Taffy Apples & Popcorn Balls

I'm a child of the 1980s, which means that every year after trick-or-treating, my parents would rifle through my candy and make sure to discard anything homemade, just in case, you know, there were razors hidden inside it.

Which means that every year, I would see popcorn balls, but never be allowed to taste a popcorn ball. And that is how I made it to my 29th Halloween without ever tasting a popcorn ball. I asked Judson what a popcorn ball tasted like before making this recipe, because he's five years older than me and so when it comes to weird childhood things from the 1980s, he often knows things I don't. 'I can't really remember,' he answered, 'but I think it's just like popcorn with peanut butter in the middle.'

And that was how I learned that popcorn balls in the South and popcorn balls in Florida were completely different in the 1980s. 

Note that this recipe is written on the back of a dry cleaning receipt.

So when I found a recipe for popcorn balls and another one for taffy apples in the box, I was super excited to make them. Halloween has always been my favourite holiday, as long as I can remember, so of course I was stoked to make some Halloween treats for my friends.Unlike the ones I grew up receiving as a treat at Halloween (but never actually tasting), I chose not to dye these popcorn balls, though, because, I mean, eww.

Anyway, you still have time to make these treats to gift to your friends for Halloween, but for the love of God, don't hand them out to trick-or-treaters or you'll raise another generation of people like me whose parents will just throw away their treats. Oh... and in case you're still brainstorming costumes for this weekend, here are a few ideas for you:

Note in case you're not from the Northern US that, although called Taffy Apples, these are an exact replica of what I grew up calling candy apples, and what are called, here in the UK, toffee apples. Nomenclature notwithstanding, these are insanely simple to make, and a perfect accompaniment to your Halloween/All Saints/Bonfire Night festivities. Note also that I couldn't get my mitts on any popsicle sticks, so I had to use bamboo skewers. This is not recommended because they're too flimsy to hold the apple very well, but since I was giving these to adults who will likely be cutting them off the stick to eat anyway, I figured it was fine in this instance.

THE VERDICT:

5 spoons out of five. Come on, they're homemade Halloween treats, what did you expect?

The recipe:

Popcorn Balls

the directions:

Preheat oven to 120C/250F.
Place popped popcorn in a large, greased pan and put in oven.
In a large pot, stir together corn syrup and sugar.
Stirring constantly, bring to a boil over medium heat, then stop stirring.
Cook until temperature reaches 140C/290F, about 10 minutes (until a spoonful of syrup dropped into cold water separates into hard-- not brittle-- threads).
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
Slowly pour mixture over popcorn, stirring well.
Allow to cool just enough to handle.
Grease hands well and quickly shape popcorn into balls.

Makes 4 balls.

the ingredients:

2 c freshly popped popcorn, plain
½ c corn syrup or golden syrup
½ c sugar
½ tsp vanilla

---

the recipe:

Taffy Apples

the directions:

Grease a cookie sheet very well and set aside.
Wash and dry apples and insert popsicle sticks in the stem end.
Set apples aside.
In a small saucepan, combine sugar, syrup, water, and vinegar and stir well.
Cook over low heat to 300F (hard crack stage on a candy thermometer) or until a spoonful of syrup dropped into cold water separates into hard (not brittle) threads.
Remove from heat and add a few drops of red food colouring.
Dip apples into hot mixture and roll until covered, removing quickly.
Re-dip until taffy covers apples.
Set apples on end on prepared cookie sheet.

Note: If taffy begins to harden in pot, put pan in boiling water or over double boiler and reheat.

THE INGREDIENTS:

3 medium apples
3 popsicle sticks
¾ c sugar
1/6 c corn syrup or golden syrup
1/6 c water
¼ tbsp vinegar
Red food coloring

Spooky, Scary Cheesecake, or, Soft-Crust, Super-Easy Cheesecake

Either I've become an expert cheesecake maker (unlikely) or this recipe is one of the easier cheesecakes I've made from the box so far. Either way, you should probably stop what you're doing and make this soon.

