How to Make Your Own Candy Canes (2024)

Although homemade candy canes require some time and energy, everyone's amazement and delight—including your own—will make the endeavor worthwhile. Candy canes from scratch look just as fun and festive as store-bought ones. They'll have a beautiful glossy sheen, twisting, bright stripes, and that traditional minty taste.

Like most hard sweets, candy canes call for a few basic ingredients: sugar, water, corn syrup, along with some peppermint extract for flavor and food coloring. The challenge lies in boiling the sugar, then pulling the candy until it's stiff but pliable, and finally, forming it into the right shapes. Because molten sugar requires careful attention, make sure to read the whole recipe thoroughly and set up your work station before you embark on this project. It's definitely wise to invest in acandy thermometer as well as heat resistant plastic gloves, since burning your fingers is a real danger. However, as long as you use the right equipment and exercise caution, you should not have trouble with this foolproof recipe; in fact, it should be fun.

Peppermint Swirl Brownies

What You'll Need to Make This Candy Canes Recipe

A Nice Rimmed Baking Sheet

A Great Saucepan

A Handy Dandy Pastry Brush

“The long list of steps seems intimidating but as long as you have a pair of heat-resistant gloves this recipe's execution is surprisingly simple! If you’re having trouble finding any white food coloring, try heading to a crafts store rather than a normal supermarket.” —Noah Velush-Rogers

A Note From Our Recipe Tester

Ingredients

Cooking spray, for baking sheets
3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup water, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons peppermint extract
1 teaspoon red gel food coloring, more as needed
1 teaspoon white gel food coloring, optional

Steps to Make It

Gather the ingredients.
Spray 2 rimmed baking sheets withcooking sprayand set aside. Position a rack in the upper and lower third of the oven and heat to 200 F.
Combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup of water in a mediumsaucepan over medium-high heat. Stir with a silicone spatula until the sugar dissolves.
Pour remaining 1/4 cup water into a small bowl and use it to wet a pastry brush.
Use the wet brush to wash any sugar crystals off side of pan. Do not stir syrup.
When syrup comes to a boil, inserta candy thermometer and continue to cook, without stirring, until thermometer registers 285 F. At this point, the candy will have reached the soft-crack stage.
Remove from heat. Let bubbles subside, thenstir in peppermint extract.
Pour about half of the syrup onto one prepared baking sheet and place it in the oven.
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Homemade Salted Caramel Eggnog Recipe - The Cookie Rookie®
Stir red food coloring into remaining syrup. If necessary, add more coloring to achieve a vibrant shade of red.
Pour candy ontothe remaining bakingsheet and allow it to sit briefly until it forms a “skin.”
Spray a bench scraper or metal spatula with cooking spray, and use the tool to "knead" the candy. Flatten the candy, thenfold it back over itself. Repeat this process until the candy is significantly cooler, 1 to 2 minutes.
Using heat-resistant gloves, stretch the candy into a long rope, then fold rope in half and twist candy until it melts back into itself.
Repeat this process until the candy takes on an opaque color and a satiny finish, 2 to 3 minutes. At this point, the candy will be warm—you should have some trouble pulling and folding it.
Stretch candy into a rope, about 2 inches in diameter, then return it to oven, where it will stay warm and pliable.
Remove other baking sheet from oven. Knead the white food coloring into the candy, if using.
Pull and fold the candy in the same fashion as the red batch until it becomes opaque, glossy, and difficult to pull.
Stretch it into a second log, about 2 inchesin diameter.
Remove red candy from oven. Cut a 2-inch segment from the white log and another 2-inch segment from the red log. Put the remaining candy back in oven.
Squeeze 2 segments together until they form a two-toned log.
Stretch candy again. This step will determine the thickness of your candy canes—you can make them thinner (with a 1/4-inch diameter) or thicker (with a 1/2-inch diameter).
When you're happy with the candy's width, twist rope to form those distinctive candy stripes.
Oil or use cooking spray on a pair of cooking shears and cut candy into smaller pieces. Again, you can choose to make long or short candy canes. A 7-inch piece of candy will yield a medium-sized candy cane.
Immediately formthe hook at the top of the cane and place it on a clean surface to firm up at room temperature.
Cut off another segment from each log, returning the remaining logs to the oven, and repeat the twisting and stretching process until you have used all the candy.

Tips

Make sure you have a calibrated clip-on candy thermometer before you begin this recipe. The thermometer will tell you when to take the sugar syrup off the stove; if yours is faulty or incorrectly calibrated, then you may undercook or overcook the syrup.
Invest in heat resistant gloves, which will protect your hands from the hot candy and the dye. They are available online.
If the candy cracks or hardens, return it to the warm oven for just a few minutes. Any longer and the candy will lose its shape. At room temperature, your candy canes should be as hard as the store-bought variety.
Be sure to wrap them in plastic wrap or cellophane to preserve their shelf life.

Variation

Candy canes are fun to eat on their own, but there are plenty of creative ways to use them in other recipes around the holidays.

Crush them up and use them in peppermint bark.
Make chocolate truffles and sprinkle them over the truffles like snow.
Melt white chocolate, crush up candy canes, and combine both with popcorn for a fun holiday treat.

Basic Marshmallows

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
184	Calories
0g	Fat
48g	Carbs
0g	Protein

Show Full Nutrition Label

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 12to 18
Amount per serving
Calories	184
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 0g	0%
Saturated Fat 0g	0%
Cholesterol 0mg	0%
Sodium 12mg	1%
Total Carbohydrate 48g	17%
Dietary Fiber 0g	0%
Total Sugars 48g
Protein 0g
Vitamin C 0mg	0%
Calcium 3mg	0%
Iron 0mg	0%
Potassium 1mg	0%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

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How to Make Your Own Candy Canes (2024)

Tips

Variation

References