I made these twice so far, and they dont get hard unless I put them in the freezer, but when I take them out they soften up again. hard to eat when they are falling apart. what am I doing wrong? I'm following the recipe :(

This recipe turned out very well and was a fun project. My canes were very homemade looking, ie not all perfect and the red did not wrap perfectly around the white, (that was up to my lack of dexterity) but that made them seem all the more elegant. I think i will double the recipe because a lot is lost with sticking to the pans, gloves, walls etc.. These makes a great little gift. The candy tasted lovely.

For a beginning candymaker, I found this recipe almost too basic, lacking detail such as how to seperate the candy while it is hot, to put it in a bowl or on a baking sheet, what to do when part two got hard while I was working with part one. The great part about sugar is you can resoften and reboil it. Why don't you mention any of these suggestions? It took me 4 tries to learn everything the hard way. In the end though it was much more fun than going to the store and opening a wrapper.

Peppermint Extract , 1 oz. (3/4 x 8 tsp) teaspoons $3.50 thats $.44 Sugar 2 cups = 1 lb @ $2.00 for a 4 lb. bag, thats .50 Corn syrup, 16 oz. $3.30, thats $.83 I don't have a price for cream of tartar, But The Total so far = $1.77 How do you get $0.50 per dozen