Feel the Love-- Candy for the Visually Impaired

while candy is fun to eat and tastes good. Candy can also look good too; unfortunately however not everyone can see in fact, over 3.4 million US citizens are either blind or seriously visually impaired. That's a lot of people that will never actually see a delicious pice of candy such as a lollipop now not to give away my age but my mother works in a special education classroom. My point is there are many people all around us that will never know what candy really looks like so that said, here's my idea. Why not put braille on candy. It would be easy, cheap, fun, and most of all it would let somebody that could not see the candy know that they were special to you. So without further ado, I present to you, Feel the Love candy

Step 1: The Recipe

There are all kinds of candy recipes out there, but for our purposes I suggest something that will not melt upon touch like chocolate will what I have decided upon using for the base of the candy is a lolipop recipe this way they will not melt upon contact, now here is the recipe that I have used

--I got the recipe from http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/candy/recipe-lollipops.html
I find that this recipe contains a larger number of commonly found household ingredients than most other similar recipes

But just to be thorough. Here is the recipe

1 cup sugar
1/3 cup corn syrup
half cup water
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
liquid food coloring
1 to 2 teaspoons citric acid (optional)

--Utensils, pots and pans

Nonstick saucepan
wooden spoon
something to use as a mold I used a muffin tin. (See picture)
candy thermometer
cooking spray
wax paper

the following is pasted from the previously mentioned site and is not my personal recipe

Prepare an upside-down cookie sheet (air underneath the sheet will help the candy to cool faster), by covering it with parchment paper and spraying it with oil. If you're using molds, prepare the molds with oil, and place them on a cookie sheet.

2. In your pan, over medium heat, stir together the sugar, corn syrup, water, and cream of tartar with a wooden spoon until the sugar crystals dissolve.

3. Continue to stir, using a pastry brush dampened with warm water to dissolve any sugar crystals clinging to the sides of the pan, then stop stirring as soon as the syrup starts to boil.

• Why do I need to stop stirring after the syrup begins to boil?
• Why do I wash down the sides of the pan?

Tip
Don’t have any molds? You can simply pour small circles of syrup onto a greased cookie sheet .
4. Place the candy thermometer in the pan, being careful not to let it touch the bottom or sides, and let the syrup boil without stirring until the thermometer just reaches 300° F

5. Remove the pan from the heat immediately and let the syrup cool to about 275° F before adding flavor, color, and citric acid (adding it sooner causes most of the flavor to cook away).

6. Working quickly, pour the syrup into the prepared molds and let cool for about 10 minutes. If you're not using molds, pour small (2-inch) circles onto the prepared marble slab or cookie sheet

Step 2: Making the Candy Base

In this step I will show you how to actually make the candy, it's not really that hard and as long as you can boil water. You can probably do this now let's begin

First off, you're going to want to assemble your ingredients like I have
then you're going to want to heat up your saucepan or pasta pot at medium heat
slowly add in the sugar, corn syrup, water, and cream of tartar stirring all the time when this mixture starts to boil. Stop stirring, take out your candy thermometer and place it into your mixture. Take care that the thermometer does not touch the sides or bottom of the pot . If this happens, it could interfere with the temperature of the mixture I recommend doing what I have done and suspending the candy thermometer so that it is barely touching the mixture using a piece of string and a wooden spoon . When the mixture reaches approximately 300°F (or hard crack stage for all you candy enthusiasts out there) immediately remove from heat
and let cool to 275°F then you may add your extracts or flavoring the reason you should let it cool is so that you do not cook away the flavor

Step 3: Pouring the Candy

After you have added your extracts or flavorings take your sauce pan (or pasta pot in my case) and carefully pour the lollipop base on top of the lollipop stick which should be placed on the wax/aluminum foil and throughly sprayed with cooking oil then place the pan in your freezer on a flat surface for at least 10 minutes

Step 4: Removing the Lollipop From the Sheet

after letting your candy cool for at least 10 minutes get ready to remove the lollipop from the sheet. This can be the hardest part. If you have not spray your pan with cooking oil. It can still be difficult to get the candy off but provided you sprayed the wax/aluminum foil with the cooking oil you should be just fine.

Step 5: Adding the Braille Message

I have included a full braille alphabet for you to use in designing your own personal messages. Can you tell what my candy says? (see picture caption below for answer) What I did was I used A blow torch and heated a pice of metal and gently poked holes into the material.

Now here are a few suggestions concerning your actual message:

1. you don't have to make a whole braille message you could make the shape of a heart, a lung even a kidney(ha ha). Whatever floats your boat

2. You could make only letters. If you are trying to teach a child braille

The list is endless. Be creative!