Mysterious Project!

Short post today. I'm embarking on one of my largest crochet projects ever! Wish me luck and pray for my wrist! I hope to be done with this project in less than 15 days. Hopefully less than 10 even. I won't tell you what it is but it involves crocheting 391 squares! I'll post the finished project here when Im done. Enjoy the anticipation!

How I made 2 kinds of caramel by accindent.

Sooooo, I decided it might be fun to try to make one of my favorite candies, caramel. I think of all the candies in the world nothing, save chocolate, is more versatile and tasty than caramel. In this post you'll see how the same ingredients heated just slightly lower or higher can turn into two very different candies (by complete accident lol).

Okie dokie, so firstly you'll wanna know the recipe. I got it online here: http://www.mycookingadventure.blogspot.com/2010/10/salted-chewy-caramels.html

The ingredients are:

5 tablespoons butter

1 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1/4 cup water

Firstly, be prepared to fail. I did the first time. It actually ended up working out but just have extra ingredients just in case.  Now what you want to do is get everything ready before any cooking starts because sugar is a fickle mistress and will go from perfect to OMG BURNING in less than a second, as I learned. So line a 9x9 baking pan with foil and spray the foil with vegetable oil spray.

Once you have everything ready you can start. In a small sauce pan melt the butter, once melted add in the heavy cream, vanilla, and salt. Bring to a slow boil on medium heat stirring frequently. When its just calmly bubbling (not a rolling boil) remove from the heat.

 In a 4 quart sauce pan with high sides mix together sugar, corn syrup and water (stir together only while the heat is not on yet!). Boil on med-high without stirring (a gentle swirl of the pan occasionally is helpful to avoid hot spots) until a light golden color, approximately 310 degrees. Not stirring is important! If you stir you will get a rogue sugar crystal in there and it will turn your beautiful melted sugar into a mass of crystals in seconds. The corn syrup is added to help prevent this but it can still happen. ( You can substitute tapioca syrup to make it a little healthier but it might be hard to find.)

 The sugar, syrup and water mixed off heat.

 Keep the cream mixture close by for quick adding when the sugar gets the right color and temp.

My pan got a hotspot and so one side of the sugar was a darker brown than the rest and this is how I messed up the first batch so watch out for this! When I saw the dark spot I swirled the pot and the temp shot up to 350 in less than a second ruining my first batch. In the future I'm not even going to use the thermometer because I found I was watching it way more than my sugar and that is why I didn't notice the dark spot in time. 

 Getting very close to the right color.

310!

  When the sugar is the right color take off the heat and add in the heavy cream mixture. BE CAREFUL! It will boil up like crazy!!! Glad you used that large sauce pan now huh? Return to heat and stir until mixture reaches 248 degrees. 

 Bubbly goodness!

Pour into the lined baking pan and let cool for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes has passed you maybe sprinkle sea salt on the top if you like.

My boyfriend Sean hates the salt but I love it. Hes a picky eater that doesn't like anything "weird", his loss!

 Now this batch is the one where I was very carefully watching the color so it came out very soft and chewy. Next time I'm going to let it go a bit darker though since the flavor, while very good, is not as rich as I would like. It is very sweet, buttery and somewhat milky.

This is the batch I  let get too dark. Its temp was about 350. It came out with a very good strong caramel flavor and a very hard texture. Basically I made toffee instead of caramels. I prefer the flavor of this batch much better than the softer version. I hope that my next batch will be somewhere in the middle.

If you make the toffee I just broke it into  pieces by putting them in a bag and hitting them on the counter. These caramels are very rich so you want small pieces, especially with the soft ones. 

I found the salt especially good with the richer flavor of the toffee.

(the glass of wine is optional but recommended)

With the soft ones you'll want to put them in the freezer for about 15-20 mins. before cutting them with a sharp knife. You really want to go small here I can't stress it enough. I know you think you wanna eat a huge piece but you don't. You should get close to 100 pieces out of one batch.

Soft caramels wrapped in wax paper

Wrap each piece of soft caramel in its own little wax paper or parchment paper wrapper. Don't try to skip this and just put them in a tin unwrapped or you'll end up with a sticky mess. They may stay at room temp for about 3 weeks just fine. I keep mine in the refrigerator though to keep the toffee crunchy and the soft caramels from melting in the heat here in Southern California. I would recommend this as I think the soft ones are just a bit too soft at room temp. It will take the toffee about 24 hours to be really crunchy. The first day it is completely edible but will be a bit sticky when you eat it and not crunch well. 

Well those were my attempts to make chewy caramels. I haven't gotten it quite perfect yet but I have made 2 very good candies. Try this recipe at home! Even when I got it wrong I made better candy than I've ever bought at a store and the ingredients only cost around $10. So what do you have to lose?

My first blog.

And it begins!

This is my first blog ever and to be honest I'm not sure how much I'll have to say. Mostly this will be a crochet-gardening-cooking- random bs from my life blog. So probably not very interesting to the vast majority of the interwebz. For the few of you that do end up reading this I apologize...really, you should probably try to get something productive done instead. Like late night cinnamon buns.

So just to make my first post slightly less boring here is a picture of an adorable animal.

Every year I go to the L.A. County Fair and I make sure to cuddle this sheep for at least 30 minutes. Maybe even come back and cuddle it more after that because it is the most cuddly sheep in the world. You pet its adorable face and it closes its eyes and stands there and is adorable the entire time. Most of those petting zoo animals only let you pet them for the food but this one isn't a gluttonous jerk like the rest.

Tips for spotting the most cuddly petting zoo animals.

Tip 1: Note the greedy look in the spotted goats eyes and lack of personal space given. In contrast the adorable sheep's eyes are closed and dreamy looking.

Tip 2: Did the animal try to eat your clothes? Probably don't want to give more food to a petting zoo animal that just tried to eat parts of you. Unless you are very small, then you throw your food and run.

Tip 3: Don't make eye contact with a llama. Really this should go without saying. If you're alive today its because you've never made eye contact with a llama.

So those are my 3 best tips for spotting the best petting zoo animals. These tips could save your life someday!