Peppermint Fudge

Holy sleigh bells! How on earth is it already December....and December 7th, no less? Our busy days (and nights) have been filled with lots and lots of activities, some more fun than others. We've gotten braces, performed in an African dance and music ensemble, had our final soccer games and practices, soccer parties, awards ceremonies, and dinner with friends....we've decked the halls (almost done), shopped until we dropped (online), and prepared for upcoming birthdays (3 in our immediate family....2 more outside it). We've planted our winter garden, only to have to blanket in burlap due to an unseasonable hard frost that's expected tonight and built a new desk and shelves in the boys' room. And we've gone to the movies to see Fantastic Mr. Fox (fantastic!!) and a Christmas Carol at El Capitan in Hollywood (outstanding...and scary!). We've gone on date nights, and to a club to hear our current favorite musician play....and we've been working hard at school and our day jobs too. Whew!

In short, (or long), we are exhausted...but in a good way, and consequently not a whole lot of things have been coming out of the kitchen lately. The exception being this (most delicious) PEPPERMINT ICE CREAM, and this (most delectable) Peppermint Fudge. The fudge recipe is adapted from Everyday Food Magazine and is super easy because it doesn't require the use of a candy thermometer. Peppermint candies are finely chopped, then melted together with piles of pillowy marshmallows and rich cream and butter. That molten pink confection is whisked with chocolate chips until they melt...and that's it! Fudge!



It's really, really easy. In fact, I made it with my after school cooking class...and if a 7 year old can make it so can you! Make a double batch so you can give it away as a gift...just a suggestion. Of course, you could also just enjoy the whole batch by yourself. Nothing cures holiday stress like chocolate....

Want more Christmas treat ideas? Check out Serena's Cookie Exchange!




Peppermint Fudge

This easy fudge is so rich and delectable…that it is easy to make is a bonus. You can use a food processor to smash up the peppermint candies, but kids love to do the job with a wooden rolling pin. Packaged up in a pretty bowl, these candies would make a wonderful holiday gift if you have any left over to give away. You may want to double the recipe just to make sure.

Prep time: 15 minutes
Total time: 15 minutes, plus chilling time
Yield: 16 squares

Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup round peppermint candies
¾ cup heavy cream
3 ½ cups mini marshmallows
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 ¼ cups sugar
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
Peppermint sprinkles (or more crushed candies)

Directions:

Lightly coat a 9-inch square baking pan with cooking spray, then line with 2 sheets of waxed paper in both directions, leaving a 2 inch overhang on each side. Spray waxed paper with cooking spray. Set aside.

Place chocolate in a large bowl. Pulse peppermint candies in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade attachment until finely ground, or alternately, place candies in a freezer strength zip-top bag and whack with a wooden rolling pin on a firm surface until smashed. In a medium saucepan, combine candies, cream, marshmallows, butter, sugar and salt over medium-high heat. Whisk until melted and smooth, about 5 minutes.

Pour mixture through a fine-mesh strainer over the chocolate chips and whisk until melted and smooth, about 1 minute. Pour into prepared pan, top with peppermint sprinkles, and refrigerate until set, about 3 hours. Cut fudge into squares with a sharp knife. To store, cover and refrigerate up to one week.

Get Your Peanuts!

Have you tried those blistered peanuts from Trader Joe's? They are crunchy and salty and perfect in every way. They taste fantastic on top of ice cream, or curried chicken, or all by themselves, but today I decided to use them in some brittle. (Because we don't have enough Easter candy in the house or something...) I've made it only once before and so I needed to do some quick research to find a good recipe, and an easy one too.

I just hate to fuss over a boiling pot of molten sugar. For one thing, it scares me to death. You see, I'm very prone to kitchen accidents-the fresh blister on my tummy is evidence of that. Now I'm sure you're wondering how on earth I got a blister there. Unfortunately, I splashed myself with some of the boiling broth I was cooking the whole chicken in the other night. And that , of course, begs the question, how did I manage to splash myself with the scalding water? Well, the chicken was still partially frozen, even though I bought it supposedly fresh, so I couldn't open the cavity enough to remove the gizzards. For some reason, still unbeknownst to me, I thought that I could extract the gizzards with tongs after I had put the chicken on to boil. As you can imagine, I sloshed the boiling water right over the edge of the pot and onto myself. Yes, I was wearing a shirt....a thick one.

