(no subject)

[which_chick]

I am considering easter candies. As many of you know, I don't exactly celebrate easter or xmas or whatever as anything approaching a religious holiday. However, I do celebrate them as secular holidays. Whether my way of doing things is right, wrong, or offensive to people of (at least that particular) faith, it's how I roll. So, easter is coming. I would like easter candies.



Commercial easter candies taste like waxy bad chocolate. The coconut eggs do not have enough coconut in them and they're way too damn sweet. Same for the peanut butter eggs. Too much sweet, not enough flavor. In short, easter candies disappoint me. They are not up to my standards.

I am going to make my own easter candies this year. I've given the project some thought and I have a big enough lineup of candy candidates (did you see what I did there? I am clever. Yes, I am.) that I think I can come up with an easter basket of appropriately yummy goodies, none of which will taste like waxy bad chocolate. Nothing will be egg shaped, however. I do not have any urge at all to shape things into wee, twee eggs by hand.

Candy the first: chocolate-covered coconut and lime discs. Chocolate coating, unless otherwise specified is Ghirardelli's 60% because I find it easy to work with and they sell the chips (way cheaper than the bars) at my grocery. Center made of Baker's Secret coconut plus also coconut milk boiled down until it's just the solids (to be used as the moistener/binder) and lime flavoring (zest from two limes, juice from two limes, 3 tbsp sugar, heated until just boiling) to taste. Plain flour is added to dry the filling up enough to form it. (Powdered sugar is, yes, more traditional. Also makes food item too damn sweet. Flour is a better filler and in the amount used (about 1 Tbsp per packet coconut flakes) is not offensive or obvious.) Preliminary forming is make into long snake thing on wax paper, tuck-n-roll to make like for fridge cookies. Freeze solid. Slice, dip. Will probably need to recover fully to room temperature and then be dipped a second time in order to ensure good finish. (Stuff has to be close to room temperature for a nice finish on the dipping chocolate.) Decoration on top: few shreds of roasted coconut.

Candy the second: peanut butter discs. I have no idea how I am going to do this, but I don't like most peanut butter balls because they are too sweet for me. Also, experiments last October revealed that best peanut flavor in peanut brittle came from home-roasting raw peanuts myself in a cast iron skillet. Hrm. So I already know how to roast peanuts. (Is peanut butter really that hard?) More research is needed on this project. Decoration on top: half a peanut.

Candy the third: chocolate covered caramels. I know how to make caramels. All that's required here is to dip them in chocolate. Decoration on top: dots of caramelized sugar (made seperately onto parchment paper, cooled down, and then stuck on the chocolates <-- tested this today, it'll work fine).

We are not big eaters of things like raspberry cremes and so forth, which removes an entire category of chocolate covered items. I'm thinking on what, if anything, else I should consider making. Maybe plain chocolate truffles?

Comments

[gwangi.livejournal.com]

Given the popularity of Peeps, maybe you should try something like sugar-coated marshmallows? I have no idea how they make the outsides stick like that, and they're certainly on the ultrasweet side, but it'd fit with the season.

[not-your-real.livejournal.com]

Wow, keep us posted on these yummy developments!