T Stands for Candy Making

  Wow It's the week of Christmas already. Time has just flown by so fast this year for me for some reason.

  Tuesdays brings us to T with our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth where we share a drink related photo and link up with friends. You are invited as well.

  This is the first year I can remember of not checking my baking and candy making ingredients ahead of time for Christmas.  Last week I was ready to make the peanut brittle-and no raw peanuts to be found in my freezer or nearby grocery stores. I went to the small Amish market that is just a couple miles down from the Wal Mart. I knew they would have the peanuts and they did. They also had bags of caramels which the stores also did not have. 

  Then I went into my freezer for gluten free flour-none, and none in the stores near me either. So I ordered it from one of my favorite online stores Vita Cost-bigger bags and less money and free very fast shipping So now I think I am ready to make a few things. 😉

   

 Saturday I made two batches of almond bark (Why do they call it almond bark?smiles). The choices are dark chocolate, milk chocolate, or white chocolate to melt down.

   I take the wooden cutting board off of my vintage slab of marble for these candies Fun

The close up below has dried strawberries, dried rainier cherries, dried yellow raisins, and slivered almonds

          

This next one I added peppermint pieces, and I had a chocolate bar with layers of dark chocolate and white chocolate and peppermint so I broke all that up and added to this second bark Most of this chocolate I will give away, and freeze a little for us.

  In the evening Saturday I mixed up  wheat and a gluten free version of chocolate chip cookie dough with peppermint chocolate chips. I am trying out a new recipe for these two from King Arthur's Cookie cookbook I think I would also like to make up a roll out gingerbread cookie recipe too and that's it for this year.  I have snowflake cutters so I can bake up those in January for the sugar cookie roll outs.

   Sunday we woke up to sunny but in the 20's  Needing sunshine and a clear day is a must for candy making like peanut brittle so perfect day for candy.  It went so well this time, I made two batches-will give most of this away to a couple of friends.

  I  have always enjoyed making peanut brittle, as it brings back fond memories of making it with my farm girl Grandma

  For an experiment I decided to try making a brittle with roasted cashews that I ground down into small pieces. Larry loves nut brittles too but years ago he gave up on wearing dentures so can't eat whole nuts any more

    I caught a show on Food Network Saturday afternoon, about candy making with Magnolia Table. She shared a peanut brittle recipe that was so different from what I knew about making this. She was using roasted nuts instead of raw nuts.  So I thought I would use my recipe but change the process up a bit to add ground roasted cashew nuts to the brittle If anyone interested in the peanut brittle recipe I use let me know and I will post it next week. Also after the cashew brittle cooled completely the texture is amazing the candy part is so much lighter, a little more porous too. I think changing up a few things to accommodate the roasted nuts over the raw nuts made the difference.

  If I was better at science I would have known to use less ground nuts than the whole nuts. It was so thick I had a very difficult time stretching out the brittle-It does taste good though and I took notes for next time so I can get it thinner, but it is really good, very light and porous  And I looked it up Yes one can freeze nut brittles   I so need to defrost my deep freezer first though.

  For my drink share, while I was out hunting for peanuts I found this bottle of egg nog-loved the label too.  My grandparents always considered themselves Pennsylvania Dutch-their roots were in Germany. This one has allot of alcohol  in it-I just needed to pour myself one shot instead of over ice in a small glass for this one.  If you look at old cookbooks from the 17 and 18th century this is how it was made with rum brandy and whiskey

  I am making time to practice at least one hour a day for my calligraphy.  This pen is just so comfortable that it almost feels familiar somehow-I have never tried calligraphy before but always wanted to I think I really was afraid of it all these years. My handwriting has always been poor. So far having good vibes from it.

  Sunday evening I went to turn on the tea lights in my luminaries and Wow-a gorgeous moon over the lake. I was actually able to capture a couple of photos

A lovely backdrop for my luminaries

Happy T and Merry Merry Christmas

and a little update: I just got this as an email and was perfect to share for T.

     I forgot who now, but last week on T someone posted about Olive Pluff & Co Teas-I searched them out and they have many historic teas from our American history.  Today is National Sangria Day and this what they shared in an email