and chef’s knife (or whatever you want to use to cut it)
• Cut them into triangles, I usually alternate the angle.
• Lay out the pieces on the sheet pans, and let air dry for a couple hours.
• Seal in bags.  Or just eat it all yourself and don’t tell anyone you even made them.
• You don’t have to make them look like candy corn – try vampire teeth (white and blood red) – or for your extra weird friends – eyeballs.