# Tried to make candy yesterday...



## turmeric (Mar 10, 2008)

I succeeded for about five seconds but then it burned. Then it stuck to the pan. I had a huge burnt-sugar lollipop in my pan. So I added water and reheated. It came loose and I tried to lift it out, whereupon it turned into taffy and assumed the strangest deep-sea lobster-like shapes, complete with appendages! I looked at the bizarre sculpture and tossed it. I will try again when it's not raining. I understand moisture in the air bodes ill for candymaking.


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## Gryphonette (Mar 10, 2008)

Oh yeah, high humidity is death to candy-making.


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## Herald (Mar 10, 2008)

Meg, you may be on to something with the lobster appendages.


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## Kevin (Mar 10, 2008)

Do you have a candy thermometer? 

I know most home cooks do not have a refractometer, but If you do...check your brick level. Sounds like you bricks were too high.


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## turmeric (Mar 10, 2008)

North Jersey Baptist said:


> Meg, you may be on to something with the lobster appendages.


 
Yeah, with a pair of tongs I could have made candy crawdads! Maybe I oughta work on that some more!

Kevin, what are bricks?


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## Herald (Mar 10, 2008)

turmeric said:


> North Jersey Baptist said:
> 
> 
> > Meg, you may be on to something with the lobster appendages.
> ...



Hey! Those lobster appendages may sell like hotcakes in New England, the lobster capital of the world.


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## a mere housewife (Mar 11, 2008)

Meg it sounds like one of the first times I tried to make cheese sauce. I could actually pick it up and throw it at the wall (which I did). Then there was the angel food cake which rather than rising, fell, so that one could pick it out of the pan like a piece of tire tread. Which I did. I think of writing a cookbook. "Interesting Results" or some such. Maybe I could get your recipe....


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 11, 2008)

Thanks for the laugh Meg. That was funny.


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## Kevin (Mar 11, 2008)

Sorry for the confusion. The proper term is Brix. 

I am in the habit of calling them "bricks" since I was a kid & thought that was what everyone was saying...

the Brix scale is how you measue the sucrose to water ratio in a solution. When making candy it is the most accurate way to ensure that you have a good outcome. Most home candy makers rely on a form of the Balling(sp?) scale. 

When making maple products (candy, creme, syrup, etc) we depend on checking the brix to know if we are at the proper point for what we are making. 

Or you could just do like my dad. He lifts a spoon out of the pan and watches it drip & then tells us what the sugar content is by reading the colour and shape of the drops!! And he is almost always right to within 1%!!


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## turmeric (Mar 11, 2008)

Thanks, guys, it _was_ pretty funny! I just remembered that an arthropod's exoskeleton is made of chitin, which is basically sugar!!!

Kevin, are you suggesting that I'm a few brix shy of a load?


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