Easter Candy 2012

The cooks and artists

I had a kitchen and dining room filled with girlfriends, conversation and confections for most of the day on Saturday for my annual candy making event.  We spent several hours on chopping and melting over six pounds of chocolate and blending ingredients for the centers.  When it was all over, my feet and back complained bitterly that I had been standing for nearly seven hours.  The day just flew by!

We made mint Oreo truffles, peanut butter balls, orange buttercreams, ginger nut clusters, almond buttercrunch, paves, straw nests and chocolate chip cookie dough truffles.  The morning is spent making centers to be dipped, we break for lunch, and then spend the afternoon dipping and decorating.

Our masterpieces

The cookie dough truffles were a new recipe.  They contain sweetened condensed milk and I thought that might result in a very sweet center.  But when it was all mixed together, the filling really tasted like cookie dough.  Those of us that tried them, liked them.  I'm now waiting for the consumer's opinions to determine if this recipe joins the annual favorites.

The recipe makes a large batch.  That meant a lot of dipping and it took a three person team to get it done:  one person to put them in the chocolate, another to ensure they were covered and place them on the paper and the third for sprinkling mini chips on top before the chocolate set. 

The rest of the candies are all familiar tried-and-true recipes that we've been making for years.  They are all favorites that we look forward to making (and eating!).

Late in the afternoon we admired the platefuls of candy and oohed and ahhed over the decorations.  We taste-tested a few of the ones that weren't so pretty as the rest and agreed they passed inspection.  It made for an amazing presentation.  Then the candy was packed away in boxes and Tupperware to share (or horde) and enjoy.  It was a great team effort.  The results were impressive! 

For more details of the process, see Oddities, Artistry and Insides.