HistoryDiva and The Black Friday Stained Glass Candy Adventure

Ah, Black Friday.

The stupidest shopping day of the year.

There is NOTHING on this planet that I want so much that I’m willing to get up at three in the morning to drive to the local electronics store to stand around in the cold with a crowd of a hundred other morons to wait for the store to open ‘early’ so that I can get my hands on a half priced gadget first.

Instead I head to my aunt and uncle’s house to help my Aunt J make her yearly batch of holiday candy.

And believe me when I tell you that this is an all day project. This year I arrived at 10:00 AM and headed home at 11:30 PM…and we made candy the ENTIRE time. Batch after batch after batch, each a different flavor and color. It took 25 batches to make enough to fill the order.

To make a true hard crack candy you have to heat the sugar solution to 307 degrees. (Yes, my aunt the chemistry teacher explained this to me.) Then you take the pan off the heat and let the solution cool to around 265 degrees before you add the color and flavor to the mix…and if you are making a fruit flavored candy you need to a 1/8 teaspoon of citric acid to the mix too.

Once you’ve added all the extra ingredients you pour the cooling sugar solution onto a greased cookie sheet. Oh, hi Aunt J! Don’t you look cute in your ‘Have you hugged a United Methodist today’ apron?

While the solution cools you score it with a knife so that it will break into bite sized pieces. This batch was cinnamon flavored…and cinnamon oil BURNS…so do mint oils.

The pieces get coated in powdered sugar and all the batches get mixed together.

Look at all that candy…

And I didn’t even get any!