(photo from davidlebovitz.com)
Even if you are not Jewish, you must RUN to your nearest place-where-there-are-Jews and buy a box of matzah. You must then RUN home and make a giant batch of this stuff. Seriously. Trust me - it’s THAT good.

When pastry chef David Lebovitz posted this recipe several months ago, I bookmarked it out of loyalty to a fellow Jew-slash-chef. Anyone brave enough to claim that this was the stuff of legend, AND be baking it a full four months early, had to be on to something, right? The recipe then got lost in a sea of bookmarks, until such time as another food blogger posted her version of this and reminded me of its existence. I will freely admit that I cut and pasted the recipe that very second and abandoned my computer to go and make some.

By the end of the day, I had endured several burnt fingertips and was surrounded by a sea of chocolate-smeared napkins. Not because I am a particularly messy pastry chef, but because I am an impatient so-and-so whose nose and eyes could no longer handle the absolutely heavenly caramel smell and the shiny molten chocolate layer on top. I ate rather more of it than I originally intended, AND I ate it before it was technically ready to eat, hence the scorched skin. Luckily for me and my Seder guests, the recipe yields enough that I had some to serve on both nights and even a few scraps to give the kids in the days after.

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(image from danzimmermann.com)

Honeycomb (also known as Cinder Toffee) is one of those quintessential British candies which has made its mark everywhere but the U.S. Here in Australia, people tend to either love them or hate them, and those in the “love it” camp have their favourite brand. Violet Crumble is perhaps the most well-known of the commercial honeycombs available.

Every time I’ve offered to bring someone a sweet treat from from Down Under, it’s either the Violet Crumble or the Crunchie they beg for. Honeycomb is essentially basic toffee which has baking soda added to it. The baking soda and molten sugar react, creating a volcanic eruption of sugary golden edible styrofoam. You can eat it as is, but dipping the irregular chunks into chocolate is delicious. You can also smash it up and mix it into cookies, top cupcakes with it, stir it through ice cream and sprinkle it on top of a chocolate cake for a whole new eating experience.

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Since frying candy is so popular these days, I decided to strike out on my own and fry a Reese’s Cup. It was my birthday weekend, and a fish-fry with friends provided the perfect opportunity to batter and cook candy. Despite working without a recipe (I didn’t feel like putting in the effort) and never having fried candy before, I was confident. How could someone possibly mess up fried candy? Talk about famous last words.

Any of the bad choices of the many I made that day could have spelled disaster on their own, but in combination, produced the nastiest concoction I’ve ever cooked.

My mistakes, somewhat in order: battering the Reese’s Cup with cornmeal, flour, and Zatarain’s Seasoned Fish-Fri; using a shish-ka-bob-sized skewer; plopping the battered candy in canola oil that had already fried 37 fish; and, finally, tasting the stinking mess.

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Everything tastes better home-made, right? This is true of almost everything, but it is especially true when it comes to treats. Cookies straight out of the oven are infinitely more pleasing than the ones straight out of the factory. Foodie website chow.com understands this concept perfectly, and they’ve put together a small collection of recipes which take the standard chocolate candy bar to higher levels.

The article suggests that you should give the store-bought stuff to the kids in costumes and make these fancy takes on classic treats for yourself. After all, most children are taught to avoid eating handmade treats anyway, but these bars sound perfect to serve at a Halloween party. CHOW even offers wrapper templates that you can print out for each bar, which is a nice touch.

The simplest recipe they have is for the peanut butter cup, which requires a mini-muffin tin to help form those delectably deep shapes and suggests mixing in graham cracker crumbs with the peanut butter filling to create that wonderfully crisp texture. For the really adventurous, there’s the DIY take on the Snickers bar, Snickles. That recipe includes mixing your own nougat filling and caramel. Of course, any DIY project takes a lot of time and effort, but the rewards (including a whopping 24 servings of each bar!) make it all worthwhile.

• Make your own Halloween Candy Bars

More candy articles about: chocolate, candy bar, reeses, twix, peanut butter cups, snickers, diy, recipes

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How do you know when a candy has reached the height of popularity? Sales, marketing, limited edition versions and the “test of time” are all good ways to tell, but you know you have a real winner when devoted fans start incorporating the candy flavors at home. That’s exactly what Joe over at “Culinary in the Country” did when he made some delicious looking Snickers Fudge.

The recipe looks difficult, but it isn’t as involved as it first seems. The only catch is that it’s takes a long time to make since you create four different layers that need to individually set. Joe is a Snickers connoisseur and says the recipe accurately captures the flavors of the beloved candy bar. Be sure to visit Joe’s blog for the recipe. This is homemade candy making at it’s best!

• Snickers Fudge Recipe at “Culinary in the Country”

More candy articles about: candy, sweets, chocolate, recipe, recipes, Snickers, peanuts

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Baked goods combined with candy is an idea so good your head will practically explode just thinking about it! That’s what my head nearly did when I first read about Santa’s Surprise Cookies–peanut butter cookies stuffed with, surprise! A mini Snickers.

Though I love classic peanut butter cookies, I have to say they can tend to be a little on the crumbly and dry side (you know, enough that you definitely want to have a glass of milk or mug of coffee nearby). What the mini Snickers surprise offers, however, is the chewiness factor that the basic peanut butter cookie so often lacks. It thus creates, dare I say it, a near-perfect peanut butter cookie! If you want, you can jazz the cookie up even more by adding some dark chocolate chips in the center. (I opted to do this in lieu of the chocolate drizzle the recipe calls for. That just seemed like extra work!)

• Santa’s Surprise cookie recipe

More candy articles about: sweets, recipe, recipes, candy, snickers, cookies, peanut butter

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This is an insanely funny post over at Kevin’s Tech Ramblings and it is the definitive source on the internet for information on Chocolate Covered Bacon:

…what would happen if someone was just crazy enough to combine chocolate and bacon? Several questions came to mind; maybe bacon and chocolate aren’t supposed to be combined? Maybe combining them could start the apocalypse? With complete careless recklessness for ourselves and the rest of the planet we decided it had to be done.
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I like bacon and chocolate as much as the next guy, but no way am I trying chocolate-covered bacon….although I thought deep fried Snickers sounded gross too before I tried it……hmmmmm…..

Chocolate Covered Bacon at Kevin’s Tech Ramblings [via growabrain]

candy chocolate bacon recipe recipes

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