LABOUR OF LOVE

Every year I have good intentions of making one of my mother's favorite confections - Chocolate Covered Orange Peel.  Unfortunately, it never makes it on to my very long To Do lists, well except for this year of course.  To make things a little more exciting, I chose to make Christmas Candy instead of Christmas Cookies because, well, quite frankly, I am bored with making cookies.  I guess my stint at running an organic bakery kind of wore that novelty thin.  So I got busy with the chocolate last week, and I am still reeling from the sugar highs.  First there wast the Chocolate Covered Toffee which was very exciting to make because toffee is one of my favorite foods.  This toffee is so much easier to eat too because it is made with Brown Rice Syrup, so it's not sicky sweet.  Ok, so it is sicky sweet, but not deathly sicky sweet.  After gorging on that, I made a batch of Soule Mama's well loved Chocolate Peppermint Candy, well because she can't stop talking about it, so it must be pretty good.  Well, she's right, it is very good.  I made the mistake of trying to make a second batch using homemade white chocolate, which definitely isn't as good as store bought, so in case you have any inclination of doing this yourself as well, I don't recommend it.  

The grand finale was the chocolate covered orange peel which I adapted from this recipe and then dipped in melted dark organic chocolate (if you make this recipe, be sure to omit the sugaring before you dip!) 

Good thing I was making those for someone I really love, because quite honestly, they are a lot of work.  The whole time I kept thinking " Mom, you are so worth this, that is the only reason I am doing it!"  I really hope she enjoys them because a lot of love went into making them. 

 As I was scraping the extra pith off of each and ever piece of orange peel, I suddenly had a great idea that would make quick work of this grueling task.  How appropriate that my mother recently gave me an Alaskan Ulu the last time she came for a visit.  This very sharp blade is the perfect tool for scraping pith, or anything for that matter.  Maybe she had a premonition I would really need it one day to make her gifts!?

The orange and chocolate theme continued into today, Winter Solstice, when Faegan and I baked a birthday cake for the sun and used one of the leftover peeled oranges to make a sun for decoration.  Lovely and yummy.  Happy Solstice everyone!