My First Chocolate Fudge and Goals for 2011
A while back, I discovered a new substitution for heavy cream that, supposedly, can be used in any recipe where one would normally use cream. The ingredient is called Mimiccreme and is a non-dairy (and pareve) nut-based cream. Shortly after discovering it, I mentioned it to my father who checked it out online and discovered that their warehouse in Albany was changing the packaging for their sweetened version and as a result were selling the old packaging for a $1 per carton. Considering that this stuff usually sells for closer to $5 per carton, it was a no-brainer that if I planned on experimenting with this stuff, it would be useful to get it dirt cheap! So naturally, when I heard that my husband's uncle would be coming down to visit from Albany, I asked him to bring me a couple cases.
Unfortunately, the week he was supposed to come he got into a nasty car accident while driving through New Jersey. While he was fine, his car was destroyed (along with one of my poor containers of Mimiccreme), so the trip was postponed. However, he came in last week, delivering my 23 cartons of cream substitute and I was overjoyed! (Thanks, Uncle Richard!)
So now I was faced with a decision of what to make first. According to the website, the sweetened MimicCreme is similar to sweetened condensed milk and can be used to substitute in recipes calling for sweetened cream. Great!
My first stop was fudge!
Let me begin by saying that this was actually my second attempt at making fudge, but I don't count the first because I suspect the recipe I used was actually intended for making a hot fudge sauce (which is what it produced, to my dismay!) and never hardened. So for all intents and purposes, we'll call this my first attempt.
I used a recipe for basic, no-fail fudge from about.com. They have a photo tutorial, which is helpful. I went ahead and replaced the sweetened condensed milk with MimicCreme and left out the nuts. Other than that, I followed the recipe to a T.
The good news is, it produced a nice solid fudge. The bad news is, it was fantastically mediocre. The fudge was overly sweet (even The Huz felt it was sickening and has refused to touch it after day one) and was also pretty grainy. It just didn't turn out the way I remember the fudge experience.
The fun part of this is that a lot of the fudge crystalized on the sides and bottom of the pan. When I scraped this bits off the pan, I ended up with a nice crumb topping for my fudge.
Ultimately, it was okay fudge. Very "meh" but edible. I also found that after refrigerating it over night, the fudge tasted significantly better.
Okay, all that said, it's time for part II of this post.
My Goals For 2011
Happy 2011 everyone!
Unfortunately, the week he was supposed to come he got into a nasty car accident while driving through New Jersey. While he was fine, his car was destroyed (along with one of my poor containers of Mimiccreme), so the trip was postponed. However, he came in last week, delivering my 23 cartons of cream substitute and I was overjoyed! (Thanks, Uncle Richard!)
So now I was faced with a decision of what to make first. According to the website, the sweetened MimicCreme is similar to sweetened condensed milk and can be used to substitute in recipes calling for sweetened cream. Great!
My first stop was fudge!
Let me begin by saying that this was actually my second attempt at making fudge, but I don't count the first because I suspect the recipe I used was actually intended for making a hot fudge sauce (which is what it produced, to my dismay!) and never hardened. So for all intents and purposes, we'll call this my first attempt.
I used a recipe for basic, no-fail fudge from about.com. They have a photo tutorial, which is helpful. I went ahead and replaced the sweetened condensed milk with MimicCreme and left out the nuts. Other than that, I followed the recipe to a T.
The good news is, it produced a nice solid fudge. The bad news is, it was fantastically mediocre. The fudge was overly sweet (even The Huz felt it was sickening and has refused to touch it after day one) and was also pretty grainy. It just didn't turn out the way I remember the fudge experience.
The fun part of this is that a lot of the fudge crystalized on the sides and bottom of the pan. When I scraped this bits off the pan, I ended up with a nice crumb topping for my fudge.
Ultimately, it was okay fudge. Very "meh" but edible. I also found that after refrigerating it over night, the fudge tasted significantly better.
Okay, all that said, it's time for part II of this post.
My Goals For 2011
- Buy a pasta maker: This goal may sound small, since a basic, manual pasta machine can cost as little as $30, but I've been wanting this for a long time. The food blogs I read are constantly tantalizing me with recipes for homemade pasta which give you the opportunity to make pasta in whatever flavors you want. Pumpkin pasta? Yes, please! Sweet potato ravioli? You betcha! The problem is that it's one of those expenses I can just never justify. Why spend money on a pasta maker when there are more important things to spend it on?
- Make a perfect fudge: I think the reasoning here is obvious.
- Make homemade caramels: I keep seeing recipes for homemade caramels and they sound oh, so good! This year, I'll try it myself.
- Start seriously saving up for that dream camera: People have told me that the pictures I put on here are pretty good, but to be frank they could be a LOT better. I think that if I have the right equipment, I could really step this blog up a notch.
- Host more shabbos guests: The Huz and I are prone to going out for shabbos meals, mostly because I'm a little lazy about shabbos cooking, but also because most of my friends have kids and our apartment just isn't kid-proof. Part of this goal involves buying one or two baby-gates so my friends will feel more comfortable coming over.
- Get my webcomic moving: I've been talking about my webcomic for a while. It's time to get it going. I need to come up with ideas and story arcs and start drawing. Once I've got a solid archive built up, I can start posting them. The next step? Merchandising, of course!
Happy 2011 everyone!
Comments
If you make sweet potato raviolis, you better save some for me! I also want a pasta maker but I would probably be too lazy to use it so it is not worth buying.
Good luck on everything else.