Last Weekend's Craft Fair

Last Sunday I hauled all of my wares to an arts and crafts fair which featured northeastern Ohio Etsy shop owners. Here I am setting up my table:

My husband prepared some of his photos for sale, too:

And my daughter came to help me:

We had a lot for sale and we sold some of everything we brought: homemade candy, hand crafted herbal products, handspun yarn, photos, books. As you can see, I also brought my spinning wheel to show how the yarns were made.

We did okay, but the attendance wasn't huge. I was hoping to do a little better. It's kinda hit and miss with craft shows.

One more digression... Writing: are you a writer, or should you give it up and pursue something else?

This is an honest digression, a heartfelt insight into a little something called my brain : )

I've written a few things, but I hesitate to call myself a writer. How can you tell if you're a writer? This article in The Village Voice will tell you how to find that out (there is some strong language, actually one strong word used many times).

And Colleen Lindsay, a literary agent sums the article up very nicely, here.

Many people who teach writing or give seminars or lead critique circles will say over and over again that writing should never be discouraged. A critique should never be so blunt as to include the words, "You have no talent. Give it up."

But I secretly don't agree with that. The Village Voice article explains very nicely why. If people whose business it is to know such things are kind enough to tell you that you should probably pursue other talents, it's probably best to listen and free yourself to find whatever your real talent is.

I haven't exactly found mine yet. My writing isn't terrible, but in all honesty, I know that it lacks something. Just like I know that the batch of fudge I made last week lacked something. It was okay, but it didn't possess that oomph that leaves you still salivating after you've swallowed and makes you sneak back into the kitchen to cut just one more little nibble off of that velvety slab of lusciousness.

Okay, so maybe my talent is candymaking, because I can actually tell when it hasn't come out right. And I can tell when it has and it's oh-so-drool-inducing-good. And because, although I can't say that my writing is the best in the whole world (not even close), I can say, with almost utter certainty, that if you search the world over, you will never find a caramel that can top mine.

And maybe that's a good analogy to use. Suppose you knew someone whose cooking was hard to stomach. Now suppose they confided in you that they wanted to open a restaurant and they wanted your opinion of their cooking - was it good enough to become a successs in the restaurant business?

Would you suggest that they learn the basics? Attend a cooking school? Tell them not to quit their day job?

Or would you encourage them and then watch as they poured all of their time and perhaps their life savings into a restaurant? Which would fail. Because your friend can't cook. And you knew it.

It would be nice if someone would tell me outright not to quit my day job when it comes to my writing if it's really not all that great. It would actually be freeing. Of course it would hurt, but I learned way back in elementary school how to deal with disappointment. I'd get over it. And then move on to better things.

Treacle Crunch, a.k.a. Chocolatey covered candy honeycomb

My last post dealt with making the center part for my chocolatey covered Treacle Crunch. In the picture below you can see what the aftermath of dipping, letting dry, and bagging the candies looks like:


I now have 13 bags of Treacle Crunch to send away with gifts:


Some gifts I made earlier are herbal salves - goldenrod and calendula. I packaged them up with a little pamphlet I made about the herbs in the salves:

Here are the herbal salves with the caramels I made earlier in the week:

I wish I had enough to share with everyone who comes to visit my blog! But I do have a holiday gift for you so that you don't go away empty handed. It's a little Christmas story I wrote. You can download it for free - it's my holiday gift to you!

Just click on the book cover in the upper right corner of my blog page, then select "Download for free."

Happy Holidays!

Making Candy Honeycomb

I've documented my candy honeycomb making. It's not real honeycomb, the candy is light and has a lot of air holes in it, so it's called candy honeycomb. If you've ever eaten a Crunchie bar or a Violet Crumble bar, then you've eaten candy honeycomb. Those bars are covered with chocolate. Mine will be too when it's all said and done. But first, the honeycomb.

It's really very easy to make. I double the recipe that I have, so I put 1/2 cup water, 3 cups sugar, and 1/2 cup golden syrup in the pan:


The recipe really calls for corn syrup, not golden syrup, but I use golden syrup and then I can call my concoction Treacle Crunch:


Stir ingredients together just to mix, and then bring to a boil without stirring:

Continue boiling until candy thermometer reaches 300 degrees F. Wipe down any sugar crystals that accumulate on side of pan with a damp pastry brush:

When 300 degrees is reached, remove from heat and whisk in 2 Tablespoons sifted baking soda. Here is a video clip of the process, I don't say anything so you don't have to turn your volume up (nothing happens in the middle of the clip for about a minute while I'm pouring, but then I show the candy after it's been poured in the pans):

Then pour out on parchment lined pans and let cool without disturbing for at least 20 minutes:

When the honeycomb is cool, break it up into pieces and enjoy as is, crumble over ice cream, or dip in chocolate to make your own homemade Crunchie bars.

