Rock Candy: Make Your Own Candy Sugar Sticks At Home

Even if chemistry wasn't really your thing in school, don't let this experiment get you down: creating brightly-colored rock candy is super fun, and super easy. Prior knowledge from the laboratory or the kitchen is not necessary — all you need is a little patience... and a bit of a sweet tooth.

You'll Need:

• 2 bowls
• tall glass
• saucepan
• 4 tsp vanilla sugar 
• round kebab skewers
• 8½ fl oz water
• ca. 21 oz sugar
• food coloring
• clothes pins

Here's How:

To begin, fill a medium-sized bowl with water and in another bowl, mix around 3½ oz sugar with vanilla sugar.

Now dip a kebab skewer about two thirds of the way into the water-filled bowl. Then rotate the moistened section of the stick in the sugar mixture. Then lay it to one side.

Next, stir the remaining 17½ oz of sugar bit by bit into 8½ fl oz of simmering water. Then add the food coloring and sir again, until the liquid takes on a uniform color.

Now pour the sugar mixture into a tall glass, until it is almost full. Then attach a clothes pin to the un-sugared end of the kebab skewer and rest the clothes pin on the rim of the glass, so that the section of the skewer covered with sugar is entirely immersed in the sugar water.

Now follows an exercise in patience: wait two to three days so that sugar crystals can grow around the kebab skewer.

Take the stick out of the water. Now you can marvel at your little crystalline artwork in the form of a portion of candy sugar.

These candy sugar sticks make a great gift and are, of course, ideal as part of some colorful table decorations. Anyone with a sweet tooth will especially enjoy this kind of decoration!