Wilson has collected 75 recipes from aournd the world in this collection of festive and fun homemade treats to be enjoyed year round. A Baker's Field Guide to Holiday Candy & Confections is arranged chronologically by holiday to help bakers choose what to make for which occasion.
This is a pulled candy. You could flavor it any which way, but I chose peppermint with a red, white, and green color palette.
Yield: about 25 ribbons of candy
Tools:
5 jelly-roll pans or 9 x 13-inch baking pans
3 metal bench scrapers
2 pairs heavy-duty rubber gloves Scissors
3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon peppermint oil
Generous 1/4 teaspoon green paste food coloring
Generous 1/4 teaspoon red paste food coloring
Preheat oven to 200 degrees F. Generously oil pans, the surface of the bench scrapers, the fingers and palms of the gloves, and the scIssors with canola oil.
Stir together sugar, corn syrup, and water in a medium-size saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat to 285 degrees F. (soft-crack stage), about 12 minutes.
Remove from heat and add peppermint oil, swirling pot to incorporate. Immediately pour about one-third of the mixture onto 1 pan and place in oven. Pour another third onto another pan and place green food coloring on top; place in oven. Pour remaining mixture onto third pan and place red food coloring on top.
Let pan with red mixture sit at room temperature for a few minutes. The sugar will begin to firm up; gently bring the edges of the puddle onto itself, repeatedly scraping the edges toward the middle using a bench scraper. The color will begin to blend in. Keep doing this until the mixture is cool enough to handle but remains warm, or you will not be able to pull it.
Put on the gloves, pick up the red mass, and begin to stretch and pull, it is helpful to have another person, dividing the mixture in half as you stretch and pull, the candy will cool and become somewhat satiny in appearance. Keep manipulating it until it is solid red, satiny, and just warm. Shape the two halves into long ropes about 2 inches wide and place back on greased pan. Place in oven.
Remove pan with green mixture from oven. Repeat the dividing, stretching, and pulling process; place back in oven. Remove the pan with the uncolored part and repeat process; place back in oven.
Use an oiled bench scraper to cut off a piece of white, a piece of red, and a piece of green. Form them into a big log on the fourth oiled pan, placing white strip in the middle of the red and green. Pick up log and start to pull and stretch gently, but deliberately. You want to end up with a ribbon of tri-colored candy about 1-inch wide and as thin as can be. Working with lengths no greater than 18 inches will be easiest. (The scissors can help you cut pieces). Pull and stretch until you have a thin ribbon, then immediately accordion-fold the candy to form a ribbon and place it on its side to cool at room temperature on the last pan.
Repeat with remaining candy. If at any point the candy gets too hard, simply return it to the oven until it softens.
HOLIDAY Christmas
TYPE Pulled candy
HABITAT United States
FIELD NOTES I don’t want to be accused of leading you astray, so let me state up front that this is the most difficult recipe in the book—but it is also the most rewarding and fun! The main problem people have is that the candy gets hard too quickly. Just place it back in the oven and let it soften. Here's a technique to get the candy as thin as possible: One of you picks up a tricolored log and starts to press it out thinly, an inch at a time, using your thumbs and index fingers, pressing it away from you. The other person grabs that thinned part and begins to stretch and pull the candy away from you, immediately forming the accordion ribbon shape as they go. Working together on the same piece of candy makes
the process go more quickly.
LIFESPAN 1 month at room temperature in single layers separated by waxed or parchment paper.
