Lemon Drops from Scratch: Hard Candy at Any Altitude
A lemon drop is sugar cooked until almost no water is left, then cooled so fast that it sets as a glass rather than as crystals. It is the right first candy because it teaches the one skill every boiled sweet depends on: knowing what temperature the syrup has to reach in your own kitchen. The rest is five ingredients and about an hour, most of it cooling.
Glucose or corn syrup is the ingredient that makes it forgiving. It gets in the way of sucrose crystals forming, which is why the drops come out clear instead of grainy. A boiled drop is a different object from the pressed sugar pastilles of Turin described in the Pastiglie Leone guide, and a cousin of the boiled sweets in the licorice guide. Make one batch, though, and a tin of either becomes easier to read.
First, find your finish temperature
At sea level, hard crack is 300 to 308°F, where the syrup turns light golden. Water boils at a lower temperature higher up, so the syrup gets there earlier, and a sea-level number will overcook it. Colorado State University Extension gives a simple correction. Read your thermometer in boiling water, subtract that reading from 212°F, and take the difference off the recipe's temperature. The rough rule is 2°F lower for every 1,000 feet. The boil check also catches a thermometer that reads high or low, so do it even at the beach.
| Where | Water boils at (about) | Finish this recipe at |
|---|---|---|
| Sea level | 212°F | 300°F |
| 2,500 ft | 207°F | 295°F |
| Denver, 5,280 ft | 202°F | 290°F |
| 8,000 ft | 197°F | 285°F |
Go by your own boiling-water reading, not the table. The altitude guide explains why the same adjustment applies to caramel, jam and fudge.
Ingredients, for about forty drops
- 200 g (1 cup) granulated sugar
- 110 g (1/3 cup) light corn syrup or glucose syrup
- 90 ml (6 tablespoons) water
- 1/4 teaspoon food-grade lemon oil (not alcohol-based extract)
- 1/2 teaspoon powdered citric acid, optional, for a sour edge
- 1/2 teaspoon neutral oil, for the mat
- 2 tablespoons powdered sugar, for dusting
Equipment: a heavy 2-quart saucepan, a clip-on candy thermometer that reads to at least 350°F, a silicone mat or parchment-lined tray, a heatproof spatula and two teaspoons.
Method
- Check the thermometer. Clip it in a small pan of boiling water and read it once the number holds steady. Subtract that from 212°F and take the difference off 300°F. That is your finish temperature. Write it down.
- Set up before you start. Lightly oil the mat. Measure the lemon oil and citric acid into a small cup and put it by the stove. From the moment the syrup comes off the heat, there are about two minutes before it gets too thick to spoon.
- Dissolve. Put the sugar, syrup and water in the saucepan over medium heat. Stir until every crystal has dissolved and the syrup runs clear, 3 to 4 minutes. Undissolved crystals can seed graining through the batch.
- Stop stirring. When it boils, put the lid on for 2 minutes so the steam washes stray sugar off the sides of the pan. Uncover, clip in the thermometer and leave the spoon out of the pan from now on.
- Boil to temperature. Let it boil undisturbed to your finish temperature, 12 to 18 minutes. The temperature climbs slowly at first and quickly near the end, so stay at the stove. The syrup should be clear to pale gold. If it starts turning amber before it reaches temperature, lower the heat.
- Flavor off the heat. Take the pan off the burner and wait about 30 seconds for the bubbling to settle. Tip in the lemon oil and citric acid and stir in three or four strokes, keeping your face away from the steam. Acid added during the boil splits some of the sucrose into glucose and fructose, which draw moisture and make the drops softer and stickier. Adding it off the heat keeps that to a minimum.
- Portion. Spoon drops of about a teaspoon onto the mat, using the second spoon to push each one off. If the syrup gets too thick, put the pan over low heat for a few seconds. Leave the last film of syrup in the pan: CSU Extension advises never scraping it, because scraping invites crystals.
- Cool and store. Leave the drops alone for 20 to 30 minutes, until they are hard as glass and come away from the mat cleanly. Toss them in powdered sugar and store airtight.
Why it went wrong
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudy or grainy, sets opaque | Sucrose crystallized: sugar left undissolved, the syrup was stirred while boiling, or the pan was scraped | Dissolve completely before the boil, cover to wash the sides, stop stirring, leave the last of the syrup in the pan |
| Bends or chews instead of snapping | Pulled off below hard crack, with too much water left in it | Check the thermometer in boiling water again and cook to the corrected temperature |
| Dark amber and bitter | Cooked to a sea-level temperature at altitude, or the heat was too high | Use the corrected finish temperature and medium heat near the end |
| Sticky within a day | Hard candy draws water from the air. Acid added during the boil, or a slight undercook, makes it worse. | Add acid off the heat, dust in powdered sugar, store airtight, and skip candy-making on a wet day |
| Full of bubbles | The flavoring was stirred in too hard | Three or four slow strokes, then spoon |
Notes and variations
Other flavors. Swap the lemon oil for the same amount of peppermint, anise or orange oil. Anise leads toward the Flavigny sweets, though those are panned around a seed rather than boiled. Sour drops. Double the citric acid and roll the finished drops in a mix of equal parts powdered sugar and citric acid. Molds. A silicone candy mold makes neat lozenges. Oil it lightly and fill it from a spoon.
In Denver, the dry air is on your side once the drops have set: stored in a sealed jar, they tend to stay glassy longer than in a humid climate. The storage guide covers keeping them, and How to Buy Pastilles explains how a pressed pastille differs from a boiled one on the label. For Turin's gianduja and the Piedmont around it, see Piedmont in autumn.
Staff in the shop can answer questions about any tin.
Sources & Further Reading
- Colorado State University Extension: Candy Making at High Elevation
- Colorado State University Extension: High Elevation Food Preparation Guide
- Journal of Food Engineering: Nucleation of amorphous sucrose–corn syrup mixtures
- Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking (Scribner, 2004), chapter 12, "Sugars, Chocolate, and Confectionery"
