How To Make Homemade Candy Corn

Sift together the dry ingredients: Sift the powdered sugar, dried milk, and kosher salt into a mixing bowl using the strainer. This is to make sure there are no clumps in the dry ingredients, which can make the finished candy corns look less pretty.

Melt the sugar, corn sugar, and butter: Line a baking sheet with a nonstick baking mat and set it near the stove. Combine the sugar, corn sugar, and butter in a 2-quart saucepan. (The size of the pan is important; don't substitute anything smaller.) Place the pan over medium heat and cook until the sugars are dissolved and the butter has melted, swirling the pan gently once or twice. This will take 6 to 8 minutes, depending on your stove.

Cook the sugar syrup to 245°F to 250°F: Clip a candy thermometer or instant-read thermometer to the side of the pan. Let the syrup come to a full boil, still over medium heat. Continue cooking without stirring until the syrup is reaches 245°F to 250°F. Depending on your stove, this will take anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes. If you go over the temperature, quickly add a few tablespoons of water to the pan to reduce the temperature, and monitor the temperature carefully as it reheats. Remove from heat immediately once the syrup reaches temperature.

Add the vanilla: Add the vanilla to the syrup — be very careful since the syrup will bubble up and sputter quite a bit when you add the vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients: Add the dry ingredients and stir with a stiff heatproof spatula until you've formed a thick paste-like dough and very little dry mixture remains. (I've found that it smells quite bad at this point — have faith!)

Pour the dough out onto the baking sheet: Pour all the dough onto the baking sheet, scraping the pan as well as you can.

Cool the dough 5 to 10 minutes: Let the dough cool until you are able to handle it, 10 to 15 minutes. Don't wait too long, though; the dough will stiffen as it cools and become harder to roll out.

Cut and dye the dough: Cut the dough into three pieces using a bench scraper or chef's knife. Make a well in the center of one piece and add 10 drops of yellow food coloring. Make a well in the center of another piece of dough and add 10 drops of yellow food coloring and 5 drops of red food coloring, to make orange.

Knead the dye into the dough: Knead both pieces of dough until uniform in color. Be sure to leave the remaining white piece of dough well away from the kneading area so it doesn't get any color. Knead against the baking mat so you don't dye your countertop or work surface. You can also knead more dye into the dough if the color doesn't seem quite right to you.

Pinch off a piece of dough and roll into a thin rope: Pinch off a piece of dough from each section roughly the size of a ping-pong ball. Roll each one into a thin 1/4-inch-thick rope. If a rope gets too long and hard to roll, you can break off the end and mush it back into the remaining dough.

Pinch the ropes gently together: Lay the ropes side by side in whatever order you like (yellow-orange-white is classic!), and then gently pinch them together so they stick to each other.

Flatten slightly with a rolling pin: Gently roll over the ropes with a rolling pin just to flatten out the curved edges.

Cut out triangles of candy corn: Use the bench scraper or chef's knife to cut out triangles of candy. Angle your scraper at a forward-slash angle and then at a back-slash angle as you work down the length of the ropes.

Repeat with remaining dough: Continue rolling and cutting the dough until it's all used up. If the dough becomes too stiff to work with, microwave individual pieces in 5-second increments until it becomes pliable again.

Dry the candies: Spread the candies out onto the baking sheet to dry for a few hours. Separate any candies that are sticking together. Once dry, the candies can be stored in an airtight container for several weeks. Like commercial candy corn, these candies are good until they become too dry to chew!