I have made homemade marshmallows. The process is easy and they taste wonderful. It is a good thing it takes some time for them to rest and set, otherwise I would be making them much more often.

Thanks tishtosh. Since your experience is so good, can I get your recipe? I am guessing they are good for a couple of weeks?

So, the trick to making them look lovely, in my experience, is to spend a lot of time planning and making sure of recipes, ingredients, equipment, etc. Lay out the equipment on a tray like a surgical set up, and include plenty of extra spoons, etc. Also have a crock with water in it to put all those sugar coated messy tools in. Perhaps even a second jar with clean warm rinse water so you can just swish around your thermometer, et al., and get back to work. Change the water whenever you're not otherwise encumbered. Have the recipe(s) in easy to see print (I always type my recipes into the computer and adjust the font), and tape to a cabinet door or something so they can't be covered. Have a good stock of gloves, both the tight kind and the baggie kind.

Clean the kitchen well and remove all clutter. Have a stack of cookie sheets or trays and precut parchment out and ready just in case you need moveable surfaces if things start running away with you. Rid the house of kids and, um, great big kids if it's an outcome oriented project, rather than a family experience project. Let all calls go to voicemail :) Don't have a set end time. If you're trying to get it done before the school run, have someone else pick up and keep the kids until you're finished. If you're finished in time to go yourself, you can always cancel--or use the extra time to relax!

Once all that is organized and situated to give you the optimal experience, all thought done in advance, the actual making of the candy should go forth with calm concentration. No panicked rush. All becomes beautiful because you're not pushing it or winging it. And you can lavish the projects with love and intention that the family will feel and cherish.

Good luck with the endeavor!

The recipe I have used comes from King Arthur Flour: Homemade marshmallows. As I have 4 kids, and am a marshmallow lover myself, they last exactly 1-2 days here. Sometime I hope to make layered marshmallows, with different flavors. I may try that over Spring Break.

Instead of peanut butter cups, how about making the equivalent of "Buckeye Balls", where the PB filling is formed into a ball, then dipped in melted chocolate. To make them more Easter-appropriate, you could dip in white chocolate or pastel-colored "melts" and decorate the tops with sprinkles and things. :)

FWIW, my mother filled our Easter baskets with fresh fruit (always an apple, pear, orange, banana, grapes, and whatever else she found), just a bit of each of our favorite Easter candies, and one hollow bunny of our preferred flavor. When I was lucky, she'd also include a can of black olives for me. :O)

I have never had a Peeps before. I don't even remember seeing them in stores which probably seems crazy because I don't live in a Hudderite village or anything! plllog, I will come back to this post because I need to use your post like a mantra or something. And tishtosh, thanks, I will use your recipe since it sounds like a sure thing...with care, of course.

I am a little nervous of the gumdrops but it sounds easy enough. I want to make them spearmint flavour.

http://www.lorannoils.com/homemade-gumdrops-r0243

I don't remember ever eating a Peeps though I've seen them at the store. I just love the thought Sleevendog's Peeps s'mores. :)

So, I forgot a couple of just in case things by channeling the peace and calm: Wear long sleeves and tie back/up your hair. Also, make sure your fire extinguisher is charged and out where you can grab it but not trip over it, and get out a big heavy pot lid, easy to grab but not on or by the stove, for smothering. Put out a deep pan of water a step away from the stove. Have a big stack of clean rags ready, and another of clean towels. Make sure you have a burn kit up to date and at the ready. These are good things to get ready with the kids if they're not worriers. Sugar burns are the worst, and often what people are least ready to deal with. Gloves are your friends, but you can be burnt right through them.

Dunk the burn in the pan of water immediately to stop the burning and get the sugar off. Dunk your whole arm if you need to, or use a rag to bring water to the burn. Cooling the sugar and then the burnt skin underneath is of primary importance. Use room temp water, no ice. As soon as you can, put it under running water at the sink. If you get it cooled quickly, it may just be a little booboo. If there is cloth or plastic stuck to the burn, don't try to peel it--go to the emergency room. If it blisters up, don't touch it with fibers which can stick. I've read that you can put plastic wrap or a baggie around it, so maybe have a cut piece out. You're just supposed to lay it on the burn, rather than wrapping the limb. I assume until you get professional treatment.

