The only real problem I have is that it is a 20-30 minute class, but caramel making is about a 30-40 minute process. Most of that is just stirring. So what do I cut out? The first 10 minutes are pretty important, as are the last 5, but the middle is pretty boring. For me and my stove there are a good solid twenty minutes of doing nothing but stirring. The last time I made caramels (yesterday) I remembered my walk-man and headphones and tried really hard not to sing along to "Wicked". Nobody needs to hear my acapella, solo rendition Dancing through Life, or Loathing. (Sorry, I have no idea how to spell acapella, and spell check was no help either.)
Anyway, back to my problem. Obviously I need to figure out how to skip the middle part, and do some sort of "through the magic of television!" type of thing, but that's fairly difficult with a live audience, and caramels are somewhat tricky to do that type of thing with. What I came up with was this- I would start a batch of caramels 15-20 minutes before class starts, and have an assistant (probably Madison ) stand there and stir for me while I start a second batch of caramels. Then (hopefully if I time everything just right,) by using two pans I will be able to skip the middle part of the whole thing. The only flaw (okay not the only one, but the biggest one) is that I DON'T HAVE TWO PANS. I have ONE.
And what a nightmare that one was to get. When I started making caramels my grandmother gave me a really old pan, from like the forties, and it was kind of warped on the bottom, but it worked just fine on my coil stove top. When we moved to this house, I got a flat top stove, and so I needed to find another pan. Not as easy as it seems. I need a heavy duty 4 qt pot. For starters, 4 qt pots are not easily found, and can be really expensive, or you can only get them in sets. I bought one out of a catalog, (which I love for many other purposes) but I got a non-stick kind, and that totally doesn't work for my caramels. Finally my grandmother found me a cheap pressure cooker, that works beautifully. Last year when I was making so many caramels at Christmas time I debated buying a second pan, but I put it off, and so of course this year when I went looking, I couldn't find that exact pan. (It's a total piece of junk as a pressure cooker).
I did find another pressure cooker today, that might work, but I'm nervous about it. I've decided that I can be like those athletes with all their superstitions. You know, the kind that wear the same pair of socks for every game, sometimes without washing them, so they don't jinx themselves. I have to use the same pot and wooden spoon and specific brands of ingredients. No substitutions, ever! (But I always wash them before I use them)
See how shiny and pretty the one on the left is? That's the new one. It's pretty sturdy, but is it enough? I'll keep you updated. The black pan in the middle is a total failure as a caramel pan, but other than that I love it. And of course, the one on the right is my tried and true pan, if I had more time, I could have ordered one on the internet, or I would probably have spent my day perusing places like DI and Goodwill, but I need it quickly.
So the big event is this Saturday, I'll keep you posted.
Notes-
Sept 4- the pan works beautifully, hallelujah!
Sept 5- Correction, it is just another ward in my Stake that is having me do this. I got confused when I heard the word "stake". That makes a big difference. Cuts my sample making by at least half.
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