Butter Scotch

Cooling in the pan.

Sorry for the scarcity of posts lately, Faithful Reader. This post comes to you from my parent's kitchen. And since it's not my house, let's see how big a mess I can make. (Just kidding, Mom and Dad. I'll clean up.) I thought for Christmas I'd attempt homemade candy. This one looks simple and detailed enough to make without having to know exactly what I'm doing.

Three ingredients required.

I've avoiding making candies at home because it requires precise timing and candy thermometers are highly recommended. I lack both. I also find the whole process of cooking sugar to be nerve-wracking. I'm petrified I'll create such a burnt mess, my pans will never clean up again. But over the Thanksgiving break, I made caramel (twice! but the recipes were modern) and since I didn't destroy my pans then, I think I may be able to do this too.

Measuring the brown sugar, then boiling the butter and brown sugar.

To start with, the recipe only required 3 ingredients: brown sugar, butter, and "a good pinch of cooking soda" (which I think is more commonly known as baking soda).  And I suspect "boil to the crack" means crack stage. I guessed and tried a hard crack.

Results: It's rather difficult to go too wrong with sugar and butter as the main ingredients. I tried following the recipe exactly as written, but I wasn't sure and stirred the brown sugar and butter as it was boiling so that may have thrown off the texture. The texture was pretty grainy whereas I was expecting something glossy and smooth.  For those that are curious, 4 ounces of butter is 8 tablespoons and I added perhaps a quarter of a teaspoon baking soda. If I make this again, I try not stirring and perhaps only boiling to the soft crack stage.

My helpers. 

Tomato Soup

The Beta Taster and I are only halfway through our molasses cake, so no dessert this time. I'm also in a post-Thanksgiving cooking doldrums, so nothing complicated either. And our weather has turned cold so I'll try soup.  I'm curious about this tomato soup because when I eat tomato soup at home it's either canned or boxed. I like boxed, but I always miss that slight metallic tang from the canned. Since my tomatoes are starting out canned, perhaps I'll get that metallic tang I miss.

I think copyright laws wear off after 50 years or so.

I followed the above recipe fairly closely but decided to use crushed rather than diced tomatoes because I prefer the texture. And it's a pretty ugly color (a grayish-pink); the first picture doesn't do it justice. Perhaps it's because I used skim milk, sorta like how coffee with skim milk is a icky grey but coffee with cream is beige? It tastes good but the texture isn't as smooth as I would like. Evidently I wanted the can of pureed tomatoes. And now I know the difference between them.

Simple ingredients. Yay!

The addition of baking soda was strange and I presume it's to cut down the acidity of the tomatoes. I followed the instructions to add it but I think I might have liked it more without soda. The flavors were a little flat without a slight acidic kick. Overall though, I liked it a lot and I plan on making it again. Thanks for tuning in, Faithful Reader.