Hi, and welcome to the QED kitchen.

Sometimes you cook because you have to get a meal on the table for your family, and sometimes you're in the kitchen just for fun.

And that's what our show on Candy was all about.

Our first recipe comes from Lynne Popovich.

Her sour cream fudge was melt in your mouth delicious.

Let's put a little flame under there and we will add two cups of sugar.

Okay.

And one stick of butter and stir that around.

I've got to get the last bit of that sugar.

I don't know where the how that's stuck in there.

We don't want that happening.

And two tablespoons of white Karo syrup.

To make it nice and gooey.

Just like we need more sugar.

Well I would imagine that this changes the consistency.

It does.

From just boiled sugar.

Well it makes it a little smoother actually.

Okay.

All right.

So let me get the last little bit out.

Okay.

Good.

And then we have two tablespoons of cocoa and if you like a little stronger chocolate flavoring you can add more cocoa to it if you'd like.

But actually this is a lot and a half a cup of sour cream.

And Lynne you put this all in at once, all in at once and just stir it up.

I can't believe it.

I would thought you would have to do this in stages or be careful.

You just have to watch that the sugar doesn't burn on the bottom.

You have to keep stirring it.

Once the butter and the sour cream, melt it sort of.

Cooks up very fast.

Oh, okay.

Now, you normally do this on sort of a medium to medium high heat.

Yeah, then Ill lower it just a little bit because it's really working quickly here.

Boy it got so dark right away just from that little bit of cocoa.

Right.

Yeah.

It's two tablespoons.

But it does give it a very, very strong chocolate flavor.

Wow.

And I know you like chocolate.

I don't mind it.

No.

Well I've had my fill today.

I tell you, chocolate everywhere.

All right.

You have to cook this about 2 to 4 minutes.

Okay.

Until it forms a soft ball when you drop it in cold water.

But I think we're going to cheat a little bit and use your thermometer.

My fancy schmancy thermometer.

Well, you know, just in case, let's, let's we can do it both ways, actually, to test, to make sure that when it says it's soft boil on the thermometer, that it also does the same thing in the water.

It's broiling, as my grandmother would say, broiling and getting hot.

This is a fun project for moms to do with their children at Christmas, to make gifts for teachers or their friends.

To give, give away.

Now, you said you had a memory of making fudge.

Yeah.

My mother used to make fudge all the time when I was little.

It was a big treat to get it so hot that I was allowed to drop it in the cold water to see if it formed the soft ball yet.

Well, we're getting real close to that.

You want to try some in the in the water or is it too soon?

No, I think well try it.

I can just do this.

Okay.

Now what do you do?

You just drop your hand.

I don't want to.

Yeah.

That's it.

It gets hard right away.

And it's and it's formed a ball.

Formed a soft ball.

That's it.

And what we are just about right on that.

On the money with that okay.

Now let me push this.

We get that out of the way.

Because this all has to do with what it turns into after you cool it, doesn't it?

Now we have to put our vanilla in.

All right, so we take the heat off of this.

Yes.

And we can take this out.

Be careful with that.

The end of it is going to be quite hot.

So that's the soft ball stage or what temperature did we say.

240.

Oh 230.

I think it was.

Yes, 232 degrees.

Right.

And now we put in one teaspoon of vanilla.

We have to keep stirring.

This is the most important part, stirring, stirring, stirring right now.

And we have to put it in here.

In here.

Okay, I'll do this just for a couple minutes and keep stirring constantly, and it'll start to get a little bit thick.

And when you feel that.

This is a half a cup of nuts you can add more or less, depending on your taste, and you put them ground up fine.

And I would like them in big pieces.

Right.

I'm used to doing that only because my boys didn't like to bite into big pieces of nuts.

All right, now you beat this in a water bath to cool it, right?

Just for two minutes.

Okay.

And you'll see it starts to get a little thick.

The consistency is I can feel it thickening at the edges.

Especially now.

You don't want to get any water in here.

I know that.

Absolutely.

Water and chocolate.

So that movie like water for chocolate.

Yeah.

You don't want that to happen.

Yeah.

It looks great.

It does look wonderful.

And if it didn't turn into fudge, this would be the greatest chocolate sauce I've ever seen.

It would.

For your, Ice cream.

For ice cream.

Never waste chocolate.

Right.

Okay, I think that's ready.

Really?

I don't have to beat it anymore.

I think I have to let me just.

You feel it.

Feel it.

Almost.

Yep.

That's ready.

See it?

Sticking to the sides?

Yes it is.

Take this out.

Okay.

And you're supposed to put it in an eight by eight pan.

And I usually put aluminum foil because then you can take out the aluminum foil and cut it, it's much easier.

Yeah okay.

This does get really hot.

