Wheat Flour Based Licorice I

This recipe is very hard to find as it industry-guarded secret ever since the commercial candymakers came out with licorice whips about 100 years ago. The recipe basis came from Kamille Coffaro. Kamille is the daughter of a professional baker and member of an extended family who's almost all in food service business. Kamille suggests starting with:

• Make a syrup of: sugar and molasses or Karo^(r) plus a little vegetable oil and a dash of salt.
• For black licorice the syrup would contain crude molasses and oil of anise or water replaced with LICORICE ROOT TEA
• For red licorice, LIGHT KARO^(r) and a combo of red raspberry and wild cherry extracts)
• Cook to soft-ball stage, then add a little cake flour (cake flour gives a smoother texture and sweeter taste) and flavorings (licorice).
• Extrude like pasta, to lend ropes a nice shape, then cure until desired consistency.

Further insight came from Dave who suggested the following from gelatin.com: "In products such as licorice, gelatin, when combined with wheat flour acts as a binder greatly improving the moisture retention preventing cracking of the sheets at the extrusion stage. Levels of between 0.2-0.6% w/w are commonly used. The presence of gelatin also helps to prevent licorice products drying out in storage, improving product shelf-life."

A few tips from a reader Amy: We made a couple of modifications, we used spelt flour, and added a couple pinches of salt. We also preferred a version we made using only licorice powder, no anise. (We made a no-licorice cocoa version too, yum!). We found that it was nice to roll the finished product in powdered sugar (we actually made our own, grinding organic sugar into a powder). This kept the finished candy from being sticky and made it easier to handle. Before rolling in the sugar, we rolled the licorice into thick (1/2") ropes, twisted them, and then cut with a kitchen shears when cool.