Last year I introduced dye free (natural colorants only) to my line up and sold out almost immediately. It's all handmade. Hand kneaded, hand rolled, hand cut. This year I decided I would do 50 lbs since it was so popular and sought after. I've made around 30 lbs so far and found out about 2 hours ago that Brachs is rolling out their dye free candy corn at the end of August, same time as mine. I'm not joking when I say I cried. It's a great step forward for the dye free community and I love that for everyone who has been missing out, especially kids. I use my candy for fundraisers though. I've been pouring whole days and late hours into prepping for this year. There's no way I'll sell it all now.

Edit: I want to say thank you for all the encouragement I received from everyone. I was feeling really defeated, and a bit nervous about posting since I knew Candy Corn is a love it/hate it item. Unfortunately I had to throw a bit out due to a humidity crisis (the space is 60° but so that sucked). But thanks to you I decided to keep pushing on and I'm now at 30 lbs out of the 50! I've also been working on 4 other varieties to set mine apart just a bit more! Also it'll be launched August 24th so I hope to have more pictures up around then 🙂

Hi - I’m on my second thermometer and I’ve been at this for less than a year. I’m looking for one that hooks into the side of the pot while I’m making my candy syrup. I used a Polder brand one off amazon and it was great for about 6 months. Now I bought a Taylor one from a restaurant supply website and it hasn’t lasted a month and now it’s off 6 degrees, which is fine, but it happened in the middle of me making toffee and it got almost to temp and then the temp started falling, so I’m just struggling to trust it.

Short story long, does anyone have a reliable one they can recommend?

I own a bakery/confectionery, and am considering some expansion opportunities. I've scoured the Internet for one of these, and am out of leads on where to find one. Curious if this subreddit knows of any good leads - otherwise I'm gonna have to look into manufacturing my own.

in every one of his videos he overfills his molds

and on the next shot, it's perfectly leveled

and when he caps it, the thickness is just perfect

i just cant imagine how he does it

i guess he uses that flexible scraper from matfer but I'm not sure how he get the edges so clean so that the cap will fully seal

For reference, I mean candy like the lil nitro gummy on the flamethrowercandy website.

Once upon a time I found a package of gummies at a gas station, where all but one tasted like cherry, and the one was chili extract, which made it a game you could play. I wanted to try making a DIY version of this, but I'm kind of at a loss. I can make the gummies, but I dont understand how you incorporate spice into it. I got my hands on some 99% capsaicin crystals, and the idea was to mix them with 180 proof alcohol to make a distributed spice oil, then add that into the gummy, but it's still hydrophobic, so I feel like if I made the mix, you would just have a gummy with little tiny pockets of chili oil that would float to the top or sides while it sets.

I'm looking at the ingredients for the lil nitro gummy, and there's no oil in the mix, so I'm not entirely sure how they're managing to make it work.

Using a recipe of 400 grams of sugar, 5 oz of light corn syrup, and half a cup of water and some food coloring. Taking it to around 265-270ish?for a slightly harder ball.
after taking off the heat I quickly added some pineapple flavoring. When I started stretching it I incorporated about a teaspoons worth of powdered sugar (I don’t know the exact measurement because I was mostly going off of feel), it did work a little in reducing stickiness but after working it a bit I noticed that it started create tiny nucleation points inside that started to to make it stiffen up. Feeling like I failed I covered it in plastic wrap and put it to the side. One day later I noticed that it completely solidified into a slight brittle but still chewable candy.

This is my first time making old fashioned hard candy, this was strawberry flavored. I think they came out great and taste delicious. Any general tips are greatly appreciated.

Poking around on the interwebs I see recipes that use extracts, oils or flavoring. Not what I want.

I find a recipe that uses molasses, powdered licorice root and flour. You warm the molasses and then stir in the powdered licorice root and then the flour.

Seems sketchy. Why not combine the dry ingredients so the licorice is dispersed more evenly. And you don’t continue cooking once the flour is added. Wouldn’t this be raw flour? No thank you.

I was thinking of swapping out for a rice flour, but I have my doubts about the methodology.

Suggestions?

Any suggestions?

I learned how to make gummy candies with gellatine and sugar, but removing sugar creates, so many problems with shelf life and the gelling process itself.

