We’ve almost run out of money until next payday. The situation really isn’t too bad, since the presents are bought, the bills are paid, we’ve got plenty of food, etc, etc. The only thing we didn’t get was candy for the Christmas stockings. Anyone have ideas for candy, extra-nifty cookies, or special treats we can fill the stockings with?
This is what I have to work with:
Tons of: butter, flour, milk, frozen blueberries, frozen bananas, cinnamon, whole almonds, canned pumpkin, crisco, brown sugar
Good amount of: chocolate chips, unsweetened chocolate, white sugar, apples, butter flavor crisco, various other typical baking stuff you’d find in a kitchen
As for equipment, I’ve got a heavy duty 5 qt stand mixer, various standard stuff like oven, microwave, blender, etc. What I’m lacking is a food processor or a candy thermometer. I do have a probe thermometer (the kind you see Alton Brown sticking into a big roast on TV), can this be used as a candy thermometer?
I LOVE baking ! If you’d like it, I have a recipe for the easiest fudge in the world. You can add nut, cherries or whatever you like to it. It looks like you’ve got all of the ingredients too.
I’ve also got an awesome recipe for white chocolate rasberry cookies.
1 c water
2 c sugar
pinch of salt
3 c raw nuts, shelled
Combine water, sugar and peanuts and boil on high heat until sugar crystallizes. Heat oven to 325º and put nuts on cookie sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes or until done. A nice variation is to add 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper to the sugar. Trust me.
… VERBENABEAST’S STICKY NUTS (Brittle)
1 c sugar
½ c light corn syrup
1 T water
1 c pecans or any nut you like
1 T butter
1 T baking soda
1 T vanilla
Mix sugar, syrup and water in a microwave safe dish. It gets sticky as all hell so make sure you stir it good. Heat on high for 4 minutes. Fold in your nuts. Heat on high for 4½ minutes. Stir in warm butter and vanilla. Allow butter to completely dissolve.
Stir in soda (watch it – it foams!). Pour out onto a greased cookie sheet – spreading it at thin as you can. Work Fast!! Or you will have a big lump. Allow brittle to cool; then break into pieces.
… TOFFEE
2 c sugar
1 stick butter
1 t vanilla
1¼ c water
Place all ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Stir over a medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Without stirring, boil until the mixture reaches 290º on a candy thermometer. Pour into a buttered, 9x13” inch pan. Let cool until almost firm to the touch. Mark into 2” squares with a sharp knife. When cool, break into squares or shards.
I do have popcorn, although I didn’t list it! I am so making popcorn balls! Dragongirl’s fudge, too. There is an “Eagle brand” fudge kit that they sell at Sam’s that is pretty much the same thing, except I think maybe they tell you to put in a few tablespoons of butter. This way, though, I can control the quality of the chocolate chips that go into it-- the ones that come in the box seemed kinda blah. My husband said he couldn’t tell the difference between the condensed milk stuff and the fudge that you buy at the candy shop.
I realized there was one crucial and luckily cheap ingredient that would let me make lots of different types of candy-- corn syrup. I had my husband pick me up some on his way home. I think I can use my probe thermometer, if I can find a way to make it hang properly in the pot. Maybe I can bend something up out of a paperclip. The probe is metal and it will measure up to 392 degrees, so I can’t see why it wouldn’t work. I wish I could find my mother’s old copy of the Betty Crocker cookbook from 1968. It has the popcorn balls and cream caramels I used to make when I was a kid. Commercially made caramels don’t compare-- alhough the Russell Stover Butter Cream Caramels come close.
This looks good, too! I remember making some when I was a young teen, where you’d make the toffee, then once it was in the pan, sprinkle it with a layer of chocolate chips, and once they’d melted, you could spread the chocolate around like frosting, and sprinkle with chopped almonds. The sugar nuts look good too-- At the swanky mall we lived by before we moved (Flatirons) there was a little cart in the outdoor village part that sold something just like that. The butterscotch looks good too. Man, I have so much knitting, baking and candy-making ahead of me in the next couple days. I still have to knit a sweater for my husband. (I have a knitting machine, otherwise I’d be out of luck on that one!)
Wow, MinniePurl, I was just about to post my toffee recipe. It’s close, but not exactly the same, so I will anyway.
I’ll be making my fifth? sixth? batch tomorrow evening.
Almond toffee
1 lb butter
2 C sugar
dash of vanilla
1-2 C whole roasted almonds
1/4 C chopped almonds
Chocolate chips, any variety
Combine butter and sugar in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan. Stir constantly, adding the vanilla once it’s liquid. Keep stirring until it reaches just a hair shy of 300 degrees F on a candy thermometer. Add the whole almonds gradually while still stirring (you don’t want to drop the heat too much, so don’t plop them in all at once.)
When it hits 300, take it off and pour it in a buttered or non-stick jelly roll pan. Smooth it out to the edges, and let it cool slightly. Sprinkle the chocolate chips over it while it’s still hot, and let the heat melt them. Then spread the chocolate around too, and top with the chopped almonds.
Break it into bits when it’s cooled.
I’ve used all sorts of chocolate in it; dark chocolate is especially good if you replace the vanilla with orange extract.
