Lemon Drops

Before this, the lemon drops that I was acquainted with came in a shot glass that was rimmed in sugar, and could MESS YOU UP. if you had too many of them.  ( I am now of the age where taking shots- of anything- is far less appealing than it once was) but these are a wholly different kind of lemon drop.

I was putting together Christmas baskets for some of my family members, and they are a combination of sweet:  shortbread cookies, crunchies, vanilla sugar,  and salty: Homemade chipolte salt. and both: compost cookies. I wanted to add something else, something different, that I hadn't made before, and I landed on Lemon drops.  I was initially wary of this recipe, because it involves things setting up and gelling (and we all remember how excellent I am with things like that)  but I love lemon flavored things, and so soldiered on.

you begin by bringing sugar and water to a boil,  and then adding gelatin that has bloomed in water, and bringing that to a boil, and then adding in lemon juice and (the recipe calls for orange zest, but I subbed out that for lemon zest, because that is what I had on hand) after the hour, they weren't quite set up, so i stuck the container into the fridge, sent some good thoughts out into the universe, and hoped that they would set up completely. 

I woke up in the morning, and lo! They were gummy! and awesome!  I turned the square of candy out onto a cutting board, grabbed my pizza cutter and ruler, and cut out squares of candy. I rolled them in sugar- and Ta-da! I had gummy candy!

When I went to buy the gelatin, I bought four boxes, because the recipe calls for "four packets of gelatin", and having never used gelatin, I thought that would be good. Four packets are in EACH box of gelatin, so I think will take this unexpected windfall and play around with different jellied candies. (My mom got me rosewater for Christmas- that would be interesting, in a Turkish delight kind of way) Ribena for blackcurrant flavored things, peppermint extract for mint candies!  My imagination is running wild.