The Jolly Rancher Trick To Turn Any Cake Into A Stained Glass Masterpiece
Cake decorating is a great way to while away a couple of hours over a leisurely weekend. But if you've had your fill of piping classic vanilla buttercream frosting swirls and want to try something a little more edgy, you need to experiment with a fun Jolly Rancher trick that turns any cake into a stained glass masterpiece. Showcased in this TikTok by @patentlysweet, the technique involves melting Jolly Rancher hard candies in the oven to create colorful stained glass panes that can then be snapped into pieces and used to vibrantly deck out a cake. All you need to do is separate your candies into individual colors, place them in bags, and crush them with a rolling pin.
@patentlysweet Jolly Rancher Cake #cake #cakedecorating #cakes #jollyrancher @Jolly Rancher
Then, you can place each sorted color on a lined baking tray (making sure to leave some space between them so they don't bleed into each other as they melt) and bake for five to 10 minutes or so in a moderate oven. This can take longer if you keep your candies whole instead of crushing them first. Either way, they should melt down perfectly, creating a single "pane of glass" per color. Alternatively, you can microwave your Jolly Ranchers for one minute followed by 15 second intervals to melt them before pouring them onto a plate to solidify. Once cooled, break the panes into irregular shards and either press their sharp edges down vertically into the top of your cake to create a 3D design or stick them on the sides with a smear of icing to help them stay put.
Other melted Jolly Rancher sweet treats to try
Once you've mastered this paned glass technique, you can go a step further and melt the Jolly Rancher hard candies inside a cookie cutter set on a lined baking tray to create shapes like butterflies, hearts, or flowers to decorate your cake with. The metal boundary circumscribes the candy to the confines of the cookie cutter, preventing the melted corn syrup and sugar that they're made of from spreading out. Having said that, you must ensure you don't overheat the candies or there's a risk they'll leak out from under the cutters or even burn and become bitter. If cake decorating doesn't float your boat, you can also use your boiled sweets to make colorful stained glass cookies or even decorative tree ornaments.
Simply cut out your cookie dough as normal and use a knife to create a shape in the center before placing your broken candy inside it. As your cookies or biscuits bake, the boiled sweets will melt, filling the central space. Once your cookies are cooled, you should be left with beautiful treats that have a pretty translucent middle that the light shines through. While Jolly Ranchers are perfect for melting due to their high concentration of corn syrup, this trick works with other hard candies made with a sugar-based syrup, too. To continue the theme of creative sweets, any leftover Jolly Ranchers can be used to make cotton candy.