I am by no means a chef, but I would put some of our older girls into that category. They can make chocolate straight from the cacao plant and make it look easy. And so naturally, one night when our thirteen-year-old said she could make a candy, I didn’t question it.
She told me it was really simple and only required two ingredients: lemon and sugar. First, she put some lemon juice on a pan and put a whole lot more sugar than I should’ve allowed on top of it. Then she mixed it together and heated it up. Sure enough, it was simple.
But then the problem arose. She had invented this recipe years ago, and hadn’t made it for a long time. So when she put the blend on the cutting boards and waited for it to harden, she underestimated just how strongly and quickly this would occur. In no time, the candy was not leaving the cutting boards.
This did not deter the girls. They rapidly changed from using their hands to chipping away with spoons. Sharp candy chunks were flying around the kitchen, and I have to admit, they were delicious. But soon the kids ran out of patience with this method and began just full-on licking the cutting boards. Not ideal, but fun to watch. When I decided it was time to pour hot water on the boards to get the delicacy fully off, the girls were not willing to give them up.
Despite the protests and rapid scraping/licking, we began to clean the crime scene. After all, our cook would not have found this experience as entertaining and humorous as I did if she saw the mess we made.
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