Cascade Hops Candy

I was looking for a unique stocking stuffer idea for my husband this year when I came across hop candy. While there are many people who sell this online I muttered my classic "I can do that better" AND I happened to have a bag of Cascade hops in the fridge. 

First of all while I condone and promote drinking while making all the recipes on this blog you may want to wait and have that cold one after you make this recipe. Working with boiling sugar is very dangerous and I kicked all pets and kids out of the kitchen while making this candy. 

I read through a few other blog post before I started my batch of candy and many seemed to complicate things by trying to bring in malt elements or multi step hopping processes. Since I have brewed before and have made herbal extracts I decided the best approach was keep it simple stupid. I wasn't trying to make this candy taste like a certain brew. I wanted the flavor of the hops to shine so I brought the water and hops to a boil, pulled it off the heat, lided the pot and let it sit for 20 minutes to extract all the goodness just like you would for a medicinal tea. The resulting liquid was the most bitter, awful thing you ever tasted. In a word, perfection! When boiled with the sugar and agave nectar it was the perfect balance of sweetness with a lingering bitter grapefruit essence. 

You will have enough hop tea to make 2 batches of candy, I'm thinking of making peanut brittle with the other batch. 

Hop Tea

2 1/2 C Water

1 oz Cascade Hops

Bring Hops and Water to a boil. Remove from heat, cover pan and let steep 20 minutes. Put a mesh colander into a large bowl, pour hop tea mixture into colander and thoroughly mash out all liquids (you may want to squeeze hops with your hands). 

You should have two cups of very bitter tea. 

(Took this pic before I squeezed the hops!)

Hop Candy-makes 2lbs

Ingredients:

1 C Hop Tea

3 3/4 C Sugar

1 1/2 C Agave Nectar

Tools:

Candy Thermometer 

2 Spoons for stirring

Large Pot

Small Bowl with ice water

Towel

2 Cookie Sheets

2 Silicone Baking Mats

Hot pads

Scissors 

Oven set to 200*

Parchment paper lining your counter

Make sure you have all your tools ready before you start your candy. 

Put all ingredients in large pot.

You may say this pot looks too big, you have obviously never cleaned molten sugar off a glass top stove.

Cook sugar mixture over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Place candy thermometer in pot and bring mixture to a boil.

Cook stirring occasionally (or not at all but I can't keep myself from stirring) until mixture hits 300*. Spoon a bit of the mixture into ice water, if it forms hard strands you are good. If it's a bit chewy feeling continue cooking another 10 or so degrees, your candy thermometer isn't reading correctly. When mixture is "good" pour into silicone lined baking sheets that ARE SITTING ON HOT PADS!!! I may have slightly burned my counter tops. This is where the fun starts if you are brave...

You can either leave this to harden and break into what looks like broken beer bottle pieces or bring out your creative side and burn off your fingertips (kidding, not kidding). Make sure your oven is preheated to 200* like I suggested above. 

As soon as the hot sugar mixture is cool enough to handle but still very hot begin to pull off a piece and pull and fold the sugar in your hands. You are incorporating air into the candy which makes it shiny and pretty. Then roll or pull candy, I rolled it on the hot cookie sheet, into a thin log. For candy pieces cut the still warm and pliable log into pieces. Alternately you can put both ends together and gently twist together and form into a cane. I have zero pics of this process due to the fact that you have to work quickly, I needed both hands to shape the candy and I am unable to take pictures while holding my iPhone in my mouth.The candy canes can be as big or as little as you like, if it doesn't turn out just put candy back on silicone lined sheet and heat in oven until pliable again.  Keep repeating the pulling, rolling cutting shaping and reheating until all the candy has been formed. You can really shape this into anything your heart desires, I made candy canes because it's Christmas but you could do hearts, initials, whatever.