Growing up I had a candy crush on three specific sweets: rock candy, Nerds, and Sugar Daddys.

I’ve always thought of rock candy as the boring old “white” flavoring, aka raw sugar without any flavor — and the grape flavor that would turn my tongue, teeth, and lips purple. But, it wasn’t until I moved to New York when I realized that the boring ol’ white crystal rock candy could be used to sweeten up a cappuccino or latte. When I ordered a latte at my corner block’s pizzeria they delivered my mug with a stick of rock candy. It dissolved beautifully into my hot espresso and milk.

This made me think: how fantastic would it be to arrange these on a plate to serve after hosting a dinner? It takes ordinary tea and coffee times and puts such a chic and at the same time childish spin on the candy. I love it!

You can organize them in several ways, but my favorites are placing them in a small hurricane glass that is filled half way with sugar. That way the sugar crystals won’t crack and break if they get moved around in the hurricane.

I also love just delicately placing them on a plate. In this photo, you’ll see a combination of both the white and brown rock candy. I love this because it shows that sugar comes in two different ways. Just make sure you don’t serve some random flavored rock candy — you want them to be the original sugar-tasting flavor rather than something like cherry or bubblegum (my bet is that would taste nasty with coffee or tea).

(Note: these photos were taken from Pinterest. Take a look on my site for further references! And be sure to follow me, I’ll follow back! I’m always interested to see what everyone is pinning about!)