While candy is generally not a healthy food, home-made confectionary is preferable by far to anything you can buy in supermarkets, and not much more expensive as well as a good way to avoid unnecessary packaging. You will know that there are no nasty additives, like the artificial colours, etc that cause hyperactivity in children, as well as other allergic reactions. Organic ingredients are a must to minimise the toxic effects of pesticides and preservatives, and organic ingredients contain much more nutrition.

Organic, unrefined, sugar is far less harmful that regular refined white sugar which passes directly into the bloodstream. It contains vitamins that you won't find in the latter. Sugar is responsible for a lot of disease, and is an immune suppressant - excessive consumption is deadly, so always bear this in mind. Sugar is rarely something anyone needs to add to their diet. Fruit sugar (fructose, glucose) is the least unhealthy choice, so dried fruit is a great kind of candy.

Drying food is the oldest, simplest, and most natural method to preserve food. While the nutritional value of dried fruit (weight for weight) is slightly reduced compared to fresh, the smaller size results in an efficiently concentrated package of goodness. It will last for up to a year without any refrigeration.

Dried fruit is a valuable source of vitamins, minerals and fiber. It gives a useful energy boost at times when this is required, and is fat free. Commercially bought dried fruit often has vegetable oil (in the case of bananas), sulphites and added sugar. Dried fruit requires many hours (eg 18 hours in the case of banana chips) of drying at around 50/60 degrees centigrade and so it is impractical unless you own a food dehydrator or live in the right kind of climate.

A word of caution: Never eat a large amount of dried fruit since it will rehydrate in the stomach and you need to drink plenty of liquid to offset this. Also it is a choking risk for young children.

Outside of dried fruit there are of course many other sorts of organic candy. Below are some examples that you easily can make yourself at home:

Marzipan candy

Marzipan makes delicious candy. All you have to do, once it is made, is model it into various shapes. Natural colorings may also enhance the product.

Ingredients:

225g (8oz) granulated sugar
180g (6oz) ground almonds
40g (11/2 oz) icing sugar
pinch of cream of tartar
1 egg white, lightly whisked
5 tbsp water
1\2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Put the sugar and the water in a heavy based saucepan and cook on a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Add cream of tartar and bring to the boil until the sugar reaches 116oC (240oF)- soft ball stage.
Remove from the heat and mix the mixture until it turns cloudy, then add ground almonds and vanilla extract. Add to the pan the egg white and return to a low heat and stir for a couple of minutes.

Place the icing sugar on to a marble surface and pour over the mixture. Work in the icing sugar with a palate knife or similar. Put mixture into a bowl and cover until cooled. Once cooled knead the mixture until smooth.

Peppermint creams

How about peppermint cremes? These are of little nutritional value, but better tasting and more environmentally friendly than anything similar that you could buy.

Ingredients:

1 Egg White
450g (1lb) Icing Sugar
Peppermint Essence or Oil of Peppermint

Method:

Beat the egg white, being careful no yolk is in the mix, until frothy but not stiff.
Sieve the icing, gradually adding enough to produce a fairly stiff mixture.
Add a few drops of the essence or oil.
Knead the mixture in to a firm paste and roll it out on surface dusted with sieved icing sugar, to make it less likely to stick.
Cut into rounds or form small balls and flatten.
Place the peppermint creams onto greaseproof paper and place in a warm place to dry for 24 hours.
Store in an airtight container.

Chocolate coconut delights

Another idea, which is a lot trickier than I anticipated, due to the crumbly texture of the ingredients: chocolate coconut delights - see image.

For these I used:

About 200g from a can of condensed milk
1 tbsp icing sugar
250g desiccated coconut
200g chocolate

Method:

Mix all ingredients except chocolate
Melt chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot/boiling water
Roll the mixture into balls and lower gently into the melted chocolate
Attempt to cover in chocolate and remove to a plate or greaseproof paper

To make sugared nuts, all that is required is to place nuts into a frying pan and heat it gently with as much sugar as you like (not too much!) until the nuts are coated when the sugar melts. Trial and error will help you to find the best amount of sugar to use - but always be careful not to let the sugar burn.

Bon appetit!