Candy losers of the week

This past week I had two loser candies. One was Brown Sugar Penuche and the other was Sweet Buttermilk Candy. Both were risky because I haven't ever tasted either candy, but I had the ingredients.

The BS Penuche required hand beating after the cooking process. Hand beating is a pain in the arm. My cookbook says to hand beat with a wooden spoon and not with an electric mixer for a better textured candy. One of the fudges I made also required hand beating, but I used the mixer and it turned out. So I thought i would try the electric mixer again. This type of candy Penuche is really really thick and it kind of broke my mixer a little bit. I smelled electrical fire. So i tried with the hand beating and it was too difficult. Therefore, the candy solidifed before my eyes into a hunky block of brown sugar brick. bummer. It tasted ok. It had a pretty strong flavor.

The second failure of the week was Buttermilk candy. The book described the candy as "an unusual and somewhat crispy candy that looks and tastes like sweetened buttermilk" and i thought that sounded good and I had the ingredients. This candy is just a cup of buttermilk and two cups of sugar heated to the "soft ball" stage 234˙C. Then you throw in a tablespoon of butter and beat it by hand. In the end, I guess I didnt beat it long enought, because it just was too grainy.

I got some more ingredients tonight at the grocery store, so look forward to some good tooth-rotting candy in the future.