A Candy Occasion

Well, come on in, y'all. I'm Paula Deen. And today, I'm fixing to show you everything you'll ever need to know about making wonderful homemade candies. Stand back for a fudge lover's dream. The secret? Well, you're just going to have to keep watching. I'm going to show you how to make the most heavenly divinity on the planet, just the way my mama taught me

And finally, the most special treat of all, a sesame seed candy that'll have you singing like Johnny Mercer

In fact, it's his mama's recipe. So who needs a special occasion to go making candies

Not me, because every day is a candy day where I come from

I'm so excited about today's show and the time we're going to be spending together

Today, we're doing candies. One of our favorite ingredients in the South when we're making candy is pecans

In fact, I was born in Albany, Georgia, and it's considered the pecan capital of the world

And when I left Albany, people would say, Paula, it's pecan. And no, it's not pecan

It's pecan. The word is spelled P-E-C-A-N, pecan. But before we get started, we're going to go to one of my favorite shops located down

on River Street, and they have the most wonderful pecans and candy that you can imagine

Savannah's Candy Kitchen is an institute here on River Street. They have the biggest selection from hard and soft candies to homemade pralines and candied apples

You know, I bet my friend Becky is inside waiting on me right now

Hey, Becca. Hey, Paula, what can I do for you today? How are you? I need some pecans. Pecans

Well, do you need them whole or broken? Give me both. Okay. So how are you doing

Not too bad. Selling lots of pecans. Yes, ma'am. What you making with these

I'm making divinity and fudge. That sounds like a lot of fun

Oh, it's going to be so much fun. You know, because not everybody has access to the wonderful candies that y'all make here

Well, thank you so much. Now that's, oh good, and you got it separated

Thanks a bunch. You're welcome. It's so hard not to spend extra time

tasting all these wonderful goodies they have here, but I just gotta get home and start on my cheesy fudge

We're back to make one of my favorite candies using two of my most favorite ingredients

chocolate and cheese. We're gonna be making chocolate cheese fudge, and you won't believe how simple, quick, and easy

I can get this done normally in three to five minutes. Unbelievable

We're going to start with processed cheese, and it takes a little longer to melt than your butter

so you'll want to cut it up in cubes and let it kind of get a head start on your butter

So we've got our cheese in the pot, and we're going to add our butter. We're going to stir these two ingredients together

until they're melted, which doesn't take very long. As you can see, that cheese is already starting

to get all loose and gooshy in there. Where on earth did this recipe come from, y'all

I don't know. A friend gave it to me years ago, and we just had more fun with it

When we ate our fudge, we could reason out that because it had cheese, it had one of the food groups

that it must be good for us. So we didn't hesitate to eat our fudge

And it's totally melted, so we're gonna turn that off, and we're gonna come over here

and we're gonna sift two pounds of powdered sugar, and we're gonna stick our cocoa in with our last bag

I make this fudge all the time. I have so much fun with this recipe

I remember the first time I served it to my girlfriends, and one of my friends tasted it, and she said

oh, God, she said, that's the best fudge I've ever tasted. She said, that's like the Amish make

up in Pennsylvania. And when I told her it was actually cheese

she almost fainted. All right, we've got this ready. We are going to add our nuts to our cheese and butter

and just stir that in. And then we're going to add about a teaspoon of vanilla

Then we're going to pour this over our sugar. So we just going to stir that up and get it going Unbelievable isn it And in just a minute after I got it kind of fairly mixed up I going in with my hands There nothing in here y but powdered sugar nuts

cheese, butter, and vanilla. You can make this dish from start to finish in about seven

to eight minutes. All right, now I've got that moistened, so here's the fun. So here

we go. How fun is this? Look at that. The cheese is almost fudge now. How easy was that

And we're going to take it over here and we're going to put it into our pan. Now if you're

using a glass bowl, you may want to spray it, but we're using a teflon pan so we're

not even going to be bothered by spraying it. And we're going to press it out and this

This will harden. In about eight to ten minutes, you'll be ready to cut and serve. Because

of all the butter in this candy, after I get it patted out, I'll take a paper towel and

just gently blot. And if you're in a big hurry, if you're running late like so often I do

just take this and stick it in the fridge, and in about five minutes, you'll be ready

to cut and serve. And that's just what I'm going to do with this batch I made earlier

And I'm gonna cut it, and we're gonna see just how good cheese can really be

Look at that. The best cheese you've ever eaten. And next, an old sweet southern favorite, divinity

