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Toffee meltdown!

22 comments


I’d done a blog about trying to make mini-toffee apples, and in that I mentioned how I’d tried to melt toffee in the microwave, but couldn’t find the pics.

Found them now!

One how-to said to melt them in a bwol in the mircowave, so I tried that. Idiot me, I used an ordinary mixing bowl, not a mocrowave one (though that might not have made any difference).

I didn’t know how long it’d take, so I gave it very short bursts, thirty seconds or so, took it out, had a look, put it back for another thirty seconds (my mircrowave doesn’t have a marked setting for less than a minute, so I set it for that, and had my kitchen timer on count-up; when that hit thirty seconds stopped the microwave).

Did this several times, no apparent result, so I got impatient and set it for a couple of minutes. It was properly molten when i took it out, but when I lifted the bowl off the tray …


Thank goodness I’d put a tray underneath, or this would have been all over the floor of the microwave!

I did buy a proper glass jug for my second attempt, but that wasn’t any more successfull, though less dramatcially so.

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Comments

 

Best laugh of the afternoon...even funnier than the inca slime! Oh Fran! Never mind. You live and learn :))

12 Oct, 2014

 

Hi Fran Please take care - you worry me with your adventures. Don't know about mini toffee apples - but to make 6 full size toffee apples Put sticks into apples and place on a tray covered with foil - take 4 x 100g packets of good quality toffee - add 2 tbs of milk put in microwave bowl and micro on high for two minutes - coat apples CAREFULLY and leave to cool.

12 Oct, 2014

 

lol Karen, I can laugh about it - now! wasn't so humorous at the time. But as you say, live and learn - certainly learned not to do that again!

thanks Wendy - the "mini" came from something I'd read - use a melon baller to make small apple globes, with a cocktail stick in for the handle.

The only toffee I could find locally was Werthers Originals, certainly not the tradional toffee to use.. The second time I tried (which I blooged) I had a Pyrex-style jug which I used, but by the time I'd taken it from the mircowave to the apples, it had mostly set. Maybe I should have left it in the mircowave longer, but after this experience ...

lol I just thoght I'd try it, remembering hte toffee apples that were around when I was a kid. But i think that if I get a craving for them now, I'll buy 'em!

12 Oct, 2014

 

Good plan! Sorry, but even though I could see it coming it still made me laugh! Went is quite right....you need to be careful. Toffee is half sugar, and you know how hot sugar gets, and the other half is fat! Yes, I think all things considered....buy one!

12 Oct, 2014

 

lol it's not even as if i particularly like tofee (they're the ones I leave out of any assortment) or even apples, much - i get bored half-way through the standard size big'uns. so the "mini" bit appealed, enough to enjoy but not too much.

I did try melting them on the gas ring, using a doubleboiler, but maybe I should hare put more water in the lower one, or used a higher heat - I'm always careful about boiling liquids, which is one reason my candle-making stuff hasn't been out of its box for about ten years!

12 Oct, 2014

 

I'm the same. I like the idea of them more than the reality. But that's partly because they use rubbish apples to make them, not good sweet crunchy ones!

12 Oct, 2014

 

and i had more teeth and stronger jaws in those days!

12 Oct, 2014

 

.....didn't we all!

12 Oct, 2014

 

You get top marks for trying Fran - it's more than I do in the kitchen!

12 Oct, 2014

 

Oh Fran, you're priceless lol!

12 Oct, 2014

 

Oh that did make me laugh Fran ! One of these days I'll tell you of my jam making catastrophe !

12 Oct, 2014

 

thanks Scottish and Waddy and Rose and Snoop.

I don't do all that much in the kitchen on a normal, day-to-day basis, but I'd been meaning to try the mini-apples ever since i read the how-to, and at that it took me over a month.

@Rose, jam-making? now there's a hot substance! hope your mis-adverntures were safe ones.

@ Snoop - I won't try it again, or anything even removtely like it. Got away with it once, won't see what might happen a second time!

12 Oct, 2014

 

Don't talk about pressure cookers.....I have a phobia eversince the one at school exploded and the treacle pudding came out of the safety valve on the top...... teenage girls rushing out of the room screaming......that ceiling was never the same again

the toffee apples will soon be in the shops for bonfire night, I always wished they would peel the apples first!

13 Oct, 2014

 

Gosh Fran, you do have an exciting life!

13 Oct, 2014

 

LOL. I'm splitting my sides here but have to say I'm also relieved to hear you're giving it a miss in the future, microwaves are a blessing at times but can be so dangerous as well, I can well remember exploding popcorn and eggs when I first had one and used to try things out, have also melted bowls years ago as well, lol.....
Always used to make toffee apples for Bonfire Night but no little ones here now so haven't bothered lately, don't care what anybody says you can never do them like we used to have from the fair before elf-n-safety came with their stupid regulations, cannot remember ever being ill because of buying from the fair people either....

13 Oct, 2014

 

I must have been 12 or 13 and have never used one since ?

we needed a giggle with 36 hours constant windy rain ithink!

14 Oct, 2014

 

@ HB – I’ve never used a pressure cooker – mum had one and it always looked a bit scary, the noise it made, and she never explained how it worked, so I never had the nerve to try. Ha, even one of those three-tier steamers sat on my shelf for about five years before I gave it away, unused – manufacturers seem to think that they don’t need to put in instructions cos everyone knows how to use it.

@ Pam – that was another thing that put me off getting one! Mum had some crisis or other that ended with pudding splattered all over the ceiling.

@ Stera – lol, thanks, I try to keep things bubbling, but not boiling over!

@ Lincs – lol we probably remember them as tasting better than they actually did, because of everything that went with that era at our ages.

I bought my microwave mainly for doing jacket potatoes and mini-Christmas puds – I like then all year round, but one can only buy them seasonally, so I tend to buy a couple of dozen. Even the tiny ones have to be steamed for an hour, as opposed to 1 minute in the microwave, so no contest there! I don’t do much cooking in there, though I’ve got stacks of “microwave cookery books – and I still can’t boil an egg properly, though I bought the special cookers.

15 Oct, 2014

amy
Amy
 

Oh Fran you do make me laugh you do know you're not safe to be let loose in a kitchen or anywhere else I'm thinking LOL ...

19 Oct, 2014

 

lol I could do with a minder! at least they'd be able to do the difficult bits for me :-)

19 Oct, 2014

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