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FAIRBANKS — "This sounds like another one of your cockamamie Little House on the Prairie moments.”

That was how my husband Ted reacted when I told him that this year I was going to venture into the world of homemade candy canes. “Why can’t you be like everyone else and get your holiday warm fuzzies by making cookies?”

Well, because cookies are generic, that’s why. When you see a plate of Mexican wedding cookies, you have no idea if they were made to celebrate Christmas, or a birthday, or, well, a wedding. Candy canes, on the other hand, are iconic — see one and you know exactly what season is approaching.

It has been that way since the 1600s, when candy sticks first started appearing as Christmas decorations and holiday treats. In 1670, they morphed into canes, when the choirmaster at a German cathedral gave out bent sugar sticks to occupy children during the long holiday services; the belief is that the shape was intended to be a reminder of a shepherd’s staff.

By the mid 1800s, the intertwining of candy canes and Christmas had spread to America, although it took until about 1900 for them to assume stripes and mint flavors, and begin appearing on Christmas cards. However, the real guarantee of their survival came in the 1950s, when a Catholic priest invented an automated candy cane maker.

Even Ted had to agree that canes are more symbolic of Christmas. He switched his argument to economics.

“We can buy them for about five cents a cane. I see no logic in this.”

Ted was right. It isn’t cheaper to make your own. And now that you can buy them in flavors such as green apple, watermelon, cinnamon and strawberry, hating mint flavors (which I do) is no longer a reason to whip up some canes in your kitchen. I fell back on the old “homemade taste better than mass produced ones” position.

But evidently Ted was dreading this foray into candy making more than I’d realized, because within 10 days he presented me with a box of candy canes from Oaks Candy Corner in Oshkosh, Wisconsin (www.oakscandy.com). One of the few places where canes are still hand pulled and twisted, the results were tasty, shiny and richly colored. Even the texture was perfect, more like that of old-fashioned rock candy than the crumbly sugar-loaf texture most commercial candy canes have devolved into these days.

I loved the canes, but I was not swayed. Some things are impervious to logic, and wanting to make candy canes was one of those. Put simply, it’s all a matter of emotions, of the pleasure of celebrating the season in some tactile way that is far removed from commercialism. Although the fact that I don’t like cookies could have something to do with it.

Which is why weekends in December found me cajoling Ted into the kitchen to spend afternoons making orange-flavored candy canes. To be fair, I didn’t have to push him too much. All I had to do was remind him of the year he came home to find me wielding a fire extinguisher to tame a candy-making mishap.

It turns out that you can complete the recipe for a dozen canes in about an hour and 15 minutes, plus cooling time. It does take two adults, though, because if you don’t move quickly enough one color will get hard while you are pulling and stretching the other color; since the syrup is quite hot this is not a suitable activity for small children or most preteens.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

You’ll find the exact measurements in the recipe at the end of this article, but the ingredients are few and simple. Sugar, corn syrup, water, cream of tartar, flavoring and food coloring. The canes are mostly sugar but you add corn syrup not only to heighten the sweet taste but to stop the sugar from recrystallizing as it cools. It also helps the mixture go from transparent to whiter. The water is added at the beginning to make the sugar easier to work with, but it is largely boiled off as you process the sugar and corn syrup.

Cream of tartar is an acidic agent added to baking soda and some varieties of pop and baked goods. In candy making, it is used to encourage what is called “inversion,” a way to break down sugar molecules so that they don’t recrystallize. If you’ve never used cream of tartar, you will find it in the spice section of the grocery store. A small container runs about $4.50.

Most recipes specify peppermint or wintergreen flavoring, but substitute whatever pleases you. There are at least five or six different possibilities at any of our grocery stores, but if you are more adventuresome visit www.kingarthurflour.com. There you will find flavorings such as raspberry, butter rum, banana, pistachio, coffee, butterscotch, pecan, eggnog, coconut, hazelnut, peach, pumpkin, pineapple, praline, peanut butter, rum and cranberry-raspberry.

And don’t feel constrained by the usual red and white, or green and white combinations. These days there are neon food colors that fairly glow in the dark, so you can play with blinding orange or bubblegum blue.

The other essential item is a candy thermometer, as you need to be sure the mixture reaches between 250 and 266 degrees, also called the hard ball stage. The syrup formed by boiling sugar progresses through a number of stages, and the key to making any kind of confectionary is to stop the process at exactly the right point.

