Easter Candy II

OK -- I'm about halfway there. I tried a second round of chocolate easter candy and it's OK, but not great. I'm using carob powder, sugar and organic palm shortening. I also tried using Ghee. But, the main problem is the cane sugar does not dissolve. I'm heating it and pouring into candy molds. That part works. It cools and pops out of the forms. But, the candy is grainy because of the sugar. So, I'm going to try another round using powdered sugar (corn free). The other problem, but not as crucial to me, is the candy melts easily. So, it needs to be stored in the fridge. I don't think the kids care about that. It'd be nice to get it to hold its form out of the fridge also. Maybe another base -- like palm or coconut oil? We'll see.

No yeast?

Tried a yeast substitute in a bread recipe the other day. It worked -- about 50%. I used some baking soda and lemon juice in place of a yeast packet. It was the recipe for Tom's Bread, commonly found on the web and in this blog. The bread raised about half of its intended height. Still, it worked and I ended up with a loaf of bread that I could slice for my kids. They loved it. I plan to keep tinkering with yeast subs to see if I can get more raising out of them.

Cactus cookies

You read the headline correctly -- cactus cookies. Actually, I made cookies over the weekend that use cactus nectar as a liquid sweetener. They're awesome and the kids loved them. See my previous post on replacing corn syrup. This stuff really works.