There are all kinds of treasure in the world of Minecraft. We wanted some of ours to be edible, so we made these candy jewels. I found this candy mold at Joann for 99c one day while shopping for fabric and bought it, not knowing what exactly to use it for. And then this Minecraft party came along. Hurrah!
We decided not to make our candy from scratch just to avoid buying candy flavors that we would never use after this party. Instead, we bought a pack of Jolly Ranchers and melted them. Here's what we used in our candy lab:
- cooking spray to coat the form (wipe off the excess with a paper towel)
- hard candy
- some popsicle sticks (one per color of candy)
- cupcake liners - a lot of them; you'll be using-and-tossing, and
- a thing to hold the cupcake liners that you can use in the microwave. Ours was a silicone cupcake mold, but you can use a ramekin or something similar. This is to support the flimsy paper liner when pouring and to protect your hand from being burnt by the molten candy.
We used one popsicle stick per color, and one cupcake liner for each round of melting. This is what "each round of melting" entails:
- Unwrap two to three candies of the same color and put them in a cupcake liner. Set that in the silicone mold/ramekin.
- Melt this in the microwave oven - start with 30 seconds, then add another 20-30 seconds as needed. Check regularly! You may need a shorter or longer time, depending on your microwave and its power setting. When all the candies are completely molten,
pour the liquid into the forms. It will be incredibly bubbly and you will panic and imagine lots of air bubbles trapped in your hardened candy gems. Fear not - they'll all disappear. Use the popsicle stick to scrape it all out. It hardens really quickly, so you'll only be able to fill one row at a time.
- Toss the entire cupcake liner with the remnant hardened candy away. Don't be tempted to reheat it - this tends to change its color and flavor, and not always in a good way.
- Wait a couple of minutes till the candies harden in the forms and then pop them out with your fingernail. They come out really easily.
- Take a new paper cupcake liner and repeat the process with two or three more candies.
- When you use candies of a different color, use a new popsicle stick.
When the candies were all cool, we packed them in little cellophane gift bags
for trading with Villagers.
What a great idea! I don't have children and I don't have any genuine excuse to try this out but it's so brilliant I might just do it for myself anyway.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing! Both of my kids are minecraft fans, so I'm pretty sure we will have a minecraft party in our near future. Adding to my Pins!
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