yummy kitchen experiments
Aug. 10th, 2020 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaLast year I made spruce tip syrup for the first time, thought it yummy, and used it as flavour in both candy and bread. I hadn't made much, so it didn't last long. This spring I picked way more spruce tips and made a much larger batch of syrup, but it came out more bitter than I remember from a year ago. I don't know for certain what caused the bitterness this time, since my approach was similar to last year's batch:
First I covered 3 liters of spruce tips with water, soaked it over night, then boiled it to extract flavour of the spruce tips, then filtered out the solids, added more water to the solids again, boiled again and combined the liquid from both batches and boiled it to reduce it till there was only 2.6 liter, at which point I added 0.5 dl sugar, and let it simmer to reduce till it was just a bit more than half a liter.
In part because of the bitterness of the syrup, and in part because I am already seeing my weight a little bit up due to the comfort eating habit that came to visit after mom died, started to go away, and then returned in full force to help me celebrate the pandemic, I hadn't yet done anything with the syrup this year (after all, if one is going to over-eat it should be healthy stuff).
On the other hand, I would hate to waste the syrup, so this week I finally decided that it was time to do something with it, so when I was out yesterday I bought a liter of cream thinking I would make another batch of spruce tip candy.
Today I took out one of two bottles of spruce tip syrup, measured 2 dl into a pot, and then noticed that there was a dark ring lining the glass at the former fluid level, that might be a mould. So I checked the other, fuller bottle, and, sure enough, it had a dark ring, too. So I put the full contents of both bottles into the pot and brought them to a boil. I added a heaping tablespoon of sugar to them, since the syrup really was a bit bitter for my taste. While the syrup heated I washed both bottles with soap, and then put them into a pot on the stove, full of water, and brought it to a boil for a bit to sterilise them. Then I filled one of the two bottles with syrup quite full, used the narrow handle of a spoon to remove the little bit of froth that collected on top, and closed the bottle whilst still hot, so that it would make a nice air tight seal.
Then I added the liter of cream to the ~200 ml of spruce tip syrup (which wasn't as bitter after having that extra sugar added) and let it boil, stirring often, for 45 minutes, during which I combined 200 ml of almond meal, 100 ml chopped almonds, and 400 g of whole milk powder, into which I stirred 1.25 ml of freshly ground cardamon seeds. I probably should have boiled the cream a bit longer, to let it start reducing a bit, but at that point I wanted my dinner, so I decided to call it good enough, and first briefly dunked the bottom of the pot into a cold water bath to slow down the boiling, then poured the cream and spruce tip syrup over the powdered milk, almonds, and cardamon and stirred it well. I poured that into a buttered glass rectangle baking pan, and let it cool a bit on the counter whilst I cleaned up (by first licking the mixing bowl clean, of course, yum!), then I put it into the fridge while I ate an artichoke for dinner (which had been happily steaming while I cooked the candy).
A half an hour later I decided I wanted a bit more of the candy, and went to the fridge. The candy hadn't achieved cold yet, but was more on the liquid end of the liquid-solid continuum than I wanted to see, and I didn't think it would achieve status as a solid just from cooling off. Therefore, after eating another couple of yummy spoon fulls of candy-goo, I put the pan into the oven and turned the heat on to 175 C. in hopes that baking it a bit would drive enough enough moisture to achieve a solid when cold. (last year I made only half a batch, and there was no problem boiling it down enough that it made a solid when combined with the milk and almond powder)
I checked it 15 minutes later, and the edges were simmering rapidly, so I turned off the heat (but left the fan running, and walked away. A few minutes later I looked again, and the whole thing was boiling, had gotten a more caramel-colour (and smell), and the edges were starting to really brown. So I pulled it back out of the oven and let it sit a minute or two. Then I carefully took a spoon to the caramelised edges, which were a bit higher than the elevation of the rest of it, since the boiling liquid had gone up and stuck to the glass, removing a tiny bit at a time, and eating it (yum!) till the edges were at the same elevation as the rest, and the brownest bits removed.
