"There's always room for Divinity..."

   I feel like to start this post it needs a story to back it up. One day my family and a few of their friends went up to Gaffney, Tennessee to see the sights. I guess I was about 10 or 12. We were all walking downtown looking in the shops and we happened by a candy store; one of those signature candy shops that make fudge in front of you or pull taffy in the window.
    I'm not sure who in the group liked it and got it but someone did and I tried it. Apparently I was all candied out and tired so when they started asking me about it I became the annoyed little teenager. So for a joke they kept saying "There's always room for Divinity..."
     At the time I remembered it sort of sent the hairs on the back of my neck to stand straight up but I do not for the life of me understand why. So since I've been getting into candy lately I decided that I would use this inside joke to my advantage.
     I am sending this family that we know a box of the stuff for Christmas with a single note in the box saying the catchy line. They'll know who it's from and have a really nice treat to snack on during the holiday.

     Alright, so anyone can do divinity, you just have to be patient and organized.


 The ingredients are:


 4 cups of Sugar 
1 cup White Corn Syrup 
3 egg whites 
3/4 cup cold water 
1 cup chopped pecans 
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 

 You want to get ALL of the ingredients ready to go because you're going to be busy checking on the eggs whites and the sugar. It's always good practice anyway. Also get wax paper and two spoons (4 if you have a partner) ready because you will spoon the divinity onto the wax paper. 


    In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stir together sugar, corn syrup, and water. Stir ONLY until sugar has dissolved, after that just walk away. You're going to want to get the sugar to 250° F. (My old glass candy thermometer ended up being wrong so I had to purchase a digital one, and I have not had a mess up since) 


   Allow the sugar to do its thing while you beat the egg whites in a large bowl of an electric mixer. If you're using a Kitchen Aid, I used the beater attachment on 5 and 6 for most of this recipe. Although it took a little longer, but I have a small mixer so I always think I'm breaking it if I go any higher. Anywho,


   * You want the egg whites to be very STIFF * 


    Once the egg whites are finished and the sugar has reached 250 then you're going to pour the mixture in the egg whites WHILE it's beating on High and in a SLOW and STEADY stream. Take care to use hefty gloves or oven mits because it will be hot. 


    You'll want to beat it slow and steady and add the vanilla once you're done pouring the sugar. The mixture needs to hold its shape and then you can add the pecans. It might take 5 minutes until it holds its shape. You'll notice when the mixture starts tearing on the sides of the bowl, that's when it might be close. 


    Then stir in the pecans and get ready to spoon it in the pan. It might help to have a partner to help because as you see with mine they get less glossy and more grainy the longer it takes to spoon them on the pan to cool.


    Using two spoons drop divinity onto waxed paper using one spoon to push candy off the other. I didn't try to do that yet since this was only my second time making them. I just made them semi round and dropped them on the paper. (They taste Just as good :) 


     -- If candy becomes too stiff to work with add a few drops of hot water and I imagine you will want to incorporate the water in the mixture. Then spoon the mixture, let it cool slightly and then keep it in a cool, dry place in a container for storage.

      And ENJOY!!!! :)

(this bottom picture is of the ones that I did during the end of the spooning process.  Notice they are more grainy and less shiny than those in the photo above.)

Lonely Chicago Pie

So I'm back for another pie summer. I'm at a new job and have new people to test my pies for me.

To start off the summer I made the Lonely Chicago Pie from Waitress. Though I realized last night that the pie in the movie would have tasted interesting (in a bad way probably) if they made it the way they were putting it together. But the recipe that I have actually turned out to be a custard.

It was interesting pulling it out of the oven to find out that it was a custard, not knowing ahead of time. I suppose I could have guessed with the ingredients, and pretty soon I will be able to know things like that.

So this was a really cool pie to make. One I haven't had Blackberries (the key flavor in the pie) in a really long time, so I was really excited to finally have them in a pie. Thankfully they were in season. I tend to not realize these things until I can't find it in the grocery store, it's not ripe, or it just looks terrible on the shelf.

They were a little odd, some were riper than others, but in this recipe it calls for them all to be crushed so it mixed together the sweetness with the bitterness and made a nice flavor all together.

One thing that I'm not sure what caused this is dealing with the cinnamon. I got some really GOOD cinnamon from a spice place here in Raleigh and used that last night. But I'm not sure if the overpowering (to me) of cinnamon was because of the quality or quantity of cinnamon. (I might have accidentally put too much or too little... it was hard to navigate without spilling)

The other thing was the chocolate on top. Chocolate has not been my friend the last couple of pies I've made with it. The Strawberry Oasis pie looked bad because of the way I layered the chocolate and the strawberries (just trying something new) and it also was really messy when the chocolate didn't want to cut right.
That was the main concern with the Lonely Chicago. The layer of chocolate on top is a little too thick (the chocolate a little overpowering, so I think I'm going to either cut it with something or scale it down next time). But the problem was with cutting the pie.

**You have to cut the slices almost immediately after the chocolate comes off the stove because as soon as it cools, it just breaks really badly into thick big chunks instead of nice pie slices**

Of course I thought of this after I had already put it in the fridge, but now I know for next time.

Also I used corn starch instead of tapioca flour and it seemed to do ok but it might have needed more corn starch. I couldn't find the tapioca flour anywhere so hence the substitute but I'll have to make it the correct way eventually so I can see if the consistency of the custard was right.

Here are the conversions for tapioca flour if you don't have any:

1 tablespoon of cornstarch or corn flour = 2 tablespoons of instant tapioca flour
1 tablespoon of potato starch or rice starch or flour = 2 tablespoons of instant tapioca flour
2 tablespoons of all purpose flour = 2 tablespoons of instant tapioca
1 tablespoon of Arrowroot = 2 tablespoons of instant tapioca flour

And as a side note I already put more blackberries than was called for but it could definitely stand some more, though you have to worry that you don't overload your pie dish, because there wasn't a ton of room left at the top, but it could use more than the 1/2 cup it calls for. I was debating last night when I was looking at the not so great selection of blackberries, and thought that blueberries might actually be good in it instead of blackberries, but that will have to be next time that I try that.

Rookie Fruit Crepes

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I've been on here but I finally made something again. I've been back at school so not much time to do any baking though I would definitely like to do more.

Anywho I decided to make Crepes! I've never made them before hence the 'rookie' part. It was an interesting experience and sooo much fun. Especially swirling the pan around until the crepe batter coated the buttered pan. Magnificent stuff.

I have a ton of filling left over too. The recipe I found for the filling (you can not believe how hard it is just to find a simple cream and fruit filling for crepes) wasn't very specific so I just did what I thought it said and it turned out delicious. Even though I didn't use my hand mixer to cream the cream cheese and it was a little lumpy, made no difference what so ever. It still tasted gloriously of vanilla goodness.

I chose raspberries and blueberries for my fruit, but of course ya'll can choose what ever strikes your fancy. The filling holds up well if you let it sit out (I had to while I was cooking the crepes because we have absolutely no room in our fridge for the bowl :-D )

The crepes were a little tricky at first because of the proportions. I didn't want to use a tablespoon to pour out three little pours of batter while I was trying to swirl it around (talk about hand twister) so I just used a ladle, but it all worked out in the end... you learn how much to put in there by eye after the ... 1..2..3... 5th one or so :)

But yes they were delicious, got lots of approval from the roommates (my taste testers).

I'll post the recipe later if I have time, but if you all want to know sooner it's from Julia's Kitchen Wisdom book under All purpose Crepes