RECIPE: We’ve been thinking about old fashioned Christmas candy, like hard tack.

We found an easy recipe at the website for Grandma Ideas (grandmaideas.com/easy-and-yummy-hard-tack-candy) with just a few ingredients: 1 cup water, 2 cups sugar, 2/3 cup corn syrup, 1 teaspoon flavoring oil, food coloring. You will need a candy thermometer.

Put the water, sugar, and corn syrup into a heavy sauce pan. Bring to a boil stirring occasionally.

When it comes to a full rolling boil, turn the heat down to medium high. You do not need to stir it while it is cooking. Boil until it reaches 295-310 degrees Fahrenheit on a candy thermometer. (Hard crack stage.) Remove from heat. Add 3-4 drops food coloring. Stir till the color is well-mixed in. Add the flavoring oil. Stir. Pour into a pan lined with tin foil. Let cool for several minutes.

Use a butter knife to score lines into the candy. When it has cooled, remove it from the pan. Pull off the foil and use the handle of the butter knife to tap it to break into small pieces. Place in a baggy with some powdered sugar. Shake to coat candy pieces to keep the candy from sticking together.

From start to finish, it’s about 30 minutes.

“One word about the flavoring. Make sure it is an oil flavoring. If you use the extract flavoring, the flavor won’t be very strong. A word of caution. Do not breath in the steam that rises up after putting in your flavoring oil. It will burn your nasal passages!”

And if you don’t have a thermometer: “One way to test the candy without a thermometer is to drop some of the candy in cold water. If it instantly hardens, the candy has reached the hard ball stage.”