Dessert By Candy

S’mores Valentine

Like many people, I feel equal parts of love and hate for Valentine’s Day. The commercialism and elevated expectations make the occasion feels disingenuous. On the other hand, I love an excuse to show my friends how much I appreciate them. It is a great feeling to know that you’re loved, romantic or otherwise!

This year I made an arbitrary decision to only send valentines to my girlfriends. These gals share my good times and bad times. They lifted me up when I was down. I have every reason to show them some love. I created a special treat just for them.

S’mores is such a been-there-done-that idea. Throwing graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate together and adding campfire is a recipe that sure to remind us of good times in the outdoors. Anyone can make a dessert with graham crackers, marshmallows, chocolate and call it s’mores but how many times are you disappointed that the key toasty smoky element is missing? I decided that my S’mores Valentine would not disappoint.

A Look Back At 2014

I made a resolution at the beginning of the year to push myself out of my culinary comfort zone. In 2014, I tackled unfamiliar cuisines, challenging baking projects, and childhood favourites that I thought I could only indulge while dining out. And let’s not forget I jumped feet first into the world of confectionery! Even though every project seemed a little out of my reach at the time, I learned from both successes and failures. I am confident to say that I have become a better cook thanks to a year of learning. Let’s take a look back at some of the highlights.

10. Swedish Baking

Between travels to Sweden and my fascination with goodies sold at the IKEA Swedish Marketplace, I wanted to learn more about Swedish baking. Rather than wait for my next trip to the Scandinavia, I rolled up my sleeves and recreated the experience in my own kitchen instead. Last year I made kanelbullar (cinnamon buns), lussekatter (St Lucia buns), prinsesstårta (princess cake), and semlor (cardamom almond cream buns). I love them all, especially the technically challenging princess cake. It was the first time I made a dome cake freehand, covered with tinted marzipan, and formed little marzipan roses. Plenty of cake decorating techniques that I mastered in one baking project!

Kristlemas Special Bar

When I planned for Candy By Candy pop up shop, I designed the collection based on tried and true recipes. On one hand, I knew that those were popular items I made in the past with predictable yield. On the other hand, I was bursting with creativity and wanted to try new things. It was hard to suppress that creative urge and not veer from my game plan. When I finished with all the planned recipes and still had a bit of time on my hands, this Kristlemas Special Bar was the result.

I created this milk chocolate bar with Christmas on my mind. It is a twist on my popular Peanut Butter Nougat Bar. Instead of peanut butter, the fluffy nougat is packed with Nutella. It sits on top of a thick layer of tender hazelnut shortbread with hints of cinnamon and allspice. To complement this mellow flavour, I chose to enrobe the bar in milk chocolate. This chocolate bar tastes sweet but with a warm spicy kick.

Candy By Candy Pop Up Shop

Every year I come up with a list of things that I want to accomplish. Often the list is made up of new things to learn and challenges that push me out of my comfort zone. For 2014, running my own pop up shop tops the list. Back in summer, I had a false start and sadly put away my plans. A few weeks ago, all the stars aligned and I am excited to announce that Candy By Candy is up and running! It is with great pleasure that I invite you to drop by online or at my first market at Stratus Vineyard’s Kristlemas Market on December 14!

For my first foray of pop up shop, naturally I go with what I do best: handmade candies and chocolate treats. I’ve been honing my confectionery skills for years but I made improvements by leaps and bounds in the last 12 months. For every batch of candies that I made, I kept detail notes on every aspect but especially how well they were received. But product development is only a small fraction of the entrepreneurial experience.

And The Winner Is…

Thank you everyone for entering the Trick or Treat giveaway. Congratulations to Yvonne T., the winner of Candy By Candy prize pack! I hope you will enjoy the assortment of Mocha Mallomars Surprise, Trillian Bar, Curry Coconut Brittle, Apple Cider Caramel, and Peanut Butter Nougat Bar.

Mocha Mallomars Surprise

I grew up snacking on Whippets, the Canadian counterpart of American Mallomars. If you’re familiar with the Danish treat flødeboller, you can see similarities too. The combination of soft cookie and marshmallow cream coated in chocolate captures the best part of s’mores without the hassle of setting up campfire. What’s not to love? I could happily wolf down a whole box without a second thought.

The “happy” part came to an end last week when I realized my own homemade concoction tastes far superior to any store-bought version. Instead of satisfying my occasional craving with a short trip to the grocery store, I now need to spend hours making Mallomars from scratch. There’s no looking back, unfortunately. I cobbled together a few of my favourite things to create these Mocha Mallomars Surprise: soft crumbly espresso shortbread biscuit from a family favourite recipe, fluffy delicate coffee marshmallow, a surprise crunchy centre of malted milk ball, all surrounded with a smooth dark chocolate. Is your mouth watering yet?

