Taffy........That YOU Made. Oh yes you can!

OK. Don't think me crazy and just read the post. It's super cute and looks relatively easy to do so read on before you throw it out the window! I would try this with my kids only I think, not my preschoolers from school. It would be like a bad sesame street episode. Read on! I think I'll make this for my sister. She adores taffy and she would be oober impressed by the home made factor. These would be great too as a favor at a birthday party.

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Welcome to our Sweat Sweet Shoppe! If you are alarmed by red dye, excessive amounts of sugar and under age workers turn away now!

If not, stick around and see how we made loads of homemade taffy!

Here's our recipe

Homemade Taffy

2 1/2 cups white sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup light corn syrup
1 1/3 cups water
2 tablespoons butter (plus lots extra to butter hands)
1 teaspoon salt
1 - .21oz (6g) package unsweetened, fruit-flavored drink mix (like Kool-Aid) (we used cherry)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Butter large jelly roll pan or a cookie sheet with sides.
In a medium saucepan, stir together the sugar and cornstarch.  Add corn syrup, water, butter and salt and stir well until butter is melted. Bring to a boil over medium heat and stop stirring. Cook mixture until candy thermometer read 250 degrees F (120 degrees C). This takes some time to get it to 250 degrees. Once it approaches 250 degrees watch very closely because it cooks quickly at the end.  Immediately remove from heat. Carefully stir in vanilla and drink mix. Stir well. We should have stirred ours more-- notice some bits of drink mix (dark spots) on our taffy. Pour mixture onto buttered baking pan. Allow to cool enough to handle, about 10 minutes.

Directions:

Once the taffy has cooled enough to handle, butter hands and begin pulling. (It starts kind of translucent)

Then pull...and pull...butter hands again...pull...

and stretch...pull...more hand buttering...pull...

It will become more opaque and lighten in color depending on the attention span of your workers! This takes about 10-15 minutes of pulling.

Pull into long ropes and cut with buttered scissors.

and cut!

Wrap pieces of taffy in pieces of waxed paper

and give it a good twist on each end.

Finished!

Sweet!!

Nothing V-dayish here but thought this one was simple, cute, and clean. Hope you can make one. I think I will put hearts on mine in stead of fags. Find it over at How About Orange blog.

Nothing V-dayish here but thought this one was simple, cute, and clean. Hope you can make one. I think I will put hearts on mine in stead of fags. Find it over at How About Orange blog. 

Mini bunting birthday card

My latest quickie DIY project: a birthday card with a tiny bunting of miniature flags. If you want to try one, here's how to make it.

Fold a sheet of cardstock into thirds, accordian style. If you want a printed message on your card, run it through your printer before folding.

Cut out strips of colored paper and fold them in half lengthwise. (My strips were about 1" wide.) Cut the folded strips into tiny triangles; they should look like little hinges. Make a few strings of bunting by folding triangles over a cord and gluing both halves together.

With an X-acto knife, cut tiny slits in the folded edge of the cover of your card. Thread one end of each bunting cord through a slit and secure the cord end behind the cover with a piece of tape. Wrap the opposite end of each cord around the cover of the card and secure it in the back with more tape. Then place double stick tape around the edges and center of the back side of the cover and stick the cover to the adjacent panel, hiding the taped ends of your bunting. Round the corners of your card if you like, and you're done.