A few weeks ago, B made peanut brittle for a bake sale. He gave the whole batch away. The rest of us drooled, but he made us some the next week – we made sure we didn’t eat all the rest of the peanuts on him so he could make us more candy – weren’t we good?
As the ladies at co-op discussed how to price his candy, one of them described a confection she’d tried of chocolate peanut brittle. We decided that it was probably not just dipped, but actually chocolate. B asked me what ingredients he could substitute; which gave me a chance to feel like a chemist again. We decided to switch Hershey’s syrup for the corn syrup, and an ounce of bitter chocolate for most of the butter. DH LOVES the result, it has a dark, slightly bitter flavor. We told B, now he knows what to make Dad for Christmas next year.
But M and B and I would like like a less mouth cutting texture, and more sweetness. So next batch will use bitter sweet chocolate, and corn syrup. K apparently agrees with Daddy, because I caught her climbing a chair to snitch some more, after I’d washed her face after dinner. She hadn’t had her bath yet though, so that wasn’t too bad.
Candy making got B to observe boiling, and all the steps of testing doneness with drips into a glass of water. If he continues the interest, I’ll probably buy him a candy thermometer (that will be one more kitchen tool he takes with him when he leaves the nest, he owns the waffle iron too). I’m very pleased with his observation skills, the orderliness with which he organized his ingredients and tools, and of course, the candy!