i get really angry when recipes don’t work the way they should. its mostly because deep down, i know it was my fault and i did something wrong, but i’d rather blame the recipe. anyway, after i found chow’s recipes for homemade halloween candy a few weeks ago, i decided that would be my next cooking challenge. i opted to go for the home made twix. after reading through the recipe, i was feeling ok about my chances of succeeding in this. its a three part recipe: first, shortbread. easy, i thought, as i’ve made these a time or two and had no problems creating shortbread. second, caramel. again, i’ve made caramel on numerous occasions, including the aforementioned recipe. and third, tempering chocolate. this was new for me, and frankly scared me a little. you have to melt the chocloate, get it to 118 degrees (if it gets to 120 its ruined), drop it to 80 degrees, then raise it again to 85-87 degrees while you’re dipping and if you get out of that range, it won’t work. whew. worst case scenario: i’d have delicious shortbread and caramel with some messed up chocolate. i didn’t think i’d get too many complaints about that, so decided to give it a go.

whole foods actually carried the el rey 41% milk chocolate bars that i needed, and at a much better price than what i was finding online. still, the chocolate was $15, but i figured that was a small price to pay for an afternoon of cooking adventures. now there was even more pressure to make this work - $15 is a lot to spend on chocolate.

i started friday afternoon with the shortbread. this is where the disaster ensued. i screwed up the shortbread by using butter that was a little too cool. that’s right, i messed up this 18 step recipe just between steps two and three. needless to say, i was not happy about this and did not have enough time (or butter) to try it again friday.

however, i do have good news to report. after taking some time away from the kitchen (unless you count the delicious mulled cider i made friday night) i was determined to put my pricey chocolate to good use. my second attempt turned out much better, and we actually manage to correctly temper the chocolate - they really look and taste like candy bars! i must admit, in the rush to dip them all and keep the chocolate in the proper temperature range, we did get sloppy, so they might not be the prettiest candy bars, but i think they’ll be better next time, now that i’m not so frightened of tempering chocolate. and, now i know how not to make shortbread.