Recipe: Your Name Candy

recipelink.com Chat Room Recipe Swap - 2001-03-06
From: calliope,.NY

“---------------------CANDY”
(your name, here)

Anyone who will take the time to learn to make this candy, deserves to name it candy after themselves. It is, after all, a simple recipe, but it is in the learning, and the effort to make it for those we love.....that entitles us to name it as we chose!

1-pound regular salted, butter
I like Land-o-Lakes, as flavor and moisture content can vary in butters.
2-cups, refined, white sugar
1-cup slivered almonds
6-Tablespoons water

1-1/2 oz. UN-sweetened chocolate
*optional........powdered almonds, dusted over the top at the end

Heereeerre we go! It is the making, wherein lies this challenge!

First, you need the right equipment. (I can only tell you what I do).

I have found, that a heavy, aluminum pot, works best, and a wooden spoon for stirring.
A cookie-sheet, ( but one like a like a jelly-roll pan... with sides), in which to pour the candy.....
using some kitchen towels underneath, to absorb the intense heat, and protect your counter.

* BE PREPARED TO STIR VIGOROUSLY........ AND CONSTANTLY!!! *
...once you’ve added the water and it has begun to re-combine.

In the pot, melt the butter, completely. Add the sugar and increase the heat to almost full heat...(gas/electric)?...stirring, slowly...........
It will begin to resemble a “lava” boil....at this point, add the almonds...stir it down and continue to stir.
Bring it back to that same state as it was before you added the nuts........STAND BACK!!!......and then add the water....
Carefully approach the pot, and begin to stir, again....carefully, so as not to burn yourself with the splattering butter that will have..... temporarily separated.
****At this point, you must never leave the pot and must stir constantly***

The candy will go through several changes from now on....so pay attention!

At first, it will be a bubbly, lava-like mass......then, it will start to darken a bit, and as you are stirring, and DO stir more and more vigorously....begin to “leave the side of the pot”....
Now is when you must stir, even more strongly..from the bottom and sides,
and as you do, it will darken even more.....and then FINALLY...instead of behaving like a “mercurial mass”......it will finally become “liquid”, looking in both color and texture like gravy ,that clings to the side of the pot....whereas before...it would not stick to the sides, just swing around inside the pot in one big mass.
This is where practice and timing come in..............
You don’t want to burn it.....and yet you will be caramelizing it...but if you take it off the burner too soon and pour it,....it will just become a true caramel and be chewy.....and NOT a “brittle”.......which is what you want.
When it is “done”, and you must make a quick judgement call on this.........pour it immediately and quickly..into the jelly-roll pan...smoothing it out with the spoon, as fast as you can all over the pan and into the corners..since it sets up almost instantly!
Let it set for at least 4 hours, in the most NON-humid environment you can...in other words, don’t make soup in your kitchen on the same day!...before you “paint” on the chocolate.

I melt the chocolate in a tempered glass.....set in a small sauce pan of simmering water, till melted....(don’t let water splash inside the chocolate, as it will get “punky”)...then paint it over the candy with a pastry brush, quickly.
Dusting it immediately thereafter with the powdered almonds.

Let the chocolate dry completely and then pick up a corner of the candy with a knife and break in up by hand into the size pieces you like.

***NOTE..........As with all candy-making...........humidity is not its friend!
Do NOT store this in the refrigerator..both factors, will
make the candy “gummy”! ***

BEST OF LUCK!!!!

your family and friends will love you for this....but you will certainly curse me for teaching you how to make it.........as they will ALL expect it from you now!...and even beg for it!