A Profitable Day (With Only Minor Hiccoughs)

Like so many profitable days, this one started with oatmeal.

That the oatmeal was past its best and rather bitter was neither here nor there, it was improved with cranberries and golden syrup (the topping of champions).

The next step was making Turkish Delight. From the recipe in Gifts from the Kitchen.

Turkish Delight mixture looks like wallpaper paste and smells like a pig farm. (Just so you know!)

Looks very much prettier once set and covered in icing sugar and cornflour.

Unfortunately it suffered some what from syneresis (no, I'd never heard of it either) and it had to go back into the pan, be melted down and have 1/8th of a teaspoon of xanthan gum added to control this.

The Computer Geek (for whom this was a Christmas present) has not yet reported back on whether it is acceptable.

The day improved markedly, though, with the creation of much candied peel.

Orange, lemon and grapefruit. I followed the recipe given by Mary-Anne Boermans on her blog for this year's Candied Peel, and it turned out rather well. It had the honour of garnishing my mother's chocolate cassata bombe at Christmas Dinner, and will keep my father happy for many days, maybe even weeks, to come.

And finally there were the Lebkuchen, thanks to The Pink Whisk.

And that was the profitable day... minus the very squishy fudge.