This christmas I decided to make edible gifts for my friends and family. Working a retail job around this time of year results in having very little time to try and actually shop for people in the hours you have free, whereas my kitchen is open all night. It worked out really well and was a surprisingly relaxing way to wind down after work!
I had a million ideas of what I wanted to make, and a few failed attempts along with my successes. I ended up gifting people rocky road, centered chocolates (peanut butter, caramel, crunchie, and almond), coconut bark, and christmas shortbread. My favourite out of the bunch was probably the caramel centered chocolate stars. I used a San Ignacio caramel spread I bought from Moore Wilsons in Wellington a while back as the filling of these chocolates... just so gooey and delicious!
On my list of failures, sadly, was my favourite festive confectionary - candy canes. I tried both the "old fashioned" candy cane recipe (which involved beating butter, icing sugar, milk etc together into a dough, twisting into ropes and then leaving to 'dry' overnight), and the hot-sugar method (which involves boiling sugar to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and then trying to colour, flavour and mould the syrup without burning yourself before it
cooled too much and turned into a brittle, hard lump).
Sadly it was too humid for the "old fashioned" candy canes to dry out properly, resulting in a peppermint-y candy with the consistency of fondant icing, and although the sugar-syrup style worked reasonably well I always managed to screw it up when it came to adding colour and twisting together and was often left eating a sugary, multicoloured mess.
What I did make was extremely well received though, and I packaged up in these super cute noodle boxes! Red, white and green with cute ribbons. Baking success, next year I will have perfected the candy canes.
Got to run now, got given a million exciting baking-related presents for christmas and have homemade pizza and focaccia bread in the oven... yum!
x CB
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