Things like that happen all the time to me, and I think I am a fairly smart person. But I have scars all over my hands and arms from kitchen mishaps...hot ovens and sharp knives are often the culprits-or my own stupidity is. But whatever the cause, after a recent accident I am always a bit more careful, for awhile at least, and today I did not want to burn myself on sputtering sugar lava. So after settling on a recipe that was easy enough and did not require blacklisted corn syrup, I got to work.

The only slightly problematic moment, was when I put my face close to the pot so that I could smell the caramelizing sugar. With my nose still stuffy, I have to sniff extra hard to smell things. But I heard a hissing sound and quickly moved my face away, and not a moment too soon. Just then, the top of my thermometer burst off and shot straight up into the air (but thankfully not into my eye). I guess I need a new candy thermometer. No harm done. The sugar was about the right color and temperature and it was time to stir in the peanuts. I quickly poured out the amber liquid onto a silicone baking sheet liner and spread it with a spatula. It became stiff moments later and produced a satisfying snap when I broke it into smaller bits for storage.

It is crunchy and salty and spicy all at once and looks like a platter of peanut-studded broken glass. Matt bemoaned the fact that it's too spicy for the children to eat (which, of course, means that he will have to suffer through most of the pile), but I will bring the majority of it to my writing group tonight. We need fuel for the brain, and none is better than pure, caramelized sugar-don't you agree?


Peanut Brittle

Adapted from Alton Brown

Brush the inside of a medium sized, heavy bottomed sauce pan with vegetable oil. Add 3 C sugar and 1 1/2 C water. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, over high heat. When boiling, cover and continue to boil for 3 minutes. Uncover pot, reduce heat to medium and insert a candy thermometer by clipping it to the side of the pot. Continue to cook, without stirring, until the sugar is a medium amber color and 340 degrees. It will take approximately 15-20 minutes. While sugar is simmering away, toss 1 1/2 C of roasted and salted peanuts with 1/2 t cinnamon and 1/2 t cayenne pepper. When sugar is medium amber colored and up to temperature, quickly stir in peanut mixture. Carefully pour out onto a greased cookie sheet (or silicone lined one) and spread out with a spatula so that the peanuts are in one layer. Let cool, then break apart into bite sized shards.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Regarding nuts there are two camps (well three if you count those who are deathly allergic to them): one group just loves nuts and all things nutty and one group not so much. I guess that I fall somewhere in the middle. I do like nuts as solo fliers. I make them often when we are entertaining to munch on with our cocktails, I like them in salads or sprinkled on my veggies, but I am not a huge fan of nuts in sweet treats like quick breads, cookies and especially fudge. That being said, I am crazy for sugared nuts! I love honey roasted peanuts to be sure, by my hands-down favorite are sugared spiced walnuts or pecans. I love them on my caramel apples and in my oatmeal, in my winter salads and just right out of the bowl. And nuts are good for me, right? Practically a health food, I think!

In Cape Cod there is a woman who makes these amazing sugared walnuts called Wicked Walnuts. They are outrageously delicious and addictive and the recipe is obviously a closely guarded secret. Even though I do have a slight walnut sensitivity (they make my mouth peel), that is a small price to pay for eating them! So since I am not currently on the Cape, I will try to recreate the recipe myself....or at least come up with something delicious to tide me over in the meantime.

