Eccentric Flower:199812/spun sugar

eleven twelve one

spun sugar

The following is presented as an example of the kind of strange brain dumps you sometimes get when you write me. If you have ever written me a two-line message and gotten back a two-page rant, you'll sympathize. If you haven't, let this be a warning to you.

Dearest Beth:

Mint "extract" won't make wintergreen bark. Wintergreen isn't mint. There's a spearmint flavoring versus the peppermint flavoring you were using, but neither is wintergreen. I'm thinking there is such a thing as wintergreen flavoring, but don't quote me on that because I didn't go check.

But - wintergreen has a really unusual flavor that doesn't combine well with most other things (except some teas). So you might want to try a VERY small batch! I can't see the combination of whatever "white chocolate" you're using and wintergreen. Call me a cynic.

You may note the weird use of quotes above. This is me being overly purist. I'm finicky about terms when it comes to making sweets and working with chocolates, because that's the only form of cooking I do well, and my mostly-dormant compulsive personality kicks in.

"Extracts" are made from the actual botanicals - i.e. to make a mint extract you put mint leaves in an alcohol solution and let them steep so the alcohol absorbs the flavor. "Oils" are created by crushing the botanical - squeezing out its juice, so to speak. "Flavorings" are artificially created.

Now, obviously, I don't know what you're purchasing, but if you just got the McCormick bottle, then you got peppermint flavoring. The oils and extracts are pretty expensive and you often need to order them from a specialist, like Penzey's.

Note that this is really nothing more than a semantic fuss - Cook's Illustrated did a taste-off between vanilla extracts (from vanilla beans) and vanilla flavorings (synthesized from wood pulp) and found that when used in recipes, even the best-trained taste buds didn't care. So big deal.

As for the chocolate: White chocolate, actual white chocolate, contains cocoa butter. You'll know if it does, because it will make that suntan-lotion smell we love so much. (Or, to be more prosaic, check the ingredients.) About seventy-five percent of what people call "white chocolate" is something which contains no cocoa solids (the part that makes regular chocolate brown) nor cocoa butter and is therefore not entitled, legally, to be called chocolate at all. The industry refers to it as "confectioner's coating." A box of Russell Stover pastel bonbons is full of it.

What can I say? I'm a sugar geek.

Do you really want some more recipes for Christmas goodies? I have a million of them, but I never make them anymore, because we're never here for the holidays, they don't transport well (too much to lug on a plane, broken into crumbs by the time we arrive in a car), and I have given up on bringing treats to the office for various cynical reasons.

-as ever,
columbine

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