Christmas Candy Experiments
on December 21st, 2011 at 9:30 amI have been a experimenting machine when it comes to Christmas candy lately. Some have been successful and others have failed miserably. I wish I would have read the disclaimer better on this blog before I attempted to make my own coconut butter.
When Aubrey saw the price of a jar of it he about had a heart attack. I told him that there was supposedly a way to make it at home from just shredded coconut. Apparently this is only true if all of the stars align in some sort of magical way. Because it certainly didn’t work out for me.
I was starting to wonder if everyone on the Internet was lying to me. Is it really possible to make your own coconut butter? I even added water to see if it would make my crumbly dough smoother.
Nope! It just made a moist crumbly dough. I finally gave up and just spread it out on wax paper and crumbled a candy cane on top.
I stuck my crumbly dough into the freezer and eventually it hardened. It didn’t taste very good though. I even broke it up into “peppermint bark” pieces. Maybe I needed to add more peppermint extract and sweetener? I don’t know. I give up. At least Aubrey liked it!
The recipes that worked out a lot better were these
And these
And finally, these.
I was too impatient to wait half an hour for the peanut butter mixture and pretzels to freeze together so I went straight to dipping them into chocolate. Then I realized why they said to freeze them first. The pretzels might have been slipping and sliding along the peanut butter, but I think my candies pretty much get the message across. Eat sugar, lots of it.
They were delicious! I’m not even sure how many I have left since I made very few to begin with. When practicing recipes I try not to waste too many ingredients. Even though Aubrey is pretty content with eating what I make, whether or not I think it’s good, I still hate wasting food.
Last night my stomach was killing me (seriously, I don’t know if I have ever felt this kind of pain save for maybe when I was having gall bladder attacks) so I’m just hoping for a pain-free day today. I don’t know if it was from candy eating or dining out or the fact that my entire body seems to hate me. If I could pin the reason for my random pain down on any given day, my life would be sooo much easier.
As long as I’m feeling better for Christmas I really don’t care. Especially if it means I get to eat more sugar and chocolate. And chocolately sugar.
I mean…I’m making it all for presents… Not for myself…I’m giving it away! You know, eventually…after I’ve tasted it all myself first. For strictly taste assurance reasons of course…
Made anything tasty lately? Do you make any Christmas treats to give away as presents?
Ok, I would just like to say in my defense it was a really tiny jar. I mean the whole jar on one recipe. I really enjoy this time of year because about everyday when I come home from work there is some tasty treat waiting for me! Also the marshmallow things looked really cool besides tasting good.
I wouldn’t have used the entire jar on the recipe silly
Now I feel bad because I have no new treats for you today. But we still have all of the ones on here!
Just curious: what does the coconut butter recipe like? Now you have my curiously flowing.
Oh and the pretzely goodness looks great
Well the pretzel things are completely gone – yes they were that good. And the coconut butter recipe I used was this one http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2011/01/26/make-your-own-coconut-butter/ I neglected to read the “side note” though. In the comments the people who are complaining about it not working were having the same problems I was. She thinks it might have been because of the colder weather? Apparently it works a lot better in the summer.
So sorry you had a coconut butter fail. It is possible, in theory, to make your own…but I think that you really do need a Vita. Maybe some people can use a Bullet but honestly I just don’t think the power is there. Even with a Vita or a really good food proc…it takes like 15 mins from everything I’ve read. There’s a reason that stuff is $10++ for a small jar. It’s labor intensive to make and the raw ingredients are costly, too.
That said…your other treats look awesome!
Yeah I was switching it back and forth between my food processor and my bullet and neither seemed to do a thing. I mean, my food processor is cheap and old so that could be a problem. But I still gotta convince the husband that the Vita is a need instead of a want
Oh and he completely demolished the rest of the “puppy chow” I made earlier. Definitely going to make some to give away as Christmas treats!