Making Hard Candy

Well, nothing like learning the hard way. lol I had a cake to make looking like a bucket filled with ice and beer bottles for a 21st birthday. I made molded chocolate beer bottles and brushed them with green luster dust which worked out great.

The problem was the ice cubes. I made them out of Isomalt & water with a little vanilla flavoring. After boiling it on the stove, I poured it on crumpled up tin foil spread on a cookie sheet. That all worked great and the candy was clear like glass. The first mistake was waiting until the night I needed the ice cubes to make the candy. It really needed to sit undisturbed overnight to get hard. My second mistake was thinking I could hasten the process by putting it in the refrigerator. It looked great when I took it out and it was nice and hard, but after I started peeling it off the tin foil and breaking it into pieces it started getting soft. Mistake number three was thinking putting it in the freezer would help....uhm, no not really. It got hard again but, I had the same problem with it getting soft as I handled it. The fourth mistake was thinking I should just leave it on top of the cake and hope it would get hard. Oh boy...it got hard. Unfortunately, it was after it had gotten cloudy, softened considerably and all stuck together. I'm sure at this point you are beginning to get the picture. The entire top of the cake was a hard piece of candy with chocolate beer bottles stuck in it. It looked ok but where would you stick a candle and how do you cut the cake.

Fortunately for me, the woman who placed the order loved it and wasn't concerned with those problems so crisis averted. I will eventually try again. I would love to try making some colored gems using the First Impression gem mold that we have here in the store. I have and idea in mind for a treasure chest filled with gems and gold dubloons...but that's for another day!