Homemade Conversation Heart Candy for Valentine’s Day

I don’t like the chalky taste of store bought conversation hearts, but still buy them every Valentine’s Day.  I found this super easy recipe online.  Once I mixed the dough, I watched La Jolla Girl do the rest. They taste so much better.

Conversation Heart Ingredients:

1 tsp gelatin (1/2 packet)
1 tsp light corn syrup
1/4 cup of water
1 lb of powdered sugar, plus a little extra for dusting
Vanilla or almond extract
Food coloring
Food markers
Heart shaped fondant or cookie cutters

You may double the ingredients if you need to make a lot of hearts.  This recipe made about 4 dozen 1 inch hearts.

1. Mix the gelatin, corn syrup and water in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for about 30 seconds or until the gelatin has been melted.

2. Mix the above gelatin mixture and 1 cup of powdered sugar with a hand or stand mixer. Continue to add powdered sugar one cup at a time. It will turn into a gooey, thick dough.

3. Scrape dough off sides of bowl, and knead on a non stick surface until smooth. I use a Silpat Roul’Pat.4. Divide and color the dough. If you’re using flavoring, add a few drops. I used vanilla flavored corn syrup so omitted flavor.

5. Knead the color and flavoring into the dough.

6. Roll out the dough and use cookie or fondant cutters to make heart shapes. The dough is supposed to be about 1/4″ thick, but since it was La Jolla Girl in control, that wasn’t always the case.

7. Let the hearts dry overnight.

They dried overnight on parchment paper. It was La Jolla Girl’s idea to put some hearts in little Wilton heart cups. This would be very cute wrapped up in cellophane with a festive ribbon.

8. Write whatever you like with a food marker. For La Jolla Girl’s school Valentine’s Day party. I think we’ll make these again and write her classmate’s names on the hearts.

Don’t throw away the scraps! As you can see above, La Jolla Girl mashed the colors together to make really cool looking rainbow hearts. That was her idea entirely.

They are very sweet, but taste better than store bought hearts, in my opinion. And, they took us less than an hour to make.

Tagged as: Candy, Conversation Hearts, Holidays, Homemade, Homemade Conversation Hearts, Kids in the Kitchen, Kids Recipes, Recipes, Valentine's Day