Wondering what to do with licorice? This guide covers how to pick it, cook it, store it, and swap it, plus 15 recipes to put it to work.

What is licorice?

Licorice is a chewy, pliable candy sold in long ropes and thin laces. As a decorating ingredient it comes in two camps. Black licorice is flavored with extract from the licorice root and tastes of anise.

Red licorice, despite the name, contains no licorice root at all. It is really a fruit-flavored chew, usually strawberry or cherry.

That split matters. If a recipe just says "licorice," it almost always means the soft red or black twists from the candy counter, used for their bend and color rather than a strong flavor.

The candy's secret weapon is that it holds a shape. A twist stays put, a thin lace bends without snapping, and both cut cleanly with scissors.

For the intensely anise-forward sweets specifically, see the separate black licorice page; this one covers licorice candy broadly, red and black.

How to Use Licorice

In Recipeland's recipes, licorice is almost always an edible decoration rather than something you cook. Its real job is building creatures on cakes and cupcakes.

Thin laces become legs and antennae. Halloween Peanut Butter Spiders and Creeping Caterpillar Cupcakes use cut licorice strings for the legs, while Halloween Chocolate Mice and Truffle Mice pull a single strand through for the tail. Cute Halloween Boo Scotti and Halloween Witch Cupcakes use it for fine dark detailing.

Red licorice does the same structural work in brighter settings. Easter Pink Easy Bunny Cake and the bunny cupcakes use red strings for whiskers, where a black strand would look wrong.

To use it, cut the candy to length with clean kitchen scissors. Press the piece into frosting or melted chocolate while the coating is still soft, so it grabs and sets in place.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

For eating, black licorice goes with anise-friendly partners like dark chocolate and orange; the famous salty Dutch and Scandinavian versions lean hard into that. Red licorice is just sweet and fruity, so it pairs with anything a kid likes.

The most common decorating mistake is pressing licorice onto a coating that has already set. The strand will not stick and pops off later. Place it while the frosting or chocolate is still tacky.

The second mistake is using licorice that has dried out. Stale ropes turn stiff and brittle, so they snap instead of bending into legs or whiskers. Fresh candy is soft and flexible, which is the whole point.

One more note: a little licorice goes a long way for flavor. Black licorice in particular overwhelms a dish fast, so use it as an accent.

Substitutes

For decoration, almost any thin, flexible candy can replace a licorice lace. Strands of fruit leather or pull-apart string candy both make passable legs and whiskers.

Gel icing piped in a line works when you only need a thin colored stroke.

If you want the black color and anise flavor in a sweet, a drop of anise extract plus a dark food coloring gives the taste without the chew.

For red licorice flavor, any strawberry or cherry chew stands in cleanly, since the fruit candy has no real licorice character to match.

There is no clean swap for the bendable rope itself. The way it combines color and chew with the ability to cut to length is what makes it the default for edible creature legs.

Buying and Storage

Buy licorice soft and pliable. Give the package a squeeze if you can; fresh candy yields easily, while a hard, unyielding bag is already stale and will not bend for decorating.

Both red and black are sold year-round, with extra Halloween stock in the fall.

Store it in an airtight bag or container at room temperature, away from heat. Sealed well it stays soft for a couple of months; left open it dries and stiffens within days as the moisture escapes.

Do not refrigerate it. The cold, dry fridge air hardens licorice and ruins the bend you need, with no upside since the candy is shelf-stable.

If a piece has gone slightly stiff, a few seconds near a warm oven or in your hand softens it enough to work with.

Quick facts

In Chinese

甘草

British (UK) term

Licorice

en français

réglisse

en español

regaliz

Recipes using licorice

There are 15 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 15 recipes