August Roundup & 2 Year Anniversary!

Candy Bars! Thanks so much Nancy for jumping in this month with a great challenge! Such a fun idea.

Have the Cake is 2 years old! Wow! Thank you so much for keeping this little idea alive and kicking.

At it again

Posted by - Nancy

Okay, so after my Kit Kat kinda fail I really wanted to have something good come out of this challenge. So I asked my husband what he would like and he said Snickers. Well, I knew I had seen a few recipes and quickly found this one from Instructables.

Homemade Snickers

After a quick trip to the store (okay not quick, it was our weekly shopping trip and all four of us went), I was armed with the ingredients to make Snickers.

It started out well:

Bottom layer of chocolate.

Next I added the nougat (easier to make than I thought), but I forgot to snap a photo of it.

Then came the melting:


After freezing it after every layer, I put it in the freezer over night since it was late and I was tired.

Unfortunately the next morning I set them out to thaw a bit and ended up with this:


So I plunked the whole thing back in the pan to firm up again.


I got nice bars out of it. They look pretty. And they taste good. Almost like the real thing, if you know, you love massive amounts of sugar. I have to agree with Erin on these, they are way to sweet. After one bite each, I threw them out. I was afraid if I tried to give them away in this Texas heat (112 degrees y'all) I would be handing some one a giant glob of melted goo. I think it's the nougat layer. Without whipping it like the candy makers do you just have this concentrated layer of sugar.

So, I am glad I tried them. They we definitely better than the homemade KitKats. And I am glad to know that the carmel and peanut layer is dead on for taste. Maybe I will make that and the chocolate layer only next time!

Whatchamacallit (call them soooo good) Bars

Here's a copy of the recipe-I did everything as written except the brown sugar-I used Splenda Brown.
Homemade Whatchmacallit bars
The recipe was easy and the bars were chewy, crispy, delicious and it makes A LOT! I actually preferred the ones I did not dip in chocolate. The recipe uses bittersweet chocolate and I think milk might be better if I make them again. All in all-totally worth making and my co-workers will hopefully enjoy them as well because there is no way I'm keeping all of these in my house!!


Posted by -colleen

Homemade Rolos

Posted by -vivian thiele

I loved this challenge... even if it was messy! I don't know why but whenever I work with chocolate I end up having myself covered in it!
I have a truffle candy mold so I thought that maybe using caramel instead of a truffle filling would give me a Rolo candy.  Didn't quite have the taste of a Rolo, but it was pretty darn good!  I only had dark chocolate on hand and I think using milk chocolate would have been much better.
Homemade Rolo Candies
Caramel filling:
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cup margarine
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Chocolate coating:
1 pound dark chocolate,  tempered and ready to use

Directions:

Combine sugar, corn syrup, milk and margarine in a saucepan.  Stir an heat to 248 degrees F.  Remove from heat, add vanilla and pour onto a well butter cookie sheet.  Set aside to cool.  At this point you can score into sections the size you desire. I took sections and rolled them into small marble size pieces and covered with chocolate.

Many people fear tempering chocolate but it really is an easy process.  Use a good quality chocolate, not chocolate chips or the candy coating bark most grocery stores carry.  The quality of chocolate will determine the taste so spend a bit of extra money on it!
I use a double boiler to melt the chocolate, but care must be used to not  get water into the chocolate.  Water in chocolate can cause the chocolate to "Seize" up.  This problem can be fixed but it is best to avoid it altogether and just be careful.  Using a candy thermometer, melt the chocolate and let it get to 110 degrees F. Remove from the heat and let it cool to 89 degrees  F. Return to the heat and warm it up again.  Simple. There are other techniques out there but this is how I was taught.  If during the second warming it gets to warm, just remove it from the heat.  Any chocolate you don't use can be dried and stored again until next use; it doesn't need to be tempered again.  Tempering the chocolate gives your candy the nice glossy look one desires when making candy.

turn over the molds and let the excess drain out.

"Snickers" Bars

Posted by - Erin

I am actually remembering to post this month! I made pound cake a few months ago (epic fail saved only by LOTS of glaze) and totally forgot to post it... So here we go--Snickers, one of my husband's favorite candies!

The recipe was easy enough, I got it at food.com. http://www.food.com/recipe/snickers-candy-bars-95145 Easy to follow, and I had most of the stuff on hand, which was nice! I don't have enough time today to post the full recipe, but here's the gist of it (after each layer you put it back in the freezer, which of course requires reorganization of your freezer):

layer 1: 1 cup chocolate chips, 1/4 cup butterscotch chips, 1/4 cup PB. melt and spread on bottom of pan.

layer 2: boil 1/4 cup butter, 1 cup sugar, and evaporated milk for 5 minutes, add 1.5 cups fluff, 1.5 cups chopped dry roasted SALTED peanuts, 1/4 cup PB. spread on top of hardened chocolate.

layer 3: 14 oz carmels melted into 1/4 cup whipping cream. spread on top of "nougat"

layer 4: repeat layer 1

They were great, EXTREMELY sweet. Early onset diabetes sweet. My husband is taking the rest to work tomorrow. :)

And what I will tweak next time...

1. Find carmels that are not individually F-ing wrapped.

2. The butterscotch chips don't melt the same as the milk chocolate. I was so worried about burning the milk chocolate that the butterscotch never fully melted. Next time I am either going to skip the butterscotch or melt them separately.

3. The chocolate on the bottom was almost non-existent. Next time I think I will line the pan with parchment and make just the middle layers (nougat and carmel) and then cut into cubes and dip in chocolate so that they are fully covered.

Craisinets

Posted by - Rena

I know, I know... you're thinking that making Raisinets is a cop out. You'd be wrong.

I have a very bad relationship with melting chocolate. I've done it once successfully and all the other times ended in disaster or as a messy clump of hard chocolate. I was thinking about all the yummy candy bars I love including Twix, Mounds, Baby Ruth and decided that I couldn't be left alone in an apartment with a whole batch. It's still summer and I still have no will power. Raisinets seemed like a good compromise. I went to my local Fairway to find chocolate and raisins but they didn't have any dark raisins! They had golden raisins and some funky raisin I had never heard of but I didn't want to risk it. I wound up getting dried cranberries.

With two ingredients I couldn't possibly fail but in the end, I have a large clump of chocolate covered cranberries. They are delicious but I didn't managed to get individual pieces. I'm not sure if that's even possible without hours of work (or maybe some technique) but they do taste like Raisinets and I melted the chocolate with ease. Any excuse to bust out my $5 green 1970's double boiler!

and this is where I gave up shredding the chocolate and threw the whole chunk in the boiler