Squash Candy

I took a giant leap outside of my candy making comfort zone and set out to make squash caramels with the candied spaghetti squash I had leftover from making the Candied Spaghetti Squash Custard Tart. I knew that caramels could be tricky. The process was fun. I ended up with a squash sugar candy with lots of flavor and a nice burnt sugar squash chocolate covered brittle, but no caramels. I found this Ginger Cinnamon Caramel recipe after the fact and realized that I did not add enough butter and cream into my mixture. Plus, I may have taken it off the heat a little early. I think this calls for a consultation with my friend and caramel expert, Kai over at Nosh This to know for sure... what a good excuse to plan for another trip out to San Francisco!

In the end, my squash candies were tasty. I was really impressed when one of my scientist friends could taste a hint of the ginger in the softer, lighter pieces. I still plan on making another attempt at conquering the caramel at a later date! 

Ingredients

 ~2Cups candied squash mixture 

(refer to "Candying The Squash" in Candied Spaghetti Squash Custard Tart)

Candy Thermometer

Blender 

Parchment Paper

Chocolate (I used Ghirardelli 60%)

1 Tablespoon butter

1/4 Cup heavy cream

Candy wrappers (optional)

Instructions

Butter a glass baking dish (I used 11x7). Heat the candied squash mixture in a medium saucepan on medium high until warm and easy to pour. Blend using a hand blender or if you are like me and do not have a hand blender, use a countertop blender and blend until smooth and squash pieces are no longer visible. Return to saucepan on medium high heat. Add butter and heavy cream. Bring the temperature to soft ball using candy thermometer. Remove from heat, pour into glass baking dish, smooth and cut into pieces. Now, this is where you should have nice, chewy caramels. For me, the candy was sugary and soft, but not chewy. It was more like a maple sugar candy. Curious to see what would happen, I decided to return some of the candy to the saucepan and heat a little more. The candy darkened and ended up as a burnt sugar brittle. I cut the brittle when it was cool enough (yet still soft) with a strong pair of kitchen sheers. This really helped to create nice little squares. I had some Ghirardelli chocolate close by (I always have chocolate close by), so I melted a bar and dipped the squares. I then put the chocolate dipped squares in the freezer until set and wrapped in candy wrappers to be extra fancy.

The candy almost started to look like caramel when it came in contact with the buttered dish. 

Enjoy!

Candied Spaghetti Squash Custard Tart

Spaghetti squash is a fun, versatile vegetable. It's a great healthy substitute for pasta and can be eaten with tomato sauce or I really enjoy eating it straight up with a little cinnamon, cardamom, and a little nutmeg. It's packed with folic acid, potassium, Vitamin A, and beta carotene with only 42 calories per cup! I decided to fatten it up a bit by candying the already sweet squash and using it to make a dessert tart. I really had no idea how the end result would turn out, but I was hoping for what I ended up with. The custard and candy sweet squash blended really well together. I made this with a friend and brought it to a party. I found it amusing that people who have never had spaghetti squash thought I had used spaghetti pasta and sweet cheese! So, I am pleased to introduce this phenomenal food to those who may have never tried it before.

Ingredients

1 Spaghetti squash

Nutmeg

Cinnamon

Cardamom

Canola oil

Baked Custard

(Betty Crocker original)

3 Eggs

1 cup evaporated milk

11/2 cups soy milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

dash of salt

Crust

 Nomsense Pie Crust

Note: I modified my recipe and added 1 tablespoon of corn flour and 2 tablespoons of shortening after making this crust.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F. Cut Squash in half, lengthwise. It helps to have a good knife and strong muscles to do this. I had a knife and my friend had the muscles! Brush with canola oil. Season with cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom. Bake until you can easily separate spaghetti-like striations off the squash with fork (~30 min.).

Prepare dough for the pie crust while the squash is cooking. After chilling the dough, roll out and place in tart pan. Poke the dough with a fork and place in freezer for at least 15min. or until squash is done. Remove squash from oven and remove its fabulous spaghetti insides. Bake pie crust until you just start to see it turning golden brown. 

spaghetti!

It really is squash!

Candying The Squash

I am fairly inexperienced with candying. In fact, this was the first time I have ever done this! You may have a little better luck with achieving a more candy-like consistency. The squash was definitely sweeter with a pretty amber color. 

Add equal parts sugar and water in a medium saucepan. Add half of the spaghetti squash and bring to a boil. Next, add 1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger. This added a really nice flavor to the tart! I use Penzeys. We tried to achieve a soft ball candy, but when the temp reached 212F and sat there for a bit, we  turned off the heat. The spaghetti squash looked like glass noodles:

Add the non-candied spaghetti squash to the bottom of the pie crust followed by the custard mixture. 


Custard

Beat eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt in medium bowl. Heat milk (I used a combination of evaporated and soy milk since that is what I had on hand. It tasted great!) and beat with egg mixture. 

Once the custard mixture has been added, fork the candied squash randomly on top. Allow some of the sugary syrup to drop in.  The sugar will caramelize along the edges of the crust while baking, adding extra sweetness! Bake until knife inserted in the middle of the tart comes out clean.

candied squash pinwheels! 

 I decided to make some candied squash pinwheels with the left over dough.  I added some Chipotle Taza chocolate I had left from the Taza factory tour a few weeks ago. The combination was delicious! A nice sugary coating cooked on the bottom of the pinwheels and they were a nice treat to eat while waiting for the tart to cook! My apartment was smelling pretty heavenly!

Enjoy!