Confections We DO NOT Make and Why

We get a lot of requests, from fancy macaron cookies (we are not a bakery) to notary services (still don't understand that one).

Every once in awhile we get asked if we have the following classic old fashioned confections and why we don't have them. I'd like to address those questions now.

Sea Foam or Honeycomb Candy

This has to be our number one requested item. There is a good reason we do not make this, though many people don't believe me.

Sea Foam/Sponge/or Honeycomb Candy is a lot like a peanut brittle minus the peanuts and a whole bunch more air, which is achieved by a chemical reaction.

Let me explain more. Brittle is made by boiling sugar and syrup until it reaches around 300 degrees F. Then baking soda is added to make it "brittle." It foams up and creates that wonderful snap we love brittle to be.

With sea foam, additional lift is required to make the boiled syrup even lighter, and that is usually done with vinegar. If any of you have made the grade school volcano science project, you know exactly what this does. (I've also seen some recipes with whipped egg whites.)
The result of this extra lift makes a very light and airy candy that melts in your mouth when you eat it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't stay that airy for long, especially when you add in our erratic weather patterns in the Rocky Mountains. There are specific directions on most of these recipes that emphasize NOT to make this candy if there is a storm coming or if there is a lot of humidity.
Even when we make toffee and brittle, if the weather is wonky, it doesn't turn out. It will be soft, bendy, and sticky. However, unlike brittle and toffee, the sea foam candy will deflate and not be pleasurable to eat. There are ways to combat that, such as dipping the confection in chocolate. By then we run into labor issues, and then we wouldn't be able to provide this confection at a fair price. And being that it is not asked for that often, it's not worth us having it in our case for a once in awhile purchase.

Divinity - A Confection from the Heavens?

Every Christmas we get requests for divinity, mostly from people over a certain age, or people who know what a pain in the butt is is to make, but their grandma always made it.

Divinity is another whipped wonder, using boiled sugar syrup and whipped egg whites. This time, the syrup is boiled to a lower temperature, then it is slowly added to whipped egg whites to form a very sweet and sticky meringue. Nuts are usually added, sometimes fruit. It is then spooned onto greased parchment and left out to dry for a day.

I'm sure you can see where we run into issues here.

As before, our wonky mountain weather is unpredictable, especially with the storms that pass over during the winter, to guarantee a proper dry on these sweet little clouds.

And once they are made, they only last a week.

AND it is not a popular item.

I can't imagine eating a whole piece of this confection as they are super sweet, and if I did, I imagine I would look like the goddess figurine below.

Ribbon Candy - Delicate and Beautiful

I love ribbon candy, it is also a highly requested item during the Christmas season, and also is requested by people over a certain age.

We actually considered making this for the holidays. However after I actually made a batch, it became clear why making this by hand wouldn't be practical for our shop.

Ribbon Candy is made by boiling syrup to a certain temperature, adding flavor, color, and letting it cool just to be able to touch it. Then the tug of war begins. To make the proper color and consistency of ribbon candy, you have to start twisting and pulling the hot candy while it cools, but doesn't get too cool before it hardens. This required multiple trips to the oven to rewarm the candy. Then when it starts to look opaque, it is formed and cooled. 

After all that work (about an hour of pulling and heating and pulling and swearing), I got one pound of ribbon candy, half of it looked decent enough to sell.

Then it started to stick to each other. I'm sure you all have opened up a bag of ribbon candy and have found that fused piece, surrounded by shattered shards of sweetness.

Thus, again, ribbon candy is time consuming - which makes it expensive, it sticks together with just a hint of moisture, and it breaks if you even look at it funny.

So there you have it. We do make a lot of things, but we can't make EVERYTHING, as much as we would like to. Some are too delicate to make, others are too labor intensive, but mostly, as a business, it is not possible for us to have a product for a sporadic sale.

That's just how the sea foam crumbles.