I decided to try a homemade candy recipe, honey lollipops, because of a grain-free diet I am doing. I chose to start the SCD diet which is explained in the book “Breaking the Vicious Cycle” and on pecanbread.com where I find my SCD friendly recipes. Well it happens that the only sweet items allowed in the diet are honey, pure honey and some fruit and fruit juice. Other than that there are no other desserts or sweets allowed!
Healthy Candy Recipe
Just to be clear, I am not choosing this diet to lose weight. It is rather to help my gut flora regenerate, destroy bad bacteria in my intestines and in turn build up a stronger immune system. I figured It's time to build up my sweet treat recipe list on this diet, since I could not find any honey sweetened desserts made without grain in my current repertoire. So I found a candy recipe in "Breaking the Vicious Cycle" and a few other candy recipes and added my own spin of flavors and ways of making it for you to enjoy too!
Benefits of making Your Own Honey Lollipops
Before we start, let's list a couple of health benefits of these treats that impressed me the most. Firstly, the calming and soothing effect it has on an inflamed throat is really cool. With fall just around the corner, it is perfect timing to be ready for a child with a sore throat. Secondly, with the occasional pregnancy morning sickness in past pregnancies, by adding in ginger, I had a treat to help the nausea. I like to add a pretty heavy amount of ginger powder or even raw ginger which makes it spicy, sweet and so good even for the kids. I also thought of a variation of the honey mixture turning it into cough drops by adding supplements like Vitamin C, elderberry powder, and cayenne pepper among others. Stirring a sweet honey sucker filled with anti-microbial properties right into some hot tea sounds delicious!
More Reasons for Making These Healthy Treats
A couple of side note thoughts, I've found they are sweet tasting enough to be a great motivator for my children to finish chores and school work, especially for the younger ones of the family. Plus, what a great option for a gift during flu season or really anytime.
Manuka Honey
Adding Manuka honey, depending on its Unique Manuka Factor (UMF) rating, may add even more medicinal properties to the lollipops. Manuka honey is honey from the nectar of certain flowers species native to New Zealand and Australia which studies have shown increase the honey's antibacterial properties over other types of honey. So, Manuka honey, with their antibacterial properties may be better on oral health, digestive discomfort, and wound healing. You can find Manuka honey at your local health store and online.
Simple Supply List:
-Pan
- candy thermometer (optional)
-parchment paper
- spoon
-wooden skewers
-lollipop molds (optional)
A candy thermometer will help with consistency, but is optional. I don't have candy thermometer at the moment and I don't mind if it's a little undercooked or overcooked, and the kids don't mind either. A lollipop mold is also optional, but It does keep things nice and tidy, so it is recommended especially for a gift situation. A large pan with room for boiling honey in a large batch is required in addition to candy sticks. I use wooden skewers and cut the tips off, but also regular candy sticks are easy to find. In a pinch I've found using some nearby extra silverware spoons works well, and with less trash waste; perfect for stirring into a tea! Parchment paper or a buttered pan is a must. I ran out of parchment paper and just buttered a pan and poured it right on top of the sticks and they worked out great - no sticking where I had the butter.
Simple Ingredients
-Honey
-water
-Lemon or ACV
Directions are simple: Add honey, water, and vinegar to the pot. Put on medium high heat and boil until the hardball stage about 20-30 minutes after boiling. It does take a bit of time, so think about making a large batch and saving for later. Keep stirring and the honey will turn a darker brown then use a thermometer to check to make sure they're ready. Or test a small amount dipping a spoon chilled in ice water and see if it hardens onto the spoon. If it's ready then add spices now after removing the batch from the heat. I pour the honey over the sticks once it's cooled to a thick pouring stage. Once slightly cooled, I like to create spherical suckers or play with shapes using oiled hands. As soon as the honey cools enough to touch, essentially cool enough not to melt a plastic mold, it may be poured into buttered molds. I like to pour the honey as it thickens over the sticks or spoons while adding a leaf or flower then pouring a second layer on top.