Do you have any Christmas cookie cutters? If so, I have a fabulous recipe for sugar cookies and whipped (bakery style) icing. You could make some fancy cookies!
Condensed milk truffles are incredibly easy to make and you can use one base recipe for all sorts- add peppermint oil and roll in crushed candy canes, add a bit of cointreau and roll in cocoa, add almond extract or amaretto and roll in nuts.
Here’s the basic recipe I follow, and I have a few variations I add documented below:
The Sugar Cookie Recipe
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup shortening or butter*
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract**
3 1/4 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Early in the day or the day before:
In a large bowl cream the shortening and the sugar. Add the eggs, extract, and milk. In a medium bowl mix the dry ingredients with a wire whisk. Add the dry ingredients to the large bowl (always add the dry to the wet!). Mix with mixer until well combined. With hands, shape dough into a ball. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease cookie sheets. Roll half or 1/3 dough at a time, keep the rest refrigerated. For crisp cookies, roll dough, paper thin. For softer cookies, roll 1/8 " to 1/4" thick. With floured cookie cutter, cut into shapes. Re-roll trimmings and cut.
Place cookies 1/2 inch apart on cookie sheets. Bake 8 minutes or until very light brown. With pancake turner, remove cookies to racks; cool. Makes about 6 dozen cookies.
*For “sturdy and tasty” cookies, I use 1/2 shortening and 1/2 butter (or 1/3 cup each). Shortening makes cookies sturdy and butter makes them tasty.
** Grandma always said “triple the extract if you want it to taste good”, so I add a whole tablespoon of extract to my dough (1.5 tsp of vanilla and 1.5 tsp of almond)
***If decorating with colored sugars: Prepare cookies by brushing with heavy cream or an egg white slightly beaten with 1 tablespoon of water. Sprinkle with decorative toppings.
***If decorating with food colors: Mix 1 egg yolk and 1/4 teaspoon water. Divide mixture among several custard cups. Tint each with different food color to make bright colors. (If paint thickens while standing, stir in a few drops of water.) Paint designs on cookies with small paint brushes.
These two decoration techniques should be done before baking. If you prefer to ice the cookies, that comes after baking and cooling the cookies.
The icing I make is super easy. Add a large quantity of powdered sugar to white vegetable shortening. Beat with a whisk and keep adding sugar until you have the sweetness and consistency you want. I sometimes add a dash of vanilla extract to this, too. (What can I say, I’m an extract lunatic). I then divide the icing, tint with food colors, and put into piping bags (aka ziploc sandwich bags with one corner tip cut off).
Voilà!
I think I have made 4 recipes of this dough in the last two weeks. They go fast!
1 CUP CONFECTIONER’S SUGAR
1/2 CUP CREAMY PEANUT BUTTER
3 TABLESPOONS BUTTER OR MARGARINE SOFTENED
1 POUND WHITE CONFECTIONERY COATING or milk chocolate, dark chocolate…
In a mixing bowl, combine sugar, peanut butter and butter: mix well. Shape into 1 in. balls and place on a waxed paper lined cookie sheet. Chill for 30 minutes or until firm. Meanwhile, melt the white coating in a double boiler or microwave-safe bowl. Dip balls and place on waxed paper to harden. Yield 2 dozen.
Personal choice.
I make smaller balls and get around 40 to a batch. Also, you need the mix to be firm enough to work with, so therefore, I usually use more sugar than recommended in order to have a stiffer batter to work with.
Your sugar cookie recipe is a lot like mine (only I add a bunch of cinnamon to the ones I make, just because I believe just about any food can use more cinnamon). I discovered an even easier icing method, though. I mix about a tablespoon of milk with a little vanilla extract (I’m with you on the extracts) and a lot of food coloring and then add enough powdered sugar to make a pretty stiff icing. I spread just a little of it on the hot cookies as soon as I get them on the racks, and when they’re completely cool, the icing is hard enough that I can stack them in tins.
These sound great. I’m definitely making them tomorrow. I even have all the ingredients. I love raspberry but just don’t make toast very often so I happen to have “a little too goey” raspberry freezer jam that needs to be used up. Thanks for posting the recipe.
These are really easy, delicious and make a bunch. They’re always the first things that get snarfed up at work bake sales when I forget to make something until the last minute. They take about 15 minutes.
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup white corn syrup
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
6 cups corn flake cereal
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2/3 cup peanuts
Combine the peanut butter, corn syrup, brown and white sugars in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until smooth and hot. Remove from heat and immediately mix in the corn flakes, chocolate chips and peanuts until cornflakes are well coated. (The chocolate chips will melt and glump some; don’t worry about it. The cornflakes just need enough gooey stuff to hold together.)
Gently press the mixture into a well-buttered 9"x13" pan. Allow to cool completely before cutting into bars. These things are rich so you can cut them fairly small.
Dragongirl’s fudge, too. There is an “Eagle brand” fudge kit that they sell at Sam’s that is pretty much the same thing, except I think maybe they tell you to put in a few tablespoons of butter. This way, though, I can control the quality of the chocolate chips that go into it-- the ones that come in the box seemed kinda blah. My husband said he couldn’t tell the difference between the condensed milk stuff and the fudge that you buy at the candy shop.