Food Friday ~ Ginger Creams

Friday, December 3, 2010

Hi all!! Kylie here with a Food Friday post! :o)  (we actually have TWO new posts for you TODAY…so don’t miss Denise’s post right below mine)

For me, this time of year is full of many wonderful memories. Today, I’m going to share a very special one with all of you. Christmas time brings so much excitement and a big part of that revolves around FOOD! I love to cook. It’s my favorite thing in the whole world (followed very closely by digital scrapbooking! LOL!) and the way I see it, cooking special treats and planning a Christmas Day menu, well it’s a gift to my loved ones as well as a gift to myself! I really like to try new things but also stick with several traditional family favorites. One of these is Ginger Creams.

My beautiful great-grandmother loved to make all sorts of homemade confectionery around the holidays – fudges, Turkish delight, and other sweet little goodies. She passed on her Ginger Creams recipe to my Mum. And to this day, my Mum still whips up a batch nearly every Christmas. I’m so glad she does – I LOVE GINGER and I LOVE GINGER CREAMS!! Not exactly sure where the ‘creams’ came from as this boiled lolly (candy/sweet) is more like a fudge. The recipe is similar to a basic fudge recipe and only has four ingredients. It’s also fairly quick and very easy to make. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 4 cups (750g/1½ lb) raw sugar
• 1 cup (250ml) milk
• 30g (1oz) butter
• 250g (8oz) crystallized ginger, roughly chopped

Directions

• Place all ingredients in a heavy-base saucepan and stir over low heat until sugar has dissolved.
• Brush down sides of saucepan with a little hot water, making sure there are no crystals on sides of saucepan.
• Bring to the boil. Boil steadily until mixture reaches 112C (235F) – soft ball point.
• Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. Stir mixture rapidly until thick and creamy.
• Pour into a greased, paper-lined 20cm (8in) slab tin.
• When cold and fully set, remove from tin and cut into squares.
• Enjoy – once you start you just can’t stop at one!!

Some tips:

• If you haven’t made confectionery or jams/preserves (etc) before you may be unfamiliar with the term “soft ball” as a measure for when a mixture is at the appropriate setting point. Don’t worry, using a confectionery thermometer is pretty much fail proof. If you don’t have a confectionery thermometer you can test it using a little bowl or saucer of water. You do this by dropping a very small amount of mixture into cold water. When it forms a soft ball when rolled between two fingers it has reached the required temperature and will set when cooled.
• Be extra careful not to burn yourself when making any type of boiled confectionery as the sugar syrup reaches very high temperatures.
• Make sure your saucepan is large enough to prevent the mixture boiling over. I used a saucepan that measures 18-20cm (7-8in) at the base by 12cm (4-5in) in depth. As a rule and to err on the side of caution, choose a saucepan that holds four times the capacity of the amount of ingredients being used. And it is better to use a deeper saucepan than a wide shallow one.
• For this recipe you can substitute the raw sugar for normal white sugar. However the raw sugar gives the fudge a richer color and flavor.
• You can substitute the crystallized ginger for any preserved or candied ginger – glacé ginger, ginger pieces in syrup etc. But do not use fresh root ginger or powdered varieties.
• If you are not a fan of ginger you can try substituting it with another preserved or candied fruit, or even nuts etc. For example, raisins (add a splash of rum for ‘rum & raisin’), clementines and pecan nuts, dried cranberries, dried apricots…be creative.  If you substitute with desiccated coconut - then you’ve made the traditional English sweet “Coconut Ice” – don’t forget the pink food coloring!
• Use a wooden spoon with a long handle to stir. Or if you have a specialty heat-proof spatula, that will work well, too.
• Ginger Creams can be stored in a sealed, airtight container in a cool, dry place for up to 3-4 weeks.

Gift giving – Homemade sweets make ideal gifts any time of year, especially at Christmas – whether it’s just a small token or something very special. Great for teachers, neighbours, friends and family! Half the fun is cooking them up and the other half is the gift decorations themselves. I used the gorgeous Shabby Shoppe  JOY Confection Collection candy wrappers and bag toppers. They came up a treat!!

Here is a FREE recipe card that you can download to add to your ever-expanding Shabby Shoppe recipe box! I created this card using a French Toast easy-as-pie recipe card template and the papers and majority of elements are from the Joyful Tidings kit. (Joyful Tidings is this week’s product spotlight and is currently on SALE for just $4.25!)

click the image above to download the recipe card…or simply CLICK HERE!

Hope this special family recipe adds a little extra sweetness to your holiday celebrations!

Have a wonderful weekend! Bye for now. :o)

KylieFood Stuff, Free (not desktops), Uncategorized 8 Comments