Candymaking
Nov. 17th, 2022 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
writerkitI was having a conversation with one of the roommates (who may need an initial soon; we're becoming friendly) about cooking and he got me onto my rant about how bread and candymaking are both things people think are harder than they are. He responded "That's because you're good at it."
And I'm... not sure that's true. I mean, yes, I am good at praline and decent at yeast breads and slowly improving at pie crust, but yeast bread and candymaking both get waved around as "These things are HARD" and I think that stops people from trying because they think it's going to be HARD. I was not aware bread was supposed to be especially hard when I started making it, and I think if I had been it might have discouraged me from trying. Certainly "this is a very hard task" never occurred to me while I was learning to do it. If you get a good recipe aimed properly at beginners and follow it carefully, it will be at least okay. And if you sort of follow it but are not super careful about it, if you've got a simple yeast bread you're probably still okay.
On the other hand, I was aware that candy is supposed to be exceptionally hard. Everyone says that. Candy is difficult, you need to watch your candy thermometer absolutely precisely, you need to take it off the heat the INSTANT it hits the temperature. I was not going to go near candy, but then Trader Joe's praline pecans had corn syrup in them, I found a recipe that promised to be easy, and benign_cremator really loves pecans.
Except, of course, that I do not have a candy thermometer, but the recipe thoughtfully included the information that you want soft ball stage without actually using the term "soft ball stage." (Having read Like Water for Chocolate in high school I was familiar with the actual words for the various candy stages, but I didn't need to have been to follow the recipe.) I have never owned a candy thermometer, I make praline with a bowl of ice water to tell me when it's done.
I know I've joked about candy thermometers being cheating, but I do think using the bowl of water has given me a much more visceral sense of how it works and more to the point the fact that there is a lot more give in this than people admit. It's not like it immediately jumps to hard ball as soon as it gets a hair past the soft ball temperature. There's a continuum of softness to hardness, and it's edible and tastes good anywhere within it. (Yes, if you get it too far wrong, it will burn-- but you can give the instruction "once it starts to get really bubbly and foamy, stir it a lot and drop bits into the ice water more frequently the closer it gets to forming a ball" and that will probably work for most purposes.) Not to mention that conventionally, "nut brittle" is supposed to be something that hits hard crack and here I've been making a version of it that only gets to soft ball and is still fine in both taste and texture. As with most things, I suspect there are easier and harder recipes, but that's no reason to go "candymaking as a whole is Difficult."
Now, I do think it probably gets harder the farther up the scale you go. Anything that gets into hard crack has lost so much of its water content that you probably have less reaction time before it gets out of candy temperatures entirely. (I've never tried, but that makes logical sense.) Something like a toffee or a lollipop is going to need you to move quicker, so you should make some of the more forgiving ones first to get a sense of the movements and reading the stages and having your ice water up.
But my praline? That's extremely forgiving. Unless you actively burn it, it's probably going to come out tasty. It took me a really long time to get to a point where I make it without a second thought, and benign_cremator loved it even on my first attempt when I had no clue what I was doing. The recipe I'm using is here, if anyone wants to give it a whirl.
And if your only reason for not making candy is that everyone's told you how difficult it's going to be, please do give it a whirl.
And I'm... not sure that's true. I mean, yes, I am good at praline and decent at yeast breads and slowly improving at pie crust, but yeast bread and candymaking both get waved around as "These things are HARD" and I think that stops people from trying because they think it's going to be HARD. I was not aware bread was supposed to be especially hard when I started making it, and I think if I had been it might have discouraged me from trying. Certainly "this is a very hard task" never occurred to me while I was learning to do it. If you get a good recipe aimed properly at beginners and follow it carefully, it will be at least okay. And if you sort of follow it but are not super careful about it, if you've got a simple yeast bread you're probably still okay.
On the other hand, I was aware that candy is supposed to be exceptionally hard. Everyone says that. Candy is difficult, you need to watch your candy thermometer absolutely precisely, you need to take it off the heat the INSTANT it hits the temperature. I was not going to go near candy, but then Trader Joe's praline pecans had corn syrup in them, I found a recipe that promised to be easy, and benign_cremator really loves pecans.
Except, of course, that I do not have a candy thermometer, but the recipe thoughtfully included the information that you want soft ball stage without actually using the term "soft ball stage." (Having read Like Water for Chocolate in high school I was familiar with the actual words for the various candy stages, but I didn't need to have been to follow the recipe.) I have never owned a candy thermometer, I make praline with a bowl of ice water to tell me when it's done.
I know I've joked about candy thermometers being cheating, but I do think using the bowl of water has given me a much more visceral sense of how it works and more to the point the fact that there is a lot more give in this than people admit. It's not like it immediately jumps to hard ball as soon as it gets a hair past the soft ball temperature. There's a continuum of softness to hardness, and it's edible and tastes good anywhere within it. (Yes, if you get it too far wrong, it will burn-- but you can give the instruction "once it starts to get really bubbly and foamy, stir it a lot and drop bits into the ice water more frequently the closer it gets to forming a ball" and that will probably work for most purposes.) Not to mention that conventionally, "nut brittle" is supposed to be something that hits hard crack and here I've been making a version of it that only gets to soft ball and is still fine in both taste and texture. As with most things, I suspect there are easier and harder recipes, but that's no reason to go "candymaking as a whole is Difficult."
Now, I do think it probably gets harder the farther up the scale you go. Anything that gets into hard crack has lost so much of its water content that you probably have less reaction time before it gets out of candy temperatures entirely. (I've never tried, but that makes logical sense.) Something like a toffee or a lollipop is going to need you to move quicker, so you should make some of the more forgiving ones first to get a sense of the movements and reading the stages and having your ice water up.
But my praline? That's extremely forgiving. Unless you actively burn it, it's probably going to come out tasty. It took me a really long time to get to a point where I make it without a second thought, and benign_cremator loved it even on my first attempt when I had no clue what I was doing. The recipe I'm using is here, if anyone wants to give it a whirl.
And if your only reason for not making candy is that everyone's told you how difficult it's going to be, please do give it a whirl.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-17 05:42 pm (UTC)(I have done a few things—fudge and peanut brittle mostly, a caramel sauce a time or two and the no-bake cookies we make are sort of candy like, through involving a boiled syrup.)
no subject
Date: 2022-11-18 03:40 am (UTC)