Start by roasting a big ham with a lot of fat on it. Ideally roast it in a cast iron pan, so you don’t have to pour the melted fat into another pan when you take it out of the oven, but whatever works for you. Make an egregious amount of ham gravy. Three cups or more. (You’ve never made gravy? It’s easy. Take a half cup of flour or so and put your sautee pan of ham fat on a decently high heat. Sprinkle in some of the flour.…
Category: Kitsnacks
Guest Post: On the Making of Jam
All y’all know I like to make jams and things and although I can’t find a post talking about it, I did an experiment with my last batch of peach jam where I used about 30% less sugar because the stuff I’d made was So Sweet and So Stiff and because it had been years and years since I’d made jam and I’d *thought* that looked like an *awful* lot of sugar and the reduced sugar version turned out beautifully and not too sweet although I thought I could cut…
holy maple ginger fudge, batman!
I admit it: I was skeptical about maple ginger fudge. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Holy crap, that’s amazingly good fudge. I made half the batch straight-up maple and haven’t tried it yet (because the ginger went in last, so all the fudge scraps, or as I so charmingly call them, fudge droppings, are gingery), but I’m actually betting the maple ginger is better, due to the ginger cutting some of the sweet. Wow, holy beans. That’s good stuff! I hope the lady I’ve made it for is…
the making of fudge
So as most people probably know, I like to bake and make candy. I’m also (no false modesty here) very good at it. At the holidays I usually make goodies to send to Ted’s work, and to hand out in tins to people, but I’m almost never there to see people enjoy it. I know they do, because Ted pretty regularly comes home to deliver marriage proposals after I’ve sent fudge or brownies to his work. This weekend, though, I got to field my own marriage proposals. :) I was…
ice cream, charming child & guinness
So far I have made one amazingly successful batch of vanilla ice cream, a frozen chocolate mousse, and a crystalized lump of strawberry blah. This is *not* my usual kind of treat-making record, and I’m perturbed by it. OTOH, I made these chocolate chip meringue cookies with leftover egg whites, and *they* turned out amazingly. Meringue is supposed to be hard to make, but historically I have very little trouble with things that are hard to make (we shall not speak of the first angel food cake, particularly since I…