100 Days!

Yesterday marked the start of the 100 days of holidays.  I just love posting that milestone each year.  I don't know why. It always inspires panic and ire.  It is dreadful to know how close the holidays are and far away from being ready I am.  I am determined to do some decorating around the house.  But... these first cold days in September are too early for Halloween and not long enough for Fall before Halloween, but I could start with some Fall that I could convert to Halloween and then if I put greens in the Thanksgiving.... and ....  And yes.  I'm already behind, paralyzed with indecision.  I can't even post the start on the start!  This candy corn patch is the closest I've come to getting anything done for the holidays. 

 The new Science Series of Badges.

 bleeding or speeding heart

 na na na na na na na.....

question!

and a few old school computer patches

Now that I have my machine back in full working order, I am spending all my time on it and still not so much on the bloggy end of things.  I have a couple more events for the Fall and then I can slack off for a bit.  My speeches were OK.  At least I didn't embarrass myself or my organization.  We are doing some tree planting and water quality testing in a couple weeks.    Then.... I can get in gear for the holidays!  Or better yet, I can actually finish one of the quilts in my huge pile of WIPs... and I only count as WIP the ones where I've actually cut into the fabric.  If it is just sitting there with an sketch or pattern or just a collection of fabrics it DOES NOT COUNT as a WIP.  I have to measure progress in little steps. 

Chocolate Egg Nests

This is a guide rather than a recipe because I don't actually have a recipe. I've never measured anything. I will do my best to explain it and you can email me if you need some help. However, it is pretty foolproof and forgiving.

Start with some good chocolate. I used a bag of Ghirardelli white chocolate chips this time. Melt it using your preferred method. Technically you should do it over hot water, carefully keeping the water out and tempering ti as you go. Since you are mixing in coconut, tempering is... a waste of time... erhm not essential. I melt in the microwave. No more than 30 seconds at a time and stir well in between. Starting adding coconut until you get a pretty stiff dough. I used about a half a bag of coconut to the bag of chocolate chips.

Drop the dough onto waxed paper and press in three jelly beans or in this case three Cadbury chocolate mini eggs. Let set up. Plate like cookies or wrap individually in plastic wrap.

Yes, you can use regular chocolate. You get brown nests.
If you want them to look more like the commercial nests, add a small amount of green paste food coloring to turn the chocolate green before you add the coconut.

Homemade Marshmallows

My last post reminded me of the one candy I can make reasonably well these days, Marshmallows. I started making these a number of years ago when one of the spuds came across a recipe for them and challenged me to make them. I read a lot of different recipes and techniques and this is the one that makes the most sense.

For a number of years, I made these for a friend who's birthday is in early December. Perhaps I'll get out the candy thermometer and send her a batch.

Homemade Marshmallows

Sift together 1/2-cup powdered sugar and 1/3-cup cornstarch. Set aside.

Line a 9×13 inch glass pan with aluminum foil. Spray the foil lightly with cooking spray. Dust with some of the powdered sugar/cornstarch mixture. Set aside.

In the heat resistant bowl of your mixer sprinkle two packets of unflavored gelatin over 1/2 cup of cold water. Set aside.

In a deep heavy saucepan stir together:
1-1/2 cups sugar
1-cup corn syrup
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
Cook together over medium high heat until sugar is dissolved. Use a pastry brush (one of those sporty new silicone ones is great) and some cold water to brush down all the crystals from the sides of the pan. Set aside the brush and your stirring spoon and insert your candy thermometer. Boil syrup until it reaches 240 degrees Fahrenheit.

With your mixer running on it’s lowest setting slowly pour the hot sugar over the dissolved gelatin. Once it in incorporated increase the speed and beat until it is very thick, fluffy and white. This takes a long time. We beat at high speed for 15 minutes. (There is some controversy over whether to use a whisk or a paddle beater. We used the whisk and it worked fine, but I am going to try the paddle next time as it seemed to get almost too stiff for the whisk to continue to do much good.) Add 1 Tablespoon vanilla and mix in well.

Spread mixture into prepared pan. Let stand uncovered over night. Turn out onto a cutting board dusted with powdered sugar/cornstarch. Cut with a pizza wheel into squares. Lots of recipes call for using a knife dipped in warm water. I found that just made the marshmallows stickier and it too more powdered sugar to coat them. The pizza wheel gets sticky but I kept shaking some sugar right over the sticky residue and kept going. It worked great. Dust all the cut edges with powdered sugar/cornstarch and let stand for a few more hours to make sure the outsides are dry. Store at room temperature in a sealed container. (Or zipper bag… ours are doing fine on the counter.)

***This is a partial re-post of a recipe pasted here as part of my ongoing attempt to collect all my recipes from the far reaches of the internet and store them in one handy, search-able location.

Grandma's Recipes: Buckeyes

As written:

Buckeyes
1 pkg. pow. sugar
1 stick oleo
1 1/2 c. peanut butter
2 tsp vanilla
roll in balls
1 lg pkg semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 block paraffin
melt
_____________
2 2/3 cups powdered sugar is a lb.


These are little round confections about an inch in diameter. The center is peanut butter, sugar and oleo (margarine). From the note at the bottom, one would interpret the package of powdered sugar to be a 1 lb box. While I recall a bit of peanut in these, I doubt she used extra crunchy. They were too smooth to have a lot peanut chunks in them. Soften the margarine. Stir or mix all of the ingredients together. Roll into balls. Very straight forward.

The little balls of peanut filling are dipped in melted chocolate. Using paraffin, from the same box you used to make your ice cube candles, was pretty standard at the time. I imagine it was used to make the available chocolate in the form of chips set up better. I also imagine using it avoids most of the problems associated with not tempering chocolate properly. I think they sell some kind of paraffin-like crystal at most cake/candy shops to serve the same purpose. You may still see paraffin as an ingredient in some lower quality chocolate bars in the candy aisle.

The peanut balls are usually held with a toothpick and dipped into the chocolate leaving a small circle of the peanut showing, This gives these candies the distinctive look of a buckeye. A big hit with fans of the OSU buckeyes.

Update for O Wise Sister!

I don't think they had access to good chocolate and the only grocery store version would have been choc. chips. They remove most of the valuable cocoa butter butter from them and they are not designed for making candy. Someone figured out that adding some paraffin would help it set up and hold up. As far as I know, paraffin is not known to be harmful to humans - look at all those wax lips and wax bottles we chewed on!

The alternative would be to go to Michaels or Hobby Lobby and get some candy-making chocolate, melt it carefully and dip the peanut butter centers. It would be so much better. Of course, there is really good chocolate, too - a little harder to find and much harder to use as it must be temered (you remember that from class?)

Yes, I do remember that it needs to be tempered. I just never remember exactly how to do it properly.

Wedding Mints

This is re-posted here as part of my on-going effort to reign in my recipes from across the intertubes and collect them in one place.

My sister had a huge wedding. Much of it was homemade and crafted. Back in the day, cream cheese mints were all the rage. Each one had to be rolled and molded by hand. Making mints for 500 guests can take a while. We spent hours making them and laying them out to dry on her future mother-in-law’s dining room table. Everything was going well until Flaps the basset hound came home. One swipe of the tongue and a large portion of our production was gone.

I was reminded of that when I came across this recipe at Bake it Pretty. It is for butter mints. A recipe very similar to the ones we made with cream cheese. But I think the butter will be a different flavor and possibly a different texture. I will have to try it.

****I was reminded of this as my son was assisting his cousin in making the original cream cheese mints for her wedding reception. No dog was involved, but I do believe boy blacksmith probably snagged at least a few.