Her walnuts are sweet and salty, with just a bit of heat, if I recall correctly. And they come packaged with sweetened, dried cranberries too. So this morning I set off on my journey through the wonderful world Internet recipe searches, and came across quite a few recipes, many involving making a caramel out of sugar and spices and then tossing in toasted walnuts. That didn't sound quite right to me. Finally I decided that I would try my old recipe for sugared pecans and see if that did the trick. The recipe is a simple one: toss the nuts with a beaten egg white, and then shake them in a bag of sugar, salt, cinnamon...and my new addition, a dash of cayenne. They are baked slowly, and fill the kitchen with a most heavenly smell!

Update: these walnuts, while delicious, still lacked something when they came out of the oven. I referred back to the picture on the Wicked Walnut website and saw that her's had visable sugar on them. So I created a sugar/spice mixture and tossed the walnuts with it. Bingo! They are perfect.

Sugar and Spice Walnuts

1/2 pound walnut pieces and halves
1 egg white, beaten until frothy
1/2 C sugar
1/2 t salt
3/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t cayenne pepper
1/2 C sweetened dried cranberries

Sugar Topping

1/4 C sugar
1/2 t cinnamon
pinch cayenne
1/2 t salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Toss walnuts with egg white in a medium sized bowl. Place sugar, salt, and spices into a large zip top bag. Remove walnuts from egg white with a slotted spoon, letting any excess egg drip out. Place nuts in the sugar bag and shake vigorously to coat. Pour out onto greased cookie sheet and separate nuts. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until dry and toasted.

Mix sugar topping in a large bowl. Gently break apart walnuts with a fork or spatula. Place in the bowl with the sugar and toss to coat. Place back on the cookie sheet to cool. When cool, toss with the cranberries and seal in air-tight containers.

At Market...Oro Blanco

Oro Blanco...the name means white gold in Spanish and it is easy to tell why. These beautiful orbs are available now at California farmers markets, and should remain in the markets throughout the winter. In 1958 farmers created this hybrid from a pomelo, which is the citrus fruit from which grapefruit descended. It has a yellow rind and sweet, light yellow flesh that contains almost no seeds, and tastes mildly of grapefruit. I would call this the grapefruit for people who don't like grapefruit. It's rind is thick and spongy, just like the pomelo's, but its size is much smaller, more like a grapefruit. Good Oro Blancos are heavy for their size, and will last at room temperature for two weeks and in the refrigerator for up to one month.

Their rind is deliciously perfumed and makes excellent sugared citrus candy, which is exactly what I made this afternoon (more gifts from the kitchen). The recipe is kind to those of us whose days are filled with other important tasks...like holiday shopping!! Each part of the recipe requires little attention, and it can sit patiently waiting, until you return for it.

The rind is removed from the flesh, simmered in water for a time, stripped of its membrane then boiled in a sweet sugar syrup. After awhile, the golden rind becomes glossy and translucent, and covered in delicious sticky sweetness. They are drained of any excess syrup, then tossed in sugar, and ready to eat or use in your favorite recipe. I think they would be delicious in scones or muffins, or just eaten straight out of the bowl, for that matter. This recipe adapted from Local Flavors, is a definite keeper.

Sugared Citrus

2 grapefruits, (or 1 pomelo, or 2 oro blancos, or 3 navel oranges)

1 1/2 C sugar

1 1/2 C water

1/4 C corn syrup

superfine sugar for dusting

Quarter citrus and remove flesh. Put rind into a pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute. Pour out water and cover again with cold water. Weigh down rinds so they cannot float (I used a smaller saucepan within a saucepan to hold them down). Boil for 30 minutes, then turn off the heat. Let the water cool to room temp. They can be left for several hours or overnight. Remove rinds from water and scrape out white pith. Slice rinds into thinish strips and set aside.

Heat sugar, water and corn syrup in a large pot. When mixture turns clear, add rinds and simmer for 1 hour or until the rinds are shiny and translucent. Most of the syrup will have evaporated. At this point you can let it sit overnight (and let drip the next day) or you can remove to a rack over a cookie sheet to allow excess syrup to drip off as soon as they are cool enough to handle. Toss a few rinds at a time in superfine sugar, and return to rack to dry out for one hour.

Store in a jar, each layer separated by sugar, in the refrigerator.