Read the recipe through several times before you start.  Remove all children and pets from the premises!  You can double the recipe – if you do, double everything – including flavoring and color.  You make one flavor at a time.  This is so pretty given as a mix in jars.

Old Fashioned Hard-Tack Candy

2 cups sugar
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1 cup water

Combine in a heavy pan.  Dissolve, bring to boil (stirring occasionally), reduce heat to medium and cook until you reach 300 degrees on a candy thermometer.  (Test the first batch by water method to be sure your thermometer is correct…drop a small bit into cold water…you want it to thread…you want it to snap when you test it…and you don't want it to be tacky.)  Remove immediately.  Stir in coloring and flavoring thoroughly.   (If you are making a fruit flavor, you add the citric acid here.)  Pour on a buttered marble slab or buttered cookie sheet.   (Pick your method – either cut into strips [using a pizza cutter or kitchen scissors] – or pour it into a large cookie sheet, cool, and break.)  I used a  pizza cutter – scoring when it was cool enough to hold the pattern without oozing back into a blob.  When cutting – or after breaking, transfer it to a clean towel that is sprinkled liberally with powdered sugar. Coat the pieces with powdered sugar to prevent sticking as they are cut, broken, or snapped.  If cutting, you may need another person – you have to work FAST!   (If you score it, you can snap the pieces by hand.) Let cool completely.  Seal it air tight. 

Oil flavorings – you use 1 teaspoon or 1 dram or one small bottle for each flavor. 

You use regular food coloring (anise is the exception) as follows…

peppermint – no color, clear

cinnamon – 1/2 teaspoon red

clove – 4 drops blue, 1 drop green

anise – 1 teaspoon of powdered charcoal

sassafras – 1 drop red, 2 drops yellow

wintergreen – 1/2 teaspoon green

spearmint – 5 drops yellow, 1 drop green

wild cherry* – 6 drops red, 1 drop blue

lime* – 3 drops green

lemon* – 3 drops yellow

orange* – 6 drops yellow, 3 drops red

In addition to the flavors above, I made many different ones…making up my own colors…staying as true as possible to the flavors.

*When you make the fruit flavors, you add 1 teaspoon of citric acid…it comes in a liquid form…if you use the powdered, stir it in with the flavoring and color thoroughly.

I got flavorings and citric acid here:  http://tinyurl.com/67ub3u

(LorAnn Oils)

If glass candy comes out in little lumps and bumps and odd shapes, it probably is…if you don't coat it with powdered sugar (which doesn't take way from the color and prettiness at all) it will stick – especially in a more humid climate.  Part of the fun of eating hard candy (IMO) is licking off the powdered sugar.  When mom and I make it, we make HUGE batches of every color – mix them and give them as gifts.