Even while this glass candy is delicious all year long, Christmas is when it really shines! To give a little diversity to your candies, you may easily swap out the almond extract with vanilla, lemon, or walnut extract.
| Prep Time: | 5 mins |
| Cook Time: | 25 mins |
| Additional Time: | 45 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 15 mins |
| Servings: | 32 |
| Yield: | 2 pounds |
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- 3 ½ cups white sugar
- 1 ½ cups light corn syrup
- 1 tablespoon almond extract
- 1 tablespoon red food coloring
Instructions
- Lightly grease a 12×18-inch or larger baking sheet.
- Combine water, sugar, and corn syrup in a large heavy saucepan; heat over high, stirring constantly with a heat-resistant spoon, until sugar is dissolved. Stop stirring and bring to a boil. Boil until a candy thermometer reads 310 degrees F (154 degrees C) or until a small amount of syrup dropped into cold water forms hard, brittle threads. Remove from heat.
- When bubbling has ceased, stir in the flavoring and a food coloring. Spread into the prepared pan so that the candy is no more than 1/4 inch thick. Cool for 45 minutes in the refrigerator. Remove from refrigerator, crack into pieces and enjoy!
Reviews
Thank you so much! This recipe was a great help for glass props. Will make this with my kids
Absolutely delicious! My friend had made it for Christmas at school and after getting the recipe I made it and it tastes great. It just got stuck in the pan and had to cook the remainder out, but it’s still a great recipe
It worked out perfectly! I’ve made hard candy before, and it worked out fine, but I added 2 packs of Kool Aid to this and it worked wonderfully. I want to make a note that the reason so many people are getting a burnt taste is because you are not allowing the candy to stop bubbling when you remove it from the heat source, before you are adding the Kool aid. Mixing in the citric acid before the boil stops causes a chemical reaction that leads to the sugar actually cooking during the reaction–thus, a burnt flavor despite “doing everything correct”! Wait for the final bubbles to stop, then add your Kool aid, stir and pour into your trays or molds–it’s perfect.
Worked out perfectly.
Total fail! Everything went black as soot.
Im guessing the low ratings are from people that left the mixture on the stove unattended and or didnt use a thermometer to make sure the mixture was the right temp and possibly used an incorrect pot size. This recipe is great when used correctly, and has endless ways to make it your own with color and flavor.
This is a basic large batch hard candy recipe. I strongly suggest using flavored oils instead of alcohol based flavorings. The alcohol based ones evaporate almost immediately when added to such high temperatures, that’s why so many people complain the flavor isn’t strong enough. But beware, start by using half the amount of flavored oil than the recipe calls for. I use about 3/4 and get rave reviews. I always calibrate my candy thermometer every year before making this candy. Instead of using ice and water as someone else suggested, I like to put the thermometer in boiling water to 212°. For those of you who have a hard time with this recipe just remember- temperature is of utmost importance. Just a few degrees before it reaches the desired temperature, remove the pot from the stove. It will continue to rise. If the temperature goes above hard crack stage it will burn, too low and you’ll have goo. Good luck!
Made as instructed — and always a treat for us and our neighborhood! My only “change” is that if it’s a little humid, I brush the pan with powdered sugar, and brush the tops before unmolding or breaking apart. It keeps it from becoming a blob all stuck together!!
It makes a great holiday (or anytime) candy. I used powdered sugar to coat the pan instead of grease. Turns out great!!!
I didn’t work for me
I used a single cup of corn syrup. That made it work well
DID NOT WORK TURNED INTO A GOO
I found this recipe after eating some of this great candy at work over the holidays. I tried it and thought, “I can make that!” So I looked it up here and have been making it ever since. I tried to half the recipe for one flavor i wasn’t too keen on, but it burned really fast. So I’ve been making full batches ever since. I also added 1 1/2 Tbl to 2 Tbl of flavor extract to each batch. A candy thermometer is an absolute MUST for this type of candy. My thermometers “hard crack” stage is at 300, not 310 and it works beautifully. Lisa states in her description: “Vanilla, lemon or walnut extract can be easily substituted for almond to add a little variety to your candies” NOTHING should restrict you from making whatever flavor you want. So far I’ve made lemon, orange, vanilla, strawberry, raspberry, root beer and black licorice (anise). As soon as I find some wintergreen extract and peach extract, I’ll be making those too. For those of you who said this candy didn’t harden for you, you either didn’t cook it to a high enough temperature or you didn’t have the right ratio of corn syrup to sugar needed. After the candy hardens and you break it up (I used a wooden spoon), it really helps to coat the pieces in powdered sugar to keep them from sticking together.
Once you learn to make this, the variations are endless. USE A THERMOMETER! It’s the only way to guarantee a hard crack success.
Totally loved this recipe. Totally!!! I followed to a T but used a mix of butter & rum extracts because I was using this recipe to simulate exploding bubbly out of a bottle and didn’t add any food coloring because the color was just beautiful! I’m making this again!!! Word of advice, have an excellent candy thermometer!
I am a first time candy maker – and am in love with this recipe. I didn’t have enough light corn syrup so I used 3/4 cup dark and it worked out fine! I used Blueberry flavoring oil and tried to die it blue but since I used the dark corn syrup it ended up more of a green color. Still it is realllllly good! +5000 stars from me.
I made this candy, but it was brown before it reached the proper temperature. Also when I added the vanilla extract, it bubbled and sizzled. Maybe I added it too soon but since it was brown my food coloring did not show up. It had almost a burnt vanilla taste. Gonna try again with peppermint or something clear and maybe not cook it to that temperature(maybe it will stay clear?)
ok so i just made it and it was really easy, but i used the kool-aid like some had suggested, my only problem was the powder didnt want to dislove so i mixed it was just a drop or two of water the next round and it worked great!
My son had been asking me to make glass candy so I was excited to find this recipe. The only thing I would change next time is to add a flavored extract as it really didn’t have much taste.
This was very easy and tasty. I made the mistake of using maple extract, it’s brown, so we really couldn’t color it at that point. Our other batch we used peppermint and it colored beautifully. My 13 year old son thought it was a lot of fun to make this, he doesn’t usually get into any type of cooking or baking.
This is a great receipe. But instead of flavoring, use oil, ie peppermint, wintergreen, cinnamon. You can get these at the drug store. I have made this receipe for 36 years. It is great with the oil.