St. Valentine's Day

Valentine's is overrated...it's mostly about flowers, chocolate & everything sweet. What a great day for florists, candy corporations like Hershey's & whoever markets Valentine goodies. Although all the sweets can make you sick to your stomach, I still like to participate. :)
It's not economical to be giving out flowers to everyone, but chocolate, cookies & candy can be quite affordable. So on Valentine Eve, begun my quest to making shortbread sandwiches & easy peanut butter cups. The peanut cups were so easy to put together, unfortunately I can't say the same about the shortbread sandwiches. They were so labor intensive, I had to forgo trying the chocolate sandwiches. The variety would have been nice, but the work, probably not so nice. Because the shortbread dough was so buttery & delicate, I had to stick it in the fridge in between rolling & cutting to allow the dough to firm up enough to handle.

I Like Making Candy

So far I've tried Caramel candy, Marshmallows, & Divinity (failure)...so when I saw Lynn post a recipe for Fruit Delights - I had to give it a try. I can't remember ever trying these before meeting my boyfriend. When we first met, he said his family used to eat these Liberty Orchard fruit delights during the Christmas holidays. He gave me a box one year. So as a fun little surprise, I thought these would make him nostalgic.
I really want to try the recipe using Pectin, I found powder pectin & liquid pectin, I want to use the powder one, but need to figure out how to convert it to a liquid equivalent. These were really chewy, they remind me more of gummy worms/bears than fruit delights (maybe since I messed with the sugar). I'm guessing the pectin texture will be more similar to Liberty Orchard's. The candy was a bit sweet for my personal preference, although I did reduce the sugar to 1 1/2 cups - I want to reduce it more, but am unsure how it will affect the end result. I'm always trying to reduce sugar, since it helps me feel a little less guilty when I overindulge. For the "raspberry juice", I simmered down about 1/4 cup frozen raspberries in a small amount of water. I strained out the seeds & reserved the thick red nutritious liquid.

~*~
Raspberry-Lime Delights
1 cup pecans, coarsely chopped

1/3 cup raspberry juice/liquid
2 tblspns cold H20
1 tblspn fresh lime juice
2 tblspns gelatin

2/3 cup H20
1 1 /2 cups sugar

Zest of one lime

Powdered sugar

• Lightly oil an 8X8 glass pan. I lined the bottom with parchment paper. Scatter around the chopped nuts & set aside.
• In a small bowl, combine raspberry juice, cold water, lime juice & gelatin, set aside for at least 5 minutes.
  
• Combine the 2/3 cup water & sugar in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves.
• When the sugar comes to a boil, stop stirring & allow sugar water to reach 234F (or soft-ball stage).
• Remove from heat & add gelatin mixture. Return to heat & stir continuously till the thermometer reaches 224F.
• Remove from heat & quickly stir in lime zest.
  
• Pour the mixture over the nuts in the prepared pan.
• Allow mixture to set overnight.
• Once hardened, cover completely in powdered sugar & cut into squares with an oiled/buttered knife.
• Coat all sides of the candy in powdered sugar & allow to stand for another 12 hours.
• Store in an airtight container.
  

Peppermint Marshmallows

For the first time in my life, I made some homemade marshmallows! They turned out great! Soft, chewy, sweet, flavorful, delicious & light! I could eat the whole batch without even knowing it! Ok - I'm a freakin' sugar addict! Instead of using vanilla, I substituted equal amounts of peppermint flavor.

~*~
Peppermint Marshmallows
1 1/2 packages unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup cold H20

1/4 cup ice cold H20
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp peppermint extract
splash of vanilla extract
1/8 cup confectioners' sugar
1/8 cup cornstarch, little less

• Place the gelatin into the bowl of a stand mixer along with 1/2 cup of the water. Have the whisk attachment standing by.
• In a small saucepan combine the remaining 1/2 cup water, granulated sugar, corn syrup & salt. Place over medium high heat, cover & allow to cook for 3 to 4 minutes.
  
• Uncover, clip a candy thermometer onto the side of the pan & continue to cook until the mixture reaches 240 degrees F, approximately 7 to 8 minutes. Once the mixture reaches this temperature, immediately remove from the heat.
• Turn the mixer on low speed and, while running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the gelatin mixture.
  
