After finishing my seminar paper yesterday (the only thing standing between me and Break), I was suddenly surprised by all of the free time I had today. I finished all of the chores I’d been procrastinating, and then decided it was time to do a little holiday baking. My family doesn’t really do gifts for Christmas, so instead, I decided to bake some goodies to take to Florida with me.
On the left, peppermint bark, and on the right, pralines. Both are Paula Deen recipes, and you’ll be surprised to learn I only used 2T of butter between them. And no bacon fat ;)
The bark is stunningly easy to make, as long as you’re familiar with the concept of a double boil. They sell fancy ones at Williams Sonoma, but you can set one up easily by just heating up about 3 inches of water in a large saucepan and balancing a smaller one inside of it. You then put the white chocolate directly in the smaller pan, and the indirect heat gently melts it without the risk of burning the chocolate.
The pralines were a little more complicated. These are praline cluster candies, with a soft sugary texture. You’ll need a candy thermometer to make sure the sugar mixture is at the exact right temperature before you take it off the heat. Also, the recipe says to mix the pecans into the sugar mixture “for a few minutes”…it didn’t take that long. In fact, mine started to set while I was stirring and I ended up with some ugly-looking pralines. The first one I spooned out was the only one that looked nice:
Anyway, I’m off to Florida on Thursday for Christmas with my family. Hope everyone’s eating well this Holiday season.
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