They’re done!

They’re finally done!

I am not a candy maker.  I’ve always said it, and now I know why.  These things were a challenge, and not in the way that I normally like.  You know why?  Science is hard.  Something about the ratio of sugar to water, or how I was supposed to heat the solution, for how long to what temperature…  somewhere I went horribly wrong, and the end result were little slivers of preserved oranges drowning beneath a crusty exterior of crystallized sugar.  Al sort of looked at them, looked at the originals from Bissinger’s, and said, “Well, they don’t quite look the same.”

I decided to try and save them from their armor of hard sugar crystals.  I put a pot of water on the stove to boil, kept adding heaps of sugar and dashes of vanilla extract, until I got the consistency up to a slightly-thick syrup at a nice boil.  I threw a few of the sugar-armadillo slices in to swim, and after a few minutes in the turbulence, fished them back out again.  Most of the sugar crystals were melted away, and (fingers crossed) I hoped most of the flavor wasn’t.

Back on their grates to dry out in the oven for a few hours (set at its lowest temperature, which on my oven turns out to be 170), and the end result was passable.  Al tried one and said it was much improved over its crunchy predecessor.  Success!

Sort of.

I’m competitive, and noticed he didn’t say they were as good as the candy shop version.

Maybe I’ll try again…

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