Use undipped honeycomb right away, or you can keep it in airtight containers for a few days at most. Dipped honeycomb must also be stored in airtight containers or ziplock bags. It will stay good for a little bit longer than the undipped.

You can cut the above recipe in half with no problems.

I wish I could share some candy with you during this month of celebration, but since I can't, please don't forget to leave with the gift I can share with you - a short little Christmas story I wrote that you can download for free.

To get it, click on the book cover in the upper right of my blog page and then select "Download for free."

Happy Holidays!

Bagged in the nick of time!

Whew! The caramels are cut, wrapped and bagged with 1/2 hour to spare before I have to go pick our growing and newly spayed kitten up from the vet.

The process below ~

Cutting the caramels:

Wrapping:

All wrapped and waiting to be bagged:

Fifteen 8 0z. bags ready for gift giving. The labels are what I came up with for my farmer's market experience when I sold candies under the "Castle Door Candies" name:

Now a quick clean-up and then off to rescue Freki from the horrible clutches of the vet.

Wrapping caramels, spaying cats

Freki, our 6 month old kitten, went into the vet this morning to be spayed. While she's away I have to try to cut and wrap all of the caramel I made yesterday, otherwise she'll be in the middle of the whole process wreaking havoc.

This is her about a month ago or so, asleep. We've learned not to wake her when she's asleep. Best to enjoy the reprieve from all of the running and ricocheting and climbing up your back:


Here's a peek at a pan of caramel:

I made a triple batch yesterday and poured it out to cool overnight, knowing that I would have a precious few hours today without Freki in which to get my two pans of caramel cut and wrapped:

These two pans will produce about fifteen 8 oz. bags.

Okay, the dog is walked, the driveway is shoveled, the cat is at the vet. Time to wrap caramels.

Candymaking: homemade caramels and candies

This week is reserved for candymaking. I'll be making caramels, chocolatey covered candy honeycomb, and maybe fudge, but that's a big maybe. It'll all go out with holiday gifts (well most of it will).

I've sold my candy at the local farmer's market before, which is a lot of fun. I'd love to open a candy store, but my nice little town already has three of them.

Maybe I can take some pictures as my candymaking week progresses. If I do I'll post them.

Candy and the Farmer's Market

Last summer I sold homemade candies at a local farmer's market. It was the first ever farmer's market for my nice little town, and it was a lot of fun.

I sold my candies under the name Castle Door Candies. I used the image above as background for my signs.* I sold three types of fudge, two types of caramels, and something which I called treacle crunch, which is candy honeycomb (not actual honeycomb) covered in a chocolaty coating.

It was a lot of work making the candies during the week. I cut and wrap the caramels by hand, which is tedious. And making the fudge is always a bit nerve-wracking. It takes quite a while for the candy concoction in the pot to reach the right temperatures, and then it must cool for a time, and then comes the nerve-wracking part. It must be beaten to just the right consistency. If it's underbeaten then it doesn't set right. If it's overbeaten, then you're left with a stiff gob of unsellable gump - and there are only a few seconds between the perfect consistency, which will result in velvety, chocolaty ambrosia -and overbeating which will give you a lump of crusty hard-tack.

The insides of the treacle crunch are kind of fun to make. When the treacle-sugar concoction in the pot reaches the right temp, you add baking soda and whip up. The mixture expands into a candy foam which you pour out and let harden. When hard, you break it up. Then comes the part that I don't like so much. Dipping the crunchy centers in the chocolaty coating. It makes my back sore for some reason.

But when Saturday morning came - it was all worth it. The market was so much fun! We had great weather every single Saturday. I gave out free samples of my treats and it was such a blast to hear people saying good things about my candies. I was always amazed to actually be selling my candies. People actually bought them!

The market is returning this summer and I have to decide whether or not I want to participate again. It was a lot of work during the week for one morning of fun. The profits weren't all that stellar - even upon selling out most weekends. There's a limit to what people will pay for a bag of caramels or a block of fudge, or a bag of treacle crunch - no matter how yummy it is.

The experience last year, though, was very rewarding personally if not necessarily monetarily.

* The castle door image above was photoshop-ed from one of my own pictures. It's actually of a church door, not a castle door. I took the picture on a trip that my family took to Germany when I was 19. The original picture (although shown in B&W because that's what I have saved in my computer) is below: