2014 Candy Stats

Caramels

Top layer of filled chocolates

Bottom layer of filled chocolates

I tried to keep track of my product usage as I made candy, but I got bored with keeping track and stopped about 3/4 through the process. These were the stats at that point:

12 lbs. Ghirardelli white chocolate

24 lbs. Merkens milk chocolate
15 lbs. Ghirardelli double dark chocolate
6 pints cream
3 lbs. butter
5 lbs. lightly salted peanuts
5 lbs. pecans, hand-picked
5 pkgs. Oreos
3 pkgs. Cream cheese
3 lbs. peanut butter
10 lbs. sugar

This list doesn’t include the bottles of booze that I used up. Many of these I bought for the 2013 candy making season and I used up the bottles this year when I made my fillings.

Busy day making fillings

Raspberry schnapps Cherry schnapps
Crème de Cassis
Jose Cuervo dark tequila
Rumple Minze Schnapps
Limoncello
Tanqueray Gin
Kahlua
Bacardi dark rum
Aftershock liquor
Grand Marnier
ButterShot schnapps
Amaretto
Frangelico
Barenjager
Jack Daniel’s Devil’s Cut whiskey
Dow’s Boardroom port

And, of course, the various and sundry other stuff, including:

5 lbs limes, zested and juiced

5 lbs lemons, zested and juiced
5 lbs oranges, zested and juiced
5 lbs. cherries
Real maple syrup
Assorted spices
Toffee bits
Walnuts
2000 Candy cups
35 1-lb boxes
35 ¼-lb boxes
35 goodie bags
250 smaller baggies used to seal the ‘other’ candies

Out of the 27 fillings that I used to fill my chocolates, I had to make 21 of them. The fillings freeze well and I do store them throughout the year with no issue. The quantity I use per each filled chocolate varies as to the size of the chocolate mold. For example, the Earl Grey filling was used in a small triangular shaped mold which takes about ¼ of the amount that is used in the Key Lime mold, therefore I don’t go through it as quickly as I do the Key Lime . . . and the fact that the Key Lime filling is simply freaking awesome!

 

Molding chocolates

Ready to get started

First batch finished

Finished for the day--5 batches of each mold (320-340 pieces)

 27 Filled chocolates (40-45 pieces of each flavor):

Velvety Caramel (I wanted a soft and gooey caramel to use in one of my new molds)

Fillings made with white chocolate

Midnight Magic (Blackberry/Cassis)

Cherries Jubilee
Bronx Cheer (raspberry)
Gingerbread
Cranberry Chaos
Pom Pucker (pomegranate)
Pilgrim’s Progress (maple/pieces of walnut)
Rumple Minze
Feel the Burn (cinnamon/chipotle)
Strawberry Margarita
Limoncello
Key Lime
Mango Madness
Smooth Dark Stout (yes, beer)

Made with dark chocolate

Porto

Rum Raisin
Whiskey Toffee
Frangelico (hazelnut)
ButterShots (butterscotch)
Black Forest (cherry)
Amaretto (almond)
Grand Marnier (orange)
Earl Grey (yes, the tea)
Barenjager (honey)
Lavender-Honey
Cup O’Joe

Six of the hand-dipped caramels had been made the previous year. This year, I made two batches of Sea Salt caramel and one batch of Maple-Smoked Bacon caramel. I plan to make the various caramels throughout the year, so I don’t spend so much time making caramel at the last minute. When wrapped in numerous layers of plastic wrap and sealed in a Ziploc bag, they work really well. Many of these recipes will have to be reworked—considering I can’t FIND the said recipes!—so I might need to make numerous experimental batches.  

All these caramels had to be cut and hand dipped before I squiggled decorative lines on them.

Seven flavors

Caramels:

Sea Salt Caramel

Maple-Smoked Bacon Caramel
Devil’s Cut Whiskey Caramel
Lime Caramel (I need a cool name for this one!)
Devil’s Velvet (cherry) Caramel
Brownie Bits Caramel
Grand Marnier Caramel
Feel the Burn (cinnamon/chipotle) Caramel (yes, it’s the same name as the filling, but totally different method to make!)

Part of the time-consuming process of making the candy, on top of it simply being a very manual labor type of endeavor, I hand trimmed each candy to clean up the edges before I popped it into a paper candy cup.

Pongos, peanut brittle, fudge, polar bear & reindeer poop, turtles, toffee

I also made and bagged:

2 batches Pecan Toffee

2 batches Peanut Brittle
2 batches of MAG’s Decadent Fudge
100 turtles
33 Pongos
3 batches Polar Bear Poop
2 batch of Reindeer Poop

I already of have a short list of chocolate fillings that I’d like to make just to see how they taste:

Guinness

Merlot
Chinese 5 spice—with the bite of black pepper!
Chai
3 Ginger
Cranberry Orange
Molasses
Rose
And a violet-thyme infused. The problem with the last one seems to be actually finding dried violets to make the filling!

I also want to make Bear Claws, similar to Pongos with the chocolate and caramel, except with cashews.

And yes, in case you wondered, I did look into making this an online business. The problem is that I have to make my products in a commercial kitchen in order to sell them. As I don’t see this happening any time soon, I’ll just have to be happy with giving them away

…though I will take donations in the form of anything listed that I used up this year—namely, the very expensive liquor!  

And there you have it, the reason I don’t write, blog, or do much of anything else in the month of December!

Later, Peeps!