SHF #38 Baking With Candy

As soon as I mentioned to my husband that this month's Sugar High Friday was all about Baking With Candy, he immediately wanted to combine Werther's Originals with shortbread. I was definitely skeptical at first -- I thought the candy would be too hard in the middle of soft shortbread. But in the end, I was completely wrong and he was completely right. The little hard candies (which we crushed up) melted into the shortbread and had a chewy, easily crunched texture after baking.

About 1/2 one small bag of Werther's Originals
2 sticks softened unsalted butter (1 cup)
3/4 cup sifted confectioners sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups sifted flour
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine butter, vanilla, sugar, flour, and salt in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon. Stir until combined but not too creamy. Put all the Werther's in a plastic bag and crush with something heavy (we used a meat tenderizer).

Divide dough into two equal parts. Press one of the two halves into an eight-inch square baking pan. Sprinkle about half the crushed candies over the dough, making an even layer. Press the other half of the dough on top of the candy. (We did this slowly so as not to disturb the candy layer -- basically, we just took small pieces of the dough and pressed them down on the candy layer little by little. Then we smoothed them together.) Sprinkle the other half of the crushed candies over the top, again making an even layer.

Bake until firm and golden, about 30 minutes. After baking, let the shortbread cool for about 20 minutes. Then run a knife around the edge of the pan and remove the cookies from the pan. Cut into little squares once the block is completely cool.

Adding Ganache
Although the cookies are good by themselves, they're super good coated with chocolate ganache.

4 oz semi-sweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream

Coarsely chop chocolate. Heat cream in a small saucepan until simmering. Pour over chocolate in a bowl. Let stand for 5 minutes. Stir for a few minutes until smooth. Let the ganache cool until it's slightly thick. (We let ours sit for about 20 minutes, stirring it a couple of times while we waited.)

Once you've got your ganache you can do lots of things with it. We tried three things: 1) we dipped the cookies, so that one end was covered; 2) we drizzled the cookies with thin diagonal lines; and 3) we poured ganache over the top so that the cookie was mostly covered.

solstice cookies & marshmallows

Granny Square Blanet Redux

Another look at the Granny Square Blanket I've been working on.

SHF #31 Shades of White

This month's Sugar High Friday is The Many Shades of White -- so I created a dessert that is quintessentially white: marshmallows. I decided to make this fluffy, pillow-like candy in two flavors, raspberry and champagne. Because I made them from scratch they were all natural and at least the raspberry ones were artificial flavoring and coloring free.

Basic Marshmallow Recipe

Ingredients:
2 Packets of Unflavored Gelatin (Very important: must be unflavored)
1/2 cup water
1 & 1/2 tsp flavoring oil or extract (In this case LorAnn Champagne flavor or McCormick Raspberry extract)
1 & 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
pinch of salt

1. Put 1/4 cup of water, gelatin, and one flavoring oil into standing mixer. Allow to sit for a few minutes so that the gelatin can "bloom."

2. In a large saucepan put the remaining water, corn syrup, sugar, and salt. Clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pan. Bring to a boil without stirring. When the mix reaches the soft ball stage (234 - 240 degrees) remove from heat.

3. Pour sugar mixture into standing mixer. Bring mixer up to high. Allow this to mix for about 8 minutes.

4. Pour the now white mixture into an oiled deep pan. Allow to set for about 8 hours.

5. Cut into squares (or other shapes) with an oiled knife. Dip all sides of the marshmallows into corn starch to make them less sticky.

Some notes:

* I've used this recipe with lots of different flavorings, including mint, and orange. I find that flavoring oils seem to work the best. I've seen posted online recipes that call for using crushed candies in place of some of the sugar -- this would probably be a great thing to try.

* The type of pan you use to set the marshmallows will determine how big they are. A deep pan will mean thick marshmallows. A very wide pan could mean very thin ones.

* If you have a standing mixer and candy thermometer, this is one of the easiest recipes in the world. If you don't have those things it can be kind of tricky. I have made them without both pieces of equipment, it just means being really careful at the stove and then standing around for a long time with a hand-mixer. It can definitely be done.

Granny Square Scarf

This winter I spent a lot of time making Granny Squares. They were simple things, easy to make in-between projects when I wanted to crochet *something* but had no clear ideas. Then Pat's mom suggested that they could be sewn together on a diagonal to make a scarf -- and here we are.

I made these squares out of homespun gotten from Michael's. Each is relatively small, crocheted just twice around. I stuck them together using red thread. I figure, even if they come apart they can easily be sewn back together again -- not like a usual crocheted scarf that would just unravel.