Sticky Business

Tempering chocolate used to make me quake in my shoes from intimidation. Not anymore. Like most skills, with enough practice, I finally master it well enough to do so reliably. At the beginning of the year, I set out to learn new techniques and tackle unfamiliar recipes. The parade of successes and failures came out of kitchen non-stop: baba au rhum, steamed barbecue pork buns, popovers, marshmallows, countless candies, many kinako treats, Swedish baked goods, kouign amann, croissant, French crullers, beef jerky, butter tarts, Princess cake, slab pies, baked Alaska, and of course, croquembouche. The biggest gain is my love affair with confectionary. Playing with sugar and chocolate become a large part of my repertoire. I marvel at the variations a few simple basic ingredients can turn out depending on how I manipulate them. It is as close to alchemy as it gets.

It took me a long time to gather up courage to make nougat. It is one of my favourite treats so you would think I want to make it at home as often as I can. With an addictively soft and sticky texture, it is a joy to eat but a pain to handle. I feared facing a slab of stubborn sticky sugary mess on my chopping board. But my confectionary education would not be complete without nougat. So I made it anyway last weekend.

Apple Cider Soft Caramel

My summer plan for Candy By Candy fell through when I got too busy digging myself out of some emotional turmoil. I am disappointed by my lack of commitment but also relieved that the troubles are mostly behind me now. I still have plenty of supplies that I bought when I planned for my pop up shop including stacks of wrapping paper and pounds of couverture chocolate. I am determine to put them to good use even though my plan has changed.

For years I made caramel candies and painstakingly cut squares of wax or parchment paper to wrap them individually. It was labour of love. Pre-cut twisting paper is definitely money well-spent if you make candies even on a semi-regular basis. The paper remains firmly twisted around the candy instead of unravelling. The clear cellophane twisting paper shows off the candy in attractive and professional manner. I cannot recommend them enough. The only issue is that cellophane twisting paper are hard buy retail in Toronto. I ordered mine in the US ($25.95 for 1000 sheets) and delivered during my travels.

Red and Gold and Comes In Pairs

I am very disciplined when it comes to store-bought chocolate bars but I can’t say no to Twix. Is it because of the combination of crunchy cookie, chewy caramel, and chocolate? Or perhaps the slender shape feels just civilized enough to take small bites? May be I like how each package comes in a pair so I can save one for later indulgence? Whatever the reason, it is one of my weaknesses and I deem it too dangerous to replicate at home. I cannot be trusted with a whole pile of Twix sitting conveniently within reach.

Last week, I could resist no longer. The recipe from The Liddabit Sweets Cookbook was calling my name. It was not the first time I felt a strong urge to tackle this recipe. In all previous encounters, I just found the shortbread portion of the recipe too fussy. I am not a fan of chilling, rolling, and fitting delicate shortbread dough into a rectangular cake pan. The authors Jen King and Liz Gutman explained in detail how not any cookie recipe would work well in a chocolate bar. They warned that anything that crumbles too much and does not slice well is just asking for trouble. While I trust their experience, I baked my fair share of bar cookies and know which recipes work well for this purpose. The press-in-pan shortbread crust from kukla’s Lemon Ricotta Bars is easy to make, slices like a dream, and tastes amazing. With that hurdle out of my way, I had no excuse to resist the charm of homemade Twix.

Egg White In A Box

I cannot keep up with my consumption of egg whites in candy making. With cakes and pastries, recipes often call for yolks and I end up with an abundance of egg whites. That’s easy to manage because the whites keep well in fridge. Yolks, on the other hand, tend to dry out or at least much more perishable. With many candy recipes calling for egg whites, I just can’t balance it all without being wasteful. And throwing away egg yolks is a crime in my eyes. I can only make so many batches of ice cream, pastry cream, and custard.

It’s only logical that I want to experiment with egg whites in a carton. It is cheaper than buying whole eggs and I would not need to worry about what to do with the yolks! I bought a carton of free run egg whites to experiment. The brochure claims that it is good for making meringue and angel food cake, both of which depends highly on how well the egg white whips to volume. I used the tried and true marshmallow recipe from The Liddabit Sweets Cookbook. This recipe gave me endless joy in the form of matcha kinako, strawberry orange flower, yuzu, marionberry amaretto, and ginger flavour homemade marshmallows. I am confident enough by now that I would not mess it up. The success and failure would be entirely dependent on the use of liquid egg white. This time, I would flavour the batch with 1 1/2 tablespoon of cocoa powder and 2 tablespoons of malted milk powder.