Level 181

Difficulty

 * The level design is similar to level 95, with two islands. However, the two islands consist of two- and three-layered icing. The icing on both sides have the following layers: 2-3-3-2 (top to bottom).
 * The ingredient column is not connected to the main part of board, and the only way to break the icing is to make horizontally striped candies, their combinations, or a wrapped + wrapped combination on the sides.
 * The main part of the board is not that wide enough to create striped candies easily.
 * In the beginning, you must be able to match three right away. If not, you get one reshuffling of the candies before you automatically lose a life without making any moves.
 * The ingredients are worth 20,000 points, which is equal to the one star target score.

Strategy
There is only one way to pass this level - the hardcore way. You must strategically place candies such that horizontal striped candies are available to clear the icing.
 * After making room for the main board area, keep on blasting horizontal stripes into the icing. Wrapped candies are useful, as they can be mixed with striped candies, including the vertical ones, which help significantly in this level. A colour bomb only helps indirectly in terms of reducing colours for a better chance to make special candies, or creating a colour bomb + striped candy combination. However, the latter is not recommended as the striped candies created from the combination may be too low, too high or have stripes in the wrong direction.
 * In short, assuming all horizontal striped candies are placed correctly and set off (refer to pictures for the positions), there are a total of ten hits needed to bring down the ingredients. If wrapped candy + striped candy combinations are used, placed correctly and set off, there are a total of four hits needed to bring down the ingredients: two must be centred around the second square of multi-layered icing in the column; two must be centred around the third. This will deliver a total of four hits to the two middle squares of three-layered icing, and two hits to the upper and lower square, which is two-layered icing
 * Try to overlap stripes on the same column to shred more than 1 layer. If you get 2 or 3, you can shred 1-6 layers!
 * A way to sort of cheat the level is to get 20 lollipop hammers and destroy all the icing.
 * The level is hugely based on whether horizontal striped candies are available.
 * DO NOT start the level unless three of the same type of candies are present, otherwise you will waste a life for no reason!

Difficulty

 * The presence of five colours makes it easy to create special candies and is essential as special candies must be used to drop the ingredients.
 * The ingredients are worth 20,000 points. Hence, an additional 45,000 points for two stars and an additional 80,000 points for three stars have to be earned through matching of candies.
 * The player is required to earn an additional 900 points per move for two stars and an additional 1,600 points per move for three stars. Additionally, the regular icings at the start of the level means that players will only earn points in the low hundreds for at least the first five moves.
 * 50 moves are more than sufficient to create at least one colour bomb. However, it is not necessary and is not encouraged because it does not help much in dropping the ingredients.
 * The regular icings at the start of the level mean that a good number of moves have to wasted to clear them and increase the size of the board. Despite this, special candies can be created after the first two to three moves.
 * Since the cherries are on the isolated sides of the board, the most effective way to clear them is to use wrapped candy + striped candy combinations, reducing the number of moves left for sugar crush. Furthermore, that above mentioned combination has to be done multiple times, further reducing the number of remaining moves.
 * If done correctly, the player would only need four combinations to complete the level: two must be centred around the second square of multi-layered icing in the column; two must be centred around the third. This will deliver a total of four hits to the two middle squares of three-layered icing, and two hits to the upper and lower square, which is two-layered icing
 * This above point is slightly made less critical by the fact that the above combination can give thousands of points. In fact, with well placed wrapped candy + striped candy combinations, it is possible to finish this level in as few moves as possible to give a huge amount of points due to sugar crush.

Trivia

 * This used to be the second level in the original Difficulty Cluster, also known as the Hell's Cluster.
 * This was formerly one of the game's hardest and most hated levels. It is one of the hardest ingredient levels in the whole game. This is not quite as notorious as the original level 147, but it is not that far off in difficulty.
 * It is known as one of the Candy Crush's hardest levels, and the hardest ingredient drop level according to this wiki, and probably the hardest level of Hell's Cluster.
 * This level had been voted as the third hardest level in the game just before levels and  were introduced, only to be under the original levels 147 and . However, with the increase of more levels into the poll, its rank has dropped. However, after all the insanely hard levels (see below) got nerfed, its place is retained.
 * With the recent nerf, this is one of the few levels in this episode that does not have any four-layered icing.
 * This is one of the few levels to make a cameo in a Candy Crush Saga television advertisement. The other levels are, , , , , , , , and . Most of these levels were rated hard or harder.