Saturday, January 01, 2011

three hundred degrees

Ah-Ha! Thanks, knitsburgh!
I succeeded in making my hard candy just like Grandma used to make. My recipe came to me from my Aunt Carrie, out of some community cookbook from who-knows-when and called to cook it to hard-ball stage which is about 260 degrees. But it works way better when cooked to hard-crack, 300 degrees! go figure.

I have made (thus far) orange, lemon, butter rum and cherry. I have some lime oil and I bought a candy flavor sampler at Michaels so that I could try more for less... love a coupon. But, the candy flavors are formulated for chocolate, some have added vegetable oil. I made the cherry and it wept. Not a lot, I wiped most of it off with a napkin, but not desireable and I will remember that for the future. But the good stuff, if you are also so inclined to make hard candy, is at the Uncommon Market . Prepare to be totally overwhelmed by your choices of flavor. Then buy the butter rum flavor. Werther's Originals. oh yeah. But the boys are pretty partial to the orange and lemon- which tastes like lemonheads.

Otherwise,
-We seemed to have survived the holidays.
-Kids don't go back to school until Tuesday.
-I am still working on my Tea Leaves, am down to the button bands, just waiting for a chance to work on it when I am quite awake. I really want this sweater to be done! I want to wear it and I am tired of knitting on it. But, it is gorgeous yarn (MadToshDK) and a beautiful pattern (even with the slim fitting sleeves.)
-No particular resolutions. It is always the same, anyway. Yes, that includes updating the blog more often :)

Happy 2011 to you! I wish you the best year yet!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Yummy - I hope there are some butter rum samples still around on Thursday!

Patricia said...

HOORAY!!! I'm so glad it worked for you, your flavors really sound yummy. Maybe a cherry batch will be made for Valentine's...

Thanks for the heads up on where to get the flavors too, I had a tough time finding mine. Spearmint was found in that pricey kitcheny-store in the Strip (don't recall the name) and the cinnamon was bought in a 4-pack of flavors from Michael's. I didn't notice the weeping but will stick to the good stuff next time!