Honey Ginger Candy Barks, The first line of Defence while Winter is Coming

November last week is the time when most of us are prone to sore throats, and I have a history of catching terrible throat infections a lot more than an average human being. 

When I was a kid, Mom used to wrap a scarf around my neck as soon as the Diwali gets over but now, being a careless glutton, gone are those days, when we used to preach prevention is better than cure.

This year, is my lovely wife, Oindrilla's first winter in Udaipur, and I thought to make some home remedies work for me and spare her from the horror of hearing my 'Farhan Akhtar' voice all throughout the day.

So, after a quick research on the internet, I found the easiest and the coolest one is to make Honey Ginger Candy drops. 

Followed a simple recipe where all you need are Ginger, Honey and water.  And some Powdered Sugar & Corn Starch to make a bed for cooking the candy. Types of equipment that I used are a sauce pot, baking tray and parchment paper. Though I missed using a candy thermometer due to the sudden & mysterious disappearance of the same from my pantry. 

First, dice the root ginger into very thin slices and put them into the pan with about two and a half cups of water. Bring them to boil and then put on sim for around five minutes till you get a strong aroma of ginger and the water becomes infused well with the ginger flavour. Strain the ginger pieces out and add a cup of honey into the water and again bring them to boil. I avoided using any kind of raw sugar here, though one can use some powdered sugar or lime jest to make it more sweeten or flavoured. 

At this point, I missed my Candy Thermometer today and keep checking the boiling concoction for the right texture. Therefore I did a small check with cold water. Took a small spoon full of the boiling liquid and put that in a glass of cold water, and checked whether it became crystalise or not. When it does, consider that as a signal that your concoction is ready for next step.

Lined the baking tray with parchment paper. Took equal measure of powdered sugar and cornstarch mixed them well and spread evenly on the tray. 

Turn off the heat and carefully poured the hot concoction on the tray. My poor handling of the pan forced me to make a Ginger Honey Bark than small drops, but that's absolutely okay!

Now they're left to cool down for a couple of hours and then I'll break them into small pieces before storing into an air-tight jar!

Voila, my homemade remedy as the first line of defence against the coming winter is ready!