Honeycomb Candy (aka Seafoam, aka Fairy Food)

I first tasted the ethereal confection called honeycomb candy at the South Bend Chocolate Company Cafe in South Bend, Indiana, where the treat was dubbed "Seafoam."

I made that first purchase because I wondered what could possibly be lurking beneath that layer of dark, glossy chocolate to elicit such a mysterious name.

What I sank my teeth into that day was like nothing I had tried before. With the color of honey, the taste of a deeply toasted marshmallow, the crunch of hard toffee, and the airiness of . . .well . . . sea foam, could this be everything I'd ever wanted in a candy?

Most of my subsequent trips to the chocolate cafe were driven almost exclusively by my desire for more of that light, crunchy, caramelized goodness cloaked in chocolate.

Here in Texas, at least at my local grocery store where it's sold in the bulk bins, this candy is called honeycomb. The name is more of a visual description than anything else, as the recipe does not traditionally contain honey.

My recipe is heavily adapted from Nina Wanat's wonderfully instructional book, Sweet Confections, Beautiful Candy to Make at Home (2011, Lark Crafts, page 52). The main difference is that my recipe contains half the baking soda and adds a small amount of apple cider vinegar, which I feel yields a slightly more even airiness. Instructions here are in my own words.

Honeycomb Candy
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp baking soda, sifted through a fine sieve to remove any clumps
8 oz dark chocolate, finely chopped (I used a combination of Chocolove Strong Dark 70% and Green and Black's Organic Maya Gold 60%, which added a tantalizing hint of orange and spices to the mix. Do not use chocolate chips as they contain stabilizers and will result in a clumpy coating.)

Line a cake pan or rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. The size of the pan is not critical, but a smaller pan will produce thicker (taller) honeycomb.

Place the sugar, corn syrup, water, and apple cider vinegar in a very large saucepan over med-high heat and do not stir. Run a wet pastry brush along the edges to dissolve any sugar crystals.

Allow the mixture to boil just until it turns golden.

At this point, put on oven mitts if desired, remove the saucepan from the heat, quickly stir in the baking soda using a heatproof spatula (the mixture will bubble up immensely), and immediately pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan. Do not spread it out, and try not to agitate it as it cools, as you want to maintain all those airy "sea foam" bubbles.

Let cool completely before using a large serrated knife to cut into irregular pieces.

Little fragments make great nibbles and can also be stored for another use in an airtight container for 3-5 days.

To melt the chocolate, place two thirds of the chocolate in a stainless steel bowl set over barely simmering water, and stir gently until totally melted. Carefully remove the bowl from the simmering water (you might want to wear oven mitts when you do this, as the steam can be rather intense . . . yes, I burned myself), and add the reserved chocolate to the melted chocolate, stirring gently until completely smooth.

Note: For once I actually tempered my chocolate, using a candy thermometer to check for precise temperatures and all, but as you can tell from the gray-ish streaks in the photos, that dark, flawless sheen of perfectly tempered chocolate evaded me. If the gray-ish streaks attack your confections as well, never fear: the flavor of the chocolate will not be affected. 

Place a fresh sheet of parchment paper on the counter and drop a piece of honeycomb into the chocolate. Use a fork to gently turn the honeycomb over in the chocolate to coat it. Scoop the honeycomb out with the fork and shake the fork back and forth very gently with slight movements of your wrist so that the excess chocolate drizzles back down into the bowl.

Carefully slide the coated honeycomb off the tines of the fork and onto the parchment to set.

Repeat with remaining pieces of honeycomb, gently reheating and stirring the chocolate until smooth as needed. Allow the coated candies to set completely at room temperature (ideally in a 60-to-70-degree Fahrenheit room) before transferring to an airtight container to store at room temperature for up to a week . . . as if they'll last that long.

Thanks for reading! Here's to Being the Secret Ingredient in your life.

Cookie Dough Truffles

The Setting: Winter. Snow. Etc.

The Soundtrack: Gilmore Girls, season 6.

Sizzlin' on the Griddle: Blueberry pancakes.

The Scenario: Chocolate plus cookie dough equals happiness. And they say math isn't my strong suit.

Every now and then I get the opportunity to lead a cooking workshop (which I love, even though I'm always afraid I come off a little spazzy).

I've got a "cooking with kids" class coming up soon, so I've been furiously and excitedly brainstorming for the perfect kid-friendly recipes.

I thought it would be fun to make cookie-dough pops, little chocolate-enrobed balls of egg-less cookie dough on sticks.

Testing my recipe, I realized that while the kids would probably relish the chance to dunk balls of dough in melted chocolate, it was sure to turn into a much bigger mess than either I or the other parents would care to deal with (or, more importantly, clean up after), especially since most of the kids would be under the age of five.

The recipe needed some tweaking along the way as well. My first run produced a dough with a texture a tad bit too granular from the sugar, so I swapped out half the brown sugar for powdered sugar and used dark brown sugar instead of light to help maintain the characteristic chocolate-chip-cookie-dough flavor.

