You might get plenty of candy if you go trick or treating, but did you know you can make your own? Making your own candy is fun and easy! The simplest candy to make is rock candy, which is made with just sugar and water.

Each tiny grain of sugar is made up of thousands of sugar molecules. When they’re mixed with water, these grains of sugar dissolve into the liquid. When the water is full of sugar, these molecules get crowded and slowly form bigger crystals that we can see with our eyes.

Rock candy sugar crystals forming on strings.

That’s how we make rock candy! Lots of sugar molecules group together on a stick to form crystals—and then we can eat those crystals! Chef Peter Greweling, a CIA instructor who teaches Chocolates and Confections (a fancy word for candy) makes rock candy bigger than you’ve ever seen!

CIA Chef Peter Greweling with giant rock candy columns.

Some of the students in his class saw his rock candy and thought it looked a lot like a geode. A geode is a rock, except the inside is filled with colorful crystals. The CIA students created a rock made out of chocolate and filled it with sugar and water—just like when we make rock candy. The sugar molecules attached to the inside of the chocolate rock, and when they cracked it open, they found out that they had made a sugar geode. Check it out!

Chocolate lining large egg shaped mold.

Purple rock candy sugar crystals that look like a geode.

Chocolate shell sugar crystal rock sugar geode candy.

Make rock candy at home with this recipe from the CIA.

2 Comments

  1. Will try this for my candy-eating geologist spouse!

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