Making Rainbow Lollipops

attosa
Diamond Post Medal for All Time! 1,246 Posts

Making Rainbow Lollipops - lollies on sticks stuck into a piece of white foam packaging This is a super fun craft that doubles as a delicious treat. Use hard candies to melt into rainbows for one side of the lollipop, then create your own silver-spiked clear hard candy for the other side. The result is a beautiful lollipop that has a highly saturated rainbow side, and a pastel sparkly rainbow on the flip side. These are super gorgeous when held up to the light.

Total Time: 90 minutes

Supplies:

coloured hard candies (like Jolly Ranchers)
freezer bags
hammer
silicone molds (any shape you like)
lollipop sticks
1 cup sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1/3 cup water
saucepan
wooden spoon
candy thermometer or ice water and bowl
edible glitter
hair dryer or oven (toaster oven will work)

Steps:

Preheat oven to 275 F. Separate your hard candies by colour, unwrap, and add to freezer bags. Use a hard and stable surface (a thick chopping board will do) to hammer the candies into little bits.

Making Rainbow Lollipops - place candies by color in freezer bags and crush

Place each colour into its own bowl.

Making Rainbow Lollipops - place each color in its own bowl

Sprinkle some of each colour of hard candy into the silicone molds.

Making Rainbow Lollipops - sprinkle some of each color in the silicone molds

Place in preheated oven for about 7 minutes, until fully melted and you see no candy chunks.

Allow to cool until fully hardened, then pop out the molds and set aside. Clean out the candy molds.

Making Rainbow Lollipops - allow to full cool, pop out and set aside, clean the molds

To make hard clear candy for the pastel side, place sugar, corn syrup, and water in saucepan. Stir and bring to a boil.

Making Rainbow Lollipops - add sugar, water, and corn syrup to pan and bring to a boil, stirring

Use your candy thermometer to make sure it registers at 300 F for hard crack stage.

Making Rainbow Lollipops - bring to 300, hard crack

If you don't have a candy thermometer, have a little bowl of very cold water ready. Drop some of the syrup mixture into the water. If it forms hard threads that crack when you try to squeeze it, you've hit hard crack stage. If it's still soft and a bit bendy, keep boiling the mixture and retest in cold water.

Working very quickly, pour the hard candy mixture into your silicon molds.

Making Rainbow Lollipops - quickly pour into the molds

Sprinkle with glitter, then stir in with a lollipop stick or chopstick so it looks swirly.

Making Rainbow Lollipops - sprinkle with the glitter and stir

Allow to cool completely, then pop out of the molds.

Making Rainbow Lollipops - cool completely and pop out

You can attach the lollipop sticks to the candy by using high heat on a low setting of a hairdryer.

Making Rainbow Lollipops - attach the colored side to stick using high heat on a hair dryer

You can also attach the clear sparkly side of the lollipop onto the rainbow side with this same technique.

Making Rainbow Lollipops - add the clear side and use the same method

Alternatively, you can just use your oven or toaster oven to attach the lollipop sticks. Set heat to 250 F and place either side of candy on a piece of foil. Allow to melt just enough to press the lollipop stick into the candy.