Friday, September 25, 2009

Homemade Candy Corn and Candy Pumpkins


You know how fruit always tastes so much better when you pick it fresh from the tree? Well, we discovered the same thing is true for candy corn - minus the tree, of course.

Our gumdrop supply was running a little low, and my oldest was having a listless sort of afternoon, so we decided to tackle another one of the recipes from our "must try" file. Given the season, candy corn seemed like a logical choice, though in truth, it has never been one of my personal favorites. All that has changed now though, thanks to a recipe we found at the Homemade Dessert Recipes site.

It's a pretty simple process. Just boil corn syrup, sugar, and butter for five minutes.


Stir in a little vanilla, and a mixture of powdered sugar, powdered milk, and salt.



Add some food coloring, and knead the dough until smooth. We started out using thin gloves, to keep from dyeing our hands, but I found the gloves a little awkward to work with, and chose to go without. It's not the first time this week I've had multi colored hands anyway.


Once the dough was smooth, we rolled it into thin ropes, and pressed them side by side, in the desired color pattern.


Then, we cut them into triangles with a sharp knife, and smoothed them out a little more by hand. Cutting them this way, half of them ended up upside down, as far as the colors go, but they still looked very candy cornish.


The dough was pretty stiff, and rolling it into ropes proved a bit difficult for the children, so we switched to making pumpkins, instead, by forming the orange dough into balls, and sticking on a tiny bits of green dough for stems. They were a lot easier to make, and they are just as tasty.


When my husband got home, I had a difficult time convincing him our little treats were homemade. They have a texture very much like the store bought candy. And the flavor, as I mentioned, is just like candy corn - only so much better.


It's great to be a homeschooler.

12 comments:

nikki/WhiMSy love said...

How fun is that?! Awesome.

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Rachel@oneprettything.com said...

That is so cool! It never occurred to me to do this. I should give it a shot, I'm one of the three people who LOVE candy corn! Thanks for the fun idea, I'll be linking.

Ms. Orange said...

Thank you for sharing! The kids and I are going to try this soon!

Marrissa said...

Here in Australia we (most unfortunately) don't get into Halloween much and I have never tried candy corn. I can't wait to try making them this afternoon!!

Morgan said...

Your directions make it look a lot easier than I thought it would be to make candy corn! Does it taste as good as the store stuff, or better?

Heidi said...

I can't WAIT to try this with my (homeschooled) girls. Found your site last week through One Pretty Thing. I'll be bookmarking, and checking in often!

An Almost Unschooling Mom said...

It really was pretty easy to make - I had a little left over dough, that I stuck in the fridge - I softened it later in the microwave, and it rolled out quite nicely.

We think these candieds are better than store bought.

michelle@somedaycrafts said...

I love candy corn and have always wanted to know how to make it. I will be featuring this on Somedaycrafts.blogspot.com Grab my featured button.

Missy said...

Hmm....I'm not a fan of candy corn, but this may still be a fun activity to do with the kids.

Phyllis said...

I have never heard of homemade candy corn before. That is so cool.

Christianne @ Little Page Turners said...

It's official. You rock. :)

twocheapcents said...

JUST the thing I want to try for making the homemade butterfinger-alikes that use candy corn and peanut butter! I can't wait to try this here. :-)