christmas candy

I've been making candy. Yesterday I made my world famous fudge. Now, I need to give you a little history about this candy. My Mom would make fudge every Christmas. It was usually hard and grainy but I loved it and had no idea that fudge could come in any other texture. When my oldest sister grew up, married, and had a place of her own she began to make her own fudge. I sampled it one day and it was soft and smooth. I asked her what was wrong with her fudge, didn't she go by Mom's recipe? No, she said, this is the way fudge is supposed to be made. I was shocked. I was disillusioned. How could this be? So when I grew up I started making fudge the way I always loved it as a kid. I cook it and cook it and beat it and beat it and scrape it onto a baking sheet just in time to prevent the wooden spoon from becoming encased in the fudge like a fence post in concrete. Very few people will eat it so I get all the hard fudge I want every Christmas.

Today I made peanut brittle. There is a science to it. When the batch reaches 300 degrees or hard crack, as they say in the candy making vernacular, it's necessary to remove it from heat, add the vanilla/soda mixture and stir like crazy, then pour it out on cookie sheets to cool. If you go past 300 degrees it will burn. On the first batch I hesitated for just a nanosecond after reaching hard crack and discovered a new type of peanut brittle. I think I'll call it Premium Dark Brittle. It's not burned, it's just well done. It tastes good to me. I offered some to my daughter Kelly but she passed. I'll see if Dorothy will try it when she gets home. If I can market this and it catches on it may turn out to be the ship coming in that I've waited for for so long.