Day #3 What's Cookin' Wednesday

For today's new recipe, I thought that pulling taffy sounded like a wonderful idea. In my mind I envisioned teams of little boys, pulling the soft confections and giggling as it stretched. You know, like you see in the movies. Things started out well. I am a novice to candy making, I so invested $4 in a candy thermometer and figured I was all set. On Pinterest there were dozens of recipes. All with conflicting reviews. Feedback from comments ranged from "super sticky and mushy" to "brittle, hard as a rock" Everywhere I looked there was a difference of opinion on what temp. to cook the liquid to. With round one, it was immediately apparent that I had let it cook too long. I was distracted by sweeping. (In my defense, that line on the thermometer took nearly 15 min. to get to 200* how was I supposed to know in the 45 seconds it would take me to sweep my pile into the dust pan we would shoot right past soft ball stage, hard ball stage, and hit hard crack stage?!?) The boys could not have cared less about my worries over cooking it too long.

 

Their hands were buttered and they were rearin' to go by the time it cooled enough to touch.

So, there we were, all set to pull. I could see it so clearly in my mind...you know, that lovely scene I had envisioned earlier. I attempted to pull off the first clump for them to stretch. It pulled a bit, then SNAP! The boys erupted in laughter as I continued snapping off pieces for them to each try to pull. With little success stretching it more than an inch, they started sculpting shapes of thin pieces and snapping them off. They loved the sound it made and before I knew it, they were tossing candy all over the table and watching it shatter; the sights and sounds were not what I had pictured. However, in this family full of little boys, I considered this alternative just as good. 

For round two, I was much more attentive. I cooked it to a soft ball stage and then we hoped for the best. This time it was a bit more stretchy initially, but once you pulled it too much, it would harden and snap. I am not really sure how its possible to roll this stuff into a snake and snip it with scissors. We never did make it to that step. In the candy world, today would have probably been deemed a failure; but to me it was a delightfully unexpected outcome. Will we be making more taffy anytime soon, you ask? Probably not. But we'll probably be talking about how we shattered green colored, orange flavored, hard tack candy for weeks to come....