Divinity

With the pandemic dashing all hopes of having a Bakeathon at my house with Caroline and Sarah this year, I decided to use the opportunity to try some treats I had been curious about for a long time but were too complicated to work into a day when we were making 7-10 different things, or that the others were not interested in. Divinity is a popular treat in the southern US for Christmas. Being from the upper Midwest I had not ever had any but knew about it, and plenty of stories about attempts that didn't go quite right, because apparently candy is hard to make or something. My very good friend recently mentioned that an acquaintance shared some divinity with her once and she loved it. I figured I'd been mostly successful with attempts at candies, and I only had myself to please (but also wanted to surprise my friend with some), so this was finally the time to try!

I shared my divinity with another friend who grew up in the South (he is from Tennessee) and he said it was even better than his grandma's. And here I was worried about whether it would taste like it was supposed to. I don't think I could get a better endorsement than that!

cooking the sugar syrup

whipped egg whites

three different kinds

Notes:

• The recipe says it makes 20 pieces. It is a dirty liar, unless you make your pieces of divinity HUGE. I used a ~3 tbsp volume cookie dough scoop (which I felt were kind of big given how rich and sugary this candy is) and got approximately 60 pieces.
  
• The recipe says you can leave it plain, press whole pecans on top, or mixed crushed pecans in. I tried all three, and I vastly preferred it with nuts for some fat and salt to cut the super sugary sweetness. I slightly prefer the version with crushed nuts because it was more evenly distributed. The ones with the whole nut on top are the prettiest, but after the candy mixture cools too much it won't be smooth and the pecans won't stick to the top, so you have to work fast or have someone else help you if you want them all to look smooth. The cloudy look is kind of cute too, though.

Verdict: It tastes like eating a big ball of buttercream frosting, in the best way possible. I was a little shocked at how sugary this is, but in a way it's good because I physically cannot eat more than 2 of them before I don't want any more. I would absolutely make these again, but maybe in a smaller quantity unless I planned on sharing a lot of them.

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RECIPE: Old-Fashioned Divinity Candy (Number 2 Pencil)

Holiday Bakeathon 2019

Our sixth holiday baking day together! We were all kind of tired but things still moved along nicely.

Left: marshmallow, right: cream cheese icing

Gingerbread cookies this year were conspicuously Untitled Goose Game themed.

*honk*

Left: gingerbread; Right: chocolate biscotti

We all have a fancy stand mixer now so we had to take the below video because we can. And for internet points.

*Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries plays*

RECIPES

• Spicy Gingerbread Cookies (Smitten Kitchen) -- our old standby. I never get tired of how they taste with cream cheese frosting, and we keep coming up with new and/or funny ways to decorate them.
• Chocolate Caramel Crackers (Smitten Kitchen) -- chosen because both Sarah and I were eyeing it for several years but hadn't made it yet. We used matzo and added sliced almonds on top. Pretty easy to make, makes a lot, and tastes great. I made a second batch for my work holiday party because I missed it after my portion was gone and we had enough leftover ingredients to make it again. Definitely keeping this recipe around. I'd love to try it with saltine crackers. *Update: I tried it with saltines and very slightly prefer the matzo crackers because they're less crumbly.
• Cream Cheese Frosting -- for the gingerbread.
• Cinnamon-Sugar Rugelach -- a perennial favorite. Made a second batch because my husband was sad when they were gone (they are his favorite cookie) and I'm glad I did because I got to introduce my sister to them.
• Double Chocolate Biscotti (MyRecipes) -- we added dried cherries and pistachios and I really liked them this way.
• Homemade Marshmallows (Alton Brown) -- another perennial favorite. I wanted to put peppermint in them but Sarah said no. :P
• Linzer Torte (Maida Heatter via Smitten Kitchen) -- my big error for the day was accidentally baking it on too high a temperature. The outside got very very dark, a shade before burnt, which is very sad when you spend all that time shaping dough into a lattice and making it look pretty. (This recipe takes two hours of active work to make by myself.) Make sure you turn your oven down for the final long bake. I made a small (5 inch) heart shaped one out of the leftover dough that I did not burn, and that one turned out really cute! If you decide to make it a non-standard shape, make sure you have a pan or mold to keep the bottom crust's shape while it bakes. The sides of my bottom crust started collapsing once it got warm in the oven, but an aluminum foil mold helped. Once the bottom crust was parbaked and solidified, it held its shape and I didn't need the foil barriers anymore. I redeemed myself by making a second batch that DID turn out really well, half for my parents (my dad liked it but my mom is seemingly impossible to impress) and half for Christmas Day dinner with my neighbor's family.

BAKEATHONS PAST

• 2018
• 2017
• 2016
• 2015
• 2014

Apple Cider Caramels

I love me some apple cider in the fall, but the smallest size it comes in is often a half gallon, and because there are only two of us in the house and we have taken to drinking less juice in recent years, sometimes I end up with a large amount of cider that I need to use up before it spoils.

look how shiny it is!