When I was a kid (and a teenager) I loved cheesecake. (Probably because I hadn't made one a month for the better part of a year, but that's neither here nor there). My dad loved to cook, so every year during my teen years, he'd make me a cheesecake for my birthday, using a recipe he claimed to have gotten from Eleanor (I now have my doubts about that). The year I turned sixteen, he ran out of graham crackers to make the crust so he decided to make it with Golden Grahams-- a honey-graham flavoured breakfast cereal available in the US (I view this as proof that I come by my improvisational cooking skills legitimately). Anyway, the blender he was using to grind the Golden Grahams wasn't sturdy enough to grind them, so he did what any normal Hurm man would do in the situation (and what no Hurm woman would ever even consider) and picked up the entire blender, base and all, and started shaking it while it was running.

Do I even need to tell you that this ended badly?

Well, I will. Because it did. The entire kitchen was covered in Golden Graham crumbs, from the pot rack that hung from the ceiling to the hood of the stove, to the stovetop itself, there were honey-graham crumbs everywhere. I don't remember who ended up cleaning up the mess (or how we got it sorted before my birthday party started), but it must have happened because one of the things I remember from that party is the fact that, as it turns out, Golden Grahams make an amazing pie crust. Nowadays I can't pop to the store for Golden Grahams anymore, and even if I could, I wouldn't use them in pie crusts as even now they remain my favourite breakfast cereal.

The night of the exploding blender was also the night that I realised why I didn't like my dad's cheesecakes, and the night I finally worked up the nerve to tell him that I didn't like them. As it turns out, my dad had always been making my birthday cheesecakes 'the Northern way.' The Northern way, to him, meant pouring a thin layer of sour cream cut with milk over the top of the cooked cheesecake, and I hated it. However, since cheesecakes are just shades of white, I never realised that the sour cream layer was the part I disliked, until that night when he was about to pour it on. 'WAIT!' I shrieked. 'Do we havvvvvvve to add that?' I questioned, in the way only a teenager can. My dad, confused about my reaction, poured the sour cream back into the container and the cheesecake was served bare (but probably topped with cherry pie filling, because we weren't a couple of heathens). And it was delicious.

Good luck reading that. 

Up until this cheesecake, this has been my only experience with sour-cream-topped cheesecakes, so I kind of suspected my dad had made the entire thing up because pouring sour cream over a cheesecake is a surefire way to cover up any cracks in the top of the cheesecake while also masking any brown spots that cooked faster than other areas. (But, if you're like me, you might not like the way it tastes.) This cheesecake recipe, however, includes a thin layer of sour cream on top, and it's delicious. Maybe because it's cut with vanilla and sugar, or maybe just because the cheesecake itself is a lot heavier on the crust than it is on the filling, but it's delicious. So don't let the sour cream layer freak you out-- it's the perfect contrast to the crispy, buttery crust and the creamy, sweet filling.

Make this cheesecake for the Halloween party you RSVPed for but still don't have a costume for, and everyone will love you for it. Bonus? You don't even need a springform pan!

The verdict:

4 spoons out of five. This is the first cheesecake I've made that had not a single crack in the top of it, so it's a great 'starter' cheesecake if you've never made one. Plus, it doesn't even require any special tools: you can easily mix it by hand and bake it in a regular pan. It's also a pretty basic cheesecake-- there's no strong cream cheese flavour and it's light and fluffy without being overly heavy or dense. 

 

the recipe:

Soft-Crust, Super-Easy Cheesecake

the directions:
crust:

Preheat oven to 170C/325F.
Stir together crumbs, butter, and sugar until well-blended.
Press into bottom and sides of a 6x9 or similar pan.
Set aside while you make the filling.

Filling:

Beat the cream cheese until smooth and fluffy.
Add one egg at a time, beating after each addition.
Add sugar and vanilla and mix until smooth.
Pour into prepared crust and bake for 30-40 minutes.
Let cool (cake may drop a little, but have no fear!).

Topping:

Preheat oven to 245C/475F (if your oven goes that high).
Beat together sour cream, sugar, and vanilla.
Spread over the cooled cake and bake for 5 minutes.

