Candy making and holiday gifts

A few weeks ago a fellow expat Sarah G who blogs at We have moved to USA posted that she was making candy, and two of my favorite kinds twix and crunchie. So of course I had to give it a go.

We attempted to make the crunchie first which was really to easy to make and as you can see from the recipe it only has three ingredients. Well four if you count the chocolate.

The messiest part was the coating in chocolate, I'm sure there must be an easier way to do it! They tasted so good, just like a proper crunchie. We ate a few then I sent the rest to Dave's office where they didn't last long!

Next was the twix, these took a lot longer to make as it was three longer stages, I purchased a cheap candy thermometer for making the caramel but it somehow managed to get water in it and stopped working, so I had to use guesswork and it turned out pretty well, although there was a lot more caramel than we needed. I have since been out and purchased a new candy thermometer that I plan to use soon.

Dave said the people in his office also enjoyed the twix. I think the biscuit could have been more crunchy, it had more of a shortbread consistency to it, but tasted nice all the same.

After making all of this it got me thinking about the upcoming holidays, halloween, thanksgiving and chritsmas. I love baking and often make cookies and other things for Dave's office and the neighbors, but they are always presented in a ziplock bag, which is fine, but I thought I wanted something nicer for holiday gifts. So I plan to buy some see through bags. This then got me thinking, how about some nice tags. As it turns out a friend on twitter Kelly happened to post about her etsy shop The Country Crab. I had never been on etsy before, and I love it. I purchased two sets of tags from Kelly's shop, some general baking ones and some halloween ones.

She then mentioned she can do custom made tags and other things too. I didn't need to be told twice and sent her to work making me some custom made holiday kitchen tags which arrived today. I also have her making my Christmas cards for me. Her prices are great and she ships really fast too. Those of you who are on my Christmas card list will get to see her wonderful Christmas card desing later in the year.