What do you make from scratch? What do you buy?

[xiphias]

Earlier today, somone on b0st0n asked where one can buy spaetzel locally.

Then, someone on food_porn wanted to know a recipe to make Pocky.

Comments

[madcaptenor.livejournal.com]

Pocky really seems like it would be too much trouble to make from scratch...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

And spaetzel seems like it would be easier to make than to find, yes.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Kind of like making a Twix bar from scratch. I bet you could do it, sort of, but I doubt it would be quite the same, and why not just buy it.

Hmm. Now I want to see if I can make a Twix bar. Would it be cheating if I started with Lorna Doone shortbread and a bag of caramels?

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

It's only cheating if you really want to make it from scratch. I think that homemade cookies topped with homemade caramel then covered in chocolate sound really good, and much better than store-bought Twix bars. Of course, they're also a lot more of a hassle.

Now, if you can make a Snickers bar from scratch, then I'll be mightily impressed. How do you make nougat, anyway?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It involves merengue, candy thermometers, corn syrup, melting sugar, and all sorts of fiddly bits. I've never done it, and, now that I'm looking at recipes, I think I'm happy about that. I hate recipes which have instructions like "Wait for a cool, dry day to try this recipe". . .

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Yes. This generally applies to all of candymaking, really. But assuming you manage to get a not-utterly-humid day, I think making the nougat wouldn't be too bad, compared to some other candy things.

[silver1226.livejournal.com]

pretty icon :)

[mitchellf.livejournal.com]

Actually, I remember seeing a special episode of "Unwrapped" (on the Food Network) during which they interviewed a guy who has created recipes to make clones of the popular candy bars. He has made a Snickers bar. He's also figured out most of the other mainstream candy bars, but I believe he said that it was still much easier to just spend the $.50 and buy said candy bar in the store. :-)

[ckd]

My mother's bought spaetzle-in-a-box before, but that was from the then-local-to-her German import grocery, so I'm not sure that counts. (Besides, at the moment she's in, like, actual Germany, so she can probably buy it anywhere right now.)

[silver1226.livejournal.com]

wow

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

I bought a spaetzle-making tool at TJ Maxx in Alewife. It looks basically like a cheese grater. And spaetzle from a box, as someone mentioned, is actually not *that* far off from the real thing, if you boil it long enough. If I can find it in my grocery store in Atlanta, surely it's somewhere in a grocery store in Boston too.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

The saga of making Pocky scares me. Definitely seems like too much trouble, unless you just buy or make really thin breadsticks and coat accordingly, and even then...but, I have grown to hate tempering chocolate lately, so somebody else's MMV.

[mitchellf.livejournal.com]

Based on my recent adventures in candy-making, tempering isn't that hard if you do the following: microwave the chocolate (instead of using a double-boiler). Granted, you still have to stir every 15 seconds, but it will take you no more than 1-2 minutes to melt a standard cereal bowls worth of chocolate, and, in the process of stirring every 15 seconds, the stuff comes out tempered. :-) If you're still not happy with the result, just grate a bit more chocolate into the bowl and stir it in. Seems to work really well.

Good luck! :-)