Personally, I love the snow. I think it's ridiculous that every time we get even an inch of the white stuff on the ground, it brings this city to its knees, but I'll take any excuse to stay home and watch it falling softly through the front window while drinking hot chocolate. I also love to take the kids sledding or building a snowman or a million other fun things there are to do in the snow.
Unfortunately, both my kids are wussies.
Yesterday, we dressed the girls up in layers until they couldn't get their arms down brought them outside and each on of them did exactly one of these
before commencing the whining and crying about being cold and wet.
Since we didn't want a repeat performance of this, we sent them inside once each had reached her limit. For The Caterpillar, this was about four and one half minutes. The Dormouse was much hardier this time and lasted about six minutes. I'd enjoy this snowpocolypse a whole lot more if it were socially acceptable to leave my children in the house while I went outside to play in the snow and build a snowman.
So last night I decided to try a snow activity that had a little more of the indoor part and a little less of the outdoor part. A friend over on The FacePlace posted a recipe that she uses with her kids and I couldn't resist.
Snow taffy.
The best part about snow taffy is how easy it is. Allow me to demonstrate:
First, combine a cup of maple syrup and a quarter cup of salted butter. Bring it to boil on the stove.
I'm not much of a candy maker but you're supposed to boil it until it reaches about 220-235 degrees. If you're a candy maker, you'll have a candy thermometer that helps determine when optimum temperature is reached. I don't have one of those thingies. Hence the not much of a candy maker label. I tried a meat thermometer, but mine only goes up to 200 degrees and after that guessing on the temperature was pretty much a crap shoot. Is it hotter than the hot it was a few minutes ago? Hmm... still burns my fingers. I don't know.
Obviously, you'll want to keep The Children away from this part because the only thing hotter than 230 degree hot water is 230 degree hot candy that sticks to you and continues to burn over and over.
So you want to boil it until it's somewhere between the thread stage and soft ball stage. It looks like kinda like this.
Aside: I absolutely LOVE this orange Le Creuset sauce pan I got off freecycle a few months ago. It's tiny but oh so lovely for cooking just about anything, as long as it turns out to be under two cups in volume. I love it so much I want to marry it and have a whole litter of other Le Creuset pots and pans that I can love and pet and call George -- hopefully that will grow to bigger than two-cup size. I'd go ahead and buy some, but day-um, they are expensive. Santa?
OK - back to the candy.
Now you're at the point where you have to start moving pretty quickly because I let the girls draw out this next part and the candy cooled too much and it was a little hard by the time we poured it. So if you're smart, you'll have had your children getting their snow boots and gloves on while you were doing the above steps, or you'll just send them out unclothed and tell them they'll only be cold for a minute and hope that will encourage them to not spend fifteen minutes outside choosing the exact. right. snow. to put in their bowls.
Give your children bowls and spoons and send them outside with instructions to fill the bowls with snow. White snow. Clean snow. Snow that doesn't have footprints in it. Snow that isn't dirty. Or yellow. You get the idea.
When they return with their bowls of snow, drizzle the warm candy over it like so:
Eat.
This one ate all the snow and left the candy. Maybe I could have saved myself a few steps in this process.
Unfortunately, both my kids are wussies.
Yesterday, we dressed the girls up in layers until they couldn't get their arms down brought them outside and each on of them did exactly one of these
before commencing the whining and crying about being cold and wet.
Since we didn't want a repeat performance of this, we sent them inside once each had reached her limit. For The Caterpillar, this was about four and one half minutes. The Dormouse was much hardier this time and lasted about six minutes. I'd enjoy this snowpocolypse a whole lot more if it were socially acceptable to leave my children in the house while I went outside to play in the snow and build a snowman.
So last night I decided to try a snow activity that had a little more of the indoor part and a little less of the outdoor part. A friend over on The FacePlace posted a recipe that she uses with her kids and I couldn't resist.
Snow taffy.
The best part about snow taffy is how easy it is. Allow me to demonstrate:
First, combine a cup of maple syrup and a quarter cup of salted butter. Bring it to boil on the stove.
I'm not much of a candy maker but you're supposed to boil it until it reaches about 220-235 degrees. If you're a candy maker, you'll have a candy thermometer that helps determine when optimum temperature is reached. I don't have one of those thingies. Hence the not much of a candy maker label. I tried a meat thermometer, but mine only goes up to 200 degrees and after that guessing on the temperature was pretty much a crap shoot. Is it hotter than the hot it was a few minutes ago? Hmm... still burns my fingers. I don't know.
Obviously, you'll want to keep The Children away from this part because the only thing hotter than 230 degree hot water is 230 degree hot candy that sticks to you and continues to burn over and over.
So you want to boil it until it's somewhere between the thread stage and soft ball stage. It looks like kinda like this.
Aside: I absolutely LOVE this orange Le Creuset sauce pan I got off freecycle a few months ago. It's tiny but oh so lovely for cooking just about anything, as long as it turns out to be under two cups in volume. I love it so much I want to marry it and have a whole litter of other Le Creuset pots and pans that I can love and pet and call George -- hopefully that will grow to bigger than two-cup size. I'd go ahead and buy some, but day-um, they are expensive. Santa?
OK - back to the candy.
Now you're at the point where you have to start moving pretty quickly because I let the girls draw out this next part and the candy cooled too much and it was a little hard by the time we poured it. So if you're smart, you'll have had your children getting their snow boots and gloves on while you were doing the above steps, or you'll just send them out unclothed and tell them they'll only be cold for a minute and hope that will encourage them to not spend fifteen minutes outside choosing the exact. right. snow. to put in their bowls.
Give your children bowls and spoons and send them outside with instructions to fill the bowls with snow. White snow. Clean snow. Snow that doesn't have footprints in it. Snow that isn't dirty. Or yellow. You get the idea.
When they return with their bowls of snow, drizzle the warm candy over it like so:
Eat.
This one ate all the snow and left the candy. Maybe I could have saved myself a few steps in this process.
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