Salted Toffee with Toasted Almonds

I love making candy. It is surprisingly simple to make and the perfect treat to share. When you bring a cake or a box of cupcakes to the office, people whine about calories and suggest that you are trying to fatten them up. Candy is generally welcomed with open arms (and open mouths) and quickly disappears from the office kitchen.

In my quest to make more candy in 2016, I decided to finally take on a traditional English toffee recipe. After finishing, I have no idea why I didn't make it sooner. The recipe was fast and easy. While you have to babysit the sugar syrup through the whole process, you won't be slaving over the stove for long.

I decided to top the toffee with just flaked sea salt and toasted almonds. Going overly fancy with a toffee recipe seems like a bad idea. The candy is so classic, why trash it up with gummy bears, hot sauce and cotton candy? Just be sure to use toasted almonds to bring out all of their nutty flavor!

This recipe doesn't make a massive amount of candy. Breaking it up into about two dozen pieces gives you a good amount of candy to share with your friends, family or coworkers, without being overwhelmed with a ton of sugar!

What candy should I attempt next? I'm stocking up on granulated sugar with big plans to make it a sweet spring!

One Year Ago: Raspberry & Cheesecake Mousse Entremet
Two Years Ago: Portuguese Sweet Bread
Three Years Ago: Chicken Florentine Pasta
Four Years Ago: Peach Tea Macarons
Five Years Ago: Chocolate Buttercream Truffles

J@H - Moon Pies

Continuing with my quest to finish my 2015 challenge, I bring you Homemade Moon Pies!

Now, I'm not really sure what part of the country you find moon pies. I feel like they are not a nationwide snack. I managed to locate one at my local Foodtown and was able to taste test the original.

What Did I think? Blech, not terribly impressive. To be perfectly honest, it wasn't at all what I was expecting. The only version of the Moon Pie that I could locate was a vanilla, double-decker version. Thankfully I only bought one, rather than an entire box, because they would have all gone to waste.

Making a homemade version of this treat was going to be easy. Bake some graham cracker rounds, fill them with marshmallow and cover them in chocolate. That was right up my alley, I'm old hat at making marshmallows and I love coating things in chocolate. I went to my favorite vanilla marshmallow recipe and made a small change to my graham cracker recipe. The whole thing came together pretty quickly.

These homemade Moon Pies were so much tastier than the store-bought version. The recipe made about 24 sandwich cookies. I ate about half of them without the chocolate coating and shared the completed cookies with my friends. They were amazing both ways! You should definitely think about making your own moon pies before picking them up at the store.


One Year Ago: Girl Scout Samoa Cookies
Two Years Ago: Cookie Dough Stuffed Chocolate Cupcakes
Three Years Ago: Cherry Kuchen Bars
Four Years Ago: Cherry-Coconut Bagels
Five Years Ago: Cherry Turkish Taffy

J@H - Fauxritos

It's time to finish my 2015 challenge! First up, Fritos! Or as I've called them "Fauxritos".  I don't know why I didn't make these earlier, they were really easy.

The only issue you might have with these is if you don't like deep frying. The boyfriend got me an electric deep fryer for christmas last year and it really takes the worry out of frying. Set the temperature and it will take care of everything else!

It took me a few batches before I was able to decide on the idea thickness for the dough. To make things easy for myself I used these rolling pin guides.  An offset spatula made it really easy to transfer the dough from the counter to the fryer.

The recipe doesn't make a huge batch of chips, just enough for one evening of TV watching. You can always increase the batch size if you have a big Super bowl party this weekend!
 
One Year Ago: Parmesan Fries
Two Years Ago: Magnolia's Banana Pudding
Three Years Ago: Homemade Granola
Four Years Ago: Thai Sweet Potato Stew
Five Years Ago: Cranberry-Walnut Celebration Bread

Fauxritos

From Classic Snacks - Made from Scratch

Vegetable oil for frying

1/2 cup masa harina
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Heat about 2-inches of vegetable oil in a deep pot or your electric deep fryer to 350 °F. Line a baking tray with paper towels and top with an upside down wire cooling rack.

Whisk together masa harina, yellow cornmeal, kosher salt and sugar. Whisk water and vegetable oil together, add to dry ingredients and stir until the dough comes together into a ball. Let the dough sit for 5 minutes.

Roll out dough to a little less than 1/8-inch thickness. Using a pizza cutter, cut dough into 1/2-inch x 1 1/2-inch rectangles. Fry rectangles until they are golden brown and most of the bubbling subsides. Remove chips from the oil with a wire spider strainer. Place on the prepared baking sheet and let the oil drain.

Eat within two days, otherwise they get soggy.