Cold Thursday

calluses

It thawed a bit today, so I took advantage of the non-frozen roads by going to the gym. I set a new squat PR, at 155 lbs. I probably could have done more, but I was working without a spotter, so I left it at that. It’s moving forward, slowly, but forward nevertheless.

Last night I made more peanut brittle again–this was the third batch. It was over 90% humidity, so I cooked it to about 308 degrees (instead of to 300 as the recipe instructed). It makes me nervous, because it always seems like the butter in the recipe is burning when it gets that hot, but it came out perfect. Nice and crunchy, and good color too. I am also starting to get the hang of testing the sugar syrup by hand using the cold water method. I tested at the “soft crack” stage last night (which is when I add the baking soda and butter), and it separated into pliable threads, exactly like Joy said it would. However, when I tried testing the finished candy at the “hard crack” stage, it just dripped into the water in little gooey droplets and didn’t separate into threads at all. Alas, you win some and you lose some. Nevertheless, the brittle came out great, so now I have some to bring to Christmas, as the previous batch was happily hoovered up by Dave’s party guests.

Brittle number three.