Make Your Own Candy Corn!

A few years ago I was on a big health kick and I found this recipe for making your own dairy free candy corn. Not that candy corn is necessarily healthy, but at least making your own you get to control the ingredients. I’ve used this recipe a bunch of times and while it’s not exactly the same as the store bought kind, it’s a pretty delicious substitute. Let your kids help you need the color into the dough and roll out the ropes. They’ll love it. The full recipe is listed if you click the “read more” link.

Melt It All Together

After clicking through the slideshow make sure to click the “Read more” link for the full recipe and instructions. This is a pretty simple recipe as far as candy-making goes and these candycorn won’t give you an upset stomach after you indulge! Start by melting all the ingredients together.

Let it Roll

After needing food coloring into your dough, roll it out into long ropes and stack them just like the colors in candycorn. Kids can help out with this step.

Cut it Out, No Really...

After making lots of little ropes and stackign them together, use a sharp knife to cut out little triangles. Let them dry and cool completely before dusting them with powdered sugar to keep them from sticking and storing them in an airtight container.

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Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup corn syrup
5 tablespoons margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup powdered soy milk (available via health food stores)
a pinch of sea salt
Red and yellow food coloring

Instructions…
1. In a large saucepan, bring the sugar, corn syrup, margarine, and vanilla to a boil over high heat.
2. Reduce the heat to medium-high and boil the mixture for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. After 5 minutes, remove from heat.
4. Sift the powdered sugar, powdered soy milk, and salt into medium bowl.
5. Add the powdered sugar mixture to pan and stir to combine.
6. Let the mixture stand until slightly warm to touch, about 20 minutes.
7. Divide the dough into 3 equal pieces.(Consider putting on rubber gloves, so you don’t stain your hands.) Add several drops of yellow food coloring to one piece of dough and knead food coloring into the dough until smooth and color is even. Repeat using red and yellow food coloring (for orange) with the second piece and leave the last piece white, but knead it until smooth.
8. Roll each piece into ropes of equal length (don’t roll too thin or the dough will break) and push the three ropes together to form a long rectangle.
9. Using sharp knife, cut the ropes into triangles by alternating vertical cuts to the left and right. Some will be white tipped and some will be yellow tipped. This (supposedly) yields 110 candy corn, larger than store-bought, but I’ve never ended up with the same number twice. It all depends on your rolling technique.

My notes:
These are slightly less sweet than store-bought which is good because you won’t get that sick-to-your stomach feeling after eating a few. Getting all your candy corn the same size is hard so if you’re not too Type A about it, just let it go. It’s hard to get each rope the exact same size and each cut the exact same width. Dust them with powdered sugar and store in airtight containers.