So you have to be careful if you do have your little ones around they don't get burnt.

Yes.

It makes an excellent gift.

It'll store in the refrigerator for a month.

Wow.

It doesn't turn white like some fudge when you put it in the refrigerator.

And you haven't had any problem with it being grainy or anything, because a problem that some people have with fudge.

I think it must be the sour cream.

It softens.

It softens it enough to keep it from browning.

So then we put this we put this in the, well.

Well, you want to cool it first.

I let it sit out about an hour and then I usually stick it in the fridge for just a little bit.

Okay.

You got to resist the temptation to lick that spoon, folks.

Do not lick the spoon.

And then.

Heres some thats finished for you to try.

I can't believe it.

It looks so wonderful.

It looks smooth, doesn't it?

It's not gritty looking.

This is such a big piece.

I'm going to have to eat it in stages.

It is smooth, but it's it's it's firm.

Folks I'm going to do you a favor.

I know that.

That is without a doubt, with no exaggeration, the creamiest fudge I have ever eaten.

Great.

And like your letter said, it does melt in your mouth.

This is wonderful.

Thank you, Lynne, for bringing this recipe.

Again, another great recipe for candy.

Sometimes fudge can be a little hard and grainy, but not that recipe.

And now we welcome Nancy Mahoney with a recipe for drumsticks.

No, not chicken.

Chocolate drumsticks.

So what are you going to make first?

Okay, I think the first thing we'll well try are the drumsticks.

The drumsticks.

And they seem to be a real favorite.

They actually look like a chicken drumstick, but they're made out of pretzel and chocolate and caramel.

And caramel.

Oh, the secret ingredient.

Already, let's go.

All right.

Very simple.

All you want to do.

You can take one that she can help me.

This I can do.

Okay.

Okay.

You want a twist in the caramel.

Now, you took some caramel square, a chunk of caramel and microwaved it for about a minute.

And then you can let it sit for a little while so that it hardens up a little bit and just twist it around in there.

Twist it up, and we're going to put it on the sheet that's lined with, candy, candy paper.

Right.

Yeah.

Parchment paper.

That's it.

I'm going to put this down.

Okay.

Our hands are free.

It actually gets thicker and thicker.

You're getting more on yours.

How are you doing that?

Oh it smells like the county fair candy apples or something.

Just like.

Oh and it's spreading out and it spreads out.

And its ok?

And thats where you get your drumstick effect.

Yeah.

Let's put this back up here where people can see what we're doing.

Okay.

And I will put that on there.

All right.

This one will be the last one we make in the interest of time.

Then what we want to do is we're just going to put it in the freezer for a few minutes.

To harden up that caramel, because the next step we're going to do is we're going to dip it in the chocolate.

Already?

In the freezer for just a few minutes.

Can we get that in?

Great.

All right.

Should we move on to something else.

We can move on while that's hardening.

The next thing we have are some some real popular candy molds.

They've come out with, instead of using sticks for suckers, you use the pretzels on the bottom of them.

Then it's like a chocolate covered pretzel.

So smart.

With the chocolate on the top you can get.

You can get real intricate and do all the different colors.

Yeah.

Probably the key things are, when you're melting the chocolate, you have to be very careful.

Do it in increments.

If you start with about a pound of chocolate.

Put it in for a minute, put it into the into the microwave for about a minute.

Take it out, stir it around.

You have to kind of gauge it on, on the microwave that you're using, and then do it in 15 second increments back in the microwave.

You never use a double boiler.

I don't ever use a double boiler.

Why?

When there's a microwave.

Time, time is of the essence.

Okay.

So you're checking it every 15 seconds.

Every 15 seconds until it's just right now, the chocolate you use, I notice you use these little.

The chocolate I use is Americans chocolate.

We buy that at Sugar and Spice.

At around 51.

And, they have all the different colors.

They've got the white chocolate, the milk chocolate, the dark chocolate, and, and the melted chocolate here Chris has.

All right.

So to begin with, if you want to do this the easy way, they still look nice.

You can just, you know, start spooning it into the mold.

We had a spoon, wooden spoon for that one.

You want to use this to get more shapes.

That might work a little bit better there.

All right.

It's not too hot, is it?

No.

You want to spread it around so that frosty gets all filled up with the chocolate.

You want to make sure it gets into all those of crevices and little crevices.

Now that you butter these or spray them or nothing, don't do a thing with them.

When you're done with them, you just want to use warm water.

You don't want to use soap and you never want to put them in the dishwasher.

Now, how long would this one of these molds last you?

I've had them for years.

I have had them probably for 15 years.

Really?

Not these in particular, but I've had other ones, Easter ones that I have in different holiday molds that I have, I've had for for ten, 15 years.

These were, these were just, newly acquired for the show.

