Homemade Suckers

"This is great, I'm sure the kids and I will enjoy it all very much. Keep up the good work!"

Homemade suckers or homemade lollipops (whichever you call them)are perfect for any holiday or birthday. Younger kids can still help with certain steps but let the adult do the cooking on the stove and any handling afterwards. Here is how one mom got her 4 year old involved in helping. Thank you Cindy G. for sharing!

Recipe for Homemade Suckers

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/3 light corn syrup
1/2-1 1/2 teaspoons flavoring
Food coloring

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Put your sucker molds with the sticks in them on wax paper or a greased cookie sheet. (I usually use waxed paper, but I didn't have any that day)

preparing sucker sticks for homemade suckers

Mix all the ingredients together in a saucepan. I let my son put everything in the pan before I turned the heat on.

adding ingredients to homemade suckers

The stove wasn't on in this picture.

Cook it over med-high heat, stir until all the sugar is dissolved. Boil until it reaches the hard-crack stage, which is about 300 degree on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat and add food coloring slowly, then add the flavoring. (I've found that you need to add the color first and stir and then add the flavoring, that will give it a little time to cool before you put the flavoring in, because the flavorings can burn and then your suckers taste burnt)

boiling suckers

Pour slowly into the molds. Don't worry about any bubbles, they'll go away on their own. My son and I put sprinkles on the suckers we made, but you don't have to. Just sprinkle them on right after you pour the syrup into the molds, don't wait too long or the suckers will start to set up and they won't stick.

eating homemade suckers

Wait until the suckers are completely cooled and remove the molds. (be careful some of the hard candy can have sharp edges) Wrap them individually. We put them in little snack baggies so that they're airtight or the humidity ruins them. Enjoy, my kids did!