Enter apple cider caramels. I saw these on Smitten Kitchen earlier this year and loved everything about them, and I just so happened to have a bunch of apple cider to use up so I gave them a try!

Notes:

• Definitely make sure to get apple cider (the cloudy kind with sediment on the bottom that must stay cold) and not apple juice. Mine was pasteurized and worked just fine, but I think the fresh-from-the-farm stuff would taste even better. If it has to stay refrigerated, that's a good sign.
• I reduced the apple cider a few days before I actually made the caramels because I started without having all the ingredients to make it (whoops). The reduced apple cider keeps great in the refrigerator. It's thicker when it's cold but it easily loosens once you put it back on the heat.
• My candy thermometer does not have exact temperature markings when it gets to the different ball stages range (weird) so I cooked it to what was marked on my thermometer as "firm ball" stage, which I think is technically just under the 252 degrees F that the recipe tells you to cook it to and it turned out fine. I would probably even make them a tiny bit softer next time.
• My 8x8" pan of caramel ended up about 3/8 in thick, for an idea of how much it makes. I cut them smaller than the 1x1 inch that the recipe suggests. I cut my pan into 6 rows (~1.25 in wide) and cut those into about 1/2 inch pieces (13-15 pieces per row), making about 78-90 pieces total.

Verdict: Way easier to eat than a caramel apple for sure. The cinnamon coated salt bits mixed throughout were better than I imagined they'd be. The cinnamon + salt are the flavors that I associate with the crust of an apple pie. They are apple pie in caramel form. I would definitely make these again.

On a related note, I tasted the reduced apple cider all by itself and it tastes like the best apple candy, sour and very distinctly natural apple. I have heard of people using it instead of maple syrup for pancakes and/or waffles and I am excited by this idea.

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RECIPE: Apple Cider Caramels

Holiday Bakeathon 2018

Holiday Bakeathon, the 5th anniversary! While it's still a long day, I think we've got the process mostly figured out. This year's cookies featured extra fancy decorating with edible glitter and more piping tips. I think I even have a new favorite Christmas cookie (gasp).

RECIPES

• Spicy Gingerbread Cookies (Smitten Kitchen) -- our old standby. I never get tired of how they taste with cream cheese frosting, and we keep coming up with new and/or funny ways to decorate them.
• Cream Cheese Frosting
• Cinnamon-Sugar Rugelach
• Decadent Hot Chocolate Mix (Smitten Kitchen)
• Homemade Marshmallows (Alton Brown) -- we cut these into bigger marshmallows for the hot chocolate instead of mini marshmallows to save time. Use the best quality vanilla you can get your hands on, and don't bother with corn starch, use all powdered sugar. They were really good and I was sad when they were gone, so I made another batch and shared them with my work colleagues, who were surprised that you could make marshmallows at home. They taste so much better than store bought. They're also really kid friendly! My colleague's 7 year old daughter absolutely loved them.
• Linzer Torte (Maida Heatter via Smitten Kitchen) -- absolutely amazing, so good I wanted to cry. This is permanently going on my list of must-make holiday treats, whether I make it with my friends or not.
• Hazelnut-Orange Biscotti (Paul Hollywood via BBC)
• Espresso-Chocolate Shortbread Cookies (Dorie Greenspan via Smitten Kitchen) -- for the chocolate part, we opted for milk chocolate with toffee bits, and I think that was a good choice because they were kind of bitter otherwise.

BAKEATHONS PAST

• 2017
• 2016
• 2015
• 2014

Holiday Bakeathon 2014

Our very first holiday baking day! Sarah compiled all the recipes. She chose a bunch of vegan treats so that Caroline could share some with her family. We additionally had one more recipe on the list, Eggnog Florentines, but decided against making it because we ran out of time and it looked like a relatively complicated recipe compared to the other cookies we were attempting. We gravely underestimated the amount of time we'd need to spend making everything, especially baking the cookies and frosting them -- two large batches of cutout cookies is quite a lot of work for three people with only one oven!

Sarah and Caroline frantically finished the raspberry truffles and frosting all the cookies the next morning so Sarah could bring the treats to her late-morning tae kwon do class. It was a fun learning experience.