So to put this in now this is going.

Whoa.

Excuse me, I forgot you were wired up.

This is going to make a solid colored.

This is going to make a solid color because we could be here forever if we did the, decorating the decorated.

And but with the painting ones, what you can do is it's purely creative.

You can do as many colors or as few colors as you want.

I prefer to use toothpicks when I do the colors because they're they're so detailed and intricate.

Some people prefer to use paint brushes.

You can use paint brushes.

Do you use these colored chocolate pieces?

Yes Or do you color white chocolate?

No, I use the colored pieces right out of the box out of this.

So people can understand what we're talking about.

The decorated, decorated ones?

Yeah, the decorated ones.

These are the colored pieces of chocolate.

I didn't realize you could buy chocolate in all those colors and colors in one little bag.

All right.

Oh, I see, so you get an assortment in one assortment because, you know, you melt them down, right?

And you little tiny, little tiny bit.

So only one little play little bit to this finished product here you you have to put the color in at the bottom first.

Is that the first you fill in, you know, where are you going to go.

And what you want to do is you can pick them all up to see what you're doing, you know, and kind of maneuver around because they are very detailed.

Right.

And then after you put all those little tiny colors in, you want, then you you do you let that harden.

You want to let that set.

You do want to let that set.

Because If you put the chocolate in right on top of that, it's all going to be all right.

So after all, together, the top layer of colors has been set the way you want it.

Then you pour the chocolate all over the back of it.

Correct or incorrect.

Because this is an upside down mold.

Right.

You poured this chocolate in.

Which is at the point we are at now.

And then when it cools in to turn it over, you're going to have, you're going to have all of these color as opposed to what we're making right now, which is solid, which is the solid one.

And one of the other important things when you're doing the molds is you want to you want to tap it on the counter.

Once you've got it filled to release the little air bubbles.

Oh, otherwise You'll have little holes and little indents.

And you get this anyway.

Okay.

Then the next thing you want to do is just take the pretzel and roll it around in there.

Oh, look at that.

Unbelievable.

Just roll them up, okay?

It's amazing how the most exotic things are so can be so simple.

The other, the other fun thing to do instead of, you know, messing around with, with spatulas and spoons like we were doing before and it makes it even go faster.

It's just use to squirt bottle.

Oh my goodness.

And just squirt it in the chocolate right in that bottle.

Or you put the whole thing in there.

I put the little discs in there, put it in the microwave like that, and people will think you worked for hours and now people know you didn't.

I know it's still, but you know, it still takes hours no matter how you slice it.

Like I said, if you're going to make all this, if you do the decorating, it really is.

It's just like if anybody, is used to doing ceramics, it's kind of that same concept at it.

We want to tap it by getting into the crevices, get it into the crevices.

But you really want to release those air bubbles because you'll get little indents in there in their noses and in their eyes and, oh, heaven forbid, don't want to.

We don't want frosty with indents in his nose and his eyes.

That's why I thought this was, you know, professionally done.

Because it didn't have any.

Those little bubbles that I see when people make their own chocolate candy.

Little secrets.

Yeah, but we appreciate you sharing with our viewers.

Okay.

Does it go into the freezer or does it just sit?

All right.

Can we take our drumsticks out?

We can take our drumsticks out, and we'll be ready to, oh, a refrigerator.

Do we need to, soften this?

Nope.

I think, we're just going to go to the chocolate.

Okay.

Oh, you already did those.

Oh, we already did this.

We did though.

See, I'm busy eating candy here, and you guys are way ahead of me.

All right, now, with these will actually lift off.

They should lift right off of there.

Oh, I think what a great combination.

The one step that you can do.

And I've taken this step out of the drumsticks because everybody that I've talked to likes it better without before you put them in the refrigerator after you have the caramel on them, you can roll them.

And nuts, crushed nuts.

They're a lot simpler.

If you like nuts you can do that.

I dont like nuts I like this better.

So all you do at this point is.

And take your chocolate.

Dip that finished, caramel pretzel in there.

Kind of shake it off a little bit, and then you're going to put it back.

Back on the, on the parchment paper.

That could you use wax paper or parchment paper is better.

Parchment paper is better.

Especially I've found with the with the caramel.

The parchment paper works much better.

Okay.

I've tried foil and I've ended up peeling the foil off the back of, I can't believe how cute these are.

So after they harden, you end up with.

I mean, it really looks like a chicken drumstick.

Like a drumstick.

I'm going to taste one of these because I just can't.

This.

I like this chocolate caramel pretzel.

And another thing with these is it's a really fun kid thing to do.

Yeah.

The kids can really.

Kids can really dive in.

This is great.

You know, you make teacher presents for Christmas.

How many of these do you make every year?

