Salvaging a Wreck or Making Caramels

I'm getting things a bit out of order here, but I figure that's better than not posting at all.

Back before Christmas I was working on making cherry cordials and thought I'd be thrifty, and give them more cherry flavor, by using ALL of the syrup the cherries came in. This isn't a totally bad idea, but it's success is dependant on what that syrup is made of. Specifically how much of the sugar in the syrup is sucrose, and how much is fructose and or  glucose, AND how much of the original sucrose (if there was any) has been converted into invert sugar (glucose and fructose) by the acid, either natural or added, usually in the form of citric acid to increase tartness. The fondant recipe I was using did not call for invertase but relied on a careful ratio of sucrose to fructose/glucose to get the right... but that's another post. My attempted recipe change left me with a large amount of mixed sugars that had boiled off all their cherry flavor, but still had a red color.

Boiling sugar solution.

Back to caramel. Caramel is not nearly so sensitive to the ratio of sugars, its texture is far more
controlled by the temperature, and thus the moisture, and the ratio of dairy/fat to sugars. So, I decided to make caramel from this large quantity of mixed sugars.

I read a number of recipes with widely varying  ratios of sugar to dairy/fat, some called for it all to be combined at the beginning, others had the sugar and water heated separately from the dairy, some even called for "frozen non-dairy coffee creamer" I'm not sure I've ever seen such a product. I am sure I don't want it in my caramel.

Caramel cooling in a glass baking dish.

I found this article and recipe from Emma Christensen, the reasoning in the article made sense to me
and I liked the ratio (generous dairy) so I did something smart. I made a first batch following the recipe (not using the mixed sugars) and poured it into a generously greased glass 9" square pan. It seemed to work well, but when I checked it in the morning, only the corners had a good consistency, the closer to the center the more grainy it became.

In an effort to salvage this first batch, I added some water, re-heated/melted/boiled it then poured it out on a silicon mat on my counter where it cooled much more quickly and didn't form sugar crystals. But they did reform when I left it on the silicon mat in the oven at low temperature, but that's more of a geology lesson than candy making.

It is worth noting that, while laser thermometers may be good for some things in the kitchen, they are not adequate for making candy. In my experience the readings were between 8 and 10 deg. F lower than shown on my real candy thermometer.

Catching Up and Looking Ahead

Here we are, it's a new year. I'd intended to post some over the holidays as I had two weeks off. But I ended up spending that time in the kitchen. I baked off about 20 kg. of flour. I thoroughly enjoyed my vacation.

Main Dishes

I made a quintuple batch cattleman's pie (shepherds pie with ground beef) and froze 3/5th of it. Still have 2/5ths in the freezer. It's an amazing dish in that EVERYONE (including Duncan who is nine and doesn't like ANYTHING) likes it.

Breads

I made loaves and loaves of cinnamon raisin bread. It turned out quite well. I took many loaves around to friends and neighbors.

Using that dough I also made a batch of chocolate sweet rolls. They were all eaten, but I wasn't overly pleased with them.

I made Pain au Chocolate following this recipe: http://www.breadcetera.com/?p=117 they turned out quite well. I want to make them again, or make croissants, and see if I can't do a better job of proofing them and thus get an even better product.

I only made one batch of sourdough and I've decided that my attempts at making sourdough with out any additional yeast is an effort I don't wish to pursue any further. I've since made a couple batches of sourdough including some yeast and I'm much more pleased with the end product.

Brioche au Chocolate, much like the above mentioned effort using raisin bread dough, with somewhat better results. Honestly, I did not make as stiff a dough as all the brioche recipes indicated. I was afraid of burning out my mixer, and I did get it hot enough to smell HOT. I've begun searching for a heavier duty stand mixer.

PIES!

• Two chocolate pudding: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/02/best-chocolate-pudding/.
• One Old Fashioned Butterscotch: http://www.cooking.com/Recipes-and-More/recipes/old-fashioned-butterscotch-pie-recipe-451.aspx
• Two apple. I don't really follow a recipe for these.
• One Egg Nog Custard pie (embarrassingly easy. Watch for another post with pictures)

A first attempt at pre-cooking the apple pie filling resulted in nine pints of a most lovely apple butter. I overcooked the bottom of the pot and the apples were still raw at the top so stir, add seasonings and process like apple sauce, then cook further adding sugar and more seasonings as desired. I did loose one pint in water bath processing. :-(

I've been trying to reduce the amount of liquid produced by the apples. That was what lead me to try pre-cooking the filling and resulted in apple butter. I found much better success by tossing the peeled & sliced apples with sugar and letting them drain in a colander, I captured the juice and reduced it, adding it back to the apples when they were put in the pie. This was an improvement, much less boil-over and loss of goodness (and mess to clean up)

My third attempt had the most success, as before I tossed them with the sugar and reduced the liquid that drained off, then I added a cup of raisins. I still had a little boil over, but no puddling in the dish as the pie was eaten; and this with out using any flour or starch as I had used previously. I'm looking forward to trying again. I think my favorite pie has changed from pumpkin custard to apple.