But I hate baking in Colorado because of the altitude, so I didn't send any cookies out in 2007 or 2008.
This year I started getting passive-aggressive comments from my friends about the lack of cookies, which were both hilarious and annoying. I didn't want to do the cookies again but I realized that I had a new love that I could make instead...candy!
Candy is actually better in Colorado than the midwest because of the low humidity. I thought they would take approximately the same amount of time as the cookies. That was incredibly wrong. They took me at least ten times as much time.
I made many types of candy, half from TJOC and half from other cookbooks. I went to Barnes and Noble and perused their candy-making section. It was four books. Only four books. I bought two of them. I actually bought fifty percent of their candy section. Not even half the titles--half of the books!
The first book I bought was The Field Guide to Candy. I was excited about this book! It was cute and colorful and had information on approximately every candy ever made! I decide to make several candies out of it! I started by making gumdrops.
This is what I ended up with:
That is not a gumdrop, even if you cut it. And it didn't even taste good. I threw it away. I figured it was my fault and made peppermints. An even bigger disaster that almost ruined my saucepan (I didn't even take a picture). DON'T BUY THIS BOOK UNLESS YOU JUST WANT TO LOOK AT THE PICTURES! I had been really excited about making cherry cordials for my father--I had the cherries soaking in kirsch and everything--and I decided not to try because I was not optimistic that they would turn out.
I had much, much better luck with Brittles, Barks, and Bonbons by Charity Ferreira. I made three recipes from it. I'm not going to do a step-by-step because these aren't TJOC recipes :)
Butter mints! I didn't know these little mints were called butter mints but I always take a handful when I see them out at a resturant. They were easy to make and delicious. They also don't require any cooking so they would be a good starter candy.
Peppermint bark is something that I've never been a huge fan of, but it's really easy to make. Believe it or not, I couldn't find candy canes at the grocery store. I certainly couldn't believe it. It always seems like there are hundreds of candy canes everywhere and I get dozens of them for holidays--and I don't even like them! It took a special candy cane pilgrimage to Walgreens (which has a wide selection of candy canes).
As I said, I don't like peppermint bark, so I have no idea how it tastes. But a coworker who loves the stuff said it was tasty. And it sure was pretty!
Rocky Road!
Personally, I love rocky road. And s'mores. I like chocolatey combos. This rocky road was just chocolate, marshmallows, and pecans and it was aaammmmaaazzzing. The book taught me a great trick--don't worry about tempering the chocolate, just melt the chocolate so slowly that it never falls out of temper.
I also made macadamia nut brittle. Incredibly good if you like macadamia nuts, although rather expensive to make.
PSA--I call my dog a little roomba because she is constantly eating everything that falls on the floor. I dropped macadamia nuts and didn't think anything of it. About ten hours later, I went upstairs to go to bed and called Duchess. She didn't follow me. I kept calling her and looked down the stairs and she was staggering up. I went to get her and her back legs weren't working--they were paralyzed. I immediately figured that she had probably eaten something she shouldn't have and I googled and found out that MACADAMIA NUTS ARE TOXIC FOR DOGS. I called the ER and they said that it should pass in 24 hours, just watch her. She was better in 24 hours but it was terrifying--it actually paralyzed her back legs but the poor dog still was wagging her tail :(
Finally, out of my 1964 TJOC, I made Maple caramels:
First off, the recipe was written in (apparently) 60's lingo. I was supposed to cook the candy over a "quick heat" and then cook the ingredients "slowly". Very vague. It took about an hour to get up to temperature. When I popped them out and cut them, they were extremely fragile and granular--I was sure they were wrong. I gave one to my father (who, unfortunately for him, is on the Atkin's diet and couldn't eat any of the candy) and he told me they were perfect--it was an old-fashioned candy and that was exactly what they were supposed to taste like. I found them extremely addictive--they only had four ingredients--maple syrup (spelled sirup, strangely, and the real stuff--very expensive at Whole Foods), brown sugar, cream, and butter.
The table got incredibly full--and this wasn't even all the candy!
Hooray for candy-making!
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oh yeah, macadamia nuts are definitely toxic to pooches. mocha is the same way, a little roomba, but i always have to be careful when i'm working with mac nuts. one time, mocha ate an entire onion off the edge of the counter once..it wasn't pretty - since then she won't take things off the counter, but if it falls on the floor it's every woman for herself :)
ReplyDeleteYour brittle looks to-die-for...YUM!
The Peppermint bark in particular was AMAZING! Whoever came up with that idea is a GENIUS. I'm not a huge candy cane fan either, but the combination was really tasty! Thank you so much for it!
ReplyDeletei love your blog!
ReplyDeleteand one of my resolutions is to make more candy, which you seem to do really well.
I loved the Peppermint Bark too! Also not usually a candy cane fan. The Rocky road, also awesome and was enjoyed by my MIL too. <3 butter mints as well.
ReplyDeleteI had never heard about macadamia nuts being bad for dogs! How scarly, thanks for the tip though! Aejaz is also a little floor cleaner.