candy

Buttermilk Pecan Fudge

12.26.2014 by J. Doe // 2 Comments

I had a plan for Christmas. It involved boxes of cookies and treats, delivered to neighbors and shipped off to friends. The family room walls, recently painted, would no longer be bare. The pets would all have their own stockings, filled with treats, and their stockings would match. In short, I would create a very photogenic Christmas.

We did get the bare minimum done: a tree was acquired from the one tree stand I could find that would tie the tree to the top of my car for me. It took about a week to decorate the tree, which was mostly The Child’s doing, although I can take credit for festooning it with lights, not once but twice, and in the process, learning a Christmas lesson about plugging strings of lights in before putting them on the tree. The Child set up the Christmas Village, which looked festive even after the cat Godzillaed through it, sending miniature trees and New England skaters to their near-deaths on the family room carpet; thankfully, New Englanders are a hardy bunch. I finally replaced the photo frame stocking hangers I bought with The Departed for our first Christmas together, with a vow to update the photos each year as the kids got older, but somehow never did.

The Child rescued the photos of now-departed pets from them as I set out new stocking holders that spell out PEACE: a timeless message, one that requires no annual update.

I never quite got to the matching pet Christmas stockings and boxes of treats. I did binge-listen to the Serial podcast and make possibly the best cranberry sauce I’ve ever made, so it was holiday time spent well, if slightly less than traditionally.

For Christmas Day itself, I planned carefully, getting everything ready and wrapped beforehand. I’d get up before The Child and bake a New England Spider Cake, the scent of which would rouse her from her bed; we’d open gifts together by the twinkle of the tree.

I did get up before her; the Red Dog woke me up several times during the night. Christmas began with a nice hot cup of coffee waiting patiently on the counter while I discovered why he was so agitated all night. The noise of the carpet cleaner roused The Child. We did open gifts to a twinkling tree, but Christmas breakfast consisted of bacon and eggs. Neither of us had the patience or energy to make – and wait for – Spider Cake.

Nobody was disappointed.

There were treats around anyway, of course. The Child arranged some Sour Gummy Stars for my stocking, and Santa made sure her favorite chocolates found their way into her stocking. And a few days before Christmas, I made fudge. I think I meant to put it into gift boxes.

I’ve never made fudge of any sort before, and to be honest, I’ve never really been a fan, having been subjected too often to fudge that tastes of gritty chocolate or is overly sweet or comes in pieces that are much too large, like those big slabs you order by the quarter-pound on some stores. But I ran across this recipe a while ago on Bon Appetit and saved it, because it struck me that a bit of buttermilk tang might be the antidote to the ills of inferior fudge.

It was, and then some. The recipe produced a delicious, slightly tart, delightfully nutty fudge. I used a pan a bit larger than the one called for in the recipe, which produced a thinner fudge that I cut into approximate one-inch squares – a perfect little sweet treat. Just a bite, or maybe two, because that’s all you need when you’re perfectly satisfied.

Buttermilk Pecan Fudge

Author: adapted slightly from Alison Roman, Bon Appetit

Ingredients

1 cup pecans
2 cups sugar
1 cup buttermilk
½ cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 tbsp honey
⅛ teaspoon salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°. Line a 9x9” pan with parchment paper.
Toast pecans on a rimmed baking sheet, until fragrant and slightly darkened in color, 8–10 minutes. Let cool, then coarsely chop.
Heat sugar, buttermilk, butter, honey, and salt in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until butter and sugar are melted, about 3 minutes. Fit saucepan with thermometer, bring mixture to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until thermometer registers 238° (mixture will be pale golden), 6–8 minutes.
Pour the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer, and beat with the paddle attachment on medium speed until cool and thickened, 8-10 minutes. It will be stiff and matte. Fold in the pecans.
Scrape fudge into the prepared pan and smooth it. Let sit at least an hour, then cut into one-inch squares.

Notes

The original recipe uses a 9x5 inch loaf pan, which would result in thicker pieces.

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Apple Cider Caramels

12.21.2013 by J. Doe // 11 Comments

We were all ready. We had a plan.

The Child wanted to give gifts to all her friends and all her teachers, which was fine when she was in elementary school and this meant one girl, one teacher, and one music teacher. Gift baskets and silly hats for everyone!

She’s in middle school now, and this means lists of teachers and coaches and friends and sort-of friends. We begin our discussion with a brief math test: Ten teachers times a $25 Starbucks card is how much?

We move on to budgeting, and from there simple division, and then to more advanced math problems: If it takes an hour to pick out one very personal gift for each of twelve friends, and you still have to do homework every evening, how much time is left to play Minecraft and watch Smosh videos?

Finally, we hit on a plan, and find assorted holiday rubber ducks for all her friends, and some inexpensive penguin mugs for the teachers, which will be delivered filled with homemade caramels. No problem. Christmas under control … until it isn’t, after a huge project at work keeps me late several nights, and a rather odd string of phone calls sucks up even more of my spare time.

Still, caramels aren’t hard, and we plan for The Child to deliver the mugs on the Friday before her break, so I start making caramels on Wednesday evening. I had made Apple Cider Caramels last year, using a recipe from Sweet Pea’s Kitchen, and they were quite good, but the recipe seems to be gone from the site now. I did print out a copy, which I eventually found tucked in a cookbook, but in my searches I also ran across the recipe below over at Smitten Kitchen, and thought, well, maybe I should give it a try.