By the end of the day, I had ditched the sticks, come up with another idea for my kids class (more on that later), and ended up with cookie dough truffles pretty enough for company and tasty enough for midnight snacking.

These truffles would be a fun and easy project for older kids and patient parents to tackle together. For the little-kid version, stay tuned!

Cookie Dough Truffles
1/2 stick butter, softened slightly at room temperature (leave it out for about 30 minutes)
1/8 tsp fine salt
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup semisweet mini-chips
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips or choped chocolate
3 T chopped unsweetened chocolate
2 tsp coconut oil
1 T milk chocolate chips or white chocolate chips (optional)

In a small-to-medium-sized bowl, use a fork to combine the butter, salt, vanilla, brown sugar, and powdered sugar, raking the tines through the butter to break it down and distribute it evenly. You should have a very sandy-looking mixture.

Add the flour and use the fork to work it into the mixture.

Add 1/2 cup mini-chips, mixing with the fork just until distributed.

Pinch off tablespoon-sized nubs of the dough mixture and roll each one into a ball between your hands. You should have about 10 balls. Place the balls on a parchment-paper lined baking pan and place in the refrigerator while you prepare the chocolate.

Place 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips or chopped chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir, making sure to redistribute the hotter chips from the bottom of the bowl. Microwave 30 seconds and stir again, this time trying to stir until smooth. If needed, microwave an additional 20 seconds.
Add the 3 T unsweetened chocolate and the coconut oil and stir until smooth, microwaving an additional 10 seconds if necessary.

Drop a dough ball into the chocolate and use a clean fork to coat it in the chocolate.

With the dough ball cradled on the tines of the fork, hold it over the melted chocolate and gently shake the fork from side to side so that the excess chocolate cascades off, forming a sleeker coating on the ball.

Lightly run the bottom of the tines over the edge of the bowl so that the excess chocolate on the fork stays in the bowl. Gently slide the ball off the fork and back onto the parchment. Repeat with remaining balls. Do not wash out the bowl with the melted chocolate.

Allow the balls to set at cool room temperature (60-70 degrees). Once set, add the milk chocolate or white chocolate chips to the bowl with the remaining melted chocolate (if desired). Microwave the chocolate for 30 seconds and stir until smooth. Use a fork to drizzle the lighter-colored melted chocolate over the truffles to create a design. Allow to set completely at room temperature before serving. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week.

Makes about 10 truffles.

Thanks for reading! Here's to Being the Secret Ingredient in your life.

Orange Cream Pavers

The Setting: A quiet apartment, becoming ever-so-slightly more organized daily.

The Soundtrack: Just the rock and click of Oia's swing--she's sleeping!

Steaming up the Oven: Turkey, Kale, and Potato Soup

The Scenario: Another "oops" leads to "somebody take these away from me before I become a human sugar cube."

Over the holidays I had a list of things I wanted to cook, bake, or whip up, but you know how it goes...there's only so much time.

One of the things that got pushed off the list was an intriguing recipe for Homemade Peppermint Patties I had seen circulating around the web (I believe the recipe is originally from Savory Sweet Life; I stumbled upon it at Krissys-Creations).

You mix together sweetened condensed milk and powdered sugar, flavor the fluff with peppermint extract, shape into little disks, and coat in chocolate. Zip. Bam. Boom.

Having missed the holidays, but approaching Valentine's Day, I conceived a cherry version: light pink on the inside, hold the peppermint.

Since I try to avoid using artificial flavorings and colorings, I imagined this treat would glean its flavor and hue from tart cherry juice, an idea that seemed, even at the time, unlikely to be fruitful.

I mixed 1/4 cup Pom cherry pomegranate juice (the only option available at my local grocer) into the sweetened condensed milk and admired the dark pink swirls. Not a bad start.

But as I added cupfuls of confectioner's sugar, the pink became more purple, then more gray, then just gross. I swiped my finger through the mixture and brought it to my tongue.

Hmm...sweet...not very cherry...kind of musty tasting...not...good.

I added 1/4 tsp pure almond extract, hoping to enhance the cherry flavor. Still a no-go.

Should I just scrap it? Knitting my brows and digging in my heals, I resolved not to wash four cups of powdered sugar and all my good intentions down the drain.

Then I remembered the bag of oranges sitting in the fridge. Perfect!

I added the zest of one orange, half a teaspoon each of vanilla and spiced rum, the rest of the powdered sugar, and a prayer.

The gross gray color faded to white, and the taste, though still overly sweet on its own, would stand up well to dark chocolate.

The down side?

I can't stop eating these things!

Find the original recipe for Peppermint Patties at Savory Sweet Life, and try them (or my Orange Cream Pavers) for yourself.

Note: I don't mix my chocolate with shortening, as called for in the original recipe, which is why my patties, or Pavers, lack the flawless sheen of the originals. If, like me, you try to avoid using hydrogenated fats, or you just don't have any shortening on hand, you can omit it--just expect a thicker and more rugged chocolate exterior like what you see here.

Thanks for reading! Here's to Being the Secret Ingredient in your life!