TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

You ever have one of those days, where you have all of your ducks in a row? Three things lined up that will absolutely get done today. No reason in the world why they won’t. (Short of an emergency.)

Then, in the process of straightening up, you find a recipe on your printer tray from the day before. You pull it out. Go to the cabinet where you keep your recipe folders. And in the process of putting that away, you see your “Desserts/Sweets” folder.

And you think “Hmmm, what goodies will I want to fix for everybody to enjoy leading up to Christmas?” Decide to “quickly” flip through the recipes, and select a few. Then, you realize that there are only twelve days ‘til Christmas. (Not very many days to enjoy the “leading up to” eating part.)

And the next thing you know, you’re pulling out a candy thermometer!

And all kinds of ingredients, plus pots, pans, bowls, beaters, and spoons.

And you’ve lost 3 hours.

FIRST, you make a pan of fudge. (It goes off without a hitch)

CHOCOLATE FUDGE

Toss 12oz Chocolate Morsels and one 14oz can Sweetened Condensed Milk into a bowl.  

Microwave on High 3 minutes.

Remove, blend, and stir ‘til smooth and shiny.

Add 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 1 cup pecan pieces. Stir.

Pour into foil-lined (with some overhang of foil) 8×8 pan, and spread corner to corner.

Set pan on trivet in fridge for 2-2 ½ hours.

Remove from fridge.

Lift by overhang of foil and set on counter.

Lower foil around all edges.

Let sit 15 mins.

Use knife to cut squares to desired size.

Store pieces in fridge, between layers of wax paper in containers.

SECOND, while the fudge is chilling, you make Divinity. (This did NOT go off without a hitch.)

SEAFOAM DIVINITY

Note: Seafoam Divinity is for folks who like the old-fashioned off-white/slightly sepia-toned variety that has a soft chew.  (If you like blinding-white divinity with a somewhat chewy texture — don’t make this — you want the white sugar and corn syrup recipe.)

Into a 2-quart pan, measure 1 ½ cup white sugar, 1 ½ cup brown sugar, ¾ c water

Stir til dissolved over low heat.

Attach candy thermometer to pan.

Note: Mine decided to have a problem w/ the attachment do-flingy, and the thermometer kept slipping sideways out of the pot’s contents. (I rigged it w/ a metal coffee scoop.)

Raise heat to Medium and continue to cook, without stirring, to 255-260 degrees / hard ball stage.

Note: If you don’t know what “hard ball stage” is, you may want to do yourself a favor and make the fudge instead.

When temp reaches 240 deg, separate 2 eggs. (Do not allow any yolk to get in with the egg white. Then toss or save yolks for something else.)

In semi-large bowl, beat 2 egg whites at high speed to stiff peaks.

When the sugar syrup temp reaches 255-260 deg AND the sugar syrup passes the hard ball test, remove from heat.

Note: No matter what your thermometer says, do not remove the syrup from the heat before it passes the hard ball test — the thermometer may be defective. (Mine appeared to go to 270, and the syrup STILL had not reached hard ball stage.)

Continue beating at LOW speed while pouring a steady stream of syrup into beaten egg whites.

Note: Do not do like I did and read HIGH a second time, and continue at that speed. Not good. Silly me, I figured I must be doing something right — at least by southern standards — since half my kitchen was splattered.

My recipe says to then beat at HIGH speed for 10-15 mins. (DO NOT do this, or your mixer will catch on fire — and you will end up with dark sepia divinity anyway — no matter what recipe you are using.)

Other recipes show 3-5 mins. I NEVER exceed 3 mins max after adding the syrup. Pull the beaters out and throw ’em in the sink.

Note: I used to know a woman who stopped using the beaters immediately after she had beaten in the full stream of syrup on LOW. She then whipped like a maniac by hand, before passing the bowl around to everyone else in the house, engaging their arms in the process.

Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 cup pecan pieces.

Commence to whipping the mixture by hand with a wooden spoon, til “gloss” is gone. “Until your arm falls off” is about right.

Note: Do not do like I did, and try to whip “until glossy” — like I had done with the fudge — or, by then, BOTH of your arms will have fallen off.

Hopefully, you have already spread out some wax paper on the counter. (Probably should have mentioned that earlier.)

Now you will very lightly butter both sides of 2 teaspoons and begin to dip out mixture with one spoon, and push it off with the other, onto the wax paper.

Note: You have to do this very quickly, before the candy firms in the bowl. (No pressure.)

Feel free to try and master the swirl flourish on top, by “twisting” the tip of the push-off spoon at the end of pushing.

Note: I find that most often you can either end up with 10 swirled pieces and a rock-hard chunk of candy stuck in the bowl, or you can end up with 24 unswirled passable globs on the wax paper. (Your choice.)

The recipe says it makes 24-30 pieces. I got 25.

Note: I find that sometimes it pays off to “fudge” (hehe) when announcing your actual yield. (But this time, I really did get 25.)

Due to my prolonged whipping — mistakenly waiting for “glossy” to show up — my Divinity held a shape, but is a little crumbly. Better luck next time.

Still, the Seafoam Divinity tastes “divine”.

(But, for now, I really gotta get on those 3 things I had lined up for today.)