12.09.2008

separation of liquid and solid....or how my toffee went wrong...

warning: this post is very long and has a lot of pictures!
including (but not limited to):
How did the show go, jen?
Tragic Toffee
and
Cute Children

first: How did the show go, jen?
really great, thanks for asking! i was able to get a good spot under some beautiful trees, it was kind of chilly...but a nice change. it was actually a perfect day to be outside all day, i thoroughly enjoyed it! i made more than i made last time, with fewer people total at the show, i think. but i am extremely happy with how it all turned out! yay!


(one lady had to pay me with all ones for a nursing cover and ethan saw the stack of bills yesterday and picked them up and said,"mom, i'm just going to take these, okay?" um, that would be a NO mister, no!)


me being happy with the results of the show

second: tragic toffee (or how to NOT make toffee)
and let me tell you, it was indeed, really bad! i have never made toffee before so i thought i would try it for our cookie exchange we were having today. (it went so well, everything was DELICIOUS! my spoils pictured here. thanks to audrey for hosting and putting it together!) so i get real butter, and have all my ingredients and i am all ready to go and i even got a candy thermometer...i am going to do this thing right! so i am starting out and my ultimate goal of heating this sugar/butter/liquid mixture is hard crack which is 298 to 310 degrees approximately or something like that and the recipe says to heat until 300 degrees...(which takes like 30 minutes to do....)so i am very vigilant because i am determined to make this work. i had it on low heat, i kept it constantly moving, it did not burn the pan at all....but something went really wrong....
just boiling
coming up to soft ball
toward hard ball and we are still okay
soft crack...something isn't right...looking dicey...

hard crack and GROSS(abort abort...not good, not good!)
and i am here to tell you....all my plans just didn't work. it started out so promising and somewhere along the way...it just turned into YUCK! i don't know what happened! do you?
here are some hypotheses....my candy thermometer is cheap and therefore, not that reliable. maybe i need higher quality butter. perhaps my recipe wasn't that great (but it was betty crocker people!) maybe i need to take a class in candy making....any or all of these could be and probably are true. this does not discourage me though. i am going to become a great toffee maker....just not today:)

nasty first toffee try
third: cute children
there are many cute children in the world, and everyone thinks their kids are cute and i am no exception. i think my kids are cute. here are some pictures because i think my kids are cute. thanks for indulging me.

5 comments:

Lacey said...

Gald the show went well, sorry about your toffee, and your kids are cute!

Audrey said...

I love that you titled it how my toffee went wrong. You know, sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose some. Glad you weren't stuck though. Thanks for your yummy contributions!

Ashley said...

This happens to me all the time! Not with toffee but with lots of other cooking items. And yes...your kids are cute!

peachytiffers said...

My theory is the thermometer. I bought that same exact one to try out my first candy, and it was a horrible disaster! It got so burnt that I had to throw away my pot. I am not ever going to try it again without getting a good candy thermometer.

Marisa said...

3 things: 1)thanks for the delicious banana bread. We've already eaten it all!
2)Possibly your toffee didn't work because you were taking pictures of it the whole time! j/k I really have no idea.
3) Your kids ARE cute, you don't just think that. I especially love Avery with her mittens. Madi has some too and she loves to wear them all the time.