Making candy

I've made chocolate-covered candied orange peels the last two years and sent them to faraway friends. Sort of time-consuming, but so good.

oh wow i really want to make those orange peels!!!

here's my grandmother's christmas candy recipe. it's a holiday staple in my family - kind of like a hard toffee. i've never actually made it, but for years my grandma and mother would make huge batches and then give little christmas bags full of it as gifts to coworkers, friends, party hosts, etc.

1 pound unsalted butter
2 cups white granulated sugar

2 tbl white corn syrup
6 tbl water

1 ½ cup walnuts, chopped

12 oz. semi sweet chocolate chips

Melt the butter and then gradually stir in the sugar. Stir in the corn syrup and
water. Cook over medium heat to the hard crack stage (160 C). Stir in the walnuts
and continue to cook for 3 minutes over low heat. Pour onto a greased cookie
sheet and spread evenly. Cool. Melt the chocolate chips and spread over the
cooled candy. Option: You may wish to sprinkle additional chopped nuts over the
chocolate. When the candy is completely cooled and the chocolate is set, break /
cut into rough pieces.

I made peanut brittle! It turned out good! I was worried about the humidity because it was like 64% here which sounds high but it didn't appear to cause any problems.

http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/iStock_000003827645XSmall1.jpg

It's kind of intimidating the first couple of times because the candy thermometer starts racing to 300 and I was like "oh shit, don't let me burn this," but it's really pretty easy.

It was pretty easy. It took longer than I expected to get up to 250 degrees but then it shot up to 300 in like a minute.