Suckers, Lollipops, and Flavorful Treats - Part 2

The recipe:

Suckers or hard candy treats:

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup light corn syrup

1/2 cup water

food coloring

several drops flavoring

Put the first three ingredients into the stainless pan and start stirring. While it is heating up when you don't need to watch it so carefully, pull out a cookie sheet. Grease it. I use butter, you can also use Crisco or margarine. Then, you take the sucker molds, grease the inside of the mold making sure to get into the tiny areas where the sucker might stick.

Next, take a stick and place it in the mold and use a clip to secure the stick and mold. Place it on the cookie sheet making sure that all parts of the mold are flat on the cookie sheet or you will have some of the sucker come out on the bottom of the mold making sharp edges and overages seen on this ghost sucker. If this happens, I usually just tap the sucker on the edge of the cookie sheet breaking those extra pieces off before bagging.

Get your flavorings and your food coloring ready and then stir the mixture boiling for about 5 minutes. The boiling mixture will soon become silvery and not so clear. Have a clear cup of cool water near and drip some of the mixture into the cup. If you hear a "crack" and the mixture becomes string like in the water and is hard to the touch in the water, it is ready. If it falls to the bottom of the glass in a glob and stays soft when you feel it, it needs more cooking time.

You can see the strings in the water here if you look closely. The candy will get hard and be stringy in the water when it is ready.

Once it is ready, you take it off the heat and wait about 20 seconds. If you put the flavoring right in, it will boil off. Waiting a few seconds allows it to cool a bit. Put the food coloring in and step back as it will be boiling and sometimes will splash out. Stir in the flavoring and mix quickly. The mixture cools fast and needs to be poured into molds before it hardens.

Start pouring into the molds. It will still be boiling and the mold will look full because it has air bubbles. If you stop then, it will then fall and leave ridges that can be sharp. So, over fill them just before they would overflow and when the bubbles work their way out, the sucker will fill the mold. Pour quickly and don't worry about drops or strings that follow you from the pan, they can be collected at the end and put in a bag and used for ice cream topping.

Let the suckers cool in the molds until they are very cool to the touch. They will fold, melt, ripple and lose their shape if taken out early. Her is one taken out early and you can see the ripples in it and the head isn't "sharp" and crisp as the others. It is worth the wait to have them look smooth and "cute."

Once cooled, remove the mold, slide the sucker into a bag. Tie it off or close the zip. You can write the flavor on the stick or on the bag. However, Sharpie rubs off if the bag has any grease or gets warm from the sucker so I suggest writing the flavor on the stick. Collect the broken bits off the bottom of the pan and place in a bag for use as ice cream toppings.

You can double the batch but I find that the mix starts to harden before I can get all the suckers poured. Another thing is the kids like several different flavors. This mix makes between 12 and 20 suckers depending on the mold sizes you use. Unless you only want one flavor, it is easier to mix flavors with the smaller batch. Same goes for color.

Once all the suckers are poured, there is usually some left on the sides of the pan. I scrape the sides with the wooden spoon and run it under cold water making it a sucker spoon and let one of the kids suck it off. Usually whomever picked the flavor of the batch gets the spoon. I rinse the pan in the hottest water available to get off the mix before it hardens. It is really hard to get clean after it gets hard.

Each girl that came to our party picked out two suckers of each flavor. I had them make a bouquet with one sucker from each flavor. I gave them each a "thank you" note and had them write someone they wanted to show gratitude. We tied the bouquet with a bow and curled the ends and then went to deliver them. The girls got to keep the second bouquet. The girls all had fun and thanked me many times for having them over. I can see we will be doing this again. My other girls are already planning their "sucker" parties.

Here is to a flavorful day!