Darienne

Wow! That's three people with tooth injuries on candy. It might be interesting to see just how many folks have broken/damaged teeth on this list. Only kidding. I never thought of it as a work related accident, but I am sure our insurance covers only fire and theft. I'll just have to check. At least we can deduct it on the health part of our income taxes.

Thank you, kind ma'am. Oh, that caramel.....

Yep - I always make my hard candy anytime from late November and it's fine. Just store airtight. ← Thanks Kim. The lollies are to be my contribution to a local attempt to provide a Christmas for folks in difficult times. I made the first ones today and had such fun! I love looking at the light through the colored candy. Never grow too old for some stuff.

I guess I would rather look foolish asking a question...than apologizing later for getting it wrong. It's OK to start making hard candy lollipops for Christmas now, isn't it? Thanks.

Thank you.

Nope, the five pecans will be topped by a blob of caramel which will be covered by a dollop of chocolate.

Last week I tried Andie's recipe for candying orange peel in the microwave. DH, Ed helped me with the peel cutting process and into the microwave they went. They didn't seem to be ‘quite’ done enough in the alloted cookings and so I cooked them a few extra times, as Andie suggests. All went well, until a visitor came and I stopped paying strict attention to what I was doing. I forgot to check and stir them before the last cooking. All the water had evaporated and I was left with a hardened sticky mass and orange peels with the texture of car tires. They tasted wonderful... but I broke an already damaged and much 'babied' bicuspid testing a piece and had to have emergency dental surgery the next day with a dentist I had never even met before. And I won't describe it. My jaw still aches...but I am getting much better. I made a second batch of microwave candied orange peel this week. It turned out just fine, thank you.

Turtles are a favorite with everyone and so I thought I would make some to give away at Christmas time. What I need to know is how long before December 22 or 23 I can safely make them. I'll use Kerry Beal's caramel recipe made with whipping cream and Guittard milk chocolate to top that. Then pack them in between sheets of waxed paper in air-tight containers. A local lady is selling the most amazing Florida pecans to raise money for a local charity and I have fallen in love again with the pecan. All advice welcomed.

Just saw this thread for the first time... We actually had Brussels Sprouts for lunch. Life without them...aarrrgghhh I cannot imagine. My favorite dish is simply boiled Sprouts mixed with boiled sweet potatoes, topped with Olive oil and Lemon juice dressing complete with chopped garlic and sesame seeds. My DH always tops his with a curry sauce of some kind or other, usually with peanuts in it. I once thanked my Mother for introducing me to Brussels Sprouts when I was young. She said...You never ate them in MY house. Poor Mother.

Not to forget Cacao Barry - pistoles

I am beginning to feel SOOOO much better after reading this thread. Thank you all. I have had one disaster after another since working at this in Moab, but then my plan was to try all the basic candies I had never made, and which my confectionary partner, Barb, has been making since being a little girl at her Mother's knee yadda yadda. I think it's called schadenfreude when you get pleasure from others' distress! Not my nicer side....

Great post. I am going to do just that but with pecans. I have lots of pecans. We just can't get them like this back in the northeast. Thanks, Chocolot.

As a rank beginner, I have had so many 'learning experiences' that it's hard to know which one to relate. Still I guess the dumbest one was when I was making a peanut brittle and I had the syrup cooking on the stove. I had to take it to 300 F and there I was cooking it and cooking it and it wasn't getting anywhere near 300 degrees and then it started to burn and blacken and I finally realized that my thermometer was set on Celcius and not Fahrenheit, and I had this blackened mass stuck to my pot to wash out. ...but that's only one story...

An 'astuce' is a clever way of doing something or solving a problem. ← Thank you.

Hello all, No one has mentioned Astuces in their answers. I googled it and almost all of the listings were in French...or pointed me back to this topic. OK. Please. What is an Astuce(s)? Thanks. Always learning...learning....learning....

Hi Rena, I read your message and smiled broadly. I can't help you at all, but I can identify closely with your problem. My lovely Pecan Brittle is now sauce for ice cream or frozen yoghurt. Best of luck to you and Happy Holidays.

There are a number of brittles with cream as an ingredient.

Somehow I missed the ice cream sauce post from Kerry, but I think that's the one. It is so delicious and we have folks coming for lunch tomorrow. Thanks Kerry. I think that you and Fern may well have some excellent ideas about the altitude and the obvious lack of water in the mixture as the thermometer climbs. I will try the drop in ice cold water next time for sure. So much to learn always and so many folks out there to teach it. I am so grateful.

Interesting point. Out of my league at present seeing as my stay in this altitude is so recent and I am mathematically challenged. To return to an earlier point....I did put a piece of the chewy stuff in the microwave for 2 30 second periods. It melted completely but that was all. I could retry the stuff for additional periods to see what happens. You can make brittle in a microwave very easily. However, following an earlier thread in which I managed to cook caramels too long and they ended up crunchy and following instructions I managed to return them to caramel stage...could I do this with the chewy 'brittle' which, while chewy, is really just too tough to coat with chocolate. I should stop all of this and follow some recipes properly.

Ditto here. Couldn't resist posting. You can leave pretty much anything out and available to me...except for good potato chips. Big downfall.

Here is an interesting situation: Ruth's recipe as printed on eG, thread 'Gobs of Pecans', gives the first temperature as 285*; the second after the addition of the butter is 270*. Her original recipe in Candymaking gives the two temperatures as 295* and then after the butter, 280*. I followed the 'Gobs of Pecan's temperatures. (Hey Ruth! We still adore you. ) So perhaps the first set would have been more appropriate. I still don't have those warning signals in my head. That will come with time. I hope. Question: what about my idea of putting some in the microwave or oven or pot, reheating it? Is it too late because the pecans will burn? Or what? I guess I'll try it come hell or high water, even if I have to throw it all out. Thanks. (The editing was my trying and finally succeeding in using the italics mode)

I thought I mixed it well enough, but then...who knows. Something I did was incorrect. As I said to Kerry, I need a basic course. My partner, Barb, knows all the stuff but she is 2,500 miles away. Thanks.

I followed the recipe religiously. "Cook to 285 degrees (minus 8 degrees for being up at 4000' which makes it 277 degrees)" Both thermometers were in agreement. In fact, the glass thermometer was new...the old one being now in disgrace for inaccurate readings. Both perfect in the boiling water test. What I really wanted to know was if the stuff is redeemable. Ruth suggested not. However, in true pig-headed amateur fashion, I am going to try reheating a bit in the microwave to see if I can turn it into brittle. As it is it is not useful to me in this state. It can't really be given away and that was the purpose behind making it. We can't keep the entire thing. Too dangerous. I could just heat it to warm and rip it apart and form it into some shape and dip it in chocolate.... I am torn. What I REALLY need is a course in basic candymaking. I have printed out the 101 course. I mean a course WITH someone who can say...no, don't do that. Etc. Thanks for the help.

O that is so good. So clever. I just love unexpected bargains like that. Good going. ...think my DH could put together something like that...

Thanks for all the answers. I'll print them out and try at least one of them soon. You really are an incredible bunch of helpful folks.