Electives and homemade caramels

When I was a student at Holy Cross Elementary School in Minneapolis there was a period on Thursday afternoons called "Electives". In the 1970's Catholic school system the electives were shamelessly segregated into boys electives and girls electives. I think there was a co-ed bowling elective but my memory is fuzzy on that one. I don't know what the boys took for their electives. I suspect it was making birdhouses or something not too far off that. We girls had choices that included knitting, crochet, sewing and baking. Over the years I think I took every one of those junior homemaker electives. These are darned practical things to know how to do and have held me in good stead throughout my life.

I am forever grateful to them for the fact that I can sew. Not just hem trousers and replace a button on a shirt, but make actual garments, starting with how lay out pattern pieces on newly purchased and prepared fabric, pin it down, mark it and cut it out. We learned different seam finishes as well as a myriad of other stuff you've got to know so that your finished product is fit to be worn in public. I remember being taught how to make underwear one week complete with constructing the gusset and sewing on elastic. My first attempt at making underpants resulted in a pair that would have cut off the circulation to one of my legs because I didn't get the leg elastic quite right and it was very tight. Though I remember getting taught how to do this, I have forgotten the process. Forgetting the fine art of making your own knickers has doomed me to purchase underwear for the rest of my days.

My sister Sally has remembered everything from her knitting elective and has continued to run with it. She is a champion knitter these days, making stunning sweaters and hats. There isn't a niece or nephew that doesn't own at least one famous Aunt Sally sweater.

Most of the electives were run by the same nuns, the Teaching Sisters of St Joseph, that taught us in our normal day to day classes. From time to time parents were asked to volunteer to come in and run an elective. My mother volunteered to run the baking elective one year. Sally and I dutifully signed up to Mom's elective. It would have been so disloyal to do otherwise. Besides, our mom is a wonderful baker and a natural at instruction having been a teacher herself. The first lesson is always kitchen hygiene and safety. After that, she taught us how to follow a recipe, to measure dry and wet ingredients properly, prepare the pans and little tricks that nobody ever really has written down but will help you to turn out a better product.

At school we did simple things like rice krispy treats and chocolate chip cookies. Nothing too dangerous and the end result was popular. It was at home that she taught me trickier stuff, like candy making. She taught me first how to make chocolate fudge. Then it was on to homemade caramels!

I made a batch of caramels this week. George has had a craving for American style caramels. There isn't an easy way to get them out here in darkest Dumfriesshire so I said that I would make them. I had enough corn syrup left for a final batch. Corn syrup aka Karo Syrup cannot be purchased here. I have to have it imported or buy some when I am across in the US. Because I have just used up the last of the syrup, we won't be having another batch produced for a while.

This is a photo of the pot I use to make candy. This pan has a very heavy bottom and my candy thermometer in there. It is a European model thermometer with the centigrade scale on it. My mom was impressed because she initially thought that I would do a mental conversion to Fahrenheit while cooking. I don't have to do that because in addition to the temperature it has the different stages of hardness that candy goes through marked on the opposite side to the temperature. I also use the glass of cold water method of checking at what stage the candy has progressed. Belt and braces.

Making candy involves boiling your ingredients, mostly sugar, butter and cream for a long time over a low heat while stirring constantly. The temperature creeps up very slowly and you have to keep an eye on it. Life isn't over if you don't have a candy thermometer. If you lack a thermometer, then a glass of cold water will do in its place.

It goes like this: After you have been boiling your ingredients for a while, drip a bit of the mixture into a glass of cold water. What happens to the candy as it is rapidly cooled in the cold water indicates how far along it has come. If it plops to the bottom of the glass in a bit of a splat, then it is no where near being ready as candy. If you want caramels then naturally you've got to cook things for longer or until the candy forms a soft ball in the bottom of the glass. To get candy to that stage (soft ball) it takes about an hour. If you want something harder, then of course, you've got to cook it for longer.

I was thinking about Mom and electives all the while I was making caramels. I managed to get a really good batch of caramel too. I had removed it from the stove at just the right time. It can be tricky when it is coming to the end of being done because it is then that the risk of scorching and burning is at its highest.

It was about 9 pm by the time the candy was ready to be poured out. It really wasn't cool enough to cut into squares before I went to sleep but I tried anyway. I made a right mess of the corner of the pan of still warm candy but I really needed a small taste just to "make sure". It was pretty darned near perfect.

In the morning, I turned the cooled caramel lump out onto the big cutting board and with my biggest sharp knife, I cut it all into small squares. The messed up corner from the night before was very easily tidied up. I was going to wrap each piece as you are supposed to, but really. I had to go to work and life is too short. I dumped all those lovely caramel pieces into a big plastic container and sealed it all up.

The last of the pieces was eaten last night (by me). If a batch of candy lasts more than a day, we're doing pretty well. Its going to be a long while until another batch is produced. This is probably a good thing. I really don't need to be eating all that caramel. Look, its empty. No more candy.