August 2011 Daring Bakers' Challenge: Candylicious!

This month were were given the challenge to make two types of candy...gooey, melt in your mouth candy. One of the candies was to be made with tempered chocolate and the other could be our choice. I actually made three types of candy: hard candy, homemade rolo candies and milky way bars. 

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks athttp://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

Tempering chocolate is rather easy; it just seems intimidating.  I'll get into the "how to" of tempering in another post, right now I'll share how I made the three candies

 Rolo Candies

Caramel filling:

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup light corn syrup

1 cup evaporated milk

1/4 cup margarine

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Chocolate coating:

1 pound dark chocolate,  tempered and ready to use

Directions:Combine sugar, corn syrup, milk and margarine in a saucepan.  Stir an heat to 248 degrees F.  Remove from heat, add vanilla and pour onto a well butter cookie sheet.  Set aside to cool.  At this point you can score into sections the size you desire. I took sections and rolled them into small marble size pieces and covered with chocolate .
Using your chocolate mold, coat the bottoms and sides of the mold with chocolate.  Turn it over and let the excess flow off.
When chocolate has hardened, fill with the caramel pieces and top with additional chocolate.

You will need to use a heavy duty mixer to make these! I gave my Kitchen Aid mixer 

a real work out!

Homemade Milky Way Bars
3 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup light corn syrup
3/4 cup water
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 egg whites
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted


Directions
In large saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar,corn syrup, water and salt.  Heat, while stirring constantly, until mixture begins to boil.  Continue cooking, stirring periodically, until temperature of candy thermometer reaches 270 degrees F. or soft crack stage.
Using a non-plastic bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Once the sugar mixture reaches 270 degrees F., remove from heat and carefully pour in thin streams over the egg whites, blending completely with mixer set on low speed.Continue to cook until mixture becomes thick like dough. I had to hold my machine down during this process because my mixer was taking a bit of a beating! The entire beating process took me close to twenty minutes!

Once mixture has thickened and become the consistency of dough, add the melted chocolate chips. After the melted chips have been blended through, press mixture into greased 9-inch square pan. I like to line the bottom and sides with plastic wrap, then grease. Having the plastic wraps makes it easier to remove.
Refrigerate until firm. Remove from pan and cut into desired bar sizes. I made 18 pieces.


At this point the candy is ready to be dipped in chocolate and you would have a candy like the 3 Musketeers.  I still had some of the caramel left over so I topped the nougat with a layer of the caramel before dipping into the chocolate.

Using tempered chocolate, dip your candy into the chocolate and coat completely  place on wax paper.
Cool at room temperature. 






Hard Candy
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cup light corn syrup
3/4 cup water
1 teaspoonful candy flavoring  (I used sour apple)
1/2 teaspoon liquid food coloring

Combine sugar, corn syrup and water in 2-qt saucepan.  Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves.  Bring mixture to a boil without stirring. When syrup temperature reaches 260 degrees F, add color.  Do not stir; boiling action will incorporate color into syrup.  Remove from heat at 300 degrees F.  Stir in flavoring.  Pour syrup into lightly oiled candy molds or onto greased cookie sheet and score with knife to form bite-size pieces.  When cool, break into pieces and dust with powdered sugar to prevent sticking.