Short and Tweet 5 Challenge: Peanut Brittle and Ginger Halva
This week’s #shortandtweet confectionery challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet seems to have both intrigued and unnerved people in equal measure. I’d selected Cardamom peanut brittle pg 314 or Sesame ginger halva pg 319 because it seems that a number of us tend to shy away from working with hot sugar and it seemed an ideal time to overcome this if any of us were considering home-made gifts for the holiday season.It seems that I may have proposed a challenge too far as the suggested use of a sugar thermometer deterred some participants (others may well have been dissuaded by the dental/health considerations outlined in Alex Renton’s very fine: The rot starts here). Others gave it a good try and followed the directions for working without the thermometer. It seems that working with hot sugar is something we’d prefer to have seen demonstrated before we feel entirely comfortable with it.
I can only regret the personal shortcomings that meant that despite reading a lyrical, somewhat mystical description of working with hot sugar, I didn’t manage to ‘pull’ my confectionery into anything interesting, unlike this blogger:
Help came in the form of the Roux brothers’ book on Patisserie. In it is advice on working with sugar to create fanciful decorations for patisserie - poured, blown, pulled and spun sugarwork. One of the Monsieur Rouxs [sic] advises using a palette knife to start working with the hot sugar after it has been poured out onto a greased (ideally marble) surface. The coolness of the surface begins to lower the temperature of the toffee/sugar. He then writes, ‘Now your fingers can hold the mass without making contact with the marble. After two or three minutes, hand and sugar are finally and completely united; they seem to have attained precisely the same temperature. The sugar bends, takes on a satin sheen. Suddenly it sings, it makes a slight cracking sound, it talks to you. Proud, beautiful, docile, it is now ready to be shaped into flowers, leaves, animals, what you will.’ (Baking for Britain ‘Noson Gyflaith’ - Welsh toffee making)Jo of Zeb Bakes has produced an enviably comprehensive illustrated post of the making of both the Cardamom peanut brittle and the Sesame ginger halva. Go and read Jo’s account now because you’ll enjoy the photographs and maybe both pick up useful tips and be persuaded into trying out the recipes.
Paul (Keeper9) attempted the peanut brittle recipe without the use of a sugar thermometer. He gamely sent along his photograph of the first incarnation of the Cardamom peanut brittle and observed that he felt it had gone a little awry.
Nevertheless, Paul persevered and re-heated the mix, he reports back that he is pleased with the resulting honey and peanut toffee but he thinks that he somehow shot past the ‘brittle’ stage.
I feel that my confectionery ambitions and results were a little perturbed by the burst water main that threw my plans into some disarray. Nonetheless, I enjoyed making both the peanut brittle and ginger halva although I’m not wholly satisfied with the results. The first time I made the brittle, I attempted to follow Dan Lepard’s instructions to pull it to create a good colour and sheen but seemed to create a mess that far exceeded my tolerance level at the time.
Since then, I’ve made the brittle with several nuts and abandoned efforts to pull it or to be ‘at one’ with it (in the Roux sense). The brittle snapped well, was a delightful snack and has been distributed to various neighbours and Water Board workers.
I don’t know what to say about the halva. I made some mistakes in this recipe. In retrospect, I mistook the grainy texture on beating for the breadcrumb texture that the recipe noted would need to be rectified by adding more water: it was only after I added the water and made the mixture too wet that I realised the texture had (probably) been fine. I didn’t like the large size of pieces illustrated in the book so opted to set the halva in an 8x8 shallow tin rather than the bread tin Dan Lepard advised. So, the mixture was far too wet and I set it so shallow that it was difficult for it to hang together.
I’ve been assured by several people that halva is delicious and the texture is far superior to anything that they’ve purchased. However, even after standing for 3 days, the colour is a very off-putting dishwater hue. I haven’t made this again as yet so don’t know if the colour is related to the ‘wrong’ amount of beating or to the brand of tahini that I used.
I look forward to this week’s challenge for 4 December: Wholemeal loaf pg 31 . If you blog about your experience with this recipe, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 4 December (it’s a triumph of hope over experience that I’m trusting that I keep my main services this weekend).
Schedule for the #shortandtweet December challenge.
Outline for #shortandtweet challenge and its conditions.
Thank you to everyone for taking part. I look forward to seeing everyone’s wholemeal loaves.
