Old Fashioned Candy Recipes - Easy Candy Ideas to Tempt Your Sweet Tooth (2024)

FAQs

How do you harden candy without sugar? ›

To make sugar-free hard candy, such as lollipops, use a sugar substitute called isomalt, which features the same melting and hardening properties of sugar.

Recipes for hard candy use a sugar syrup, such as sucrose, glucose or fructose. This is heated to a particular temperature, at which point the candy maker removes it from the heat source and may add citric acid, food dye, and some flavouring, such as a plant extract, essential oil, or flavourant.

Divinity is a confection made from egg whites, corn syrup, and sugar. It's similar to nougat, fudge, or marshmallow. Tip: replace the sugar with brown sugar to create "sea foam." Other ingredients can be used to give the candy other tastes, like chopped dried fruit and chopped nuts.

If the sugar mixture is not cooked to the proper temperature (the hard-crack stage 300-310° F {149-154° C.} or if you are working in a kitchen with high humidity, chances are your candy is retaining too much moisture.

The process of turning sugar into a hard, smooth, transparent confection involves heating a sugar/corn syrup/water solution to 300 – 310° F. {150 - 155° C.}, or what is known as the hard crack stage of sugar. The use of a candy thermometer is not essential, but highly recommended and accuracy is critical.

Cream of tartar can prevent your homemade hard candy, caramel, and toffee from forming a gritty texture due to sugar crystallization. Adding a pinch of cream of tartar to your sugar syrup will help break down the sugar molecules and stop them from crystalizing early on.

According to Mouth Healthy, hard candy is some of the worst candy for your teeth. You can break your teeth if you're not careful. Plus, keeping them in your mouth over long periods of time can keep the sugar washing over your teeth, again and again, wearing them down and making room for infection and decay.

Nerds Candy ranks as the candy with the highest sugar quantity, with a substantial 93g of sugar per 100g.

"The effects of added sugar intake — higher blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, diabetes, and fatty liver disease — are all linked to an increased risk for heart attack and stroke," says Dr.

If you are trying to keep added sugars to under 30 grams per day on a 1,200-calorie diet, you might want to limit your fun-size candy bars to 2 or 3 if that is the only source of added sugar for the day. Since it is likely that you will have other added sugars, it may be best to stick to 1 or 2 fun-size choices.

What happens to your body when you eat a lot of candy? ›

But if you're eating way too much sugar and your body stops responding properly to insulin, your pancreas starts pumping out even more insulin. Eventually, your overworked pancreas will break down and your blood sugar levels will rise, setting you up for type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Combine light brown and white sugars, water, corn syrup, and salt in a heavy 2 quart saucepan. Cook covered until mixture boils rapidly. Remove lid, place candy thermometer in pan, and cook without stirring to 260 degrees F (127 degrees C). Remove from heat.

Nougat is a confection made with sugar or honey that's cooked and then whipped with egg whites to aerate it. It often contains almonds or other nuts, candied fruits and chocolate, although it can be left plain. Nougat can be soft and tender like marshmallow but is more often dense and very chewy.

It's normal for the mixture to rise and then fall some in the pan. Let cool completely. Flip pan over and shake gently to remove block of candy. Use a knife to cut and jab candy into pieces.

Stevia is a non-alcohol, non-artificial sugar substitute made from the leaf of a sweet plant. Saccharin, aspartame, stevia, and sucralose are calorie-free and carb-free. Sugar alcohols contain some carbohydrates. You're especially likely to encounter sugar alcohols in sugar-free candies, so be sure to check labels.

"Sugar Free" hard candies are made using various sugar alcohols such as sorbitol , erythritol , xylitol , mannitol , lactitol and maltitol and an artifical sweetener instead of sucrose.

Turns out these No-Sugar Sour Fruit Candies were much simpler to make than I could have imagined. By simply using fruit-only juice, gelatin and citric acid, these candies are just as satisfyingly sour as the ones from the store! In a small pot combine the fruit juice, ½ teaspoon of the citric acid, ¼ cup of the water.

Overall, it is possible to make hard candy using sugar-free Torani syrup and stevia in the raw, but the resulting candy may not have the same texture or flavor as traditional hard candy made with sugar.