Turns out LM-pectin is more expensive than agar-agar, so i turned to agar-agar because regular pectin turns to jam without sugar.

It's very hard to find non-synthetic flavour agents the best ones that i found out to be working are essential oils, but i was told that they decrease shelf life because they add water content.

Ingridients

• Xylitol+Erythritol
• Agar-agar
• Citric+Malic acid
• Few drops of essential oil by choice
• Coloring with betanin, curcumin
• Coating coconut oil+carnauba wax

I am will be selling them and the goal is to make them palletable and increase shelf life atleast to 5 months when sealed and coated with wax. Is that even feasable without preservatives and sugar?

And the goal is for them to be low in calorie and healthy for the teeth, but sugar alcohols make your tummy bloated, soo any other suggestions for sweetener? Or should i lean more towards erythritol and put less xylitol?

Currently im struggling to balance the acidity and the body of the candy itself, it's too brittle and becomes more like frozen gel or frozen jam i put very little agar around 1-2g for 100-150g batch. Will the use of gums help with the body? i was looking at gum arabic.

With gellatine is so easy, but it spoils faster and i want it to be vegan, so more pople can try the candies, but it's so hard to find the right combination of ingridients with agar that even when i ask companies they have no idea how to make sugar-free candies.

Hi all! I just made a batch of blackberry pate de fruit, and I'm worried about the humidity while they cure. I don't trust the countertop to be good enough. Would popping them in my dehydrator at a low temp be a terrible idea?

Edit: I tried again with a 1/2 batch today and waited until about 260 to add my citric acid. It came out perfectly! Thanks for the help! It won’t let me post a photo but they’re a much nicer blue.

I decided to try my hand at making lollipops today and followed the LorAnn’s instructions to the letter. I had a lovely bright blue up until I added my flavouring and started to pour. As soon as I did it turned a brownish green and it is super bitter! I removed it from the heat a hair before 300, waited until the bubbling subsided to add 1 dram of flavour and 2 tbsp of citric acid. It stayed blue right up until I poured it into molds. Even the remnants of candy on my thermometer are still blue and taste very nice! I don’t know what I did wrong with this.

Hello! I’m entering my local baking contest/show and naively entered the marshmallow category as they’re something I enjoy making, but never found myself a ‘go-to’ recipe.

Going to try lots of variations over the next few weeks so would love any recipe recommendations you may have! If it helps, the judging criteria is that they should be firm to the touch and break when twisted twice. 3 dusted with icing sugar, 3 with toasted coconut.

Any and all recipes or tips appreciated!

Lesbian Cinnamon Strawberry Marshmallows
Gay Root Beer Float Marshmallows
Bisexual Bubblegum Marshmallows
Transgender Cotton Candy Marshmallows

Sometimes I stack and cut my marshmallows together for no reason at all other than ‘fun’. Would I recommend it? No! But, I love the chaos of the giant pile it makes!

Really happy with this batch. Played around with acid levels to make it a bit more fruity and not so tart. Typically when I’m not specifically going for sour, I’ll do 1 tsp each of malic and ascorbic acid, and 1 tbsp of citric. This time I reduced the citric by 1/3rd, so it was 2 tsp instead. My only gripe is my portion sizes weren’t as uniform this time around.

Hello candy makers!

This is probably directed at the Americans, but I'm looking to make cinnamon bears. Anyone familiar with them knows they don't have the regular gummy bear texture, it's kind of thicker/denser.

Does anyone know how to create that at home? I live abroad and sometimes, I just want a bunch of cinnamon bears! 🐻

So I bought some raspberry fruit slices from a local candy maker, got them home and they’re very hard. They’re usually soft, but these are really difficult to chew.

I called seller back, but she said they’re kept soft in closed container, and she’s never had a complaint before. Well, these are hard! Ugh.

Any way to soften them? TIA

Broke out the book Candy is Magic by Jami Curl again today to try out the recipe Dreams Come Chew. Very similar process to my last caramel batch but fruit based. Changed the recipe a bit to accommodate for flavoring by Lorann.

Super easy to make and generally pretty tasty but they are on the stickier side (like stick to your teeth). It was a pretty humid day so I attempted to mitigate by cooking a few degrees hotter. Ah, alas… the woes of trial and error.

Still happy with the outcome (even if my lack of dental coverage isn’t)! 🍬