Conversation Hearts Candy Recipe

Follow our Conversation Hearts candy recipe to make one of the most beloved Valentine's Day treats. These are perfect for sweethearts to personalize messages or for a fun colorful boxes for kids to share.

There's dozens of creative ways to make these conversation hearts unique to your occasion and guests. From making custom colors, flavors, and writing words on the face of hearts to packaging them up in adorable boxes, there's limitless gift bundle combinations to try.

The process is straightforward, making Conversation Candy Hearts a simple recipe to put together. These can be done a day in advance to save time and prep candy boxes for the big day.

Likewise, candy hearts can be made with kids as a fun Valentine's DIY project. Letting them choose the colors and even writing funny captions on the hearts will give them something to look forward to sharing with their friends.

Jump to a Section:

• Pro Tips on Candy Hearts
• How to Make Them
• What You'll Need
• Frequently Asked Questions

Making a small quantity is completely fine, but it's effortless to scale up the proportions to cover family, friends and even special occasions that need a personal touch. Make this Valentine's Day one to remember with candy conversation hearts ready for the love in your life.

DIY Conversation Hearts Candy Pro Tips

There's plenty of ways to make great Conversation Candy Hearts and, luckily, not that many ways to do them wrong. The candy itself is a combination of confectioner's sugar, corn syrup and flavoring, along with food coloring, and binding agents to bring it all together.

Meaning, there's not much to the recipe except putting a thoughtful amount of effort behind every candy.

For this, we recommend doing a few things to make the Conversation Candy Hearts recipe a bit easier to manage:

• Write candy messages ahead of time: making conversation hearts with kids is fun,
• Thoroughly kneed for full color: after splitting the dough, take your time incorporating the food coloring for consistent hues
• Make the boxes ahead of time: there's nothing quite like a successful clean up process after a big project. Make the boxes ahead of time so that arts and crafts doesn't interfere with kitchen messes

One Valentine's Day, we had a massive shortage of boxes to put our homemade candy hearts into. This wasn't a problem we were expecting, but turned out to be handy in a pinch — seeing as we were able to make quick gifts for more than one occasion — so don't be hesitant if your quantity turns into more than what's actually needed.

For the Candy Dough

• Gelatin: this is the main binding agent for the candy
• Food Coloring: you can go with natural ingredients or simply add a touch of food safe liquid drops

Shaping the Candy Hearts

• Cookie Cutters: the smaller the better. Aim for a cutter that's about 1 inch in length, go up to 3 1/2 inch for bigger candies, but remember to roll the dough thin
• Parchment Paper: to let the candy hearts set while being able to pry them out once they set and decorate heartfelt messages on top

• Food Decorating Pens: These will give you the best experience for writing on such small candy faces
• Whisk or hand mixer: to gel all the ingredients together thoroughly for an even set
• Assorted Extracts: flavorings of your choice such as strawberry, vanilla, almond, clove, wintergreen and more.
• Heart Shaped Cutter: cookie cutters of all shapes can be used, but the smaller the better to increase yield per batch
• Rolling Pin: for flattening the dough that will need to be thin or else they'll be too hard to bite into

Ingredients

• 7 grams Gelatin, powdered
• 135 milliliters water
• 23 grams light corn syrup
• 0.8 g salt
• 1296 grams powdered sugar
• Food Dye Colors (assorting colors)
• Optional: Flavored Oils of your choice, 1/2 teaspoon for mild flavor - adjust accordingly

Directions

Step 1

Bring some water to boil, about a couple inches. Put water and gelatin in a separate bowl, let sit for 7 minutes.

Whish into corn syrup and salt, then place the bowl over the lightly simmering pot and stir to dissolve completely.

Step 2

Once completely homogeneous, take bowl off heat. Whisk diligently while slowly beating powdered sugar. Use about 120 grams at a time to ensure ingredients are well combined. Stop adding powdered sugar when the mixture is malleable but stiff.

Step 3

Put the candy dough onto a work surface dusted with remaining powdered sugar. Kneed till smooth.

Step 4

Divide into 'X' even sections. ('X' = how many different flavors/colors you want to make!)

Adding Flavor to the Dough

Step 1

By hand, roll dough into balls. Put a dimple deep in the center of the balls. Pour in flavor/food coloring, close the hole, and gently kneed to incorporate.

Rolling, Shaping, Decorating Candy Hearts

Step 1

At this point, roll out a portioned dough piece on a lightly sprayed plastic or parchment paper. Sprinkle powdered sugar to prevent sticking. Stop until your dough sheet is about 1/4 inch in size

Step 2

Use a cookie cutter to make the heart shapes. And let rest.

Step 3

Use your edible ink pens to write messages on the freshly set candy hearts to make them conversational.

Are conversation hearts discontinued?

No, conversation hearts have not been discontinued. The reason why people couldn't find conversation hearts during parts of 2018-2020 was due to a brief shortage of the classic candy hearts.

Caused by a change in rights and recipe from company to company, the classic conversational hearts have since returned to normal. Consumers have been able to find them regularly, especially during seasonal events.

What do the conversation hearts say?

Conversation hearts say things like "Be Mine", "Hug Me", "Sweet Heart", "Kiss Me", "Love You" and the like. Conversation Hearts from a store have generic sayings, but homemade candy hearts can be customized with any message you want.

What are the original conversation hearts?

The original conversation hearts were called 'Sweethearts' and made by the New England Candy Company (NECCO) in 1902. Since then they have been a staple for Valentine's Day, until the recipe and company who makes them eventually changed in 2019.

What are the six flavors of classic conversation hearts?

The conversation hearts flavors notably included cherry, wintergreen, lemon-lime, banana, orange, and grape. These are associated with their iconic pastel colors: red, light blue, green, yellow, orange and purple, respectively.

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