Third Post

I have been waiting all week to make this post, I don't really care that it will be midnight by the time I am finished. I have planned five desserts for this week, three of which I have already completed. The first two I made on saturday, just after I returned from camp. Well, I slept first, but that is off topic. I made Dark Chocolate Truffles and Double Chocolate-Hazelnut Biscotti, replacing the hazelnuts with almonds. Both turned out well, although I think I need practice withe the truffles. The recipe claims to produce thirty truffles while I only got twenty-one. I also had trouble making them spherical, to start with they were too hard for the melon baller, and so I enlisted the help of my stepmom Bonnie. We formed a very short assembly line; she would roll them into shape by hand and I would coat them in almonds, pecans, and/or cocoa powder. I was expecting more truffles and chopped enough nuts for about ten each, so I ended up only coating two completely in cocoa powder. Then I felt bad for those two lone cocoa powdered truffles and tried to add cocoa powder to some of the pecan and almond coated truffles, but that didn't seem to help much. Oh well, cocoa coated or not, all of those truffles have probably been thoroughly digested by now. My cousin Joel is  due to be married this august, and his lovely fiancée had her bridal shower at our home. This is where my truffles and biscotti ended up. Tragically (for my desserts) very few truffles survived and the numbers of the biscotti were greatly depleted. Apparently my aunt's friend was in love with the truffles, and my biscotti were a hit. I will admit that my contributions were not the stars of the dessert table, my cousin Beryl had made adorable sunflower shaped cookies which I plan to steal the recipe for as soon as possible. Also, sunday was a rather hot day, and biscotti are meant to be served with coffee or tea. Everyone had arnold palmers, not ideal for dunking cookies in. No wonder they thought the cookies were too hard. It's not the poor biscotti's fault, I will make them again at Christmas, when their crunchiness will be appreciated. Still, they were not ignored, at the moment there is only one left from a batch of about fifty.  I have more good news, the recipe for the Chocolate-Dipped Lemon Cookies I brought to Beryl's baby shower was requested by my grandmother, and that is a pretty big complement. I honestly didn't know there was a recipe my grandma hasn't tried.

Today I made English Toffee, something I have been wanting to make ever since my first Heath bar. I LOVE chocolate covered toffee, and I was ecstatic to find a recipe for it here. I decided to make it for the last ski show practice. My family (Dad&Bonnie) is part of the Lake Oakland Ski Demons club, and every saturday before the fourth of july we host a patriotic ski show. Wednesday (or today considering it is now One in the morning) is their last practice. So finally I get to try my new favorite recipe out on a crowd of wet people in red white and blue grass skirts! I doubt I will be awake to see them eat it, but I imagine that they will like my perfect toffee. Toffee and carmel is fun to make. For any of you who went home from seventh grade science and tried to make carmel from pure granulated sugar, I congratulate you. For any of you who were pleased with the results, I envy you, you are a far better chef than I am. For me, granulated sugar in a sauce pan burns. A cookbook I have had for years taught me that if you add a few tablespoons of water to your sugar, it will become a dark amber color and start to resemble caramel, but will lack the sweetness of the sugar and will harden into a bitter brown brick. My neighbor gave me a cookbook last Christmas that taught me how to make the real caramel that we love to top our sundays with. If I remember right, it goes something like this: 1 cup of granulated sugar and 3 tablespoons of water heated in a saucepan until amber colored, then you  move the saucepan to the side and add 1 cup of heavy cream. This is when you jump back and watch the magic! After the violent bubbling dies down you have this gooey caramel that is sweet and never hardens. Okay, I'm getting off track. I have one more stepping stone on my journey to the perfect toffee. Cashew brittle. Hard and toffee-like, it was close to what I had in mind, but lacked the chocolate, and it had cashews in it when I prefer pecans. This Toffee is made of 1 cup butter, 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons of water, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. The first four ingredients are set in a saucepan and wait there until the candy thermometer reads 305℉ when the mixture is really starting to boil. Then you pull it off the burner and add the vanilla. The key to making toffee, brittle, and caramel is that you have to trust the cookbook and your thermometer. I have burnt brittles and caramels by worrying that the color wasn't dark enough and that I should let it sit. When the cookbook says to move the pan, move the pan and everything will turn out fine. Okay, typing at One thirty in the morning is a bad Idea, Spell Check is being pressed way too much. Good night to anybody who hasn't stopped reading by now.