Medicinal Candy-Cooking with Horehound

A cure for colds, cough, and fever. Some say it is even an antidote for snake and mad-dog bites, and food poisoning. Others insist horehound or marrubium vulgare can reverse magic spells. But for sure, a lot of folks have been cooking with horehound to make healing horehound candies for ages.

For instance, try this candy recipe that some people use for coughs and colds. Cooking with horehound often involves mixing it with a sugary syrup to hide its bitter taste. Some put in vanilla, caramel, or mint for flavored healing horehound candies.

Prepare one and ¾ pints of horehound leaves, including stems, a pint of water, a half cup of natural butter, and 3 cups of natural sugar. The idea when cooking with horehound to produce candy is to boil a strong brew of the horehound leaves and stems and add flavor to the brew. So boil horehound for at least an hour. Strain it after boiling and add sugar. Then boil the concoction again.

During the second round of boiling, add butter and other flavors like vanilla or mint. Boiling should go on until the consistency of the blend thickens to a hard ball. Pour and spread the super thick mixture into a buttered, almost flat, tin. Let it cool for some moments. Just before the candy mat hardens, mark with lines to form small squares. When it hardens, cut or simply break through the lines and the healing horehound candies are ready. Put into candy wrappers.

When cooking with horehound as a cough syrup, dried or fresh leaves may be used. Three cups of honey is mixed with 2 cups of water boiled with horehound after it cools down. The concoction is well mixed and bottled. When used as cough drops, brown sugar is added to the honey used in the candy mix and the final result is covered with a sugary icing. Be sure to boil the leaves in 300 degrees F heat.

Cooking with horehound is often done with the white variety. If not made into candies, horehound is used as tea, an appetizing ale, or tonic. Some folks even use it as a root beer substitute. When taken in large quantities, it can also be a purgative agent. Cooking with horehound for dinner table meals is not yet recommended, but it would fit nicely as an ingredient of bitter Asian food recipes.

This herbal plant was spread by European conquerors in early times in various parts of the world. Today, it conquers simple cold and cough in the same as healing horehound candies.