The caramels are very, very simple to make, with only a few ingredients and steps, and the resulting caramels have a wonderful mild, slightly tart spiced-cider flavor. I made some slight modifications to the recipe, primarily reducing the amount of salt to account for the change in type of salt from the original recipe (she uses Maldon salt, I used regular kosher salt). I also cooked only to just slightly above 250 degrees, since I wanted a very, very soft caramel that the child could eat with her braces. Both modifications worked out very well. The Child pronounced the caramels delicious, and we didn’t have to go to the orthodontist after she ate one.

Thursday morning, we arrive at school, and she unloads a bag of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Rainducks from my trunk, and then panics: Where are the caramels?

They’re for tomorrow, I say. They’re not done yet.

But there’s no school tomorrow! It’s going to be a snow day.

I’ve not heard anything about snow, and tell her this. One batch of these caramels doesn’t fill up the mugs, I tell her, so I need to make more tonight. She’s not content with this, but I check the weather on my phone and show her: Look. No snow.

I spend the evening making more caramels as she writes out gift tags and attaches them to the penguin mugs. I keep checking the news for weather updates, but there’s still nothing about snow, until about 9pm, when the warnings start to appear. And sure enough, at 5:30 the next morning, I receive a text that wakes me up: Emergency Notification – School canceled due to snow.

I peek out the window, and discover there’s about a half inch of snow in my yard. By Seattle standards, this constitutes Snowpocalypse.

I wake The Child, so she can see the magical, beautiful snow before it melts. She shrieks and squeals over the school cancellation, instagrams the snow on the roof outside her window, and goes back to sleep.

Apple Cider Caramels

Author: The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

Ingredients

4 cups apple cider
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tsp kosher salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 cup sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
⅓ cup heavy cream
Neutral oil for the knife

Instructions

Boil the apple cider in a 3- to- 4- quart saucepan over high heat until it is reduced to a dark, thick syrup, between ⅓ and ½ cup in volume. This takes about 35 to 40 minutes. Stir occasionally.
While this is cooking, get everything else ready. Line the bottom and sides of an 8- inch straight- sided square metal baking pan with 2 long sheets of crisscrossed parchment. Set it aside. Stir the cinnamon and salt together in a small dish.
Once you are finished reducing the apple cider, remove it from the heat and stir in the butter, sugars, and heavy cream. Return the pot to medium- high heat with a candy thermometer attached to the side, and let it boil until the thermometer reads 252 degrees, only about 5 minutes, keeping a close eye on it.
Remove caramel from heat, add the cinnamon-salt mixture, and stir to distribute it evenly. Pour caramel into the prepared pan. Let it sit until cool and firm—about 2 hours. Once caramel is firm, transfer the block to a cutting board. Use a well- oiled knife, oiling it after each cut, to cut the caramel into 1-by-1-inch squares. Wrap each one in a 4-inch square of waxed paper, twisting the sides to close. Caramels will be somewhat on the soft side at room temperature, and chewy/firm from the fridge.

Notes

The original recipe called for "2 teaspoons flaky sea salt, such as Maldon." I didn't have that so I used 1 tsp of kosher salt, which was exactly right. Also, the original recipe uses real apple cider (the kind you find in the refrigerated foods case). I didn't have that and used regular bottled apple cider, which I admit is inferior but worked out fine.

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Apple Jellies Revisited

12.29.2012 by J. Doe // 10 Comments

I spent a lot of time wondering what went wrong after my Apple Jellies fiasco. After all, as one of my readers pointed out, Lottie and Doof didn’t have trouble with the recipe when they made it. I love that blog, and have had good luck with other recipes on it.

They wouldn’t lie to me any more than Alice Waters would.

I thought of two possibilities. First, I live in the Seattle area, and thus, a damp climate (mildew is our state flower), which could have resulted in problems getting the jellies to dry out. But that problem should have been resolved, I think, by the extensive oven drying time I added.

The second possibility was suggested by this line of the ingredient list: 8 medium apples (3 pounds).

I used eight apples, as the recipe suggested.

I did not, however, weigh them.

It’s a funny thing to have an a-ha moment in the produce section of the supermarket, and probably would have been embarrassing, too, had I not been so caught up in my moment of revelation. Three pounds of apples in my part of the world equals five apples, not eight.

I did calculate the percentages, but I’ll spare you the math; I used much too much. Of course it didn’t dry out the way it should have.

I bought five apples and re-did the recipe, making no other changes to it. It did work – the apples jelled – although they still did require an hour in the oven. They still lacked the gummy-type texture that I was – rightly or wrongly – hoping for, but I noticed that there were bits like that on the sides of the cooking pan, so I suspect if I cooked the apples down a bit further, the whole thing would work out the way I wanted it too.

There was just one other problem: I still didn’t like them very much. They were okay, to be sure, but just sort of plain. I would have preferred a bit of citrus-peel bite or some spiciness or … something. On the other hand, The Child thought they were great this time around – which seems to be just my luck with these things.

I’m pleased to have learned a few things from the experience, but will not likely make Apple Jellies again. I do like the Jellies idea, though, and will probably play around with the recipe posted at The Spiced Life, which involves pectin and sounds like it will be a bit less fuss and a bit more adaptable.

We’ll see.

This is my contribution to Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Why not swing by and see if the other participants had better luck?

Buttermilk Pecan Fudge

Apple Cider Caramels

Apple Jellies Revisited

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