Thursday, December 20, 2012

Candy Tray

Short and sweet today. 
This pin took Pinterest by storm and seemed pretty easy (famous last words):

The Original Pin
http://tuttobellablog.com/2011/12/19/diy-serving-tray-2/
Well...this is how it came out for Tanya ...

The Pinstrosity

Tanya says, "Surely you've seen those cute little trays that people have made out of peppermint candies.  You're supposed to unwrap the candies, arrange them on a baking sheet, and then bake for 350   8 to 10 minutes so the candies will melt into a lovely little sheet."

"I arranged my peppermints into two small-ish squares thinking I could use them as a tray for giveaway cookies.  Followed the instructions. 350 for 8 minutes."

"And then - my cute little squares turned into an UGLY mess.  Really ugly.
I tried to make the best of it by making swirly designs with a skewer, but I think this batch may end up being used in Peppermint Bark or something..."

I've been curious about this project, but after my success with these hard candy suckers...



I figured this was possible. 

The trick here is to watch it. The candies won't melt, won't melt, won't melt...then all the sudden they'll start melting fast. I learned with the suckers to not just trust the time specified for melting the candies. Every oven works just a little different from the next. It looks like to me that the candy tray got left in the oven just a few minutes too long.


9 comments:

  1. Clinton Kelly on "the Chew" did this on the show a few days ago, and one hint that he said, was to use the cheapest crappiest candies out there. Here's the link:
    http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/the-chew/videos/PL55251312/_m_VD55257429

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  2. I used to bake peppermint candies in a cookie cutter or muffin tin to hold the shape and then put the new thinner candy in a mug of hot cocoa. I think if you have something around the candies they'll hold the shape better.

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  3. Oh my goodness....sorta resembles Lady Gaga's meat dress. lol

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  4. This is exactly how mine turned out this week ....

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  5. We got this to work! Used cheap candy and after the 6 min mark, we opened the oven door every 10 seconds to check on it. We also used a small square baking dish with parchment paper.

    Now my daughter has a cute candle tray for Grandma - after we seal it with spray gloss.

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  6. My grandkids and I did this last week, and it worked great. Just had to watch the time, and check, as others said. We used a toaster-oven with a glass door. Even placed some over bowls to harden, and made cute little candy dishes.

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  7. I actually did the same thing but at a lower temperature. That will help a little.

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  8. I did this last year. I made two of them. They didn't turn out at all like yours. They were pretty good. The problems that I ran into were that it bubbled in places. My husband said it was because there was air in the candy. The second problem I had was that it was tacky when it cooled. I dusted it with a little bit of cornstarch. It dulled the colors a bit and gave it a matte finish but it worked pretty well.

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  9. Mine was gorgeous! And then as it cooled I heard an 'explosion' type noise and saw that it had cracked! So I crushed it all into pieces and we ate it!

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