In my experience, being ready for disaster is a good prevention for it. It puts in your mind before you start that you can control fires, and that you must not touch the pretty liquids, that they're much hotter than hot water, and they stick. Being ready for it primes your brain to not do stupid stuff and to be careful. :)

Oh, yeah, Peeps. They come in flavors now too, from Birthday Cake to Raspberry and Cherry-Limeade. It seems kind of wrong, somehow....

I always filled my girls' baskets with a little candy then finished up with things like hair bows, nail polish, chapstick, books, markers, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, anything that was cheap and wasn't candy, LOL.

I have made those sugar eggs with the window and the diorama inside, that was a pain but impressive. I make fudge, divinity, various truffles and peanut butter balls at Christmas and have made caramels and nut clusters with The Monkey Princess. I made taffy once and pulled it, but that was a "never again" experience!

I know AnnT makes peanut butter eggs and I ought to do that, the homemade ones are just so much better than Reese's...

Annie

OMG!! I mean, Peeps don't seem like they come from nature, but those flavors sound like those potato chip chemicals we seem to discuss every year. I can't even deal with truffle oil...

Annie, how do you make peanut butter eggs? I mean, do you make a peanut butter egg and put it in a mold with chocolate? Make a hollow chocolate egg and inject the filling?

I'm impressed about the window sugar eggs. It sounds like making a ship in a bottle, only less forgiving.

Someday, I'm going to learn to blow sugar...

plllog your post is reminding me that I have a gas stove now so am nervous. I have made candy a few times but gas freaks me out a little. Especially since having a little incident last week.

Never heard of window sugar eggs or the buckeyes so I will google both. Any input with chocolate silicone moulds? I am interested in buying an egg shape one with a pretty design on it. I am hesitant though - isn't the peanut mixture a little heavy? I don't think I would be able to properly put it in the mould without breaking the chocolate?

My Buckeye Balls recipe is basically like this one: Buckeye Balls

though I cover mine completely in melted chocolate. They're also good if you add rice krispie cereal to the PB filling! :)

Have you ever made sugar-string eggs? Fairly simple... most just dip string in a sugar-water solution and drape it over a balloon.

ETA: I have made lots of candies over the years... gumdrops and jellies are easy. Buttermints are also easy and nice in pastel colors if you like them.

I have used plastic molds, so don't know about dealing with silicone, but you can easily adjust the PB filling to the consistency you want... add less confectioner's sugar if you don't want it too stiff.

Cookie8, if you have that pot lid handy, and your fire extinguisher, and you don't wear floppy sleeves or put combustibles right by the stove, you're fine with the gas. Also, it's sugar work (I was thinking about the gumdrops) that you have to be really fire sensitive about. Sugar doesn't need to catch fire to burn you, and it rarely catches fire--it's just that it does. Be sensible. Be prepared. You'll be fine. The chocolate is much easier to deal with--it can also burn if you get it on you, but it comes off easily, whereas sugar sticks.

I don't know if this will help your transition to gas, but it might be worth a laugh. I wrote it when Rhome410 got her first gas stove as an open 8-burner Wolf, and she reposted it in this thread: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2668190/help~-gas-cooking-virgin-needs-reassurance?n=25

Re peanut butter, you can make a whipped peanut butter candy filling, which is what they have in peanut butter cups. Add sugar and a tiny amount of water, and whip to put air in it. Then it's not so heavy.

I use the peanut butter filling for buckeyes, shape it into an egg (like a Reese's egg), then dip the whole thing in chocolate. Add sprinkles or decorations if you like. I've also used the chocolate molds, painting a layer of chocolate onto the egg mold, then adding another, until it's thick enough, then fill that egg with the peanut butter filling, a spoonful as big as you want. Spoon enough melted chocolate to fill the gaps and cover the back, let it sit and pop it out. Voila, PB eggs. This works with rabbit molds too, and chicks, whatever.

PM, we used to make those string eggs, but we dipped the strings in glue, draped them over the balloon and when they were dry, popped the balloon, leaving the webbed egg shape to use as decoration.

Plllog, it was interesting, basically sugar and water to make a thick "paste", then pack it into a plastic egg mold. When it's getting dry you "carve" the center carefully, until the egg is hollow, then add the decorations inside. I put one I made on top of a cake for Easter once, and used one as a centerpiece, after decorating it with Royal Icing. I make them because I remember we always got those sugar "window" eggs in our Easter baskets when we were kids but they are fragile, so I've given up on small individual eggs and only make the big ones..

