Making 2,400 handmade candy canes: It's a family tradition at Sweenor's Chocolates

Imagine making 2,400 candy canes by hand.

The Sweenor family doesn't have to. The candy-making family does it every holiday season, the way Walter Sweenor did for this 70-plus-year-old business. They will make both peppermint, with colors of white, red and green, and wintergreen, with white and green stripes.

Such artisanal Christmas candy work is rare these days.

All the candy canes for Sweenor's Chocolates are made over two days with two generations of family members working on the line. There's Bill Sweenor, son of Walter, working aside his three children. They are Brian Sweenor and Lisa Sweenor-Dunham, who now run the company. Brian is the chocolatier and Lisa handles the business side. On candy cane days, their brother Jeff Sweenor also helps, as does Lisa's husband, Jim Dunham, though both have day jobs running their own companies. Mom Claire Sweenor, who ran the company with husband Bill, was always involved too, until she died in 2021.

What is it that brings them all to the hot syrup, kneading and pulling?

"It's our way to give back to the community," said Brian.

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweenor's held an open house in Wakefield for 33 years on the first Sunday of December. They made their candy canes that day to delight the crowds. Once they halted the open house in 2020, they realized it was best from a safety and efficiency viewpoint to make the candy canes without the crowds.

But make them they will and sell them for $1.25, hardly a profit-maker.

The process of candy cane pulling begins with mixing 15 pounds of sugar and a few quarts of water and cooking the mixture until it reaches 312 to 315 degrees.

"Then it's poured on a steel table where the amber mixture starts to cool right away," Brian explained. If the day is cold, he might have to warm up the table.

He will gradually cool the mixture by flipping it over and over. That keeps it a uniform temperature so no crust forms.

From there, it's a three-person job for a while. Brian cuts a portion for "the red person," who will add red food coloring. Then he cuts away a second piece for "the green person." They will wear gloves and use scrapers as they mix in the color, kneading each into a solid piece.

Brian flavors his un-colored or still amber piece with peppermint oil or wintergreen, depending on which of the two candy canes they're making.

When Brian can handle the piece, the largest by the way, it goes on a hook for pulling, as you might have seen done with taffy.

"When you pull it, the color goes from amber to white," Brian said. It's part of the chemical reaction.

The green and red pieces, meantime, go into a canvas batch roller that is heated by flame. It keeps them warm while they roll around to the proper elongated shape.

Brian then takes the blob – that's his technical term – off the hook. That now goes into the batch roller. He'll remove the red and green and cut them in half so he has four colored pieces for stripes.

"They are reunited as one," Brian said.

Now he's ready to start cutting pieces, matching two red, two green and one white piece.

"I shoot it down the line, usually to my sister, who shapes each one using a bottle cap for the hook."

Because he cuts the pieces by hand and she shapes them, you can expect "sizes that are all over the place."

That batch will produce 150 candy canes. In all, they will make 16 batches.

Are they extra delicious right off the line? Brian wouldn't know. He's never eaten one. Making chocolates and candy all day, all year is a very tempting profession.

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"That's a lot of sugar. I have to pick my poison," he said.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Sweenor's Chocolates makes candy canes by hand for over 70 years