• Once you have added all of the syrup, increase the speed to high.
  
• Continue to whip until the mixture becomes very thick & is lukewarm, approximately 12 to 15 minutes.
  
• Add the peppermint & splash of vanilla during the last minute of whipping. While the mixture is whipping prepare the pan as follows.

• Combine the confectioners' sugar and cornstarch in a small bowl. Lightly spray a 8 by 8-glass inch pan with nonstick cooking spray. Line with parchment paper & spray again. Add the sugar & cornstarch mixture & move around to completely coat the bottom & sides of the pan. Return the remaining mixture to the bowl for later use.
  

• When marshmallow is ready, pour the mixture into the prepared pan, using a lightly oiled spatula for spreading evenly into the pan. Dust the top with enough of the remaining sugar & cornstarch mixture to lightly cover. Reserve the rest for later. Allow the marshmallows to sit uncovered for at least 4 hours & up to overnight.

• Turn the marshmallows out onto a cutting board & cut into 1-inch squares using a sharp knife dusted with the confectioners' sugar mixture. Once cut, lightly dust all sides of each marshmallow with the remaining mixture, using additional if necessary. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks.

**More Marshmallows:
Cookie Baker Lynn
Baking Bites
Bittersweet

Homemade Caramel

I made caramel candy this weekend. Initially I was pretty scared it would not turn out since candy-making can be finicky & I basically have no experience. Plus, our house has been a little humid & that worried me too. Although my candy didn't harden up quite as much as I would like, I think a little time in the fridge will do the trick. I personally think the texture is perfect for candy eaten alone - just the right amount of chewy, but since I've never had homemade caramel before, I have nothing for comparison. Other than having caramel in candy & cookies, the only other caramel I know is from Kraft, which has a lot of nasty looking stuff listed in the ingredients. The candy is a bit soft, which makes for difficult clean cutting, so that seems to be a bit of a challenge. I plan on using this candy in some cashew-caramel cherry cookies. They're going into cookies - how bad could that be? Plus they taste fantastically delicious alone. Many things considered, maybe next time I need to allow the candy to get back to 250F instead of 244F after adding the butter & cream mixture. Plus, according to Martha's recipe, every step took a bit of time longer than it took my process, maybe I needed to lower the temperature & give the candy more time to cook? *Shrug* I have too much to learn about candy making! I have too much to learn, period.

~*~
Homemade Golden Caramel
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup H2O
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt

1/2 stick of butter (4 tblspns), cut into pieces
1 tsp vanilla extract

• Line a half sheet pan with parchment paper. Set aside in a place where it can sit for 24 hours without being moved. (For thicker candy, line a smaller pan as candy does spread.)
  
• In a small saucepan, combine heavy cream + condensed milk. Cook slowly on low until warm, be careful not to bring to a boil.
• Meanwhile, in a heavy 6 - 8 quart pan (I used 2 quart), combine H2O, corn syrup, sugar & salt. Clip a candy thermometer to the pan. Over high heat, with a wooden spoon, stir mixture until sugar is dissolved ~4 - 12 minutes. Brush down the sides with a pastry brush dipped in water to remove sugar crystals.
• Once sugar is dissolved, stop stirring, reduce heat to medium, bring to a boil & without stirring, continue cooking until temperature reaches 250F (hard-ball stage), ~45 - 60 minutes (took me ~12 - 15 minutes).
• Keep an eye on cream mixture & make sure it's warm, but not boiling.
• When sugar mixture reaches 250F, while stirring, add butter pieces & SLOWLY add warmed cream mixture, be careful as this will bubble up & be extremely hot. Keep mixture boiling at all times.
• Stirring constantly, cook over medium heat until mixture reaches 244F (firm-ball stage), ~55 - 75 minutes (took me ~18 - 20 minutes).
• Stir in vanilla extract.
• Immediately pour into prepared pan without scraping pot.
• Let stand uncovered at room temperature, without moving, for 24 hours. (I tented mine with some parchment paper.) **To clean saucepan, fill the pot with H2O & bring to a boil, the caramel will dissolve & come off for easy cleaning.**
  
• Cut into pieces or desired shapes & wrap in cellophane or wax paper. (Pop in fridge for a few minutes before cutting to harden candy slightly if necessary.)