Library Ladies Candy-Making

Last weekend, my friend (and fellow aspiring librarian) Vige and I had a Sunday afternoon date. As the light played on the snowy tree outside the window, we stayed inside and tried our hand at a little old fashioned candy making. In honor of Valentines Day, we decided on these Blood Orange Almond Caramels. One can never, after all, have enough caramels.

We juiced, reduced, and stirred in butter, milk and sugar until just this side of burned (I had a near miss with some gunk on the bottom of the pot), poured it over almonds and sprinkled with salt, and this was the result:

We decided to bring the candy to a slightly lower temperature than the recipe indicated, as I prefer my caramels soft and chewy. While all this was going on, we engaged in eminently civilized activities: lunch, rye whiskey, and poetry readings. It was an unusually lovely afternoon, and we hope to repeat it soon (in fact, tomorrow), and try out some Turkish Delight. The candy, when cut, was just to the hard side of chewy, and the flavor was good, but needed a little punch. Blood oranges don't have a strong enough taste for me...next time I would add some tangerine, or lemon. The almonds, which I was a little nervous about, were perfect, and made the caramels much easier to cut neatly. The poets were W.G. Sebald and Walt Whitman.