Katie's Kitchen: Stained Glass Candy
I grew up enjoying this candy every Christmas. My grandma would always make it in multiple flavors. Eating a piece of this candy brings back such fond memories.
For those that don't know what this candy is, it is the same as a Jolly
Rancher, only the candy is poured out flat to look like a sheet of glass. Then
you break it into pieces and these pieces will look like the glass used by
artists that do stained glass. It is very pretty and tasty.
This is a pretty easy recipe to make, but there are some things that you will have to have to make it. Here is everything you will need:
Although the ingredients are listed below, the tricky one is the flavoring. Most flavorings are water-based and when you pour a water-based flavoring into a pot of molten sugar, it will evaporate, and you will have no flavor in your candy. As such, you have to find oil-based flavoring. I could not find any locally and had to search the internet to find some. Here is what I found:
As for hardware, you will need a good candy thermometer and a good saucepan. A heavy saucepan is preferred as it will help with keeping the heat even as the sugar boils. You will need a cookie sheet, measuring cups, and a spoon to stir with. You will also want to have something that you can use to break the candy into pieces. (A meat tenderizer works well.)
The last piece of equipment I want to talk about is your clothes. We will be dealing with powdered sugar (aka. confectioner's sugar), and that is going to get everywhere, including on your clothes. So make sure you are wearing clothes that you are not afraid to get covered in Powdered Sugar.
So, let's begin. The first step is to take most of the powdered sugar and cover the bottom of a cookie sheet. Do your best to get even coverage.
Next, attach the candy thermometer to the saucepan and then add the water, sugar, and corn syrup. Turn the heat on to medium-high heat. Stir the mixture together until all the sugar is dissolved and not clumped together. Once it is combined, then stop stirring. Now you just have to watch the pan boil.
This is where you can get into trouble as it is easy to get distracted and the sugar will burn (not good to eat then). You need to let it boil (without stirring) until it reaches the Hard Crack stage (300F to 310F).
As you heat sugar, it will begin to change its structure into various stages. These stages are Soft Ball, Firm Ball, Hard Ball, Soft Crack, and Hard Crack. These names are descriptive and if you don't have a thermometer, then you can drop a small amount of the sugar mixture into a glass of cold water and it will form one of the stages: a ball that is soft to squeeze with your fingers, a ball that is firm, a ball that is hard, threads that will bend or threads that will crack if you try to bend them. A thermometer makes candy-making so much easier.
Once the mixture reaches the hard crack stage, remove it from the heat and stir in the flavoring and food coloring. Then immediately pour it onto the powdered sugar coated cook sheet. Try to pour it out at an even thickness. You can pick up the sheet and move it around a little.
BE CAREFUL. This is molten sugar and will burn you badly. Also, anything this mix touches, it will stick to and almost instantly harden on.
Let the mixture cool. Once it cools, if it is still sticky to the touch, add a bit more powdered sugar over the top.
Now the fun part. Take your tool of choice and carefully tap the candy to break it into pieces. It will break just like glass so don't hit it too hard or it will go everywhere.
Now you can place the pieces into a zip lock bag or any other container you have for holding candy.
Notes for cleaning up. Anything that touches the sugar mixture is going to have a coating of the hard candy stuck to it. Now it might seem like it will take a lot to clean up your stirring spoon and saucepan, but the truth is, it is easy to clean them. Sugar is water soluble. To clean them, either just run hot water over them until it is dissolved or fill the sink/pan with hot water and let it sit for a while, empty, and report until the sugar is all gone.
Also, if you plan to make multiple batches of this candy, you can reuse the powdered sugar by running it through a sieve. The candy fragments will be in the sieve, and you can use the powdered sugar again.
This is a great and easy recipe and can bring many fond family memories.
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Stained Glass Candy
Makes 1 pound of candy
Ingredients:
1/2 cup Powdered Sugar
2 cups white sugar
1 cup water
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1 tsp flavoring oil (e.g. peppermint, cherry, grape, etc.)
1 tsp food coloring (the color to match the flavor you picked)
Directions:
Use 1/3 cup of powdered sugar to coat the bottom of the cookie sheet and then set it aside.
In a heavy sauce pan, mix together the sugar, water and corn syrup until sugar is dissolved. Without stirring, boil over medium-high heat until the mixture reaches the Hard Crack stage (300F - 310F).
Remove from heat and stir in the flavoring and coloring.
Immediately pour the mixture onto the prepared cookie sheet in a thin stream. Let candy set until it is completely cool. If the top of the candy is sticky, use remaining powdered sugar to add a light coating over the top of the candy. Use a heavy utensil (like a meat tenderizer) to break the candy into pieces.
Store in a candy dish, jar or zip lock bag.
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