Maybe I better qualify that statement: I finished making molded chocolates that will be given away as gifts. Talk about a back-breaking labor of love.
I want to make peanut brittle, pecan brittle and walnut brittle. No, they don't have the same base sugar ingredients. Would you want to eat a pecan brittle with the foamy brown peanut brittle sticky stuff? I wouldn't. The sugar base for the other two brittles needs to be clearer without the addition of baking soda. I thought I'd like to play with a maple extract in the walnut brittle.
And I haven't made polar bear poop or reindeer poop yet. Hm, just noticed I don't have Reindeer poop in my recipes--it's made with a peanut butter filling dipped in chocolate.
If you want any of these recipes, you can click this link: Foodie Friday (or look at Foodie Friday on my blog header), scroll down to candy, and pick the link that interests you. I checked all the links in September so they should work. Please let me know if one is broken.
So what did I actually do for the last two weeks?
I molded roughly 1344 pieces of candy (give or take 30 pieces), made two batches of sea salt caramels, two batches of toffee, two batches of Margaret's Decadent fudge, one batch of Lemon Fudge with shortbread crust, one batch of Aftershock caramels (cinnamon-chipolte).
When you realize most molds hold only 8 slots, I went through the process a mind-numbing amount of times!
Now the time has come for me to figure out how to fit them into their boxes.
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| Hand dipped chocolates |
Buttery Pecan Toffee (coated in milk chocolate and dusted with ground pecans)
Turtles (singles and doubles)
Sea Salt Caramels (dipped in milk and dark chocolate)
Aftershock Caramels (dipped in milk chocolate with dark chocolate zigzag)
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| Fudge and caramels |
Margaret's Decadent fudge (mistletoe foil)
Lemon fudge with shortbread crust (green foil)
Soft caramels:
Buttery caramel (daisy mold)--good old butter and sugar!
Chambord berry caramel (heart with flower mold)--Chambord and raspberries
Bananas Foster caramel (triangular mold)--Bananas and rum
Grand Marnier caramel (divided square mold)--Grand Marnier and oranges
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| White chocolate based fillings |
Maple walnut (maple syrup)
Key Lime (limes and Tanqueray gin)
Gingerbread (ginger root and vodka)
Strawberry Margarita (strawberries, lime & tequila)
Peppermint Schnapps (Rumpleminz schnapps)
Chambord (Chambord and raspberries)
Grand Marnier (Grand Marnier and oranges)
Limoncello (limoncello and lemons)
Cranberry Cosmo (cranberries and vodka)
Grapefruit Cuervo (center)
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| Dark chocolate based fillings |
Dark chocolate based fillings (clockwise from the top):
Whiskey toffee (exactly how it sounds :-P)
Buttershots (butterscotch)
Frangelico (hazelnut)
Black Forest (cherry chocolate)
Grand Marnier (orange)
Amaretto (almond)
Barenjager (honey)
Porto (port wine)
Rum Raisin (rum and raisins, of course)
Kahlua (white pyramid in center)
Why did I choose some fillings to be made with white chocolate versus dark chocolate?
Dark chocolate has a very strong flavor on it's own, it would simply overpower the other flavors. The flavors made in dark chocolate enhanced the flavors without overpowering either the chocolate or the flavor. They work together to form an enjoyable combination.
And here you have the final result. One pound of candy that took me HOURS, DAYS and WEEKS to make. Only a select few, okay, 50 people (family, hub's coworkers, teachers, friends), are given my candy, and I suspect only a handful of those people know how much work that goes into making them.
Now, I have to pack 49 more boxes. Ugh! I'll probably post the chocolate molding tutorial next Monday.
People are often clueless about the time put into homemade stuff. One year I cross-stitched the Navy seal for Bob for Christmas. It was the first major cross-stitch project I ever did. He never saw me working on it (he was already at Camp Lejeune, NC, and Brandon and I were still in Augusta), and he appreciated it tremendously, but I still made a point of telling him, "This took me as long to do as writing an entire book." :-)
ReplyDeleteYep. Unless you do these types of crafty things, you don't have an appreciation for the work.
ReplyDeleteI've also made 10 afghans since March--three different styles because when I finish one, I'm bored and crochet a new challenge. The financial input is about $400, but "I" think they are worth about $200 each, which means I made maybe $5.00/hour crocheting--well below the accepted minimum wage.
OH MY! I am so impressed, and I do know how much time, effort, love you put into these goodies.
ReplyDeleteThey are delicious and worth all the calories.
(I hid my box last year, and ate every single one!)
You are a master chocolatier!
Thanks, Meg!
ReplyDeleteGuess that means you need to visit me if you want your nom-noms!