What are your favorite fudge and candy recipes? This is my favorite:
Homemade Toffee
1 cup sugar
1 stick butter (Do Not Use Margarine)
¼ cup hot water
¼ teaspoon salt
❧ Grease a metal cookie sheet with butter.
❧ Put all ingredients into a microwaveable bowl. I recommend pyrex because this gets hot enough to melt some plastics.
❧ Put in microwave and heat for 1 to 2 minutes until butter is all liquid. Remove from microwave and stir until well mixed.
❧ Put back in microwave and cook, checking every 30 seconds or so to see if it darkens. Don’t remove from microwave until it darkens.
❧ When it does get a bit darker (turns toffee color) remove from microwave, and quickly stir down the foam and spread onto buttered cookie sheet.
❧ Let cool and then shatter into bite sized pieces.
I am glad this thread was started! And I loved the garlic fudge!
My own contribution comes from the family of my maternal grandmother. I once posted it in another recipe thread here, but good things are worth repeating. It’s a variety of fudge, called Boston Cream. Grandma says nobody knows where the name came from. In the “old days” the women who made it would co-opt a guy with a string arm, as it takes a lot of beating. I suppose you can use any kind of chopped nuts, but we have NEVER used anything but black walnuts. It’s TRADITION! Well, I did once try pecans, out of curiosity. But somehow it just wasn’t right. Those who haven’t had it are free to experiment though, but the REAL DEAL has black walnuts.
Boston Cream
3 cups sugar
1 cup clear corn syrup
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup chopped black walnuts
1 teaspoon vanilla
Boil syrup, sugar, and cream until it reaches soft ball stage. Remove from heat; beat long and hard until mixture cools and thickens. It will lighten considerably in color, from golden to nearly white. The continual beating in of air is the secret. When candy is almost too thick to stir, mix in muts and vanilla, and quickly place in a buttered pan. By this time you can almost pat it into place. Cool and cut into squares as desired. It’s very rich, we cut in small pieces.
Our family primarily has it during the holidays, but once, when I was in basic training, I got homesick and asked my grandmother to send me some. It gave me a taste of home. Not too many tastes, my fellow trainees helped to sample it!
There are indeed many recipes out there, but go to the City of Nanaimo page for the original. Yes, I’ve posted this before, but authenticity is important!
2 cups maple syrup (Grade A dark amber is what I used)
3/4 cup 10 per cent cream or 2 and a half Tablespoons heavy cream and 1 half cup whole milk
2 tablespoons butter
a half cup coarsely chopped walnuts
❧ Use butter to grease bottom and sides of heavy pan, leave any “extra” butter in the pan.
❧ Put the remaining ingredients except the walnuts in the pan.
❧ Boil uncovered, stirring constantly, until a drop in cold water forms a soft ball (236 to 238 degrees F).
❧ Cool to lukewarm without stirring. (110 degrees F).
❧ Add nuts
❧ Beat until creamy and gloss is gone. The mixture was very stiff and sticky and hard to beat, you may want to have two people taking turns. It may set suddenly so be ready.
❧ Turn into buttered 8-inch square pan.
❧ Cut into squares while still soft.
If I’m making it myself, I love stuff dipped in chocolate. Pretzels in white (I know it’s not real) chocolate are my favorite.
My other favorite, which I can’t make because I get all wonky around peppermint oil, is Ritz crackers dipped in dark chocolate with a bit of peppermint oil added to it. Ooooh, good stuff–better than Thin Mints, imho.
I want to try to make caramels this Christmas, I think…
Peppermint oil makes me woozy. And wonky. And a little weird.
I get so dizzy that I can’t stand up, and must go recline on the couch for a couple of hours, holding onto the wall to make sure I don’t fall off. Then I’m just generally nauseated and icky-feeling after, sort of like a hangover. It’s horrid.
I don’t have to even imbibe to get sick–just having that teeny little bottle of peppermint oil open on the counter will do it, especially if I add it to something warm.
Unfortunately (because I SO LOVE peppermint), this means I can’t make peppermint soap, peppermint body products, or anything else requiring peppermint essential oil or fragrance oil. It ALS)–I hope you’re sitting down, lest the sheer horror affect you–means I am severely limited in the number of Thin Mints I can eat. Three, maybe four, but that’s my limit, and even at four I pay the price with an episode of dizziness. No sitting down with the whole box for me.
Mom and I were discussing holiday baking and candy making today. My favorite is Oklahoma Brown Candy, a kind of praliney, fudgy nut candy. My grandmother would make it every Christmas. After she passed, I attempted to make it myself and lord, does it require some arm muscle! I’d be happy to share the recipe with anyone who’s interested.
I also make my Grandmother’s peanut brittle every Christmas and this year I’m going to try Southern Living’s Bourbon-Pecan Toffee. Yum!
With pleasure, Baker! Please keep in mind that the recipe is still in my grandmother’s original wording. I’ll try to clean it up, but if you’re confused just let me know.
Oklahoma Brown Candy
Dump 4 cups sugar and 2 cups whole milk or light cream into a kettle (heavy stock pot will do). Set aside.
Dump 2 cups sugar in a heavy skillet. Cook sugar over low heat, stirring until it melts slowly and becomes syrup. Don’t let it smoke or turn dark brown. This will take about thirty minutes.
When the sugar in the skillet starts to melt, set the kettle of sugar and milk over low heat and let it simmer. When your skillet sugar is melted, pour it in a very fine stream into the kettle, stirring constantly. Cook and stir the mix to hardball stage.
Remove the kettle from the heat and add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and stir until foamy. Add 1/4 pound margarine and stir until melted. Set aside at room temperature for 20 minutes.
Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and beat until the candy is thick and dull (this is where your muscles come into play). Pour in 4 cups chopped nuts - pecans are best. Scrape the mix into a buttered pan and let cool. Cut into squares.
