I Need to Get More Sugar

It's Sunday night and the weekend is coming to a close.  Kids will go back to school tomorrow, and many will head back to work..............but I won't!  Sometimes I get all giggly on Sunday nights.  I don't have to work tomorrow.  I don't even know what I will do, but I suspect I will do something with apples.


I bought all these apples last week and my daughter and I made 1) My mom's fresh apple cake; 2) 2 loaves of apple bread with caramel glaze; 3) a loaf of Apple Fritter Bread; 4) a delicious apple pie; 5) Apple crunch bars; and 6) a pan of apple cream cheese bars. 


We peeled and peeled apples.  Luckily I have a peeler from Pampered Chef and well worth its price.  It makes the most beautiful apple peeling strips.  What to do with them.........all these peels.  I found a recipe to make syrup using just water and peels and cores.  All you do is cook the peelings and cores until they are softened and the cores mushy.  Strain the juice; discard the peelings.  Heat the juice with sugar.  10 cups of juice will need about 3 or 4 cups of sugar.  Heat until temperature reaches 218 degrees.  Continue cooking until syrupy.


Sounds easy peasy, huh?  Au contraire mon ami!  Au contraire!  Nothing is ever that simple for me.  I simmered and simmered and simmered and it just would not get syrupy.  Finally I turned off the range, let the pan cool and refrigerated it.  The taste was wonderful, a very light apple jelly taste.  I kept thinking about it during the night and I just could bear to throw it out.  What have I got to lose?  So the next day I boiled it again.  It was coming together nicely now.  I took a little out to test the consistency.  Not quite there.  Boiled it a little longer, testing, boiling, testing, boiling and all of a sudden, it was ready.  It was thickening so quickly that I removed it from the heat.  I grabbed my jars and starting pouring this pink wonderful liquid, molten lava actually, into them.............both of them..............two one cup jars.  All that liquid had boiled down to two small jars.


I couldn't wait to taste this glorious syrup so as soon as the lid popped (sealed), I opened it right back up.  I grabbed a spoon to have a taste of my syrup.  I put it in the jar and it would NOT sink into the liquid.  So I began to force it.  Finally I got about half the spoon bowl in and forced up the now caramel.  You see, I boiled that liquid all the way through the syrup stage, all the way through the jelly stage, all the way through the gummy candy stage, all the way to the caramel stage and not far from the brittle stage.


I consider myself a great cook, but there are times when even the best cooks have disasters.  But you know what, I am going to try this again this week with the rest of the apple peels.  First I need to get more sugar. 


I love you.