I didn’t have much time for candymaking yesterday – between shopping for groceries, lunch, and date night, I only had about four hours to work on fudge. But fortunately fudges are quick to make, and I completed all five batches of fudge: lavender-lemon-vanilla (with white chocolate), coconut tequila lime, plain coconut (which will be dipped into chocolate and garnished with an almond today), and two batches of chocolate fudge with walnuts. One batch of the chocolate fudge has a sizable dollop of cognac in it, the other does not. The one I like best will go into the boxes, the other batch will go to feed my ever-hungry coworkers, who are already plaintively asking when the next batch of goodies will come out of the test kitchens.
And here is photographic proof of fudgy goodness:
So what’s on the slate for today? I haven’t decided yet. English toffee, perhaps, and maybe jasmine caramels. My hesitation on the caramels is because sometimes, despite my best efforts, the caramels start to crystallize and get “sandy” after a week or so, so I’ve been considering making them a bit later than usual in the cycle.
So the next choice would be to dip the candied citrus peels and dried apricots in chocolate. The problem there is that the weather today is scheduled to hit 77 F outside, and we don’t have air conditioning in the kitchen. This means that the kitchen is likely to be in the low 80’s by midafternoon, which is far too warm to work with chocolate. Further, the weather is scheduled to be even warmer tomorrow (84 degrees) and Tuesday (79 degrees). This means that if I make anything chocolate, I’ll have to bring it into the half of the house that is air conditioned, which is logistically complicated since you really want to let chocolate “set” for at least 12-24 hours before touching it. Otherwise you risk scuffing the chocolate exterior with your (warm) hands. So I’d have to find space for stacks of full-size sheet pans in the master bedroom. Not impossible, but not easy, either.
All of this is pointing up to one simple fact: very little chocolate work is apt to get done today, on account of the weather. Foo.
This does, however, give me a golden opportunity to get ahead on the Creating Craft book blog. I’m currently barely a week ahead, which is ominously “behind” my usual goal, which is to keep two weeks ahead. This is particularly ominous because the next two weeks are apt to be preoccupied with chocolate, and the following weekend is Thanksgiving travel, meaning that I really ought to be 4-5 weeks ahead at this point. So I think I will be writing and constructing examples for most of today. I’m in a fairly thorny section where the content isn’t yet mapped out and the samples will be time-consuming to make, so I really need to get myself out of this section soon. So being forced to put the chocolate-making on hold may be a blessing in disguise.
(I’d be panicking more about getting “behind” on the chocolatiering except that I have two helpers this year, so I expect we should be able to crank out somewhat more chocolate than last year. Only time will tell, of course…but I’m not feeling too pressured right now.)
Off to work on the book! I’m getting into the section on generating ideas from existing designs, and from there to refining designs – areas I haven’t mapped before and which I expect to be a bit tricky. So best get to work!
