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.