Candy and Sweets

Candy & Sweet

Confectionery Sweets make a delicious treat for children to take home after parties and excellent prizes for party games. Commercially made sweets are a quick alternative for filling sweets bags, but homemade treats have added charms and flavor. Some of these recipes can be made by the party host others could be made with help from you. Confectionery can be alternatively presented in a variety of ways. Put some in a paper cup or a thin basket, cover with cellophane and add to a flourish of curly ribbon; or use paper serviettes or colored paper, twisted into cones. Larger treats can be individually wrapped and tied with ribbon.

Children enjoy making their own sweets bags. To give them a good supply of paints, felt-tipped pens, colored pencils and crayons, and an assortment of brown and white paper bags, and let their imaginations run wild. Add a selection of scissors, glitter, tape, glue, stars and stickers, used gift wrap, old greeting cards, and recycled boxes and containers.
Alternative make packaging from small lunch bags or cellophane packets. Make cardboard baskets decorated with hand-drawn patterns or a collage of pictures cut from old magazines. Margarine tubs can be decorated with stickers and glitters. The filling of an ice-cream cone with sweets, then wrapping it in cellophane. If you have felt, fabric or tulle left over from sewing use them to make pouches or small loot bags.
Filled sweet bags can be prepared well ahead of time. Toffee-based treats such as toffee apples, praline, sesame crunch, and popcorn pearls should be stor in a dry place, particularly in humid weather. 
Alternatively, prepar them on the day of the party, or one day before.
Children enjoy helping in the preparation and cooking of sweets
 but remember that hot sugar mixture does reach a very high temperature and can inflict seriously burns if they are accidentally spilled or splashed. Young children need help and a watchful eye if they volunteer as sweet makers. 

SECRETS FOR SUCCESS:

Confectionery is not difficult to make provided a few rules are applied:

• Use have based pan when making toffee and syrup.

Candy and sweet 
• Choose wooden spoons for stirring sugar syrups as they do not transfer heat, nor they discolor the pan.
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• Prior the cooking have utensils and ingredient ready. You will need to work very quickly before the mixture begin to set. 

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• A candy thermometer although not essential, does take the guesswork out of cooking sugar syrups. If using one place, boil another pan. After the syrup has boiled transfer the candy thermometer to the syrup; clip it to the side of the pan. Watch the temperature carefully, particularly as the mixture approaches the required heat.

• When making toffee-based sweets -or boiling sugar before the mixture boiled. Do this by boiling syrup slowly to the boil and stirring until the sugar dissolved. Wash undissolved sugar crystal down the side of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in water.

• Unless the recipe advises otherwise, avoid stirring a sugar syrup after it has come to a boil.

• In humid weather, remember that the sugar mixture takes longer to cook. After cooking, store in a dry place to prevent the confectionery from becoming syrupy. 

Decorations:

When confectionery has been made, decorate it with hundred and thousand of coconut, silver cachous, cherries, chopped nuts, licorice, melted or grated chocolate, sesame seeds, dried fruits, or colored sugar.