Daring Bakers: Caramels and Buttercreams

My first Daring Baker’s challenge is now complete!

Accomplishment 1 – I made candy.

Accomplishment 2 – I used every bowl I own.

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

I’ve always admired the candies you see in little chocolate shops, so I was really excited about this as a challenge – especially a first challenge.  After a loooong debate with my sweet tooth, I decided on caramels and buttercreams, each in milk chocolate and white chocolate.  I skipped the tempering process, but tried filling and dipping candies (caramels were filled, buttercreams were dipped).  I’ll leave the tempering for a later adventure. 

Fillings first. 

Caramel:  (from Godiva)

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup heavy cream

1. In a small heavy saucepan, combine the sugar and water. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Then continue to boil, without stirring, 4 to 5 minutes longer, or until the syrup caramelizes and turns a deep amber color.
2. Immediately remove the syrup from the heat and add the cream. (The mixture will bubble up). Using a wooden spoon, stir until completely smooth; if necessary, briefly return the caramel to low heat and stir until smooth. Scrape into a small bowl and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until well chilled, at least 2 hours.

It took me longer than 4-5 minutes to get any color in the caramel, but when it got going it went fast – I burned it the first time(in the picture above, the burned is on the right).  Even when I got it right though, something seemed a little off with the taste.

Buttercream

2 cups powdered sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

¼ C butter (melted)

1.5 tbsp heavy cream

1. Combine these four ingredients and mix well until smooth and firm.
2. Form into balls and place on waxed paper covered trays. Chill.

The buttercream was delicious.  The site where I got the recipe had a couple of other buttercream variations...they all looked good.  As a side note, powdered sugar is one of those baking things that amazes me.  You can have so much sugar and so little liquid and yet the sugar just disappears.  It’s cool. 

(yes - those are hair clips in the photo)

Chocolate & assembly.

I used Wilton Premium Candy Melts for the chocolate. One package of milk chocolate and one of white gave me enough chocolate for two batches of buttercream and one batch of caramel.  I don’t know much about chocolate really, but these melted well and were pretty easy to work with (though, be sure to melt the chocolate in small amounts as you go so that it stays smooth).

Filling Caramels:  In a chocolate mold, fill each well about 1/3 of the way and then use a brush to paint up the sides.  Drop the chilled caramel into the middle of the well.  Wait for the caramel to spread out evenly in the chocolate (this will probably happen by the time you put chocolate in all the wells).  Then go back around fill the wells with chocolate. 

Dipping Buttercreams:  Melt chocolate.  Wing it.  Put dipped candies on wax paper.  I used a lot of toothpicks.  

Final Product:

I forgot to take a picture of the buttercreams before I ate them, but here are the completed caramels.

 

Lessons Learned:

• Melt the dipping chocolate a little bit at a time so it doesn’t get stiff
• Caramel should be amber not brown
• Caramel is sticky and should not be eaten off fingers
• Buttercreams should be small enough that the chocolate-to-buttercream ratio is in favor of the chocolate (the buttercream is crazy sweet and overwhelming even for me if they are big)
• Tap the candy mold when you put chocolate in so that the candies come out without bubbles.
• Do not start making candy at 9pm

Soup Crock Supper: Creamy Potato Bake

I had planned to skip dinner tonight.  Actually, I had planned to eat cereal for dinner tonight (I do that more than I should).  Do you ever just have times when you get chilled for no reason at all?  I do.  And when I get chilled, cereal doesn't work.  So I made this (sorry, I couldn't get a decent picture, but it's yummy!):

Creamy Potato Bake
1 smallish potato
1 4.5 oz can chicken (drained)
1/2 C chicken broth (hot)
2 wedges Laughing Cow light Swiss cheese
1 pinch pepper

Wash and peel the potato, then cut it into small chunks.  Cut the cheese into small chunks and add it to the the hot chicken broth.  Mix in the potato chunks and chicken.  When mixed well, add the mixture to a 6oz soup crock.  Bake at 350 F until the potatoes are tender (about 45 minutes).  After 45 minutes, it might still look like there's lots of liquid, but if you mix it, it's pretty creamy. 

(makes 1 serving)

Hershey Kiss Cookies

Oh, the magic...

This, right here – the cute little cookie on the right – was a mystery to me for, like, the first 15 years of my life.  I just couldn’t understand how the makers of these cookies put the kisses in them.  (Apparently pressing them in just after baking never occurred to me.)  I was always terrifically impressed with anyone who brought these to parties, school bake sales, etc.  So, in honor of my very first grown-up payday, I decided I was grown up enough to try them out!  Btw - a rack of freshly baked cookies is the best apartment decoration ever…

See?  They kind of match my table.

Here’s the recipe (originally taken from this site)

Hershey Kiss Cookies

• ½ cup butter softened
• ½ cup peanut butter (usually smooth but crunchy is fine)
• ¾ cup brown sugar light or dark (packed)
• ¼ cup regular white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or flavoring
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 ¾ cup plain flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• Extra sugar white sugar for rolling cookie dough (not a lot – a few TBS or so)
• Hershey Kisses candy (45 or so – depending on how large you make the cookie balls)

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, use a mixer and blend the softened butter, peanut butter, brown sugar, regular sugar, egg, vanilla, and salt until nice and creamy.
2. Add the flour and baking soda and mix until even.
3. Roll dough into balls. The size is around the size of ping-pong balls. Try to keep all the cookie balls close in size. You may have more or less than 45 especially the first time when you’re learning to make these cookies.
4. Place a small amount of regular white table sugar in a bowl. Dip each cookie ball in the sugar and shake off excess. You don’t want a lot of sugar on the cookies, but the quick sugar dip adds to the flavor and gives the cookies an interesting texture at the end.
5. Place cookie balls on baking sheet. Leave space – about two inches all around. They spread a bit.
6. Bake 8 to 10 minutes at 375 degrees F in a preheated oven until the cookies are done. They should be a pretty golden brown color.
7. As soon as you take the cookies out of the oven, press a Hershey Kiss in the center of each. Press firmly until the Hershey Kiss is nestled in the middle of the hot cookie. Do this before removing the cookies from the baking pan.
8. Once you’ve put Hershey Kisses in the middle of all the cookies on the pan, remove cookies and let cool.