HM Sweets for Xmas Presents - cheap recipes?

JoeyEmma

I made some coconut ice yesterday. It tastes ace.

1lb sugar
1/4pt milk
4oz dessicated coconut
Bit of pink food colouring

Boil the milk and sugar to 240*F, take off the heat, stir in the coconut. Put half the mix in the bottom of a greased loaf tin. Stir a little bit of the food colouring into the other half of the mix and put into the tin. When cool tip out and cut into squares.

HappyIdiotTalk

beachbeth wrote:

This recipe was highly recommended and, although I haven't yet tried it for myself, other people have and say its lovely!

Fudge

900 grams white sugar
1 can condensend milk
1 can water
60 grams butter
15 ml golden syrup
5 ml vanilla essence

Grease and line an oven tray with non-stick baking parchment.

Boil together all ingredients except vanilla for 1 hour over a gently heat. Remove from heat, add vanilla and beat with an electric mixer for 7 minutes. (The 7 minutes is very important, believe me). Pour straight into an oven tray and allow to set (if you can )

I made some fudge once but wasn't that impressed with the results. It was too sweet and a bit grainy. Can anyone diagnose what might have caused those problems as it really put me off making my own ever again. And reading this thread has got me in the mood to try again for Christmas, maybe chocolate fudge!

jennybb

After reading someone's post on here about what to do with the sloes from sloe gin, I tried some liqueurs, Do you know - they're not bad!

I have a cherry/ olive stoner on my garlic press - which was great for stoning the sloes. Put one in each compartment of an ice cube tray, poured in melted lidl 70% cocoa solids chocolate and back in fridge to set. Will do some more now I've done a taste test!

Waste not, want not.

tallulah_beaulah

anyone know any natural ways I can flavour fondants? I found this recipe:

1lb granulated sugar
7 1/2 fl oz water
2 tblsp golden syrup

method here: http://www.greatbritishkitchen.co.uk/recipes_result.asp?name=fondant

At the end it says "fondant can be tinted and flavoured as desired". How can I flavour it? I don't want to just pour in some essences from the supermarket, is there a more os way of doing it? I wondered about dessicated coconut, ground almonds, and lemon/orange rind? (Individually I mean, not altogether).

Would this affect how the fondant works, IYSWIM? Anyone made fondants that could give me advice?

Plum_Pie

Never made fondants but seems to me that if you added some flavouring (e.g. orange peel) when you melt the sugar and water and then fished it out before the boiling stage, that might do.

I think if you added extra ingredients, the act of stirring them in might cause the fondant to go granular. maybe you could pour out half the fondant, add a layer of e.g. ground almonds then pour out the rest of the fondant, then smooth down. Then chop up when set.

I am now fantasising about fondant and must go to work kitchen to raid oh-so-jolly stash of chocoate money.

gargoyle

I've just made some of the coconut balls. Are they supposed to be so sticky? Mine are more coconut blobs.....

kathyd_2

gargoyle wrote:

I've just made some of the coconut balls. Are they supposed to be so sticky? Mine are more coconut blobs.....

No gargoyle, they should be firm enough to roll into a ball between the palms of both hands. Could you put them back into the bowl and add more coconut maybe?

culpepper

tallulah_beaulah wrote:

anyone know any natural ways I can flavour fondants? I found this recipe:

1lb granulated sugar
7 1/2 fl oz water
2 tblsp golden syrup

method here: http://www.greatbritishkitchen.co.uk/recipes_result.asp?name=fondant

At the end it says "fondant can be tinted and flavoured as desired". How can I flavour it? I don't want to just pour in some essences from the supermarket, is there a more os way of doing it? I wondered about dessicated coconut, ground almonds, and lemon/orange rind? (Individually I mean, not altogether).

Would this affect how the fondant works, IYSWIM? Anyone made fondants that could give me advice?

You could add orange , lemon or lime juice and substitute that liquid for some of the water.
Camp coffee or maybe a strong black coffee .

kathyd_2

tallulah_beaulah wrote:

anyone know any natural ways I can flavour fondants? I found this recipe:

1lb granulated sugar
7 1/2 fl oz water
2 tblsp golden syrup

method here: http://www.greatbritishkitchen.co.uk/recipes_result.asp?name=fondant

At the end it says "fondant can be tinted and flavoured as desired". How can I flavour it? I don't want to just pour in some essences from the supermarket, is there a more os way of doing it? I wondered about dessicated coconut, ground almonds, and lemon/orange rind? (Individually I mean, not altogether).

Would this affect how the fondant works, IYSWIM? Anyone made fondants that could give me advice?

The orange and lemon rind sound good as they have strong flavours. The coffee suggested by culpepper would be my favourite, love coffee flavour. I know you didn't want to use those bottles of essence flavours but what about rosewater?

tallulah_beaulah

Thanks so much for the answers about fondants. I've been googling and it seems there is a stage after boiling up the sugar where you let it cool then you knead it like dough. Its at the kneading stage you can add other things like chopped nuts or candied fruit, or maybe grated rind (?)

While searching I found this site with soooo much info on making fondants:
http://www.candymaking.net/page4/Fondant.html
it's from 1913 and says that fondants "... can be manufactured very easily by the amateur..." my kind of recipe! lol!