Valentine's Day, 2023

 We are just getting over colds. Mike got it first, then me. We are about done, probably not contagious. 

❤️.   

I took a shower, tied up my hair, wore a mask, washed up a lot and made some goodies to give to ministering people. But Mike gets to deliver to our Primary classes. It's snowing and I'm exhausted!

I had a few frustrations along the way. The goal was caramel and chocolate dipped pretzel rods.

Homemade caramel. Check.

Chocolate chips melted in double boiler. Check.

Candy melts to drizzle over. Check.

First snafu- caramel sticks to wax paper. Badly.

Ever after chilling in fridge and garage. Oh well...  What a mess. I salvaged most by peeling off the wax paper, but WE are just gonna have to add a bit of fiber to OUR diet! Cuz we are eating the most paper-covered.

The most broken and stickiest ones.

Next snafu-- the candy melts were far more sensitive to heat than I'd anticipated. 30 seconds in microwave curdled/coagulated them. Who knew?. I'd started in the double boiler, but that seemed too slow....

But eventually they were all dipped in caramel, extracted from the wax paper, dipped in melted chocolate and laid to set on PARCHMENT paper this time. <Sigh>

Then the drizzles worked okay after a did a tiny batch on 50% power in the microwave.  Check.

But I thought I'd do a few drizzles in pink, so I melted a tad more white melts ( very carefully and slowly) and added food coloring. Oops, that didn't work. Adding "water" to the melts ALSO stiffens and coagulates them!! Apparently a few drops of red food coloring equals a few drops of water. Oh well.  So chocolate and white it is!

I think this is just junk now, sadly. They will never melt smoothly, I don't think. I tried the oil fix on the package ( note to self-- read the instruction FIRST next time!).

Here is an appropriate place to keep them cool until they are delivered, right ? --- The hood of my car in the garage.  It IS snowing and cold outside, after all.

All packed up and ready to go! A little chocolate and some pretty bags go a long way in covering up some really big snafu episodes.❤️😉