'Cause the candy man can :).

Makes the world taste good.

Sunday was a productive maple day for me :). One of my teachers along with her friend and her mom came over to make maple candies for a special occasion. How it works, basically, is you cook a gallon of pure maple syrup(in case you aren't aware we make/sell our own, which is why this is taking place at my grandmother's house) until it reaches the appropriate degree for candy making. My grandma has a nifty temperature that has a scale for what range goes with different consistencies of syrup, such as cream, hard candy, ect.

This is "the pig", named for it's striking resemblence, haha. It's the container the syrup cooks in. Once it's reached the point, we transfer "the pig" over to the table and secure it to the candy machine. Once it has cooled to the appropriate temperature we turn on the machine and open the little pig snout to allow syrup to drizzle into the tray below.

As you can probably guess it is stirred by the coil, and a valve on the end can be opened and closed to let the candy flow into the molds below. Precision is key; this step can get real messy, real fast.

.......And GRANDMA!! Hahah ;D!!

Once you have run out of syrup, this is your end result :).

There will actually be ALOT more than this, trays and trays full. This is what they look like though. The portrait molds belong to my teacher. We generally just make the traditional maple leaf candies although I've considered investing in some new supplies when I take it over this year :). I find the whole process to be pretty enjoyable.

So tell me, how are you guys?