Chitose ame (thousand-year candy)

Step 1: Before you start, lay a silicone mat on the worktop and oil it lightly with ½ tsp neutral oil, put out oiled scissors, heatproof silicone gloves with cotton gloves underneath, and a bowl of cold water. Send children out of the kitchen until the candy has cooled.

Step 2: Put 10 ½ oz granulated sugar, 3 ½ oz mizuame or glucose syrup and ½ cup water in a heavy pan over a medium heat and stir only until the sugar dissolves and the syrup is clear.

Step 3: Clip on a sugar thermometer and boil without stirring, brushing down any crystals on the sides with a wet pastry brush. Common mistake: stirring once it boils. The sugar crystallises and the candy turns grainy and crumbly.

Step 4: Boil for 15–20 minutes until it reaches 150–300°F (hard crack): a drop in cold water should set instantly into a brittle thread that snaps. Take it off the heat as soon as it gets there, before it colours.

Step 5: Let the bubbles subside, then carefully pour the syrup onto the mat in two pools. Drip 3 drops red food colouring (plant-based) onto one pool and fold it in with an oiled metal spatula.

Step 6: Leave for 3–5 minutes, folding the edges into the middle with the spatula, until the candy is cool enough to handle in gloves but still soft and pliable.

Step 7: Wearing the oiled gloves, pick up the uncoloured candy, stretch it to arm's length, fold it back and repeat for 3–5 minutes, until it turns opaque, satiny white and starts to stiffen. Pull the red half the same way.

Step 8: Roll each colour quickly into long ropes about 1.5 cm thick, twisting a red rope round a white one if you like, and snip into 20 cm sticks with the oiled scissors before the candy hardens.

Step 9: Leave the sticks to cool and harden completely on the mat for 10 minutes, then wrap each one airtight; humidity makes pulled sugar sticky. Soak the pan in hot water to dissolve the leftover sugar.