A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2004 Need idea for cheap Christmas presents!

It really is easy....trust me if it wasn't easy I wouldn't be helping make it....lol If you do decide to make it keep your eye on the thermometer that you keep in the pot.....when it gets to the temp called for in the recipe you have to pull it off or it'll get to hard.....and keep stirring it pretty good....I'm thinking that last year when it started to cool on the tray we picked it up and cut it with scissors and found it easier that way than breaking it up, or using a knife.....when my sister makes it she covers it with a dish towel and uses a hammer.....but sometimes when you do it that way the pieces can be pretty sharp.....

They have all kinds of neat flavors you can get too......we did the traditional spearmint, and cinnamon, but also did pineapple, and things like that......

I have to go down to her house and make it soon......hopefully this year I won't dump the whole bottle of flavoring in the pot.... :rolleyes:

Leslie and I were just talking last night about getting together for a candy-making session.

Cindy

Loz- seems to me that recipe is pretty close to the recipe for taffy, isn't it? Is it just pretty much un-pulled taffy?

Hmmm geegee, I'm not really sure what the recipe for taffy is.....taffy is usually chewy though, and this stuff sets up and becomes hard..... It's not hard to make though......I know that much....

Yep, I was thinking back to when my mom used to make taffy with us, and I think it's the same ingredients, except I think taffy has cream of tartar. When it's cooked to "hard-ball stage" you pour it out, and let it cool a minute, then start pulling it. If you don't pull it, it hardens into real hard candy, like glass. I remember, the kids couldn't pull it too well, because after a while, you really need some arm strength, so ours would always be kinda soft on the outside and kinda hard on the inside. It was great, though! You've made me want to make taffy now!

See you learn something new everyday.....I honestly didn't know that taffy was pulled like that......hmmmmmmmm, maybe I can try making taffy with my friend sometime!!!

Yep, you just grab a handful of "goo", and pull, then fold, pull, then fold....FOREVER. If you pull till you think your arns will fall off, it starts to get soft and creamy. Then you dust it with flour, set it down and pull the next chunk. And you have to work really fast, or you'll finish one or two pieces, and the rest will be hard as a rock. And you have to butter your hands before you pick it up, or you'll burn your hands. Actually, you still burn your hands.

Of course, for "professional" taffy, they use machines to do the pulling, but I've never had a "bought" taffy that was as good as homemade.

ok, so now, i am going to make a request of each of you who has posted a recipe in here... can you go into the recipe section and post your recipe as an individual post? that way i (and others) can find them when we need them without having to try to remember which post they are in?

also, thank you geegee for starting this post in the beginning, i've gotten lots of good ideas!

I go to the dollar store and get cheap baskets,coffee mugs,ribbons and bows. I then purchase mini bags of flavored coffee.

I put the coffee in the mugs,put the mugs in the basket and fill it up with homemade cookies. If its for a larger family,I put flavored coffee,cocoa mix,skip the mugs and fill the basket with the cookies.

Everybody loves getting them and they are CHEAP!!

G-Mom

Cindy is good at making cheap meaningful christmas presents. She made my husband a booklet on the characters/actors of Gunsmoke. That was his favorite present last year. Of course, having a brain like hers helps -- to be able to come up with these ideas.

Les

I was going to make cream candy today!

NOT! ! ! ! !



Does Butch still have the Gunsmoke book?
Ahh...Gunsmoke!
With my idol...Miss Kitty!

cin

Oh, please do!

I'll share my "Dreamsicle" cake if you'll share your "Cream Candy"

G-Mom

I don't even know how to make cream candy!
I bought it and gave some to Leslie...
...and TOLD her I made it!

She's so gullible!

SHAME ON YOU!

G-Mom

In my family, we have "taffy pulling parties".

We set up a buffet style dinner and invite about 20 people, including kids. We divide everyone up into teams of two and each team picks a different flavor for the taffy.

While one team is cooking a batch, other teams are pulling it, still others are cutting and wrapping it. When we are finished, everyone takes home a huge paper grocery bag of the stuff in all the assorted flavors.

A word of caution, though: the kids will do all kinds of wierd and (yuccky) kid things to their taffy, including dropping it and picking it back up to eat it anyway.. ..so we always kept the taffy pulled by the youngest set isolated from the rest.

This is a great holiday party and everyone likes going home with a nice bag of it to give and to eat!

Merme

Well, if any of that got mixed in by accident, you could just say it was from a batch for people on a high-fiber diet!
That hair, fuzz, dirt IS roughage, you know!

Cindy

EWWWWWW

G-Mom

Truthfully, it wasn't so much the fuzz that they'd get into it as it was the licking of it they liked to do!

When we make taffy, we pour it from the cooking pot onto baking sheets that have been buttered and then it gets turned and turned with a buttered spatula as it cools enough to touch. We butter our hands too, and then start the pulling.

So the little ones loved to lick and pull, lick and pull.... They'd be so EXCITED and so PROUD, showing us all "Look what I made!" Lick lick lick, "Want some?" Uh, thanks, honey, but I'm finishing up my sandwich first...

Merme

Hey, Merme, I'll have to tell my mom about that stirring with a buttered spatula part! We NEVER did that. No wonder our hands got burned!

Merme,

That taffy pulling party sounds like fun!

Cindy, you reckon we could have one? We could do it over here to keep the animals out of it.


Les.

ANIMALS?????
Those are my CHILDREN!

Oh yeah, I forgot.

I like your little saying above your "signature."

Somebody has to!!!!

I change it every day or so....
......depending on my MOOD!

(You DO worry about me....don't you?)

Of course I do! NOT! I have enough to worry about without having you on my mind...

You amaze me, but you don't worry me...

Leslie