This is a wonderful heritage and time honored recipe for Horehound Candy. By using your summer’s harvest to prepare for winter’s colds—horehound candy is an effective and much loved old-fashioned remedy to soothe the ensuing inevitable sore throats.
2 cups fresh organic horehound, including the leaves, stems & flowers (or 1 cup dried organic)
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp butter
1 tsp lemon juice (or 1sprig fresh lemon balm)
2 ½ quarts water
3 cups brown sugar
½ cup corn syrup
- In a large saucepan, cover your harvested organic horehound with the water.
- Bring the mixture to a boil. Then simmer for 10 minutes.
- Strain the liquid into a bowl, through cheesecloth and allow the tea to settle.
- Ladle 2 cups of the horehound tea into a large saucepan or pot.
- Add the brown sugar, corn syrup, and cream of tartar.
- Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring often, until it reaches 240 degrees F on a candy thermometer.
- Add the butter.
- Continue to boil the mixture until the candy reaches 300 degrees F (hard crack).
- Then remove the candy mixture from the heat, and stir in the lemon juice.
- Pour at once into a buttered, 8” square pan.
- As your Horehound Candy cools, score it into squares.
- Remove the candy squares from the buttered pan as soon as it is cool enough to handle.
- Wrap the individual pieces in aluminum foil or plastic wrap, and store in ziplock plastic bags.