Recipe
Large Batch Honey Lollipops and Cough Drops
Ingredients
- 4 cups Honey
- 1 cup water
- 2 teaspoons Apple Cider Vinegar
- essential oils (optional)
- ginger (optional)
- elderberry powder (optional)
- cinnamon (optional)
Instructions
- Heat Honey Vinegar and water in large pot
- Allow to boil until firm ball developes when dropped in water or when honey hardens to spoon when placed in cold water
- Remove from heat and add optional add-ins
- cut tips of wooden skewers and place them about 4 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet.
- You can pour into buttered molds while warm
- wait until begins to thicken and pour about 1-2 tablespoon onto stick overlapping stick ½ an inch.
- continue to make lollipos by scooping extra thick cooled honey onto stick with a spoon
- When to thick to spread scoop out the lollipops with spoons to use in tea or as more lollipop treats or role into cough drops
- place flowers and herbs on sticky suckers before they dry
- When candy is hard you can remove from the tray and place in a mason jar in the fridge or wrap individually.
Notes
The honey stuck to brown parchment paper and made some inedible, I would suggest plastic candy bags or beeswax wrappers!
We made a batch that didn't boil long enough and I added chopped nuts and made a chewy nut candy that I loved!
Optional Additions
You can add optional spices or essential oils. I haven't tried adding essential oils to this recipe yet but I have used a combination of 2 drops lemon, 2 drops peppermint, and 2 drops lavender essential oil in water and drank this while pregnant with my 6th child for allergy symptom relief. I couldn't sleep one night from wheezing so bad and the concoction provided instant relief. So I will probably experiment with an allergy relief version soon as well! For decoration and just a beauty adornment, try edible flowers and herbs. As an example I used mint leaf and lavender flowers.
6 Helpful Tips
My five helpful tips are:
1)When making these honey lollipops I suggest refrigerating them in Mason jars or using parchment paper and leaving them out. Leaving them out will keep them softer of course. Either way, make sure it's real parchment paper and not just any paper because they will stick and be ruined.
2) If spooning out the honey mixture, simply scoop onto the spoon and gently tap it over the stick while holding the stick down flat. It's a perfect time to make the perfect shape as well.
3) At the stage when it's too thick to scoop and won't come off the scooping spoon I like to then use teaspoons and just scoop up the remainder let it dry onto the spoons. Plastic spoons are great for every day but I have seen people use dainty teaspoons for tea parties or regular silverware spoons. We're famous for losing our spoons around here so why not risk a few more!
4)I also like to use a candy mold for the first stage while it's cooling and still very liquid. It's essentially just the idea of working the batch during different stages of the cooling down process.
5) Placing flowers on the sticky candy that hasn't dried completely makes a simple floral look then wrap with cellophane for example and tie it with ribbon for a great gift.
6) Don't under boil, but if it happens, the candies will stay soft and need to be shaped, not the worse thing that can happen.
Buy Good Honey!
These candies are so much fun. My children love, love, love them! And who doesn't love tasty honey? That by the way is another key. Good quality honey is a must! For example, I buy quality honey from Azure Standard in 5 gallon buckets. The flavor is so yummy that it allows for the candy to compliment the different flavors we add. So I can't emphasize enough, good honey will enhance the flavor immensely! This particular honey I'm using now is thick and scoopable and soooo creamy. Azure Standard is my go to for honey and I'll need a lot for this diet.
SCD friendly Recipe
I tried the SCD diet years before to help with allergies and pinpoint what our aversions were, like dairy, coconut, oats, and other things that affected us at the time and we only used it for under a year. To be honest, I don't think I stuck with it 100% Now, as I've been rereading "Breaking the Vicious Cycle," I'm concluding, it’s all or nothing, because it's not a diet in the sense of how can I lose weight. It is rather a protocol. It is a process to help the body rid itself of the bad bacteria to the greatest extent possible, while feeding the body with readily accessible nutritious food. This is a very simplified explanation and there are many other websites out there that discuss SCD in its entirety.
Conclusion
Trying my hand at making homemade lollipops was a success. Today I'm actually starting the SCD intro and it feels good. I know when you plan for something and you commit to it. It is not as hard as you think. So Here's to trying new recipes, making new commitments, and really just blessing your body.
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