Christmas Lollipops
Dec 10th, 2007 by Marie
I love to make suckers, or lollipops as some say. This is another fun treat that I would beg my Mom to help me make for friends for the Christmas season. My Mom has a lot of treats up her sleeve. (She will be sharing another one of her famous Christmas treats soon on the blog!!)
My mom purchased these sucker molds many many moons ago and they look very ancient. But they work great. I also made some that don’t use molds and they were fun. To purchase some stainless steel mold like these, check Get Suckered or Sugar Craft.
You need to get everything ready before you start, because once your sucker liquid is hot and ready, things get moving fast. You need, molds, sticks, a couple of spoons, flavoring, food coloring, sauce pan, candy thermometer, and a pan lined with wax paper. Okay, that seems like a lot of stuff, but it is all worth it.
Get your molds set up, sticks and all. This recipe yields close to 24 suckers. Sticks come in all sizes. Walmart sells them, and most other craft stores. You will also want to have your food coloring and flavoring on hand and ready. My favorite flavors were always cinnamon and watermelon. But there are many others available too. You can get them at cake and candy stores, even Walmart and Roberts sell them. They are tiny bottles, but you don’t use that much.
Here is the recipe for Lollipops:
- 2 cups sugar
- 2/3 cup light corn syrup
- 1 cup water
Combine the ingredients in a sauce pan and place over medium high heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves and have your candy thermometer ready. The thermometer will read “Hard Crack” when you know to turn off the heat and remove the pan from the heat source. When the liquid is ready, add 1/2 tsp. flavoring and 5 drops of food coloring. **Only do one flavor and one color at a time. I tried to split the batch and it was a lot harder than I thought. Next time I will just make one batch for each flavor and color.** It will fizz a little and smell strong, but it is perfect for the suckers.
Now you will pour the lollipop liquid into the molds. Don’t over do it. And if you spill a little here and there, it is okay. The strings that are left will harden and break off, they are a little treat. You can see that I just poured some of the lollipop liquid onto the wax paper, over the stick. They are fun and worked out good too. Then, once all of your molds are filled and the liquid is gone from the pot, let the suckers set. It doesn’t take very long, maybe 10-15 minutes. Test them by trying to pop them out.
They are quite the mouthful, but so, so delightful. Enjoy!
Love this idea and I love the fact that they are small.
This made my day! I had forgotten all about doing the very same thing with my mom every year. What a fun thing!
YUM!
I’m going to be making some hard candy for Christmas gift baskets this year too! I Love your sucker molds, those are so cool. My mom had some of those when I was a kid, but I’m stuck with the “Pour it over the lolly stick on the waxed paper” version. I call them “Rustic” hehe..
Yours look delicious!
Lindsey - I am so glad this reminds you of home. The taste of the cinnamon suckers really bring me back to childhood!
Muffin - These sucker molds are great, but I do love the look of the “Rustic” ones. They are very homemade looking. Yum Yum.
Also, I did try some in a plastic mold and it melted the mold. You will have to use metal molds, or no molds at all, just sticks. Good Luck.
These look great! Lollipops are on my list to try this Christmas season. I hadn’t thought of using molds. Yours turned out so cute.
[...] haven’t thought about homemade lollipops in years, until I spotted this post over at Make and Takes in which Marie made her own for the holidays. She’s got some fun [...]
[...] haven’t thought about homemade lollipops in years, until I spotted this post over at Make and Takes in which Marie made her own for the holidays. She’s got some fun [...]
Where do you typically find your flavorings? I’m thinking that “extracts” work and got one to try out the flavoring with my munchkins, but I was thinking that there have to be other flavors available than the measly pickings at our local walmart…. :)
Here is a link to Joann’s Fabric and they sell them online: http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog.jsp?CATID=cat213846&PRODID=xprd72785
I could make 2-3 batches per bottle, depending on the amount of flavor I wanted. I hope this helps. Good luck. They are super fun to make.
These look great! Nice idea, Lollipops are good for every season.
I’ll try it !!