The Sweet Book of Candy Making: From the Simple to the Spectacular-How to Make Caramels, Fudge, Hard Candy, Fondant, Toffee, and More!

by Elizabeth LaBau

Create your own delicious, gorgeous, and professional-quality candies with The Sweet Book of Candy Making . Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned candy maker, you will find mouthwatering recipes and expert tips to inspire you—and satisfy your sweet tooth. Inside, you'll find: —Candy-making essentials: all you need to know about equipment, ingredients, and techniques, including step-by-step lessons on pulling taffy, rolling truffles, filling peanut butter cups, and more —More than 50 recipes for sugar candies, fondant, caramels, toffee, fudge, truffles, chocolates, marshmallows, and fruit and nut candies —Troubleshooting tips for each type of candy —How to perfect the classics you love, from English Toffee to Chocolate Fudge to Peanut Brittle —Try your hand at something new: Pistachio Marzipan Squares, Passion Fruit Marshmallows, Mango-Macadamia Nut Caramels, Lemon Meringue Lollipops, and more —Decorating techniques to show off your tasty results Get started in your kitchen with The Sweet Book of Candy Making !

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction, Reference

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Elizabeth LaBau is a pastry chef, recipe developer, and food writer from Los Angeles, California. She is the author of The Sweet Book of Candy Making and is the Candy Guide at About.com, where she writes creative candy recipes and step-by-step tutorials for the home cook. See her latest sugar-fueled creations on her dessert blog, SugarHero: http://sugarhero.com

Reviews

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those who are on a diet (or should be!) and who might find it hard to resist a sweet thing, or two, or ten, turn away now. Really, yes. Turn Away, Shoo!

Here with this book you can start to make your way to heaven. Candy heaven. This relatively slim book contains all you need to know to easily make caramels, fudges, hard candies, toffees and oodles of other delicious sweets in the comfort of your own kitchen. With this book and a bit of inspiration the world is your metaphorical oyster and your waistline is at danger.

The book itself is a "hard" softback, dedicated to "Jason, the Sweetest Thing In My Life". Sadly, this is printed in the book and this reviewer is not called Jason, so we can only presume that Jason is something special to the author. A bit of a pun no doubt, but a fairly obvious, innocuous one. Two introductory chapters get you going, looking at the various ingredients, equipment and basic techniques that will be core to your candy making. Full colour photography conspires to throw you off balance and make you think about food as you are reading it (or is it just this reviewer, with a slightly larger-than-desired waistline, who has 'this problem' at times)?

Then nine relatively compact chapters reveal the art of the candy maker with a number of great recipes. Split into sugar candies, fondant, caramels, toffee, fudge, truffles, chocolate candies, marshmallows and finally fruit and nut candies, it is fairly confidently said that you will find many things of interest here.

One particularly liked feature of this book is the troubleshooting section that starts each chapter, allowing you to preempt any problems and concerns and learn how to resolve them before you become disheartened, frustrated or disinclined to try again. This is something more recipe books could do. An SOS section, as it were. My chocolate cake is too dry? Do this… My candy isn't setting, do that and so on. So this troubleshooting section is a greatly-appreciated, well thought out feature.

This is one of those books that you would be well advised to read sequentially, at least once, even though you absolutely do not need to do so. It is just that the quality of the various instructions and their accompanied text means that you could get a very good overview and education about the art of candy making whilst you are generally reading about the various types of candies and their own individual making requirements. This will be additionally of benefit when it comes to making your own experiments in the future.

Things are then rounded off by looking at decoration and presentation issues, such as how to present your candy in its best possible light, decoration, and other finishing techniques.

This is probably not a book for the more accomplished candy maker, but through no fault of the author. Although you will get a fair few good recipes and possibly, if you let it, the book might still yield a few unknown hints and tips that could complement your existing knowledge. The beginner, on the other hand, should snap this up!

The Sweet Book of Candy Making: From the Simple to the Spectacular, written by Elizabeth LaBau and published by Quarry Books. ISBN 9781592538102, 160 pages. Typical price: USD25. YYYY.


// This review appeared in YUM.fi and is reproduced here in full with permission of YUM.fi. YUM.fi celebrates the worldwide diversity of food and drink, as presented through the humble book. Whether you call it a cookery book, cook book, recipe book or something else (in the language of your choice) YUM will provide you with news and reviews of the latest books on the marketplace. //

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not a bad book, it is just not for a novice. The whole front of the book gives the baker a crash course in candy making. In my opinion the person making really needs to know what they are doing in order for this to have a good end result. That however is not me. I have never made candy before it just sounded like something fun to do. Even the fudge making seemed a little hard. This would be a good book for someone who has already been doing stuff like this for a while.

[Bekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fabulous book with easy explanations for common candy making techniques, quick and simple breakdowns of the science behind those techniques, and really great recipes as well.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great resource.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

a review of many of the basics and classics, hard candy, fudge, chocolates and marshmallows with some tips and tricks. helpful discussion and photos of techniques.

[G]

Very interesting read. I will rate it once I’ve tried some of the recipes!

[Amy3745 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made three of the fondant candies vanilla, chocolate, and raspberry. All three easy , turned out perfect.

[Heather Conklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book! I started making candy at home a couple of years ago and this book has been a great addition to my confections book shelf. I have found the recipes to be very reliable. There's a nice mix of types of candy, from marshmallows to caramels to chocolate and excellent overview material and troubleshooting tips for each technique. My favorites so fr have been the salted caramels and the vanilla marshmallows but every recipe I've tried has been successful.

I have the Kindle edition and I was a little leery of that at first but the navigation is pretty flawless. I have appreciated having it available electronically so I can make out my shopping list from work if I decide midday that I need to make candy in the evening.

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this from the library, but will need to actually buy it. This is a detailed, friendly, easy to understand book with gorgeous clear photographs. It's also got recipes that make me want to stop whatever I'm doing and make ALL the candy. From the easy to the intimidating, there's something in this book for everyone. If you have the slightest little bit of interest in making your own candy, run out and get this book right away.

[Mckinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's good thing I'm afraid of boiling sugar. Maybe I'll get over that fear someday and make candy. This book would be a good one to have. Along with recipes are trouble shooting tips and help. The last section is making it all look pretty.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love the decorating section. Everything looks wonderful.