Easily Make Candy At Home With An Appliance Already In Your Kitchen

Making candy from scratch is a tall task — one that usually involves candy thermometers, constant stirring, and a lot of trial and error. Fortunately, there's a chocolate confection you can make at home easily with an appliance you likely already have: a crockpot. Like making bread pudding in a slow cooker, crockpot candy is satisfyingly simple and hands-off. It's made by melting chocolate chips, bars, candy melts, or a mix of all of the above in a crockpot on low for a couple hours, then scooping the melted chocolate mixture in clusters or pieces to set.

Candy made in a crockpot usually comes together with a handful of ingredients and without all the headache of trying to learn chocolatier techniques just to make a homemade sweet treat to bring to your friend's potluck. In fact, the trick to making crockpot candy at home is also the best thing about it — you're not supposed to touch the chocolate once you've placed the lid on and turned the appliance on low.

Instead of stirring chocolate constantly over a double boiler or heating it in a microwave, with the slow cooker candy method, the chocolate melts relatively unsupervised and undisturbed. This means you don't have to worry as much about the biggest mistakes when cooking with chocolate, such as not chopping chocolate before melting it or having it seize up via moisture from the double boiler or microwaving it too long. Rather, making candy in the crockpot is all about low and slow, gentle heat.

Crockpot candy is extremely customizable, allowing you to get creative in the kitchen. While you can simply melt your favorite dark chocolate bars, semi-sweet chips, or white chocolate in the slow cooker, many home cooks also add candy melts like almond bark to the equation. Almond bark, a chocolate-like bar that typically doesn't contain cocoa butter (or almonds), requires no tempering and is made for melting. You can also add peanut butter to the mix for a fun flavor twist or try out combinations of different chocolates like semisweet, milk, or butterscotch. To give your candy a more subtle and unique taste, experiment with adding extracts like orange or almond for a hint of flavoring.

For extra crunch and flavor, many recipes also instruct to add roasted nuts in the bowl of the crockpot and melt the chocolate directly over them. The nutty inclusions make for the perfect textural contrast. After melting on low for a couple hours, the crockpot candy can be scooped onto a parchment-lined pan, then topped with an array of creative toppings — from crushed candy canes over the holidays to festive sprinkles to elegant dried cranberries and pistachios. Just top the candy quickly after you scoop it out of the appliance, since the melted chocolate sets quickly. Seriously, add candy to the list of unexpected foods you need to try in your slow cooker ASAP.