Something French

Continuing with my heritage theme for Christmas cookie recipes, I thought it would be a nice idea to record a recipe for my daughter that represents her French background.  As a child, she was always taken with fudge, and particularly her Grandfather's Quebec classic: Sucre a la Creme.  I recently saw a Food network Christmas special that highlighted Quebec traditions and low and behold, there was the "fudge" she loved so much!  Jenna's version is plain, sometimes with walnuts or maple syrup, but this is a great jumping point for so many varieties!

So, here's hoping Jenna enjoys making this fudge as much as she does eating it!  And hopefully, she'll continue this tradition for many, many years!

Sucre a la Creme (with Maldon salt and pecans)

Ingredients

• Oil, for greasing pan
• 1 1/2 cups/375 ml brown sugar
• 1 cup/250 ml 35-percent cream
• 1/2 cup/125 ml sugar
• 1/2 cup/125 ml maple syrup

• 1 tablespoon/15 ml butter
• Pinch

salt

1/2 teaspoon/2 ml vanilla extract

1/2 cup/125 ml pecans, toasted and roughly chopped, for garnish

Maldon salt, for garnish

 

Directions

Line an 8-inch (20-cm) square pan with plastic wrap and lightly oil. In a saucepan, combine the brown sugar, cream, sugar, maple syrup, butter and salt and bring to a boil, stirring with a wooden spoon to dissolve the sugar. Attach a candy thermometer in the center of the pan and simmer over medium heat without stirring until the thermometer reads 237 degrees F (114 degrees C). Add the vanilla extract without stirring. Place the pan in a cold water bath. Cool, without stirring, until the thermometer reads 113 degrees F (45 degrees C), about 20 minutes. Remove the pan from the water bath. Using an electric mixer or a wooden spoon, stir vigorously until the mixture begins to lighten in color and become creamy, 2 to 3 minutes. Please note that if you whip too much, the sugar and cream mixture will harden before you have time to pour it into the pan. Pour immediately into the prepared pan and smooth with a spatula. Garnish with crushed toasted pecans and Maldon salt. Cover with plastic wrap. Let cool for about 1 hour at room temperature or 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Remove from the pan and remove from the plastic wrap. Cut into squares. Store in an airtight container.

Looking back to Christmas

Every year, albeit usually a bit earlier than this, I always get in the mood to experiment with new cookies for the Christmas season.  Whether to have on hand for guests, the all-too-often time my daughter and I kick back with some hot chocolate, quick hostess gifts or whatever event comes up, cookies in the freezer are a good thing.

This year, I've been thinking alot about my grandmother, who could whip up a batch of cookies before her morning tea and single-handedly supply the local bakery with fresh bread before her second cup of tea.  I have fond memories of afternoons in her apartment being apart of this cooking frenzy.  But frenzy had nothing to do with it, it was a typical day which happened several times a week for her.  The best part was waiting for my Father to pick me up after work and see how pleased he was to leave with cookies, many loaves of bread and maybe a kid! :-)  These thoughts, of course, led to a search for these recipes and recreating them with my own daughter this Christmas.   (Unfortunately, my one regret was not collecting her recipes before she passed away.)  I still remember a simple drop cookie she made which was my absolute favorite - blonde in colour, raisins and I think, an assortment of spices.  For years I searched thousands of recipes, just to come up empty.

This year, with the power of Facebook, I came across a blog of Newfoundland recipes - NL Rock Recipes and low and behold, a plethora of old fashioned Newfoundland cookie recipes!  One of my Nan's favorites were snowballs - it was a mixture of marshmallows with a fudgy surround, rolled in a ball and through coconut.  However, I didn't realize until lately what battles arise across the province over what is a "snowball" cookie - some say it's just the fudgy chocolate base rolled in coconut, others say it's marshmallows.  Either works for us!

So I decided to start this brief series of Christmas cooking with a nod to my heritage, a fond look back at my childhood and remembering my dear Nan who accepted me so easily as her Sous Chef.  Thanks, Nan.  Jenna is going to love these cookies!

From www.nlrockrecipes.com

Snowballs

Key to the success of this recipe is the length of time that the base of the recipe is boiled. More precisely, it is the temperature that the mixture reaches when boiling that is critical. Much akin to making fudge, you are looking for the mixture to reach soft ball stage or near soft ball stage on a candy thermometer. Use one if you have it but if not, the five minutes gentle boiling as directed in the recipe is a pretty dependable guideline. It is also very important not to stir the mixture as it boils or you risk the sugar crystallizing and leaving you with a hard, crumbly finished product.

In a large saucepan, combine and boil together gently over medium high heat for 5 minutes or until mixture reaches about 230 degrees F on a candy thermometer:

3 cups sugar

3/4 cup melted butter

1 1/4 cups milk

Once mixture begins to boil it is very important not to stir it at all.

Mix together:

3 cups large rolled oats

1 cup unsweetened fine coconut

12 tbsp cocoa

Add the boiled mixture to the dry ingredients until well combined and chill well. until mixture is able to be shaped into 1 1/2 inch balls. Roll the balls in additional coconut. Makes about 4 dozen. These should be stored in the fridge. These freeze very well (my kids eat them frozen all the time, just like my siblings and I did as kids)