So, this is a bit of a story. My brother has been doing all this amazing stuff to make a Mario-themed party for my nephew. He's been working for a couple months coming up with ideas, and at some point I suggested star lollipops, which we decided would be fun to do. Then we got all excited about making our own lollipops, and planned on performing our grand experiment during a recent visit he made to our part of the country. We found an excellent recipe, I looked into flavors and colors, we found supplies and molds....but then....the molds took forever to get here and they didn't get here before his visit ended!!
So I sent him his half of the supplies and we both made them (with kid help!) this past weekend. And up there are mine!! We were both very happy with our results (and Emily loooooves them) and we'll definitely be making more!
A few notes:
The metal molds rock. I would not use anything else.
You don't need to use wooden utensils. Silicon is fine, and would actually work better -- I followed the instructions and used a wooden spoon -- which was still damp from stirring the water/sugar mix, and when I used it to mix in the flavor and color the water instantly boiled off and made bubbles in my candy!! My brother used silicon and had no such trouble.
Have more than the 10 molds called for ready for each batch -- because I used some small molds, I could have easily made 12-13 lollipops. My brother used a larger mold and got 11 lollipops per batch. (As you may have guessed, he let us go first and then learned from our experience.)
If you are wondering, my lollipops are "cake" flavor (which is mostly kind of sugary and buttery, and very tasty). I also picked up creamsicle and shirley temple (the drink) flavor, going with the theory that fake fruit flavors in candy can turn a kid off real fruit...I figure fake cake and popsicle flavors? what can that do? Next time it will be orange colored creamsicle lollipops, I think Emily will like those even more!!
And while I'm talking flavor -- since I used flavor as opposed to extract (flavor is much stronger), I only was supposed to use ¼ teaspoon, and accidentally didn't even put it all in. The result was a very sugary flavor, sort of like cotton candy. Which we really liked! I will go easy on the flavor in the future.
They are not kidding when they say the temperature will creep up slowly then suddenly start shooting up. Literally stare right at your candy thermometer towards the end so you don't overshoot and end up carmelizing your sugar! I actually turned off the burner just short of 300° and it still went slightly past the mark.
All in all, a really fun project with delicious results!
Mmmm...there are only 5 left now!! How long will they last?
Is there anything you can't do?
ReplyDeleteThe 'pops look delicious. I don't own a candy thermometer, but I could get one. I have made marshmallows before, but never lollipops. Maybe I'll try that out for the school Halloween party. Hmmm.... the wheels they are a turning.
YUM. Those look super! Where do you get the flavors?
ReplyDeleteWow, those look great! I never would have thought of "cake" as a lolipop flavor. Did you brother take photos of his?
ReplyDeleteThe flavors are from the "supplies" link above, getsuckered.com (not a business name I'd have picked but they were great to buy from). And cake is nothing...their flavor list is insane!
ReplyDeleteYour lollipops look fabulous - Ronja would love this for sure, but I would have to buy all the supplies. We'll see - it would certainly be a fun project! :)
ReplyDelete