Cane and Unable

Do not try this at home.  Do not try this anywhere.  Not with a fox, not in a box.  Especially not in a box.

Folks, you know I’m famous—okay, within my own family—for taking on RIDICULOUS craft projects that always bomb out.  Somehow my brain is magnetically drawn to the impossible and you’ve read about many of my disasters right here in this blog.

So for Christmas this year, I got the idea to make homemade candy canes. How tough can it be when you see boxes and boxes of them at the store, for mere pennies?

All I can assume is that there is one amazing factory, undoubtedly in China, where they have figured out how to do this quickly and cheaply.  You cannot duplicate this in your kitchen.

You decide to look up some recipes online.  Your eye scans the ingredients. You see things like “Heat-retardant gloves,” 

and “a bench scraper,” along with corn syrup, sugar, and other sticky items. You also notice you have to make two separate colors that you will then wrap around each other.

Then you check the instructions and you see phrases like, “Working quickly…” and “pulling hard candy can be tricky,” and “don’t let children work with scalding liquids.”

You read a caution about glass candy thermometers being breakable. When it talks about pulling, doubling, and twisting the hot candy it says, “Enjoy the upper body workout.”

And here is where, in an unprecedented holiday miracle, Joni stops reading, closes the link, and decides candy cane making is not for her.  You see?  She can be taught.

And if you want a truly memorable Christmas gift—one that won’t blister your hands, strain your muscles, or leave a sticky film on your kitchen counters that you have to chisel off—just check out my 24 books on my website.  So much easier, right?