home-made sweets

[auntieannie]

Does anyone make candies/sweets at home these days? looking through the web for some sweet making rings gives me nothing. nada. zilch.

I am interested in making them in relation with my studies.

Has any of you ever made fruit drops or mint humbugs?

[Deleted]

I do eat sweets on occasion, but I confess that I have never investigated how to make them myself. We are entering dangerous territory here.

[bixaorellana]

Hey Annie, check out this site: www.candy-recipes-and-more.com/

You should be able to accumulate some recipes with this thread. With that in mind, I'm moving it to The Galley.

Meanwhile, here is a toffee recipe I got from a friend:

JONI’S TOFFEE

2 cups butter
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup water
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 1/4 tsp baking powder
6 oz pg small chocolate chips
1 1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds or pecans)
Combine butter, sugar, water and salt in a saucepan (fairly large pan -- it boils up). Stir constantly until it comes to a boil, continue to cook (I continue to stir) until it reaches 236 degrees, continue cooking and stirring until it reaches 290 degrees, quickly stir in baking powder, then pour on to a greased cookie sheet (I just line with foil shiny side up). Then almost immediately I cover with the small chocolate chips (they should melt), then top with the nuts.
Notes: toward the end of the cooking the mixture will turn a dark caramel color, it ends up sticking to the pot and is not really fun to clean, I haven't found a way around that. Have all your ingredients ready, especially the baking powder, chips and nuts you want those chips to melt on the hot toffee, then the nuts to stick in the melted chocolate. I usually get good quality chips even if have to chop them up from the bigger size. I use semi sweet, but I want to try bitter sweet.
No nothing unusual happens between the two temps, maybe you can stop stirring, but I don't.. Yes, you can take it to the hard "crack" stage (_not_ hard ball, which is only about 260 degrees), Hard crack according to my thermometer is 300 degrees, so maybe just a bit below. Just before it reaches that stage it becomes darker, caramel color, it starts out a white color.

[auntieannie]

oh, thanks,bixabella! I do have a few recipes in my Mrs Beeton's Pantry cookbook.

[kerouac2]

It makes me laugh to think that any of us amateurs could ever do these things, even though some of them look so easy.

[bixaorellana]

That's the kind of thing amateurs do on The Great British Bake Off. Watching it there, where sometimes they fail, you can really tell those tricks are hard. The one with the comb gave me a clear vision of myself dropping the comb into the dangerously hot caramel and then unthinkingly dipping my hand in to retrieve it. The rolling pin trick in the video blows me away!

[tod2]

Like Kerouac ....it isn't as easy as it looks. Just having my grandsons persuade me to help them make "slime" out of wood glue , colourant and something like a baking soda fixative put me off trying any baking tricks.
My mixing bowl is still tinted with a purple shade of pale....