I have a picture on Photobucket, but I can't manage to get a picture from there to here, of course. Here's one in an old thread, about half way down...

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2412891/easter

Annie

Oh man, reading this just gave me an idea; what about making tiny peanut butter cookie 'bites' & dipping them in chocolate, hmmm?

Martha Stewart's site has some very detailed tutorials for candy making & sugar eggs as well, IIRC.

Thanks to this post, this weekend I made this recipe for mounds candy bars. I do not have candy molds, so we did them in a heart shaped muffin tin. Removing them was not always pretty, but they were delicious. Next time we may try them in mini muffin cups that are lined with foil. My 10 year old did all of the work on them with me supervising. We will definitely try this again.

Thanks for the description and link, Annie! That's lovely! You said the magic words: Royal Icing. I've never gotten the hang of piping royal icing. I always admired the window eggs when I was a kid, but they were expensive and just sugar, and my parents did not see the need to give me one, even though we were allowed a little Easter candy if it wasn't during Passover. BTW, I love the peeps hatching from the cupcakes too. :)

My DIL is a cake decorator and in passing said she had a big bottle of Rosewater and what the heck would she ever use it for (she said it tasted like soap). I have an old, old cookbook for candy and sweets and came across Greek style Turkish Delights - using rosewater. I made them and then sent her a sample and the recipe. No soap taste - just Delight! One of those candies that is off the edge of normal.

Nancy, there are a lot of Middle Eastern recipes that use rosewater, including many for Ramadan (fasting during the day, eating after dark). There's a "tea" that I think is just hot water and rosewater, and it's used in rice.

Greek style Turkish anything makes me smile--and I'd love to have the recipe if it's not a bother. :)

The recipe is really quite simple. "Chocolates, Sweets, and Toffees" printed in London 1979. It is sometimes confusing to translate the ingredients into American English so I wrote this one with both. I use a kitchen scale with metric measurements for accuracy when I follow a recipe written in Great Britain. I still have to think about the difference between caster sugar, icing sugar, and granulated sugar, then there is glucose and whatever chocolate vermicelli is, and some ingredients I have to look up like golden syrup (found Lyle's at grocery store's imported section!) and black treacle that is, I assume, the equivalent to molasses. And, it is funny to see some equipment names like "pudding basin" (a ceramic, glass or earthenware bowl used for steaming or as the top part of a double boiler), and a "broad-based knife" that I assume to be a metal spatula a.k.a. pancake turner. Language is funny - we even have multiple names for our stuff.

Turkish Delight - makes 1 1/4 lb (560 g)

Ungreased shallow tin 8x6" (20x15 cm) -- I used an 8" square pan.

In a saucepan put in 1 1/4 C (300ml) hot water and sprinkle 3 T unflavored gelatin(e) over it. Add 2 C (450g) granulated sugar and 1/4 t citric acid. Heat over a gentle heat stirring constantly with a metal spoon until sugar is dissolved. Raise the heat, bring to a boil, and boil 20 minutes. Off heat let stand 10 minutes without stirring. Then, stir in the flavor and color.

Turkish: 1/4 t vanilla essence, 1/4 t almond essence, half the mixture tinted with 1/4 t red coloring (hint: pour half the flavored mixture into the pan, stir in the coloring to the saucepan then pour that over the uncolored mixture)

Greek: 2 or 3 drops rosewater, no coloring

Peppermint: 1/4 t peppermint essence and 3 or 4 drops red coloring

Pour the syrup in the pan and let it set for 24 hours at room temperature.

On a piece of parchment paper or waxed paper sift 1/3 C (56 g) powdered sugar (icing sugar) and 2 T cornstarch (cornflour) evenly over. Unmold the candy onto the paper. Cut into even squares with a sharp knife and toss the cubes around to evenly coat sifting more sugar/cornstarch over as needed. Put in a waxed paper lined airtight cookie box (metal tin).

Thanks so much, Nancy! No problems here. I use a scale and I'm fine on the language. I have caster sugar, citric acid, rosewater, etc. I definitely want to try this if I get time!

Golden syrup is a caramelized invert sugar and easy to make. :)