Jaunito wrote:
what I want to make is "shaped" candies- small, hard candy in the
shape of figures, like dogs, mushrooms, monsters...
I have extensive experience in moldmaking and casting so I
understand that I'll need to be making some molds for the candy.
Does anybody here know exactly which material I should make the
mold out of? Plastic, metal, plaster, rubber?

Well, chocolate molds are frequently plastic, but with
chocolate the temperatures are under 100F and so not
too much of a problem. Hard candies, presumably you mean
hard sugar, are much hotter when poured into a mold.
I would think metal would be best, though there
are some plastic molds sold that can be used.

Any help or direction to good sources would be much appreciated.
Thanks

You can buy molds. There are thousands with just about
any shape you can imagine. If you do a Yahoo or Google
search on "candy molds" you will find lots of sites. Just
make sure you get molds for hard candy. I just checked and
hard candy is poured into molds at around 300F. Some plastics
can take that, but some can't.

Bill Ranck
Blacksburg, Va.