The Art of Candy Making

Picture of perfection (left)
Reality (right and below).

Last night I decided to make some caramel apples. I had the recipe, all of the necessary ingredients and a picture of what the end result was supposed to look like, easy enough. The recipe told me to let the caramel simmer until it reached 270*, about 15 minutes. Then it was supposed to thicken while cooling for 6-8 minutes. Things were going well until the caramel boiled over and made a gooey, sticky mess all over the range. I cleaned that up while the caramel was supposed to be thickening. After a half an hour the caramel was still not sticking to the apples but just running off of them like a fountain.

Flashback: Last Christmas I attempted to make homemade caramels and they ended up being so hard that it took me three days to soak the caramel out of my pan layer by layer. I vowed that I would never attempt candy making again but time has a way of dulling such memories.

So I waited, and waited--keep in mind that it's Tuesday and Andrew plays basketball late, so I had a free go to bed early card--and waited. Eventually some of the caramel decided that the apple wasn't it's polar opposite and began sticking, a little. So I dipped and swirled and decided to call it a night.

My swimming apples

Lesson learned: I may be a baker but I'm not a candy maker.

Why?

We are co-throwing a Halloween costume party and we have also been invited to another. Carson is going to be a dinosaur so naturally we decided to run with the pre-historic theme. I'm fine with being Fred and Wilma Flintstone but what I can't figure out is 1. WHY am I making patterns from scratch, it's no wonder people purchase all of their clothes and 2. WHY did I decided to make our costumes, who has this kind of time? Wish me luck!

Taylor's Birthday

Happy 10th Birthday Taylor!

My mom goes crazy with birthdays, which we love because not only to we get to celebrate on our special day but we get a birthday week full of little surprises. Last night, on the eve of his birthday we celebrated as a family at Olive Garden. Taylor got his very own digital camera (lucky) and tried it out on his favorite sisters.