Lucas Candies is one of America's oldest candy stores and they make their candy canes by hand every year. Co-owners, Nick & Debbie, show us how they create their famous 'fireman candy cane' and their other year-round favorite, their beer peanut brittle.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 Hi, I'm Nick Lucas.
00:10 I'm from Lucas Candies in Havastrow, New York.
00:13 And today we'll be showing you how we make our candy cans
00:15 for the holiday season.
00:17 We are one of the oldest candy shops in New York State
00:22 and actually one of the oldest in the country.
00:24 So Lucas Candies was founded in 1896 by two partners,
00:29 one of which was my great, great uncle.
00:31 It started out as a candy store and a luncheonette
00:35 and it's been going ever since.
00:37 It's been passed down through many generations,
00:39 my great, great uncle to my grandparents, to my parents,
00:43 and now to myself and my partner.
00:45 One of the products that we really are excited about
00:48 is our candy canes.
00:49 Back when I was a child,
00:50 I used to make them with my parents.
00:52 My father showed me how to make them back then,
00:55 and then they kind of fell off for a while.
00:56 We hadn't made them in years.
00:58 And I really wanted to bring something back,
01:00 something special for our 120th anniversary.
01:03 Debbie and I started discussing it
01:04 and I said, "Let's do candy canes."
01:06 We do them live in the store.
01:08 We do a demonstration and it's a really cool thing to see.
01:12 We use the original recipe from a hundred years ago,
01:16 but had to refine it a bit for modern times.
01:19 So to make candy canes,
01:20 the beginning of the process is
01:22 we take three simple ingredients,
01:25 sugar, corn syrup, and water.
01:27 They are put together into our candy mixer and heated up.
01:31 (upbeat music)
01:34 We also add cream of tartar,
01:39 which changes the acidity of the sugar
01:41 to make it a little bit more pliable.
01:43 The sugar is mixed and heated
01:46 to a temperature of 315 degrees.
01:50 When it finally reaches that temperature,
01:52 we take the kettle off the machine
01:55 and have to pour it onto our cooling table.
01:58 The sugar is split into two distinct parts.
02:01 One's gonna become the red part of the candy cane.
02:03 The other is gonna become the white part of the candy cane.
02:05 We separate them.
02:07 The red part gets some coloring.
02:08 It is an oil-based color
02:10 so that the coloring does not evaporate from the hot sugar.
02:14 The white part gets the peppermint oil
02:16 to give it that unique candy cane flavor.
02:19 We start cooling and manipulating the sugar
02:22 to get it to the right consistency.
02:24 It needs to be almost like a Play-Doh consistency
02:27 so that it can be formed and molded into the candy cans.
02:31 And the way you do it is you keep flipping it
02:34 and pulling it and stretching it on the table
02:36 to get it to that right temperature and form.
02:39 (upbeat music)
02:42 When both pieces of sugar are at the right consistency,
02:50 the red part goes to the heat box to keep warm,
02:54 while the white part,
02:56 which doesn't look very white at the moment,
02:57 needs to be aerated to get the white color out.
03:00 The sugar gets pulled on a hook 75 times
03:04 to get the right consistency
03:06 and the right depth of the white color.
03:08 Every time you pull the sugar,
03:10 you capture little air bubbles.
03:12 The air bubbles work as little mirrors
03:13 that reflect the light back,
03:15 and it makes the sugar look whiter and whiter and whiter.
03:18 When Debbie thinks the white part is white enough,
03:21 then I bring it over to her,
03:23 and she sets up the loaf
03:25 to make the traditional red and white candy cane stripes.
03:30 The loaves are put together and kept warm in our heat box.
03:35 The sugar is then pulled, stretched, and twisted
03:40 till it gets to the right consistency and thickness,
03:43 and then it is cut.
03:44 So at the beginning,
03:45 the sugar isn't really the right consistency yet,
03:47 so we use this old candy cutter from 1909
03:50 to make little peppermint pieces.
03:52 The final result is our beautiful handmade candy canes,
04:01 which are generally a lot larger
04:03 than your traditional candy canes
04:05 that you'll find in different stores.
04:07 The reason they're this big is Debbie has a childhood memory
04:11 of Santa Claus coming around on a fire truck
04:15 and giving out candy canes to the kids,
04:18 and in Debbie's memory, they were really big candy canes.
04:22 So when we started designing
04:23 how we were gonna make our candy canes,
04:25 she said, "I want fireman candy canes."
04:29 And of course, my response was,
04:31 "What is a fireman candy cane?"
04:33 Then she showed me, and I went,
04:34 "Okay, well, that's what we're gonna do."
04:36 So they are quite large and quite unique.
04:40 Every candy cane is different because they are made by hand.
04:43 Each batch of candy canes yields around 100 candy canes,
04:47 and we will sell several thousand over the holiday season.
04:51 So we'll be making many, many batches of candy canes
04:53 over the next couple weeks.
04:55 One of our other unique products is our craft beer brittle.
04:59 Debbie and I were discussing other old candies
05:01 that we could bring back,
05:02 and peanut brittle's one of those products
05:03 that you really don't find very much anymore,
05:05 but we went to our old recipe book
05:08 and found the original peanut brittle recipe,
05:10 and we had the idea to try to cook the brittle
05:13 with different kinds of craft beer.
05:15 To make peanut brittle, you start with sugar
05:19 and corn syrup solids, and in our case, beer.
05:22 (upbeat music)
05:25 It is cooked together.
05:27 When it reaches 240 degrees, you add raw peanuts.
05:31 The peanuts actually roast in the sugar
05:33 and cook while the sugar is reaching the right temperature.
05:36 (upbeat music)
05:40 So each batch of peanut brittle uses 12 pounds of peanuts,
05:44 which is, I have no idea how many actual peanuts.
05:47 I didn't count them.
05:48 So right at the end, we toss in some butter solids,
05:51 a little extra beer, and baking soda and salt.
05:54 (upbeat music)
06:06 The mixture is poured on our cooling table
06:09 and spread and stretched
06:14 and gotten to the right thickness.
06:17 (upbeat music)
06:19 The slabs are cut and flipped and cooled.
06:33 (upbeat music)
06:36 (upbeat music)
06:38 And when it's ready, we crack it and it's ready to go.
06:54 (upbeat music)
06:57 (upbeat music)
06:59 We sell our brittle in beer cans
07:15 because, well, it's made with craft beer, so why not?
07:18 At Lucas Candies, we always try to uphold the traditions
07:22 and the look and style of the past
07:25 because we've been here so long,
07:27 but we still have to keep modernizing and keep innovating.
07:30 So our newest addition is our beer and wine tasting room
07:34 where we have craft beer and some unique wines,
07:38 and we pair them with our different confections
07:41 and chocolates and candies.
07:43 You really have to come down and try it.
07:44 It's like nothing you've ever seen before.
07:46 So this is our final products.
07:48 We're pairing the peanut brittle with a coffee stout
07:52 and the candy canes with a Prosecco.
07:55 Deb and I do everything together.
07:57 We figure out all the recipes, all the pairings,
07:59 all the procedures.
08:00 Deb and I are a really good team.
08:02 Is that true, Deb?
08:03 (laughing)
08:06 Thank you so much for watching
08:07 how we make our unique confections.
08:09 We loved sharing that with you.
08:10 If you want to come down and visit us,
08:12 we are in Havistrow, New York,
08:14 or you can always go online at lucascandies.com.
08:17 So happy holidays, and I hope to see you soon.
08:19 Bye.
08:20 (upbeat music)
08:23 (chimes)