Now it is cooling, and I am no longer hungry for the day, so I will find out tomorrow if it has become solid enough to slice tomorrow. If so, I can pack some to share with my friends when we go on adventure to Storforsen.
First I covered 3 liters of spruce tips with water, soaked it over night, then boiled it to extract flavour of the spruce tips, then filtered out the solids, added more water to the solids again, boiled again and combined the liquid from both batches and boiled it to reduce it till there was only 2.6 liter, at which point I added 0.5 dl sugar, and let it simmer to reduce till it was just a bit more than half a liter.
In part because of the bitterness of the syrup, and in part because I am already seeing my weight a little bit up due to the comfort eating habit that came to visit after mom died, started to go away, and then returned in full force to help me celebrate the pandemic, I hadn't yet done anything with the syrup this year (after all, if one is going to over-eat it should be healthy stuff).
On the other hand, I would hate to waste the syrup, so this week I finally decided that it was time to do something with it, so when I was out yesterday I bought a liter of cream thinking I would make another batch of spruce tip candy.
Today I took out one of two bottles of spruce tip syrup, measured 2 dl into a pot, and then noticed that there was a dark ring lining the glass at the former fluid level, that might be a mould. So I checked the other, fuller bottle, and, sure enough, it had a dark ring, too. So I put the full contents of both bottles into the pot and brought them to a boil. I added a heaping tablespoon of sugar to them, since the syrup really was a bit bitter for my taste. While the syrup heated I washed both bottles with soap, and then put them into a pot on the stove, full of water, and brought it to a boil for a bit to sterilise them. Then I filled one of the two bottles with syrup quite full, used the narrow handle of a spoon to remove the little bit of froth that collected on top, and closed the bottle whilst still hot, so that it would make a nice air tight seal.
Then I added the liter of cream to the ~200 ml of spruce tip syrup (which wasn't as bitter after having that extra sugar added) and let it boil, stirring often, for 45 minutes, during which I combined 200 ml of almond meal, 100 ml chopped almonds, and 400 g of whole milk powder, into which I stirred 1.25 ml of freshly ground cardamon seeds. I probably should have boiled the cream a bit longer, to let it start reducing a bit, but at that point I wanted my dinner, so I decided to call it good enough, and first briefly dunked the bottom of the pot into a cold water bath to slow down the boiling, then poured the cream and spruce tip syrup over the powdered milk, almonds, and cardamon and stirred it well. I poured that into a buttered glass rectangle baking pan, and let it cool a bit on the counter whilst I cleaned up (by first licking the mixing bowl clean, of course, yum!), then I put it into the fridge while I ate an artichoke for dinner (which had been happily steaming while I cooked the candy).
A half an hour later I decided I wanted a bit more of the candy, and went to the fridge. The candy hadn't achieved cold yet, but was more on the liquid end of the liquid-solid continuum than I wanted to see, and I didn't think it would achieve status as a solid just from cooling off. Therefore, after eating another couple of yummy spoon fulls of candy-goo, I put the pan into the oven and turned the heat on to 175 C. in hopes that baking it a bit would drive enough enough moisture to achieve a solid when cold. (last year I made only half a batch, and there was no problem boiling it down enough that it made a solid when combined with the milk and almond powder)
I checked it 15 minutes later, and the edges were simmering rapidly, so I turned off the heat (but left the fan running, and walked away. A few minutes later I looked again, and the whole thing was boiling, had gotten a more caramel-colour (and smell), and the edges were starting to really brown. So I pulled it back out of the oven and let it sit a minute or two. Then I carefully took a spoon to the caramelised edges, which were a bit higher than the elevation of the rest of it, since the boiling liquid had gone up and stuck to the glass, removing a tiny bit at a time, and eating it (yum!) till the edges were at the same elevation as the rest, and the brownest bits removed.
Now it is cooling, and I am no longer hungry for the day, so I will find out tomorrow if it has become solid enough to slice tomorrow. If so, I can pack some to share with my friends when we go on adventure to Storforsen.