Every Year At Christmas My Co-worker Gail Brings In The Most Wonderful Candy I’ve Ever Eaten.
Every year I ask for the recipe and she smiles and says that she can give me the recipe but that I’d need to visit and learn the recipe from her. Now that I’ve made it, I understand. This is not a typical Easy baked recipe, it’s very involved. It’s fun and challenging and oh- soooo worth the effort though!
Gail recently retired and about a week ago I visited her in her kitchen to learn how to make opera creams.
This is a recipe passed down to her from her mom, who had all kinds of thoughts about the making of this candy. My favorite was that the recipe works best on sunny days and if it’s raining you might as well just wait to make it another day. We had a beautiful sunny December day to make our candy on, so I’m sure she would have approved.
INGREDIENTS:
4 c. sugar
2 c. heavy cream
1/8 t. cream of tartar
2 T light corn syrup
1 1/2 t. vanilla
1 t butter
1/4 t. salt
Chocolate (of your choice) for dipping- we used dark tempered chocolate bits
DIRECTIONS:
Put sugar, cream, cream of tartar and corn syrup to a large saucepan and mix well.
Use a pastry brush and a little water to brush all of mixture down the sides of the pan to remove any sugar stuck to the sides.
Cover pan and bring to a boil.
When boiling, uncover and clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pan.
Bring mixture to 240F degrees
(While you are waiting for this to come to temp, butter the bottom and sides of a shallow glass or ceramic dish.)
Remove from stove and add butter and vanilla– do not stir!
Pour mixture into buttered dish (don’t use plastic!) and allow this to cool completely (we put it on the back porch where it was cool and this took 2 hours)
Spoon cooled mixture onto clean countertop (it will be like a very sticky caramel)
Work with hands until firm and creamy.
Place this ball of filling in a dish, cover with a damp towel and refrigerate for 2 days.
Bring cream filling to room temp and roll into balls.
Dip into melted chocolate and cool.
You can mix nuts or coconut into the cream if you like, or just leave them plain.
These cream-filled chocolates are so smooth and rich you won’t be able to stop at just one!
courtesy of: http://easybaked.net/2012/12/21/opera-creams/