All right, we're back here in my kitchen. We've got all of our ingredients to make my

mama's wonderful, wonderful divinity candy. And I'm going to start out by telling you

just a couple of tips. If you get up and it's raining and damp outside, don't even try it

Postpone it to another day because it will not harden for you. The next tip that I have

for you is start with room temperature egg whites. So we're going to give it a try here

I remember in grammar school when we would have functions, we would have fundraising

functions and we'd have carnivals and fairs and everybody would have to contribute something

Well, on fair day, my hand would be the first one up saying, my mom will make divinity, my

mom will make divinity because she made the most beautiful and I was so proud when I would

walk up to the candy table and my mother's candy was the prettiest of all. In fact, this

is going to bring back so many memories for me today. If I close my eyes, I can see this

beautiful red headed young woman standing at the counter making beautiful mounds of divinity

So we're going to put our sugar and water and our corn syrup and I'll tell you a little

tip about this corn syrup. Anytime you're using anything sticky, you can spray your measuring

cup with a non-stick spray and it will just roll right on out of there for you. And we're

going to stir this just until it dissolves. And we're going to start over fairly high heat

And it'll take just a few minutes. And another thing when you're making divinity, as you can

see from here, I've got a wonderful thick pot. Don't ever try to make Divinity in a thin

pot. And when we get this dissolved and we quit stirring, we're going to stick in a candy

thermometer. Now some people like to use cold water for their testing, but I really recommend

that you use a thermometer, something that you can really count on. Because one man's

softball, could be another man's hardball. So for accuracy, use one of these. Divinity

is nothing but sugar, y'all. As you can tell from the ingredients, sugar and water. So

if you're looking for something locale, don't even go here. We're fixing to stick this thermometer

in. We're going to clip that to our pot, and you can see the red mercury. We're at 140

right now, and we're going to have to go to 250. So we've got a good ways to go, and we

hadn't started boiling yet, but it's not going to take it but just a minute. But in the meantime

I'm going to start with our meringue. Always start with a room temperature egg, and we're

gonna just break these eggs right on into here. And these yolks, you can cover them

with a little oil, wrap them in a plastic wrap and they'll be good for you for four

to five days. So don't fret about having yolks that you feel like you might not use

We're gonna start our egg whites and we're gonna beat them until they form nice soft peaks

All right, let's lift these up and take a look at that

See those are at nice peaks And we just a rolling over here I gonna cut this down just a little bit and we are now up to about 230 The most important thing is your accuracy on your

syrup. You want to make sure that you take it to the 250 degrees. If you take

it less than that then it's not gonna firm up for you. If you take it more than

that then it's going to be dry and hard before you can even drop it. Oh this

This brings back so many wonderful memories. I never saw my mother make divinity that did not turn out

It's just light and airy and just dissolves into your mouth and it's just one of the best

candies that you can eat. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

We're there! All right, we're going to turn our heat off. And this can be tricky because you have now gotten a very, very hot syrup, and you don't

want to burn yourself. We're going to go back to our egg whites. They have formed a nice peak

And now we're going to take our syrup and we're going to very, very slowly pour it into

our meringue. And I'll tell you this, this is my least favorite part about making divinity, because you have

to do it in a fine, steady little stream. And as you can see, we've got a pretty big pot of syrup here

Mama, I think we're going to make you proud today. Hopefully I can live up to your wonderful divinity

We're finally there. Now we're going to let this beat until it loses its gloss

that's when you'll know that your candy's ready and ready to put on your wax paper

And we're going to add, oh, about a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

We're finally there and it's starting to lose its gloss. I'm going to slowly lift up our beater and lower our temperature

so I can get every bit of that candy off that paddle

And we're going to quickly stir in our pecans. Now, the recipe calls for one cup, but I'm a nutty girl, so I'm going to use two cups

We're going to fold those in. Look at that beautiful, beautiful candy

It looks like Mama's. All right, so we're going to go over here, and I'm going to take just a little bit of

our candy and pop in the corners of our pan. So that'll hold us down and we won't be slipping and sliding all over the place

And this is the part that you could really use a friend. But I'm going to try to get it done myself and see how we do

Look how beautiful. And this will set up and harden for you

We're going to use one spoon to dip with and the other to twirl it off

Look how beautiful. This recipe originally came from my grandmother, and my grandmother was a fabulous cook, but

she never, never mastered the art of making divinity. But my mother had a touch for it that was just unbelievable

