Potica, or Very Important Holiday Pastry

Hello Old Friends!

I have been cooking, I swear.

…birthday presents for Mom:

Mother's Day Edition Part Two: Just the Turtles

Before I dive in, here's an explanatory photo which explains the lighting issues with my food shots:

As you can see, our kitchen area has super bright, super directional spotlights. This makes it very difficult to take good food pictures! And it makes the rest of the apartment feel darker because, you know, the light is so concentrated to specific areas. We have floor lamps which do provide some relief.

Moving on!

Turtles, as we all know, are candies made from pecans, chewy caramel, and chocolate. The pecans are usually arranged in an overlapping asterisk sort of pattern, the caramel is spooned overtop, then chocolate coats the whole shebang. The resulting shape resembles a turtle (smooth back, small pecan/caramel "feet" around the edges). We chose to make smaller turtles because they're such dense treats. Honestly, I think turtles made with 4-5 pecans (as is standard) are sort of a meal on their own. I also like the idea of making a lot of small turtles rather than a few large ones. Easier for sharing, yes?

We worked off Emeril Lagasse's recipe from the Food Network, reprinted below:

4 tablespoons butter

3/4 pound (3.5 cups) halved pecans, toasted

1 cup evaporated milk

1 cup light corn syrup

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 pound bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped. (A bar, rather than chips, is best.)

I like to prepare the work station before I get going with the business of cooking sugar. Our first step was toasting pecans and then arranging them on our chosen surfaces. You can use cookie sheets covered in parchment.. that would probably be best. I chose to experiment with muffin tins this go-round, but in retrospect this didn't have much of an effect either way.

Mother's Day Edition: Divinity and Turtles

I find that as I get older, it's harder and harder to find gifts for adult loved ones because they already have most everything (meaning: every   thing) they need. My solution tends to be (you guessed it!) homemade edibles. There's just more heart in something that I prepared myself, particularly something that was complex or time-consuming. The love is in the effort.

For this year, Edwin and I distributed homemade divinity candy and chocolate turtles. We also gave some of the candies to my cousin, who recently sold my late grandfather's car after a year (!) of straightening out issues with the car title and searching for a buyer in the not-so-seller's-market of North-Central Louisiana. Thanks, Scott!

Spotted: nekkid caramel for the chefs

My paternal grandparents, from Louisiana, used to make divinity and give it out as gifts.. maybe around holiday time? I remember they would cut it into bars, and it was amazing. We tried to make it a few times at our house growing up, but it's such a mess that it never gained much traction in terms of tradition. 

In adulthood, I have experimented with divinity a few times and I have learned one very important lesson: it simply cannot be done without a stand mixer. You see, divinity is a candy made by whipping egg whites and pouring a sugar syrup over the whites as they're beaten. The idea is that the sugar syrup combines with the whites and then crystallizes while it is being whipped so the tiny air pockets become "permanent." The finished candy should be fluffy, solid, and melt-in-your-mouth. If your whipping mechanism (a whisk? hand beaters?) can't work a very thick, glue-y substance on high speed for ten minutes or longer, the finished product will be, well, glue! I learn from experience. And don't get me wrong, the marshmallowy glue tastes amazing, particularly on ice cream, graham crackers, or a spoon. It just doesn't travel very well, and doesn't quite meet the parameters of divinity.