I'm so happy that my husband is off work this week! Next week of course he has to work 12 hour shifts. We also get to spend Christmas with my Momma. I'm so excited for Christmas morning, I can hardly wait!!
Today Rich and I took Ariana to Gymboree only to get there and find out there wasn't class today. But, luckily we got to stay and play during "free gym". That's all Ariana wants to do these days anyways. She had fun climbing on everything and collecting up all the balls they had there.
My friend Maggie came to visit me last week and we thought it would be fun to make candy coal for people.
Don't they look cute?
We ended up making 6 fairly good sized bags and packed them up as fun little additions to packages to send to people. I thought if anyone was looking for a last minute craft or stocking stuffer, that this might be fun!
Candy Coal Recipe
Ingredients:
4 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups corn syrup
1 cup water
2 teaspoons peppermint oil
1 teaspoon black food coloring paste
1. Line 8 in. square metal baking pan with foil overlapping on the edges. I used a probably a 8x11 pan. Butter the bottom and sides of the pan. Set aside for later.
2. Measure sugar, corn syrup and water in a large, heavy bottomed pot.
3. Stir over medium-low heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture begins to boil. Be very careful to keep the sugary mixture from splashing up on the sides.
4. Once the mixture starts to boil, carefully place your candy thermometer into the mixture and clip it to the side of the pot. Make sure the bottom of the thermometer isn't touching the bottom of the pot.
5. Boil the mixture, without stirring until the thermometer reads 290 degrees. This should take about 15-20 minutes.
6. Once the mixture reaches 290, immediately remove it from heat and remove the thermometer. Add in the peppermint oil (or whatever flavor you want) and the food coloring.
7. Pour the mixture into the pan you prepared earlier and let it cool completely. Do NOT place in the refrigerator.
8. Once cooled, break the candy into pieces by dropping the pan, or breaking with a wooden mallet or rolling pin.
** This recipe yields about 3 pounds of candy. Original recipe found
here.
Make the candy as directed in the recipe above. Once cooled, crush up into chunks. I used the end of my wooden spoon. Took out a little frustration LOL! Surprisingly Ariana slept through all my very loud banging.
Place into little treat bags and close off with a twist tie or rubberband. Ours made 6 handful size baggies.
We got canvas fabric and cut it into long rectangles that we could fold up around the coal. We hand stiched the sides up to make a pocket to slide the bags of coal inside. Leave the tops open to make a cute gather.
Maggie hand stitching some of the bags.
Then we just painted the word COAL on each bag. We dotted the brush to make the letters to give it more of an old fashioned stamped look.
Lastly we tied the tops closed with raffia and they were ready to go! We tried a few different ribbons but decided that we liked the plainness of the raffia. Coal is for the naughty boys and girls so putting a pretty ribbon on it just seemed wrong!
What last minute crafts and goodies are you making this week!?
Happy Holidays Everyone!!
xo,
Cat
