A Birthday Make-up Day

I recently told you about our Epiphany Birthday party with Julie.  Her gift to me, a tea cozy that she was making, was not quite ready, and  I had tried to make her divinity fudge, but it was a sad failure – only the second divinity failure of my life!  Oh!  The very first time I made it, it was a flop too, but I don’t count that, as it was bound to fail, given the scantiness of detail in my recipe and the fact that I didn’t use a candy thermometer.  Rumor has it that you can’t make divinity on a rainy day, and I attributed my recent failure to that.  However, I knew that I had made divinity in the rain before.  This is Seattle, after all.  But I was waiting for a day on which it didn’t rain, and I didn’t work.  That combination just was not happening.  As Julie’s gift to me was ready, I invited her dinner so we could exchange our gifts, and had another go at the divinity fudge. This time, it turned out well, despite the rain. I think I just didn’t beat it long enough last time.  It seemed to take hours, and I couldn’t  have done it without my Kitchenaid.  I didn’t have a Kitchen aid in my youth, but I was more athletic then.  Also, I could make Dennis or Rebecca take a turn at stirring.  Once your arm is pained with beating it, and you see that it is beginning to lose its shine, and therefore is ready to make into little blobs, you have to work very quickly if you want it to be shiny and beautiful.  As it cools, it becomes stiff and a little curdled looking.  I realized that in the past, Rebecca had helped me quickly form it into little blobby pieces.  I was not quite fast enough by myself, and the end ones are not very attractive.  I had decided to swirl in chocolate shavings for the second half, making half of the blobs pristine white, and half spotted with chocolate.  

The combination of the snowy white pieces and the marbled chocolate pieces reminded me of an illustration in the Baltimore Catechism, a major feature (and rather a thorn) of my Catholic youth.  The catechism was illustrated with pius pictures, but the  one which most impressed me was of milk bottles representing souls in various states of sinfulness.  The white milk was the pure, sinless soul.  The spotty one was a soul with venial sins, and the black one was an evil soul in a state of mortal sin.  I would have had to make some chocolate fudge to have all three. 

Karen asked for the recipe for the divinity, and here it is.   It's from a 1967 Woman's Day

Marbled Divinity

½ cup corn syrup

2 ½ cups sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

½ water

2 egg whites

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a saucepan, mix the first four ingredients. Cook, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.  Cook without stirring, until a small amount forms a firm ball when dropped in cold water (248°F).  Beat the egg whites until stiff.  Pour about half the mixture very slowly  (in a very thin stream) into the egg whites, beating all the time.  Cook the remainder of the sugar mixture until it forms hard threads (272°F).  Slowly add to the first mixture and beat until it is very stiff.  When it is ready, it will just begin to loose its shine.  Now you have to work very quickly.  Add the vanilla, and, using two spoons, drop in blobs onto waxed paper. 

For the marbled effect, at the last moment, stir in about ½ cup shaved semisweet chocolate and stir it just enough to distribute it in swirls.  Topping each piece with a walnut half is yummy too. 

 

A not so divine day

Once again we are celebrating Julie’s Epiphany birthday with a wonderful dinner which she has prepared.  And once again, we are exchanging our often home-made gifts.  And once again, some of the gifts are not quite ready.  This must be part of our tradition, I think, as at least one present is not ready every year.  I usually feel that I have forever to prepre my gift, now that my Christmas gift making hysteria is by, and the Twelfth Night is a long way off.  I become overconfident, and thus less frenzied about getting done on time. This year, Julie made lovely tea cosies for Rebecca and I, and mine is not quite done.  But it soon will be.  Sadly, I cannot say the same of my present for Julie.  It never will be done, in the sense of ready to present.  Also sadly, it probably will soon be done, in the sense of eaten up. 

I have made divinity fudge many times, but not for a long time.  I first learned to make it in the eighth grade class of that termagant, Sister Hilda Marie.  After observing her making it in our school kitchen, carefully transcribing the recipe, noting the elusive sugar threads and all Sister Hilda Marie’s other culinary techniques, I tried it at home.  It was a disastrous gooey mess.  Later, as a young bride, with a cookbook and a candy thermometer (no arcane thread watching for me now!), I tried it again, and this time with signal success.  It became one of my signature dishes.  However, it has been many years since I made it, and I was anxious to make it again.  If it were a gift, I could eat one or two pieces, thus not making myself sick or fatter, and have a lovely present.   I knew that it was rumored to be trickier, if not fatal, to make it on a rainy day, but my recipe said to heat the syrup two degrees hotter if it was raining, and I was quite certain that I had made it on rainy days.  This is Seattle, after all.  Well, in this case, the rumors turned out to be too true, and my efforts resulted in another gooey mess.  Instead of delightful little melt-in-your mouth puffs, I had sticky, oozey puddles of sugary glue.  I considered throwing the whole batch down the sink.   But --- they didn’t taste bad at all.  Rather like little blobs of seven-minute frosting, my favorite.  I didn’t quite have the fortitude to toss them, and now every time I walk by them, I have to take a sticky blob – just to test it and see if it still tastes like divinity, even if it doesn’t look or feel like it.  It does. It tastes wonderful - a dangerous for the waistline situation.

Years ago, I made a batch of divinity for my Great Aunt Agnes, who loved it.  I asked Dakki, then a young thing, do deliver it.  She agreed.  When I next visited Aunt Agnes, I asked her if she had enjoyed the divinity.  She looked perplexed.  Dakki looked very embarrassed.  Maybe, on the next clear day,  when I make another batch for Julie, I had better make some for Dakki too.  Don’t tell her.  It will be a nice surprise.