Nut Crunch

My mum bought this thing from Costco that is basically cashews, pumpkin seeds and almonds, smothered in hard sugar coating. It's a "cashew nut crunch" thing... and I tried to emulate it.

I think I dumped in some baking soda into the corn syrup way too early... it was when the syrup was at the soft ball stage, rather than the hard crack stage. I poured it over the fruit and pine nut and almond and peanut and soy nut mix at this point, and, a few hours later, the whole mixture was still gooey. In other words, it was more "chewy" bar than "crunchy" bar, if I were to liken it to granola bars. So, I started microwaving chunks of it, 20 to 30 seconds per batch. In my first timid batch, the fruit completely burned out from the inside... but the nuts were really crunchy and flavourful. The remaining batches were zapped to a crunchy consistency, but they're still rather soggy, due to the fruit. The sugary stuff has solidified, though, but still isn't crunchy. I need to learn how to make candy. In the past, when I made caramel, taffy, and fudge, I never went past the soft ball stage. I don't think I dare myself to. Next time... however...

I wonder what chocolate gummies taste like. I have some leftover corn syrup and a lot of cocoa powder... this is gonna be interesting, when I try it out.

Cheese Puffs!!!! [aka, Pufferfish]

They are not crackers. They are not Goldfish crackers. They are... PUFFERFISH CRACKERS! Literally, in the sense that they're poofy, cheesy [tastes like Goldfish, sorta], and honestly soo delicious!!! I have never baked anything so easy! You basically pulverise everything and mash it up and make globs of it and bake it. :D
So... I initially wanted to recreate the ubiquitous Goldfish cracker, which I adore with an emotional passion [track. track. track.]. I found this recipe, and decided to follow it, with some tweaking. Of course, anything I tweak ends up very different from the original, so instead of having crunchy crackers... I got gooey oozy cheesy ones. To make these you need:
1. pepper.
2. 20 turns of sea salt from the sea salt grinder.
3. 2 cups of flour.
4. 3 cups of cheddar cheese. I used the one from Costco. You know, big bag of shredded orange stuff.
5. 5 tsp butter [we ran out].
6. 1 tbsp oil.
7. water.
8. Whatever herbs you want. I added oregano.

Method:
1. Pulse everything dry + butter in the food processor. I don't have a food processor...so I pulsed everything in the blender.
2. Add oil.
3. Add water, 1 tbsp at a time, until you can make a dough that comes together and is even. You do not want a batter.
4. Stick it in the fridge in a container for as long as you want. For me, that was 40 hours.
5. Scoop balls of it out and flatten. You actually don't have to flatten them if you wanna make 3D pastry-type cheese balls. I initially used a bottle cap to make the circle, but it was wayyyy too tedious.
6. Bake at 350F for 13 minutes. If you want crunchy ones, bake for 14 minutes. If you like preheating your oven [which I don't], you can bake for 10 minutes.
7. Pick them up and eat them. You don't need to grease your pan, by the way.
They were delicious. My grandpa liked them... and he doesn't even like cheese! I made... 35 + 35 + 11 + 14 + 5 = around 100. Wow. Hmm I could start my own bakery.
Oh did I say? It smelled. Out of this world... and into the sea :P