But you know what? I have to confess, I'm still not as good as my mother

And I have a batch that's already hardened. Let's try it. It's sinfully wonderful

It's Christmas. It's Thanksgiving. It's birthday. It's fabulous. And next, I'm going to tell you what Moon River and Uncle Bubba's Benny Candy have in common

The next recipe I'm going to share with y'all today is Uncle Bubba's Benny Seed Candy

We're going to start with our Benny Seed, and we're going to want to wash these and pick

through them and make sure there's no twigs or stones. So we're just going to quickly run these under the water

And we'll give them a little shake. We want to drain them well

and we're gonna throw them into a hot cast iron skillet. Let's see if we gotta sizzle. Yeah

Yeah, we got a nice hot pan, and we're gonna wanna toast these off

until they're a nice light brown. And this is like a nut

You don't wanna scorch it, because if you overdo it, you can just put it in the trash can

because you cannot get that scorched taste out of it. And we're gonna cook these until they're dried out

and a nice light brown. And this will take about two minutes

And while I'm browning these, I wanna tell y where this recipe came from My next door neighbor and dear friend Nancy Gerard shared this recipe with me And she said Paula I really do want to share with you my Uncle Bubba favorite candy

Well, her uncle was Johnny Mercer, one of America's most loved and favorite songwriters

And he couldn't get home at Christmas time. And Nancy would get in the kitchen along with her grandmother and the family cook, Big Nancy

and they would make Johnny's two favorite things. That was his mother's white fruitcake and Benny seed candy

The first time she talked about her Uncle Bubba, I said, well, Nancy, who is Uncle Bubba

One day we were out and she said, oh, look, we're on Uncle Bubba Boulevard

And I said, Uncle Bubba Boulevard? She said, yeah, Johnny Mercer Boulevard

So I love talking with Nancy and listening to all the stories

The benny seeds are now brown and toasted and ready, and they're actually just a sesame seed

All right, and we're going to come over here. Now that those are ready, and we're going to start the actual candy process

We're going to put in our brown sugar, a little butter, about two tablespoons of butter

our milk, and our vinegar. And we're going to stir this until it's dissolved

and then we're going to let it cook until it forms a light thread

I wish you were here with me because the aroma coming out of our pots is just wonderful

It's like a caramel. So I can understand why Johnny couldn't stand the thoughts of going without this

because this was not something that you could go into a sweet shop and find

This had to come out of Mama's kitchen. Our candy's at the proper temperature

We're gonna add these seeds and give them a quick stir, and we're pouring that into

a buttered pan. Look at that wonderful rich caramel color and all those little seeds

And this really is simple to make. It's amazing how quickly this candy will get hard

And we're not gonna cut it right now, but we are gonna score it

then after it gets completely hard, we'll come back and cut it. I scored my first batch

bright and early this morning, so it's all ready to be sliced. And look how pretty that's

cutting. Now this is a rich candy. If you make it, you might want to cut it in a little

smaller pieces because it's truly, truly rich. All right, it's ready to go on the plate

Look at that wonderful candy. Look at it. Nancy, I think we'd make Uncle Bubba proud

It's beautiful. Delicious

Stick around because next I'm going to show you how to make every candy recipe turn out perfect

As I promised, I'm back to share with you a few tips in your candy making

Always start with a clean pot because if it has any oil or fat in it

it can cause your sugar to crystallize. Should you find that your sugar has crystallized, simply put a lid on it and the moisture will

evaporate the crystallized sugar. Or you can simply take a brush, dip it in ice water, and go around your pot

And always make sure you have some ice cold water sitting close by because in case you

accidentally burn yourself, it's a burn like you've never felt before. And flavoring contains alcohol

And as you know, if you cook alcohol, it'll evaporate. So always wait and add your flavorings after you've removed your candy from the heat and

it's no longer boiling. And remember, when you're making a dish that calls for pecans or walnuts, make sure you

add them at the proper time and not too early because they could possibly get scorched and

ruin your dish. And you don't want that to happen. I've had such a great time with y'all today in the kitchen making all these delicious sweets

that have brought back so many wonderful memories. I've got my mama's divinity, and I think I did her proud

My cheesy chocolate fudge, and don't forget, Uncle Bubba's Benny Candy. I hope y'all will take some of these recipes

and get into the kitchen with your children and start making your own memories

And as always, America, I wish you best dishes and love from my kitchen

Thank you