Bon-Bons and Butterfingers

Every year my mom, sister, and I get together to make treats for our friends for Christmas. It's been a pretty fun tradition the past few years. This year we decided to dip chocolates instead of making our usual candies. We were each in charge of bringing things to dip and then we would all share so that we each had a variety of treats to hand out. I wasn't too sure what to dip...I'm not a very good cook so I thought I'd do something easy, but I also thought it would be fun to "get outside the box" and try something new to stretch my skills. My grandma used to make chocolates every year so she gave me some recipes for bon-bons and butterfingers. A bold move, I know. The recipes seemed pretty simple, fool proof my Grandma said. I was feeling saucy the night before the dipping began so I started making the bon-bons and was really proud of myself for actually preparing something, all on my own (my mom had other stuff going on and said she couldn't help me, I think she's secretly trying to force me to be more independent in the kitchen)! I doubled the recipe and didn't realize that it would make so many. There were only 4 or 5 ingredients that I had to mix together and then roll into balls...and it ended up making about 200 of those little guys. Well, 4 hours later I was cleaning up and getting ready to hit the hay, still riding the euphoric wave of independently cooking something new on my own! The next morning I was all ready to dip the bon-bons when I remembered the pound of butter in the fridge that I forgot to include in the preparation! So that's why they were so dry and crumbly!!!! I wanted someone to try them to tell me they still tasted okay but no one wanted to pop a ball of pure sugar in their mouth at 8 in the morning. I decided to dip them anyway and hopefully people wouldn't notice. Okay, not too bad for the first time. I shook it off and started working on the butterfingers (that would take 4 hours my mom said, and why didn't I have those already made?). I made sure to include all of the ingredients on this one. I was stirring the candy mixture in one pan and had the peanut butter in a sauce pan, ready to add to the sugar once it was hot enough. I put the heat for the peanut butter on a low setting so it could melt a little until the other ingredients were ready. I was stirring and laughing and talking with the girls and when I looked down at the peanut butter in the sauce pan I noticed that the plastic spatula that I was using to stir it with was half gone! What happened??? It melted off in the heat and was now lost in the mountain of peanut butter! Are you not supposed to mix hot things with plastic spatulas? Okay, no big deal, I'll just find the other half and hope that no plastic melted in the mix. Found it! My mom and sister were hesitant to use the butterfingers still but I assured them that it was good enough to use and that no one would die, I hoped. I finished making the butterfingers and put them in a pan to cool before dipping. I couldn't spread it fast enough before it started to harden so there were my butterfingers....in various shapes and sizes, ready to be dipped! Okay, so they didn't look the best but I was sure they would still be a hit! The butterfingers had to sit for a couple of hours so I resumed dipping my ultra-sugared bon-bons. By the time we were ready to dip the butterfingers they were hard as a rock....seriously....okay imagine a peanut butter sucker except for the peanut butter tasted a little bit burned and you practically lost a tooth biting into it. I gave up....I could look past forgetting the butter, or melting a spatula, but not burning the rock hard butterfingers that looked more like decorative mulch (don't think they could be that bad? They were, just ask my mom) than yummy, melt in your mouth butterfingers. I had to throw the whole lot of butterfingers away and then soak the pan and wooden spoon (I switched to wood once I realized that plastic melts) in hot water for 6 hours in order to get the dishes clean and butterfinger free. Luckily I purchased a bag of raisins to dip as my back up! I'm proud to say that I did not mess those up.....I think.

What did I learn from this experience? #1: Butter is included in 99.9% of candy, don't ever make anything without it. #2: I should never cook without adult supervision (didn't I learn anything from the easy bake oven?). #3: I have a new found respect for those at Nestle....butterfingers, seriously? How do they do that?

Next year I think I'll hand out cards instead......