Holiday Baking and Candy Making.
 

What treats are you making for the holidays?

I saw a YouTube video on making English toffee and it seemed and was pretty simple. Being a single guy, I had next to nothing for candy making utensils, so had to do some shopping; which included an $250 copper lined saucepan- that purchase hurt a bit, but it was nice to use.

I used the recipe and watched the video from “Preppy Kitchen” to make it.

Everything went fine until I went to remove the thermometer off the pan and as it cleared the lip, flipped up and caught the side of my hand above the thumb and deposited 300F sticky toffee to it- I now have a skin bubble there, but no pain.

Here are some pictures of the toffee making:

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Mongo approves!

My wife has been making peanut butter balls for weeks now . They are a family favorite . Some parts of the country call them buckeyes . I call them yummy :D

My wife is making the labor intensive to make cookies that are extruded dough from a cookie press held together with a smear of melted chocolate chips which are dunked into more melted chocolate and dipped into chocolate sprinkles on one end.
Putting them together is a lot of work.

Good timing on your thread, Rutager!

Picking up ingredients today to make chocolate and peppermint bark!

Super easy to make and mmmmmm........good!

Hope your burn heals quickly!

I think I’m going to try and make my mom’s cheese balls. I know it had a cheddar cheese, sausage add Bisquick in it. Then bake it in the oven.

Another item, and one of my favorites, is Coca-Cola salad. The recipe is at least 60 to 65 years old. From what I recall, it’s made with black cherry Jell-O, black cherries, cream cheese, pineapple, pecans, and of course, some Coca-Cola. It’s known in our family as The Purple Stuff!

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The Cherpumple. The Turducken of desserts. It's an undertaking that I first baked in 2010. I was introduced to the concept by Charles Phoenix through this fascinating video...

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To summarize, it's an apple pie baked in a spice cake, topped with a cherry pie baked in a chocolate cake, and the final layer is a pumpkin pie baked in a yellow cake. I realized it needed a strong frosting to withstand the heft, so I always make a Neoclassic (cooked) Buttercream from Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe in her phenomenal book, The Cake Bible. Here's my last attempt:

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I found that making cocoa stencils gives a good finish for the top...

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It's over 9 lbs and approximately 20K calories. Here's an image from my first attempt in 2010...

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2 lbs of Butter is required for the cooked Buttercream frosting...

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I use 7" square cake pans, and I made sugar bloom knife guides for leveling...
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That Toffee looks amazing....my fav candy.
Heath Bars or nothing is what I always buy at the store.

What the actual ••••! :eek: Amazing! Beyond decadent!

Like something from a King's palace banquet!

Very easy to make Steve and much better than Heath!

Sugar, butter, water, vanilla extract, chocolate chips and pecans.

Thanks Baz,

Burn bubble kept growing overnight and finally burst when I bumped it this morning revealing its puss filled center!

Do you have to heat up the chocolate in a saucepan too? Be careful...

No kidding, that is a huge undertaking that might see a visit to an undertaker!

Most recipes call for 20 sec intervals in the microwave.

But yeah - I still need to be careful...lol......

Turns out the chocolate melts just fine at medium power for about 2-3 minutes straight.

I made 2 batches just to start. This one has embedded walnuts & mini M&Ms as a topping.

There's a million variations one could make.

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That toffee looks like the recipe that my high school buddy's mom made! Yummee!

We've made bourbon balls - which came out a bit too strong! My wife hesitated to give them to the neighbors so she made more batches of rum balls which were not near as flammable.

We also make candied pecans (pah-cahns!) using white sugar and orange juice. You put it all in a glass dish with the pecans and heat it multiple cycles of 4 minutes. The OJ evaporates off and leaves a slight oj flavored sweet pecan. They are very addictive.

Rutager! Great work! Man, you went all in - new tools and everything.
New tools + wounded in action = man card intact.

Thanks! I did solider on after the burn to make sure I got the toffee finished correctly. I had a two minute window to let it cool before the chocolate chips got sprinkled on and then a four minute gap until I could spread the melted chips, so I did my Internet search on how to treat a burn and did it during the wait.

Looks good Baz, just one more reason besides the cold for me to move into your guest room for the winter!

Looks great Rutager! I might try something different this year, maybe Pfeffernuss.

I took a stab at gingerbread cookies following the Preppy Kitchen recipe. Final product tasted great but his recipe was softer than I wanted, tough dough to work with that was sticky and didn't want to release from the cookie cutters even though I refrigerated for 24 hours.

Oh well.At least I had Bob Goulet serenading me as I cooked!

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Charles has some "different" holiday desserts. He's a good Dude, I have a friend who is very close friends with him. He has some good videos with his late Mother cooking up some treats.

I need to try something simple and foolproof.. I can smoke and grill like no tomorrow but baking has always been tough for me. And my Grandfather ran a large bakery in NorCal (Langendorf). Go figure.