RECIPES

• Spicy Gingerbread Cookies (Smitten Kitchen) -- this recipe was really, really delicious, especially paired with cream cheese frosting. Sarah's family loves to make Santa face cookies out of this and she showed us how to make them. They are the most delightful thing.
• Lofthouse Style Soft Sugar Cookies (Two Peas and Their Pod) -- these turned out as advertised, fluffy and soft textured like the brand they imitate. I personally think they were a little too delicate to hold up to transportation. But I am not a huge fan of Lofthouse sugar cookies anyway. They are too sweet and something about the texture feels like I'm going to inhale the entire bite and suffocate and they always fall apart on me when I bite into them. This recipe is great if that's what you're going for, but it is not something I enjoy.
• Cream Cheese Frosting -- we used this for both the gingerbread and sugar cookies.
• Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles (Isa Chandra, from her book Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar) -- A vegan treat. I'm not the biggest fan of chili pepper in my chocolate and I found the end product somewhat bitter so I thought these were just OK, but Caroline seemed to like them a lot.
• Gingerbread Biscotti (Smitten Kitchen) -- I was afraid I'd get tired of gingerbread after making so many cutout cookies, but I ended up really enjoying these and would make them again.
• Decadent Hot Chocolate Mix (Smitten Kitchen) -- quite easy to make if you have a food processor, and absolutely delicious. We made 4 times the recipe and split it 3 ways, and each generously filled a pint canning jar.
• Homemade Marshmallows (Alton Brown) -- for putting in the hot chocolate! We piped the mixture into long, winding ribbons onto so many cookie sheets and then tried to cut them with a pizza cutter until we discovered scissors works way better. Definitely use powdered sugar instead of mixing in cornstarch because the cornstarch makes it taste bitter (it also doesn't taste good in the hot chocolate) and the powdered sugar is not incredibly sweet anyway.
• Chocolate Raspberry Truffles (from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, p.172) -- I made the raspberry ganache part but Sarah and Caroline finished making them the next day. These ended up a little too soft so they were hard to shape and looked messy, but they tasted good. I think this could be because they may have dispensed with the tempered chocolate coating on the outside.
• Dark Chocolate Coconut Truffles (Melanie Stephens, via Feed Your Awesome Machine) -- made with coconut milk instead of dairy cream so they are vegan friendly. They worked beautifully.
• Dark Chocolate Cherry-Walnut Bark (Grace Parisi via Food and Wine) -- no complaints here, this was really tasty. We made it vegan with dairy-free chocolate.
• Peppermint Bark (Allrecipes) -- my sister-in-law makes this so I was excited to try it. The only issue was that the peppermint candy crumbles had a hard time adhering to the surface of the chocolate.
• Popcorn Brittle (Mark Scarbrough via Cooking Light)-- a very old fashioned feeling recipe, but it holds up great. It has a really lovely salty-sweet taste and the molasses gives it an interesting type of sweetness. The popcorn makes for a light, easy-to-bite texture too, unlike most candy brittle.

Vanilla Caramels

I have made these several times for fall/winter holidays (mainly in the first half of the 2010s; these photos are from 2011) and liked them a lot. I'm posting the recipe here in case I ever want to make them again. I want to make pecan turtles at some point and I think this would be a good component.

Notes:

• I usually pour mine into an 8x8 inch square pan. It makes around 120-140 pieces. 

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RECIPE:

Vanilla Caramels
from Giverslog

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup (11.5 oz) light corn syrup
14 oz (1 can) sweetened condensed milk
2 1/4 cups (14.5 oz) brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Chopped nuts for mixing in or topping (optional; if using I recommend toasting them first for extra flavor) 

Before beginning, test your candy thermometer for accuracy. Clip the candy thermometer onto a pan full of cold water and bring it to a boil, ensuring the thermometer is not touching the bottom of the pan. Boiling water should read 212°F. Once the water is boiling, make note of any difference in your reading, and adjust your reading accordingly when you make the candy. For example, if thermometer reads 210° in boiling water instead of 212°, then remove the caramel from the heat at 242°F instead of 244°F.

Line your pan with parchment paper, even up the sides. Chop any nuts or other mix-ins/toppings and set aside. Cut butter into smaller, even sized cubes for even melting, then place in a saucepan and melt it over low heat. Carefully add the sugar by pouring it into the center of the pan. If any sugar crystals stick to the side of the pan, push them down with a damp pastry brush so they do not crystallize the entire batch. Stir slowly until the sugar is well combined with the melted butter. Add corn syrup and sweetened condensed milk (or cream) and mix in thoroughly. Cook on medium for 1 minute, stirring the whole time, then increase heat to medium-high and keep stirring until the mixture is boiling. Once boiling, attach the candy thermometer to the side of the pan, ensuring it does not rest against the bottom of the pan. By the time the caramel mixture is boiling, if you have been stirring enough, the butter should be fully blended into the caramel mixture and not separated.

Reduce the heat to medium, adjusting gradually so that you keep a moderate, steady boil. Stir frequently and consistently so as not to let it separate. The temperature of the mixture will not rise at a steady rate, so watch the thermometer closely, especially as it nears the target temperature (it tends to accelerate the hotter it gets). If you are even slightly unsure about the accuracy of your thermometer, periodically test the mixture by dropping a small amount of it into cold water to see how it behaves. When the thermometer reaches 244° (low end of firm ball stage), remove caramel from heat. Stir in vanilla carefully but quickly (it will sizzle and boil when you pour it in) as well as any nuts or other mix-ins, then pour the caramel into the prepared pan, taking care not to burn yourself.

Allow to cool for several hours and use a knife, kitchen shears, or pizza cutter to cut into small bite-size pieces. Wrap each in wax paper.