Homemade Root Beer Flavored Tootsie Rolls

If you asked me a couple of years ago, why anyone would want to switch up the flavor of tootsie rolls, I would have said, why mess with perfection? Along with Reese’s Peanut butter Cups, I used to crave this favorite childhood candy when I lived in Germany. Inevitably, I hoarded both candies in my suitcase on return trips to the States, often sharing them with my fellow American candy deprived US expat friends back in Germany.

If I had known I could make these myself, my suitcase would have been significantly lighter. Now that I am back living in the good old U S of A with unlimited access to Tootsie Rolls (and Reese’s peanut butter cups), of course, instead of buying them, I made my own and  just had to mess with the recipe.

Root Beer is another of my favorite American flavors, so I was hoping to have the “You got peanut butter in my chocolate! You go chocolate in my peanut butter!” result of a marriage of two favorite flavors into one. Extra points if you remember that Reese’s commercial.

In truth, this was definitely an iffy experiment and I figured my chances were 20-80 against me in producing a flavor love match, let alone anything edible. Surprisingly, these were really good. You can taste both the Tootsie Roll and Root Beer flavors together. For a tootsie roll, root beer loving American like me, what could be bad about that?

Tootsie rolls are surprisingly easy to make, no candy thermometer required. I used this recipe from Heather Baird, the genius behind  Sprinkle Bakes. The only change I made was replacing the vanilla extract in the recipe with root beer concentrate but you can use your favorite flavor extract.