Homemade Suckers

I love suckers! There are so many flavors and shapes to choose from! I'm not sure if my favorite flavor is Banana or Root beer. Oh, wait Pina Colada! Most of the molds I have are from when my mom taught me as a kid how to make suckers. Suckers are actually pretty easy to make and take about an hour from start to finish. 

Start by gathering your supplies. You will need sucker sticks, sucker molds and clips,bags and twist ties,  food coloring, flavorings,candy thermometer, cooking spray, medium saucepan and either a marble or granite slab. You can purchase molds and clips, food coloring and flavorings from Sweet Creations online. They have a variety of molds, flavorings and colorings. 

 Start by assembling all of your molds. Put the clip on the mold then insert the sucker stick. Make sure the sucker stick end is towards the center of the mold and centered from top to bottom. The recipe makes approximately 25 suckers. I will usually assemble 30 molds just to be safe.

 Lay the molds onto a marble or granite slap. Spray the molds lightly with cooking spray.

Using a medium saucepan mix sugar, corn syrup and water. Bring mixture to a boil stirring only to get the mixture mixed together.

Once the mixture is boiling stop stirring and insert candy thermometer. Don't let the candy thermometer touch the bottom of the saucepan. 

Once the temperature reaches 260 degrees add a few drops of food coloring. If you want the color to look creamy you can also add some white food coloring at this time other wise the color will look a little transparent.

Do not stir! Because the mixture is boiling it will mix the coloring naturally. Now the mixture needs to reach 300 degrees. The temperature raises a lot faster from 260 to 300 degrees than it did to get to 260. So don't go very far. 

Once mixture has reached 300 degrees take off of heat immediately. If the temperature goes over 300 the suckers can have a burnt or scorched flavor. Stir in the flavoring. Be careful when stirring in the flavoring, it can boil up more and flavor fumes/steam can raise up and possibly make you cough. Especially true when using cinnamon or mint flavors. Carefully pour mixture into greased molds. 

When you are done pouring the mixture into the molds look at the molds and make sure the sucker sticks are covered. If they are not you can push down the sucker sticks to cover them. Let the suckers cool for at least a half an hour before removing them from the molds. 

 Once suckers are cooled and take out of the mold, insert the suckers into bags and tie with either twist ties or ribbon.

Make a variety of flavors and give them as gifts! This bouquet of suckers has cinnamon, watermelon, pina colada and bubble gum flavors. You can see how the yellow is a little see through and the green isn't. The green has the white food coloring added to it. I also don't suggest making two batches at once. I have tried and the second batch usually doesn't turn out. It usually gets to hard before I can pour it or it gets grainy. Temperature times and cooling times vary depending on the temperature outside and in your home. I live in Arizona and when cooking in the summer I try to make these in the morning when it isn't as hot.

Homemade Suckers

Ingredients:

2/3 cup light corn syrup

3/4 cup water

2 cups sugar

1 dram or 1 tsp of flavoring ( I use LorAnn and Sweet Creation flavors)

Food coloring ( I use the paste colorings and use a sucker stick to add the color)

Sucker molds and clips

Sucker stick

Bags

Twist ties or Ribbon

Directions:

In medium saucepan, mix together sugar, corn syrup and water. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Bring mixture to a boil without stirring. When syrup temperature reaches 260 degrees, add color. Do not stir; boiling will incorporate color into the syrup. Remove from heat at 300 degrees. Let bubbles die down and add in flavoring and stir. Use caution when adding flavoring to avoid rising steam. Pour syrup into lightly greased candy molds. When cooled, take out of mold, wrap in bags and store in air tight container. 

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