Sugar candy

Sugar candy is a broad name for sweets whose main ingredient is sugar. The best-known kind is hard candy, made by boiling a sugar syrup until almost all the water has gone, then letting it cool into a clear, glassy solid.

The stage matters. Syrup cooked to the hard-crack stage sets brittle and snaps, which is the point at which toffee, nut brittle and lollipops are finished. Candy makers watch the temperature closely with a thermometer, since a few degrees decide whether the candy is soft, chewy or hard.

Color and flavor are added at the end, and the hot syrup is poured into molds or onto a slab. Rock candy is the crystalline cousin, grown slowly from a saturated sugar solution.