Contestant #1 of the Sour taste test: Warheads Hard Candy

Warheads Hard Candy

 

 

 

 

Purchased - Dollorama

Cost- 2$- 144g

This epic candy is THE candy for those who like sour candy. You get 5 flavours with lemon being the sourest of them all (at least in my opinion). The  sourness of this candy is awesome but after thirty seconds sour disappears and leaves you with a boring hard candy. However, this is not bad as it gives your tongue the time to relax a bit before the next one as these are so sour your tongue is so raw after only three of these. While I love sour I think it would get dangerous if the sour lasted through the candy. Your tongue might fall off (or at least start bleeding)! Another thing that is great about this candy is the price, in the bag which I had bought for 2$ I got approximately 35 individually wrapped candies, which is quite a good bargain as I use to buy these at 15 cents and the convenience store when I was young.

Sourness scale 10/10 for the first 30 seconds and then 0/10 for the rest of the candy

Taste scale: 7/10 sour tastes like sour (no flavour really) but the artificial flavours are indeed artificial. While I like the taste of these my friend absolutely hates it.

Would I repurchase/ recommend: Absolutely, these are one of my favourite sour candy.

 

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On a mission to find sourness!

Hello everyone,
As an avid lover of all that is sour, I have been disappointed so many times by candy and snacks who claim to be sour and end up being the opposite of that. After having done a tad bit of research I realised that no one seem to have done a series of taste testing candy which claim to be sour, so I have decided to do just so. I do not know how long this will last but wish me luck and I hope I don't kill my taste buds in the process... But if I do it shall be for a good cause!
So here I go, surly to be disappointed by many of these products!

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Roast beef time!

Okay guys so now it wont be as much of a recipe but more of a technique. Many people probably know this but for those who don't here is how to cook a perfect roast beef.

First if you wish to have more of a 'crust'  on your roast beef you must sear the meat. Searing is actually caramelizing the sugar in the meat and browns the proteins. You do this by putting oil in a pan on medium high- high heat and quickly cooking the meat Once it browns on one side flip it over and continue until the meat is all brown. You must only cook the exterior and not much of the interior so be careful!

Second you must season the roast. If you have already marinated your beef then move on but for those who haven't you can use Dijon mustard and slather it all over. You can use garlic and if you use whole pieces of  garlic you can cut slits in the roast and insert the pieces to add flavor and really infuse the meat. You can really use anything for this step really

Here is my seared and seasoned Roast beef


Next you can stick it in the oven at 350F

This step  varies alot with the weight of the beef  the size and shape and also your preference of doneness
If you rather
Rare: 125F
Medium Rare: 135F-140F
Medium:  145F-150F
Well done : 155F-160F

You must cook it until a thermometer indicates 5-10 degrees until desired doneness

Once taken out leave it out for 20 minutes so it completely finishes cooking and no worries it will not get cold it will still be steaming hot. Now I have not tried out the different temperatures other than the rare so I cannot confirm exactly that this will be exactly how you wish it to be but it was perfect for me. Its a pretty fool proof method and tastes devin no matter how you season it

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Royal Icing

 Now it is time to do one of the easiest recipe I have ever done. We will be doing a thinned out version because we will be flooding the cookies. I decided to be lazy so I did it a tab bit thicker so I could do the contouring and the flooding in one go.

Ingredients
2 eggs white
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3 cups confectioners sugar

Have your ingredients ready
I used pasteurized egg whites because I didn't feel like wasting the egg yolk

Next shift your sugar

While shifting your sugar you can whisk your egg whites  and lemon juice untill bubles form

Slowly add the powdered sugar

Add lemon juice/ powdered sugar untill right consistency. It must take around 20 seconds to come back together from the time you 'cut' through it

I then seperated it into two colours  one for the cookies the other for the detailing

I put them in baggies so it would be eaiser to put in the piping  tubes

 To ice the cookies I circled the icing around the borders and the middle in. You can use a toothpick to smooth the icing

I left it to dry for an hour and then added the white detailing. I  a paintbrush dipped in water to add texture. Here are the final  you see where I started to get lazy/tired and made simple designs

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Thick Sugar Cookies

For the week coming it happens to be my march break/ spring break / reading week or what ever else you wish to call it, and I plan on baking a lot. For a long time I have been seeing the prettiest cookies that had been decorated with Royal Icing. Today is the day I decided to make make them.
I already have a recipe for sugar cookies from my good friend Betty Crocker and they make the most wonderful thing sugar cookies but I wanted a something different since these cookies would end up quite thick so I started my quest to find good recipe. I found one and here is what I did.

Thick Rolled Cookies
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups butter (softened)
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

All my ingredients here. I diced the butter to soften it faster. 

   In a large mixing bowl cream all the sugar and the butter together 

(I used the whisk attachment to my mixer)

Beat in eggs and vanilla adding only one egg at the time

(I used the paddle attachment)

Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt.

(I started with the paddle attachment but then switched to the bread hook attachment)

(Sorry for the missing picture)

I then transfered it into a smaller bowl

And  refrigerated it for an hour

 ( I had no place in my fridge so I used the next best thing... Winter!

The picture is horrible but snow is not very photogenic at this angle...)

After having refrigerated at least an hour but less that 24 hours I pulled out my rolling pin, mat  cookie cutters and extra flour

I then put some flour on the mat put a nice size ball of dough and rolled it out until it was more or less 7 mm thick and used my cookie cutters to cut  the shapes out. I used a glass to make a round shape

Next put the cookies on a parchment paper covered pan and stick in the oven 6-8 minutes until slightly brown

 I made many large cookies and froze about two smallish logs

                              These smell buttery when you take them out of the oven but don't taste that much like butter. They were great and easy to make. In my next post I will decorate them. with Royal icing but if you're making these with children you can pull out the sprinkles and let them decorate them before baking.

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My Love of Cooking and Baking

I do not remember a time where I did not enjoy cooking. When I was small I remember my mom making her traditional sugar cookies during Christmas time and I think that may have been the start for me. Istarted with boxed cake and simple recipes and slowly I got better but never did my love for cooking especially desserts end. Even to this day my love is so great for cooking that I have enrolled in a school to become chef, hopefully pastry chef.

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