A good candy thermometer will run between $4 and $5 and will have marked not only the degrees but also the candy making stages of soft ball, firm ball, hard ball, soft crack, hard crack and caramel. It also should have a sturdy clip so you can attach it right to the cooking pan.

You need a cool flat area to pour the syrup and then pull it, and some butter so you can lightly coat it to reduce the inevitable sticking. I have seen recipes advise using cookie sheets, but I had more success with taping a large sheet of heavy grade aluminum foil onto a cleared kitchen counter.

THE PROCESS

Use your sturdiest-bottomed saucepan and dump in the correct proportions of sugar, corn syrup, water and cream of tartar. Stir until the sugar is blended into the liquid ingredients. (While it is tempting to double the recipe, don’t. This process requires some fast movement and involves a lot of heat, so the amounts listed are about the maximum that can be safely handled.)

Clip your thermometer to the side of the pot, taking care not to have it touch the bottom; ideally, you want it positioned about half way down into the liquid. Turn on the burner to medium high and stir a few more times to be sure things are thoroughly mixed together — but then you must stop stirring because to do so will alter the consistency of the hardened canes.

When the syrup hits 265 degrees, immediately remove the pan from the heat, take out the thermometer and add your flavoring. There will be some sizzling and a bit of popping, so don’t stand with your face peering directly down into the pan.

Pour half of the still boiling hot mixture into another pan or a bowl. Just estimate the amount, as you don’t want to waste time or handle the hot mixture by using something like a measuring cup.

If you want white and one other color, say red, add that color to one pot and leave the other clear. If you prefer canes of two colors, add another color to the pan of clear syrup. Whatever you do, do it quickly.

Next, carefully pour the contents of each pan onto lightly buttered cookie sheets or different sections of buttered foil. Use a spatula to keep pushing the edges toward the middle as the mixture cools — here is when the second person is essential. You want to end up with sort of a long thick stick of each color that cools at about the same rate, which is pretty much impossible to do alone. While I worked the clear hot taffy, and Ted worked the red, until the pools of taffy cooled sufficiently to be worked by hand.

Wear thick, good quality rubber gloves to make it easier to withstand the heat, and lightly butter them. Slice or pull off a piece of each color and begin rolling and pulling the pieces until they start becoming glossy and the translucent strand begins to turn white.

Wrap the two ropes of different colors around each other, smooth the ridges, make the traditional crook bend, and set them on a clean buttered surface to cool. Repeat until all the syrup is gone. A few hours later, individually wrap the canes for storage.

As you can see from the one photo with my first canes on the right and my last canes on the left, my initial efforts were far from the picture of perfection. However, they did get better looking as I redid the recipe several times the following weekends, and learned how to move faster when handling the poured syrup.

Still, in appearance even my best canes are much inferior to machine produced canes, or the hand-pulled beauties from Oaks Candy Corner. But each time I eat one, offer them to a guest, or give away a bundle of them wrapped in cellophane, they make me smile. There is no logic to it, just good holiday feelings and, I think, a new Christmas tradition in our home.

CANDY CANES RECIPE

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/2 cup water

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

3/4 teaspoon flavoring

1 teaspoon food coloring

Mix the sugar, corn syrup, water, and cream of tartar in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, stirring until the sugar is blended into the wet ingredients. Turn on the burner to medium high and stop stirring. It will be tempting to stir again, but leave the mixture alone until the temperature reaches 265 degrees, or the hard ball stage. Remove from the stove and add your flavoring.

Divide the mixture in half by carefully pouring part of it into another pan or bowl. Add food coloring to one or both of the pans.

Grease three cookie sheets (two as working space, and the third to provide a non-stick surface for the canes to cool) or large pieces of foil. Pour the taffy consistency syrup onto the work surface, being careful not to let the two colors touch.

Lightly butter your rubber-gloved hands, and using a buttered spatula gather the edges of the taffy toward the middle, so each color forms a thick stick. As soon as it is cool enough to work with your hands, cut off a section. Pull and fold the piece repeatedly on your work surface or in your hands until it appears shiny and ends up in the shape of a rope; repeat with the other color.

Coil the two colors together and form the crook before setting it to cool on the clean work surface. Repeat until the taffy is all gone. Yields between 9 and 12 canes.

The leftover shards can be eaten as hard candy or used in stained glass cookie recipes.

Linden Staciokas has gardened in the Interior for more than two decades. Send gardening questions to her at dorking@acsalaska.net.