Daring Bakers' challenge: Candy!

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!


I have to admit, this is my most favorite challenge in the last few months. There are so many options with candy, and yet I don't make it often because it's pretty challenging with temperatures and stuff. This is citrus paté de fruit...you know how I love my citrus! Basically it's homemade gummy candy. I don't like picking just one citrus, so this is lemon-lime-orange. Basically, this uses pectin to set, which I've never used before. It also has applesauce, which naturally has pectin. When we were cooking it (which took forever), I was worried the apple flavor wouldn't cook out, but it did! I want to try this again, for sure. Maybe in winter, when I'm dreaming of warm weather.

And these are chocolate hazelnut truffles. No fresh hazelnuts that we could find at this time of year, but we followed a recipe Daring Bakers provided and made hazelnut praline, kind of like peanut brittle with hazelnuts. You crunch that up in the food processor, mix it with the ganache for the center. After that chills, roll it up and coat it with crushed hazelnut, and we have truffles. They were a-maz-ing. My only problem with the challenge was I didn't have time to try making everything I wanted to! There was a recipe for honeycomb candy and filled bon-bons. I want to do filled chocolates for sure, but need to come up with a good filling that's not caramel. Ideas?