Thursday, May 15, 2008

Food Friday - Divinity

By request... (sorry Sugar and Spice girls - this is NOT helpful with our attempts to be more healthy)

This is actually just the recipe that came with my Kitchen Aid - it has very specific instructions about what speed etc. (My K.A. has speeds from 0-10 for reference.)

3 C sugar
3/4 C light corn syrup
1/2 C water
2 egg whites
1 t almond extract
1 C chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
(I've also seen recipes with zest of orange or maraschino cherries)

Place sugar, corn syrup, and water in heavy saucepan. Cook and stir over medium heat to hard ball stage (use a candy thermometer or place some cold water in a cup and when a drop of the mixture make a "hard ball" you know you're there). Remove from heat and let stand until temperature drops to 220, without stirring.

Place egg whites in mixer bowl. Attach bowl and wire whip to mixer. Turn to Speed 8 and whip about 1 minute, or until soft peaks form. Gradually add syrup in a fine stream and whip about 2 1/2 minutes longer.

Turn to Speed 4. Add almond extract and whip 20 to 25 minutes, or until mixture starts to become dry. Turn to Stir Speed and add nuts, mixing just until blended.

Drop mixture from measuring tablespoon onto waxed paper or greased baking sheet to form patties.

Let them stand for approximately 1 hour (until they cool and harden). Eat (but not too many).

Kitchen Aid Trick (free of charge, just for having read this far):
If you have a K.A. classic (the kind where the bowl is locked into place and the arm is lowered into the bowl) you may find that the bowl can get pretty wedged into place while doing long-term mixing (especially bread dough kneading). To prevent this from happening, I spray a little bit of cooking oil (like Pam) onto the metal where the bowl is secured. This acts as a lubricant and I don't have to use heavy tools to un-wedge the bowl when the mixing/kneading is done. It only took me about five years to figure out this trick. Five years of muscle work out every time I made bread or divinity (ok, I maybe make divinity once every five years but I make a lot of bread!).

5 response(s):

Layne said...

Thanks for this recipe--I tried making Seafoam candy once (which is just divinity with brown sugar instead of white), and it was not great at all. I'm going to try this one and see if it works out for me.

Alisha said...

I do not have a Kitchen Aid,, but I will have to give it a try in my Bosch. I'll let you know how it works out...Jeff will be so excited! Thanks for sharing!

Charlotte said...

Do you spray the Pam before you start, or just when you find your bowl wedged?

I use WD-40 once the bowl is wedged, but it's much easier to find the Pam. The WD-40 tends to live in 4-5 different places in our house.

highdeekay said...

Char - before. If I'm making cookies or something quick, I don't worry about it but if I'm going to be running it for a long time and/or making something stiff (like bread dough) I spray it before and no wedging! voila!

Claire said...

Don't feel old!! I just needed to put a time limit on my post... although honestly, I think I'll need longer than "till 40" to accomplish a lot of those. Unless we win the lottery, but seeing as we don't play... :D

I'd love to read a list of 40 things that you did before you turned 40. Which, by the way, I don't believe you actually are. Please post an official document stating that is your actual age!! :D