One of the easiest ways to spread cheer during the holidays is to ply friends and family with homemade goodies. Whether you make killer rum balls or spiced nuts, brandied cherries or chocolate bark, now's the time to submit your favorite edible gift ideas -- with a recipe, of course!
These are not your usual contests. We have a slightly nutty system but it works. Together, the Food52 community has created two cookbooks this way -- there’s no stopping us now. Read about it
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After you toast the spices, you remove the stem and seeds from the ancho.
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Everything goes into the spice grinder together.
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Amanda wields the spice grinder, while Merrill arranges the nuts over a non-stick mat on a baking sheet.
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Amanda tries to dig out the spice mixture without cutting her fingers on the blade.
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Pistachios. You need them without them shells, but it takes all of 5 minutes to shell 2/3 cup.
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Amanda's meat pounder proves its versatility yet again.
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We used semisweet chocolate, but this choice is really up to you.
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Now there are dried cherries in with the nuts. It's important to spread these out evenly so that each chunk of bark gets its share of goodies.
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Amanda diligently stirs chocolate while Merrill takes it easy. All that nut arranging can really take it out of you.
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The spice mixture goes into the melted chocolate. You choose how much to add -- we went with 1 1/2 teaspoons.
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Amanda tells a story -- perhaps about driving a car?
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When you drizzle the chocolate over the nuts and fruit, try to distribute it evenly.
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Then you spread the chocolate out and sprinkle on some leftover nuts before putting the bark in the fridge to firm up.
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Merrill sprinkles gelatin over water right in the mixer.
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Meanwhile, we combined corn syrup, sugar and water in a saucepan. The corn syrup had been sitting in this bowl and when we went to pour it, the skin that had formed on top worked like a dam, holding back the loose syrup. Who knew corn syrup could form a skin?
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Merrill took to the stove while Amanda measured out confectioners' sugar, cinnamon and coconut powder, which will later be used for dusting the marshmallows -- and preventing them from sticking to everything in sight.
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Merrill diligently wets down the sides of the pan as the sugar syrup heats.
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The syrup is ready when it hits 235 degrees on a candy thermometer. This is the second batch. The first turned to caramel.
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Amanda gives her mixer a stern talking to.
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As the mixer whirrs away, we pour the sugar syrup -- now at softball stage -- into the softened gelatin. The two collide and explode into a pouf of marshmallow!
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Sugar strand frozen in time.
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This is your brain on marshmallow.
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See the chocolate swirl!
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We pat it into the pan using wet hands -- cool trick (thanks notlazy.rustic.).
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Getting it out of the pan is another story -- use a non-stick pan if you have one.
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Time to make the marshmallows.
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