Couple out bags of pretzels, couple bags of pretzels and a lot of Carmel and a lot of Carmel.

Oh, Wow.

Nancy is a dear friend from our church group and always brings the most fun food to any party.

You rock.

Nancy.

Well, that's enough sweets for me for today.

Thanks for spending time with us today.

And as we always say, we do it for you.

But we can't do it without you.

Hi, I'm Chris Fennimore, and welcome back to Kitchen Basics here at QED cooks.

We've been talking about the sort of basic things that everybody should know how to make.

It's a starting point, and these are recipes that you can embellish and change and make your own.

But these are the sort of kitchen basics that would be great to be able to do.

And one of the things that I remember is that my mom could make a batch of brownies in about ten minutes, and they were just delicious.

And she didn't have a box.

We didn't run up to the A&P.

We didn't do any of that stuff.

All she did was she took one stick of butter and she melted it.

And to that one stick of butter, she added one cup of sugar.

And then she added.

A little bit less than a half a cup of cocoa.

Give it that nice rich dark chocolate flavor because that's unsweetened cocoa.

And then what you want to do is to just mix that up.

And make sure that the.

Chocolate is all oh boy.

The chocolate aroma of that is just amazing.

All right then you want to beat in two eggs.

And.

Just.

Put them in there and make sure that they get.

Beaten up real well.

Now you could do this in a mixer, but I'm telling you that the fun of this is to just get a bowl and put this together so you don't have to take out any heavy equipment.

You don't have to dirty up, the utensils.

And it's also a great recipe to make with kids.

Okay, now to this, we're going to add a little vanilla flavor, about a teaspoon full.

Make sure that that's in there.

And as always you add the dry ingredients.

Last.

And believe it or not, all you put into this is one half of a cup of flour and about a quarter of a teaspoon.

We get my measuring things about a quarter of a teaspoon of baking powder.

One of the reasons that mom would make this is so that we have little treats and and we really look forward to these things.

And they're the part of your childhood that sort of stick with you.

You know, those things that.

You enjoyed as a youth.

And you don't want to overwork this.

Another good reason to be making it by hand rather than in some giant machine.

And I always loved it when mom would put, nuts in here.

Now, do you want to put nuts?

You could put, walnuts, pecans.

You can put, you could put chocolate bits in here.

You could put toffee bits.

Anything that you'd like.

These happen to be some chopped up pecans, toasted, chopped up pecans that I'm going to put in.

And believe it or not, that's it.

And all I'm going to do is pour this.

I've, greased this pan with a little bit of spray and just.

I just sprayed it on the bottom a little bit.

There's so much shortening in this that it really won't stick.

I certainly hope it won't.

And this is just a nine inch pie pan.

You could double this recipe and put it into a 9 by 13 pan and bake it.

Set your oven at 350 degrees.

And this is going to take about 15 to 20 minutes.

Keep an eye on it.

You like nice and chewy brownies.

You're going to want to take it out a little bit early.

If you like them drier.

You're going to, let them sit in there until you can stick a toothpick in the middle and it comes up dry.

I have some that we put in the oven.

I haven't cut it open in.

The crew has been staring at it all day.

I'm going to see if I can get this, and cut some piece of this so we have a little taste of homemade brownies.

I think it's also important for kids to know that not all baked goods come from stores, that you can actually turn these things out at home.

I'm going to make them into nice little pieces, little bites for everybody.

These would probably make 12 nice big brownie portions, but you can see that they I put, walnuts in this one.

You can see that they're nice and chewy.

And moist on the inside.

I got to have a little taste and see if they match.

Mom's.

Well, nothing as good as mom's, but these are a simple scratch brownie recipe that you can make from ingredients that you already have around the house, and it's one of the kitchen basics that you can master.

Some times people ask me, what's my favorite kitchen gadget?

The kind of tool that I want to use all the time.

Well, my tool all the time is a French chef's knife.

That's something I use every day in the kitchen.

But my favorite gadget is this stuff.

It's parchment paper.

You can buy it in sheets, you can buy it in rolls and in any form that you buy it, it ends up saving you so much time and aggravation in the kitchen and in cleanup.

I use it when I make cookies.

I use it when I make pizza.

I use it in a variety of different ways.

I actually I make chicken wings on here because it has a gloppy sauce on it and everything stays on here.

Nothing sticks to it and therefore it doesn't stick to your pan and you don't have all that cleanup problem if you're baking bread or if you're baking cookies, the sheets are actually reusable.

It's a terrific kitchen tool to have around.

It doesn't take up much space.

I buy it by the big box and I have.

I've got parchment paper to last me into the next ten years.

It's a great kitchen gadget and one you'll find lots of uses for in your kitchen.

And that's a cook's quick tip.