Sweet Heart Sugar Cubes

Ingredients:

1. Fine granulated white sugar – 1/4 cup
2. Water (boiled and cooled) – 1/2 teaspoons
3. Food color – 1 or 2 drops (depend how deep you want the color to be)

Utensils & Tools: 
1. Small bowl
2. Tea spoon
3. Cookie cutter (mini heart) or candy mold or chocolate mold
4. Cardboard
5. Pencil
6. Scissors (if using cookie cutter)
7. Tray

Prepare Wet & Colored Sugar

Get ready all the ingredients to make sweet heart sugar cubes.
I used Americolor soft gel paste but any food color will do. If you need deeper color, add more food color but you need to reduce the water amount.
Add 1/8 tea spoon of water into the sugar at a time and mix well every time you add.
Mix well and evenly. The wetness is a little dryer than the wet sand when you build a sand castle.
If the sugar is too wet, it is hard to hold up it’s shape after molding.
If the sugar is too dry, it will not get harden after it is dried.
Add 1 or 2 drops of food color into the sugar mixture and mix well.
If you are not sure how deep the color you will get from your food color, add 1/2 of the amount of the water to wet the sugar, then 1 drop of food color, mix well. Add more color or water as per your color reference.
You can mix food colors to get the color you want in another small container before adding it into the sugar.
The texture of the colored wet sugar. When you press the wet sugar, it formed into shapes easily.

Mold With Cookie Cutter

Trace the heart shape of cookie cutter onto a cardboard.
Cut the heart shape out from cardboard. Cut it a little smaller so that it can go through the cookie cutter.
Scoop some wet sugar into the cutter, press with finger until they get firmed in the cutter.
You can fill the sugar to any height as you like and not necessary to the full height of the cutter.
Place the heart shaped cardboard on the top of the cutter. Press the sugar until it is firm and level especially if it is not filled to full height.
Slowly lift the cutter up and push the sugar down. Use tea spoon handle to push the cardboard if the cutter is too small for your finger to get in. I need to use tea spoon handle because the cutter is just too tiny as you can see from the picture.
It might take you a few attempts to get the sugar comes out nice and even by not over pressing it while lifting the cutter. Just put back any failed sugar into the bowl and mix again to reuse.
Repeat.
I did a few colors from the primary color, red, blue, yellow. The green was from blue and yellow mix.

Mold with Chocolate or Candy Mold

Press the wet sugar into the clean and dry candy or chocolate mold.
Level the top flat.
Turn the mold and lightly knock the mold against the tray to pop out the alphabet sugar cubes.
Wet molded sugar cubes in alphabets are formed. Gently transfer or arrange them on a tray for air drying.



Place the sugar cubes on a tray to air-dry completely. Or, you may use a 200F oven to dry it for 5-10 minutes.I left mine overnight and a morning before storing them away into an air-tight container.
Keep them in a cool dry place and consume as soon as possible.

Be the sugar cubes for valentines or special occasion, it sure melts the heart of your loved one.