Looking for something to make for your sweetheart on Valentine’s Day? Even though there are so many options, it can be hard to do something special when living in a dorm.
Everyone loves the little heart-shaped candies that people give out on Valentine’s Day, so I tried learning how to make candy hearts in my dorm. Here’s how it went.
The first thing I did was find a non-bake recipe. I only have a microwave, so baking was out of the question.
The recipe I found was from seriouseats.com. The main ingredients are gelatin, sprite, and powdered sugar. Then, you can mix in different flavors and food colorings.
I bought all of my ingredients at Walmart. In total, it cost me about $20. It would have been less if I didn’t misread an ingredient. I got way too much sprite when I only needed four ounces.
Once I got everything into my dorm, I followed the recipe to make the candy hearts.
Everything was going fine until I had to add the powdered sugar. I first started by trying to mix with a whisk. Then it got stiff. The mixture kept getting stuck inside the whisk and I eventually had to give up on it and use a fork.
After fighting with the mixture for about 10 minutes, I was ready to start kneading the dough. I realized I would have to use my desk to knead the dough because I had no other surfaces that would fit it.
I put down powdered sugar to prevent the dough from sticking. This sort of helped but it made a mess everywhere. The kneading process was kind of soothing once I found my rhythm.
After it was smooth, I cut it into thirds and began to flavor and color the dough. I used the flavors banana, strawberry and orange with corresponding colors to match the fruits.
The next step was to make them look like hearts. I did not have a heart-shaped cutter. So, through trial and error, I worked on getting them to look as close to heart shaped as possible.
I first tried cutting them out with a knife. These hearts ended up too big. Then, I tried making them by hand and they looked a little funny. The method I found to work was rolling them into little noodles, folding them into hearts and then squishing them down.
After I finished making all of the hearts, I left them out to air dry for 24 hours.
The next day, I went to try the candies. They ended up tasting almost exactly like the store-bought candy hearts.
Taking the time to make these candies makes them a more sentimental gift. However, is it worth spending between $15 to $20 to make something you could have bought for $5?
It depends on your situation, but, for me, I would just buy candy hearts, especially while living in a dorm. There is not enough space for everything, and I got powdered sugar everywhere. My desk is still sticky from the sugar.
Plus, mine didn’t have cute messages written on them like the store-bought ones.
Making these candy hearts was a fun experience, but if you live in a dorm, I would not recommend this Valentine’s Day gift.