Note: The recipe says that this cheesecake freezes well, but I haven't tried it. If you do, let me know!

the ingredients:
the crust:

1 c graham crackers or Rich Tea biscuits, ground to fine crumbs
2 oz butter, melted
¼ c sugar

the filling:

12 oz cream cheese
2 eggs
½ c sugar
¾ t vanilla
 

the topping:

1 c sour cream
2 tbsp sugar
½ t vanilla

Byzantine Lamb

Here in the UK, daylight savings time ended over the weekend (or started? I don't know how DST works, but we fell back an hour), and now I am getting up during daylight hours but getting off work after work and so far that is not my favourite thing. This is my third Scottish autumn/winter, but I still haven't gotten used to how quickly the seasons change. Living this far north (Edinburgh is on the same latitude line as Alaska!) means that when winter comes, it comes on fast, with the days shrinking until they're only a few hours long. Conversely, it also means that the summer days are so long they seem endless... it's a nice tradeoff, once you get used to the short winter days. But the first few are always a brutal trade, and it doesn't help that the UK, for some reason, does time-changes on a different calendar than the rest of the world, meaning it happens two weeks before my birthday, instead of the weekend of my birthday, like in the US. So, with the time change comes my desire for warm, hearty meals that are still relatively healthy, and thus enters Byzantine Lamb.

As previously discussed last time I made a lamb recipe from the box, we're not really big lamb eaters in the Cowan house. Unless it comes in a curry or in Greek food, we generally stay away from lamb, but not really for any good reason other than the fact that lamb done badly is really bad, whereas most other meats done badly are still, well, edible. While living Stateside, it was easy to avoid lamb-- I don't remember the grocery stores selling it, and try though I might, I never found a decent Greek restaurant in the last few US cities I lived in. Here in Scotland, though, lamb is everywhere. It's always on the menu at restaurants, it has as much space devoted to it at the grocery store as beef does, and, in a country that boasts more sheep (6 million) than people (5 million), it's a pretty ubiquitous dish.

So I've been excited about this Byzantine Lamb recipe for awhile: I mean, it comes from Byzantium, so how could I not be stoked about this? Judson, too, was totally into it until I revealed that it involves a can of tomato soup... at which point I lost him until the dish was on the table and he tasted it and realised how delicious it was. Don't let the weird inclusion of a can of soup deter you: this meal is delicious, and it includes a ton of veggies I usually can't find uses for, like aubergines/eggplants and bell peppers. Plus, because of how long it cooks, you can clean up the entire kitchen before you actually sit down to the meal, and then have minimal clean-up after dinner. We really enjoyed this meal, surprisingly. It makes enough for a good amount of leftovers, but it reheats pretty well, so we didn't mind (though we didn't fight about them the way we did with last week's chili and cornbread).

You can spice it up with sriracha if you're more into that, or just have it plain if that's how you roll. Next time we make it, we're going to swap out the can of soup for a can of tomato passata, but it's still delicious with the soup, and I'd still recommend it. Plus, when was the last time you ate something Byzantine for dinner?

P.S. The reverse of this recipe includes a coupon that expired in 1971. The fine print on the coupon begins 'Dear Mr. Grocer....,' so if I learn nothing else from this recipe project, it's at least nice to know how far women have come since the days of the 1970s, when they weren't even allowed to be grocers.

The verdict:

3 spoons out of five. Swap the soup for a can of tomatoes as noted above, and you can definitely boost this to 4 spoons.

The recipe:

Byzantine Lamb

the directions:

Sprinkle the lamb with salt and pepper, then roast the lamb for 10 minutes at 200C/400F or until just barely cooked through, then set aside.
In a skillet, cook aubergines/eggplant and green pepper with garlic and thyme in butter until tender.
Add soup and lamb.
Bring to a boil, then stir in rice.
Cover and cook over low heat 10 minutes or until most of liquid is absorbed.
Drizzle with lemon juice and serve with fresh lemon slices.

Yields 4 hearty servings.

the ingredients:

2 c aubergine/eggplant, cubed, from about 1 ½ medium aubergines
1/3 c green bell pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
¼ tsp thyme (less if dried)
2 tbsp butter
1 can tomato soup
1 lb lamb, cut in strips
1 1/3 c rice
1 lemon, cut in slices