What goes into a kettle run
Every hard drop begins with cane sugar, water or orchard cider, and an infusion built the night before. The list below describes the standing families in the collection. A tin assembled for a household with restrictions should always be confirmed by note or call, because recipes move with the season and the bench is shared.
Shared bench notice: pecan brittle runs and butter-based cream batches happen on the same marble slab and with the same small tools. If a guest in your household avoids tree nuts, dairy, or both, say so when a tin is assembled and we will schedule a clean pull for that family.
Ingredient notes by collection family
Orchard fruit families
Cane sugar, reduced Bosc pear or wild plum, pressed orchard cider, clove bud, cassia bark, and a trace of almond oil from the slab. Spiced pear and wild plum batches carry no dairy and no nut solids, though the shared bench notice above still applies.
Botanical root and leaf families
Cane sugar, filtered water, sassafras root bark infusion or horehound leaf infusion, and molasses in the sassafras run. These are the simplest recipes in the workshop and the ones most sensitive to infusion timing.
Warm spice and pillow families
Cane sugar, cassia, clove, a small measure of butter in the pillow batch for the soft shoulder, and dried orange peel. The pillow batch is the one to name aloud when dairy matters to your household.
Pastille and floral families
Cane sugar, gum arabic for the press, rose water or violet infusion, and wintergreen or anise oil. These are pressed rather than poured, so they carry a slightly firmer bite than a poured drop.
Batch size and yield
A standard kettle pull runs thirty-eight to sixty pounds of cooked sugar, which yields roughly nine hundred hand-cut drops at our standard gauge. Seasonal fruit batches are capped at two pulls per week, and the horehound cabinet is pulled once a month because the infusion needs a long steep to read correctly.
How tins are packed
Tins are lined with unbleached linen before any drop touches metal. Assortments are weighed, not counted, and the lid is stamped with the batch codes inside. A card listing every family, its code, and its texture reading travels with the tin so a recipient can describe exactly what they liked.
Storage at home
Keep a sealed tin at room temperature, out of direct sun and away from stove heat. Hard drops hold their texture four to six months in a sealed tin. If a drop softens in a humid kitchen, a day in a dry cupboard with the lid ajar will usually bring the snap back.
Questions before a gift is packed
Tell us the household, the occasion, and any restriction. We would rather pull a clean batch than guess. Reach the bench at wildacre.sweets@gmail.com or (509) 555-0143, Tuesday through Saturday. The workshop address is 1184 Orchard Loop Road, Walla Walla, Washington 99362.
Related reading: privacy guide, terms of use, and visiting the workshop.