Wilton Candy Class

Yesterday I took a Candy Class at Michaels. It was well worth it! The class was mainly supposed to be a demonstration class, but since only two of us showed up, our instructor let us participate and practice making the candy!

It was a two hour class and in that time we learned... cream cheese mints, nut clusters (made using equal parts of chocolate and nuts/pretzels/mini marshmallows/candy, etc. and dropped by clusters onto waxed paper... then drizzled w/ colored chocolate for decoration), maple cremes (first we painted the mold w/ chocolate, next we made a paste from powdered fondant, maple flavoring and black walnuts, the filling was dropped into the molds and then we "sealed" them w/ more chocolate), chocolate covered cherries (made the same as the maple cremes, only the powdered fondant can be flavored w/ almond... you can also add some or no cherry juice depending on how you like them), chocolate lollipops (pouring chocolate into molds and letting it harden), chocolate desert cups (painting chocolate into desert molds and letting it harden, can be filled w/ ice cream, fruit, pudding, mouse or whatever!) and peanut butter cups (these were really yummy! We dropped some chocolate into the mold, then some of the peanut butter filling using creamy peanut butter and then more chocolate!) I didn't have my camera with me to take pictures and the candy we brought home didn't last long enough to be photographed! :-)

I had never heard of powdered fondant before and I'm going to have to go to my local candy store to buy some! It can be mixed w/ whatever flavoring or coloring you want to make the "creme" filling for different kinds of candy! I'm thinking I'd also like to make vanilla cremes!

(We used Wilton's dark cocoa chocolate for making all the candy... it tasted really good!)