Oh, I just can't stand it. The circus was too much for me today. I was useless for work. I kind of played at getting documents signed, answered a long-distance client who is a great correspondent, and took almost all day to remember to make a call that probably should have been done very first thing. I didn't necessarily have space in my schedule for a wasted day, but it came along anyway.
I have to work my way through a bunch of the things I have stored in my pantry, so we can organize and maybe--just maybe--finish painting in there, after abandoning it more than a year ago. I took stock of things that are open and need to be used up, and decided that the giant bag of brown sugar from Costco was taking up too much space. I bought it thinking I wanted to make candies, and I never tried. It was time to try making caramel. At least, I thought it was time. Perhaps I should have waited until it wasn't quite so hot and humid. Not that I have any real knowledge of the intricacies of candy-making.
I knew I had open bags of pistachios and dark chocolate drops for melting. They seemed perfect to top the caramel. I chopped pistachios and put the chocolate in a microwavable dish, and then poked through Pinterest for a jumping off point. I saw a couple of recipes, and thought I'd try to combine their techniques. This was my first mistake. One was a two-step process, first bringing the sugar, syrup, and water past the hard crack stage, over 320 degrees F. Then one adds the dairy ingredients (in that case, heavy cream and melted butter) and brings the temp back to the soft ball stage (240, roughly). It is a NO STIR recipe, and to melt down any sugar crystals on the side of the pan, it says to put the lid over boiling sugar for a minute to melt them back into the mix. The other recipe was the complete opposite. All ingredients in from the beginning (except vanilla), and you're supposed to stir constantly until it reaches 235-240. They said this would take 16-18 minutes. Hm. Not so much.
I was stupid and thought I'd try the trick of putting the lid on the recipe that had the butter and sweetened condensed milk in it from the beginning. I watched it for maybe two and a half minutes, wondering whether enough steam was forming to wash the sides of the pot. I didn't stir in all that time. I took the lid off, saying forget it, I am going to stir. Lesson learned: if the recipe says stir constantly, DO IT. All kinds of browned bits came off the bottom of the pan, and I had to pick out most of them. Some just got blended back in as well as I could. I don't know whether it was my early mistake responsible for the difficulty from there, or because I was doing this on the wrong sort of day. I had to stand at the stove for over half an hour, waiting for the candy thermometer to get remotely close to the soft ball stage.
I assembled the caramel as I intended, pouring it in an oiled, parchment paper lined, glass dish. It cooled a while before I put the chocolate and pistachios on top, but probably not as long as it should have. This was a symphony of errors, this candy. It eventually had to chill in the refrigerator so that I could cut it, and even then it was sticky and soft. I couldn't cut it in even squares. I did the best I could and came up with somewhere close to 50 small pieces, of which I ate one and a half. It tasted good, but wow, was it rich. I think I need to practice before I get this nonsense right, but until then, what am I going to do with two or three pounds of practice candy each time?
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