Not. At. All.
I've always thought it has a weird flavor, strange consistency, and outright horrible taste. Bleagh. It grosses me out just thinking about it. And yet...this is the time of year that candy corn's star shines brightest.
So that means it's everywhere...
And in everything....
There is just no escaping it!!
I come from a family of candy-corn fans. My mother and sister absolutely love candy corn - I've seen them go through a bag in one sitting. My mother loves it so much she has a song she sings (yes, an actual song - no, I will not sing it for you).
However.
In the true spirit of adventure, this year, instead of just scowling at those little scurvy pieces of orange, yellow and white yucky....stuff, I thought I would try to
I decided I'd just have to make some.
OK, ok...so coming from the person who shies away from baking, one would not suspect me of being the type of person to dive headfirst into candy making. And yet...somehow I didn't seem quite as intimidated. Now, if I'm being completely honest with you, I will tell you that I totally messed up the first batch. Badly. Like, I had to throw the whole thing out badly. But this recipe really is easy enough that starting it again didn't take too much time - and once I got the sugar to the correct temperature, everything just came together. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with the ingredients:
Homemade Candy Corn1 cup powdered sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons nonfat powdered milk
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup corn syrup
2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
Red and yellow food coloring
Make sure you have: Candy thermometer or instant read thermometer and a silicone stirring instrument
Sift together the powdered sugar, dried milk and salt into a large bowl. You may have the slightest number of little clumps at the very end - just toss them out.
In a 2-quart saucepan, add the corn syrup, sugar and butter (First batch first mistake - using a 1 qt pot. Don't do that. Use a 2-qt). Near your stovetop, have your vanilla already measured out, ready to pour in.
Melt everything over medium/medium-low heat - depending on your stovetop. You don't want to rush everything into a boil - just give it enough heat to melt the butter. You may need to swirl the pot a few times to mix everything together (don't stir and don't over swirl). Once the butter is just about melted, attach your candy thermometer or hold your instant read in place.
THIS PART GOES VERY FAST!
Boil the ingredients to 245 degrees. This took me about 1 minute - but I was running at a temperature closer to medium on my stovetop than medium-low (if you get to the 5 minute mark and you're not at 245, go ahead and slightly increase your heat).
**This is where I made my first-batch fatal error. The first recipe I used said to only boil the sugar to 230 degrees. Wrong. Very wrong. I ended up with candy corn taffy that never hardened (even after sitting out overnight). The next recipe I consulted recommended getting to right between 245-250. I went with 245 and it was just perfect. Just know that you'll have to work quickly or everything will start to harden up to a nearly unworkable state.
Remove the pot from the stove, add the vanilla (be careful, the sugar syrup will bubble a bit) and immediately stir into your dry ingredients using a silicone spatula/spoon.
You should start to notice everything coming together, creating almost a fondant/Play-Doh type mixture (you'll be able to work with it - you don't have to put this in a mixer). Once everything is incorporated, place the candy onto a silicone sheet and let it cool for just a few minutes. Don't let the dough get cold - you'll never be able to mix in the food coloring. It needs to still be somewhat warm - as warm as you can tolerate.
Divide the dough into 3 pieces (one will stay white, one for yellow, one for orange) and add your coloring according to the packaging instructions (I used the gel dye - worked great). I tinted the yellow dough first and then did the orange (your hands may have yellow residue on them anyway, and you'll need the yellow to create the orange ;-) ). If the colors aren't deep enough for you, you can always add more in.
Working one color at a time, roll each piece out into strips.
Take the strips, lay them along side each other and gently smush them together. The recipe that I used suggested flattening the strips slightly with a rolling pin, but I actually liked them a little puffy on one side...
Then just cut them into their classic candy corn shape:
Spread all the little corns out onto a cookie sheet or parchment paper and let them dry for a few hours. You can store them in an airtight container, either on the countertop or in the refrigerator.
And there you have it...your very own homemade candy corn.
So how does it taste?
Surprisingly much better than the stuff out of the bag. I thought that it tasted similar to the fondant I made a few weeks ago, and I even found a few recipes for candy corn made with marshmallows (here). I took a peek at the National Day Calendar's page on National Candy Corn day, and it turns out that the original recipe contained corn syrup, sugar, water, marshmallows and fondant...so that helps explain the similarity. I'm not quite sure where the recipe got so out of whack along the way - because I'm pretty sure the stuff they sell commercially now still tastes like gum off the bottom of my shoe, but at least if I have eat it, I'll know to make my own. It was definitely fun trying something new, and it was really interesting to make candy for the first time ever. Although I'm not converting to a fan of prepackaged candy corn, I'll at least concede that I'm not a complete candy-corn hater.
I'm still not going to sing the song.
Recipe adapted with thanks from thekitchn.com. You can find the original HERE.
