Posts Tagged ‘chocolate’

Beginner’s Guide to Candy Making

For July I decided to tackle candy making in honor of this book I bought from one of my favorite/most trusted bakers:

Sally's Candy Addiction by Sally McKenney

Sally’s Candy Addiction by Sally McKenney

Candy making is more complex than baking and requires a lot more minute attention to temperatures, something I was not always successful at. For instance, here is me failing at making butter rum candies:

Candy thermometer and everything

Candy thermometer and everything

Even though I followed the instructions and was watching the candy thermometer the whole time, they still turned out burned. Maybe my thermometer isn’t accurate or something. Oh well. On to the successes!

Birthday fudge

Birthday fudge

A layer of white chocolate fudge on top of a layer of milk chocolate fudge. With sprinkles!

Homemade Reese's Cups!

Homemade Reese’s Cups!

I only had crunchy peanut butter, but, surprise, that makes them EVEN BETTER!

Chocolate chip cookie bark

Chocolate chip cookie bark

The baby chocolate chip cookies this required were the best part. So cute!

And, my personal favorite:

Strawberry buttercream truffles!

Strawberry buttercream truffles!

These were rad as hell. The strawberry flavor is achieved through crushed freeze-dried strawberries so it really pops. Also Steven helped me perfectly temper the chocolate using the sous vide so, though it took a while, the dipping process was the easiest ever.

Winner!

Winner!

I also made chai tea truffles and lemon pie truffles, but they came out kind of underwhelming so I didn’t take pictures. This was a fun and delicious month!

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I am now half a librarian. Also: fancy chocolates!

Today I turned in my last papers of the semester, meaning I’m done with my first year of grad school!! Since I’m now half a librarian, I can recommend the beginning of a good book to you! Plus some other stuff I learned in school that isn’t applicable to the real world! Yay!

I decided the best way to celebrate would be to buy chocolate from Miel Bon Bons, the classy “patisserie & confiserie” in Car Mill Mall. I’ve definitely wanted to check out their chocolates before, but was always intimidated by the extreme fanciness. I am just a humble grad student, albeit in the finest flip flops the mens shoe section of Target can provide (I have abnormally large feet). Nevertheless, today I felt I deserved it. In the end, Steven and I decided upon three.

Steven chose the one on the left, as you probably could have guessed from its lack of prettiness.

Steven chose the one on the left, as you probably could have guessed from its lack of prettiness.

The ugly one on the left is a muscadine truffle. Apparently a muscadine is a kind of grape. It was DELICIOUS, essentially what Chocovine wishes it tasted like. The one on the right is sea salt caramel, equally delicious and rich, not annoyingly sticky like most caramel. Then, the weirdest one:

The purple one: clearly the best

The purple one: clearly the best

Pineapple basil flavored! I know, weird. But oddly good. The pineapple provided a smooth background taste, whereas the basil and chocolate mingled in a nice blend I wouldn’t have expected. Yes, it was kind of strange to be eating basil in dessert form, but I’m not going to argue with purple tastiness.

Fanciness well earned!

Fanciness well earned!

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