Here's a bad photo of the ugly end result. Can you believe this is the best picture of the best looking candy?
I originally wanted to make these because one of the ingredients was very surprising. Guess what strange ingredient is a part of the coconut filling? POTATOES!!!! The starch in the mashed potatoes acts as a binder for the sugar and coconut. The sugar content is so high that you'd never know there is a tuber hidden in your candy. If you want. you can pretend these are good for you. Potatoes have all kinds of wonderful vitamins. Of course you'd probably have to eat the whole batch to get any measurable amount of nutritional value. Hey! I've just given you rationalization for eating an entire batch of these guys!
As I mentioned earlier, I had a bit of a problem with my filling being watery. It didn't set up quite like I thought it should, even after it spent a few hours in the freezer. Maybe my mashed potatoes were too mashy? I used my small cookie scooper and attempted to make them into the traditional oval shape. The oval shaped ones fell apart when they were dipped in chocolate. The coconut filling fared much better when I left it in the round shape straight from the scooper.
Even though whole thing turned out to be an ugly mess, the Homemade Mounds were really quite tasty. Mrblocko said he didn't think they tasted any different than the originals. Of course we didn't do a side by side taste test so he is just going on memories from Halloween. I thought the homemade version was a bit sweeter than the original. The extra sweetness threw me for a loop at first, but after eating the first one I was hooked.
I'm not sure if these guys will live to see Christmas. Right now the homemade mounds are hiding in the freezer next to the snickerdoodle truffles. This actually decreases the safety of both candies. All it is is one stop cookie snacking!
Homemade Almond Joy Bars from Baking and Boys
1/2 cup mashed potatoes (with no seasonings)
2 cups powdered sugar
2 cups sweetened flaked coconut
pinch salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
24 almonds, toasted and cooled
12 oz. chocolate (Almond Joys are made with milk chocolate and Mounds are dark chocolate) Use your favorite.
1 tablespoon butter or shortening
Mix together in medium sized bowl the potatoes, sugar, coconut, salt and vanilla. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Form about a tablespoon of the coconut mixture into an oval shape and push an almond into the center. Set the coconut mounds on a sheet or plate covered with wax paper and freeze them for another 30 minutes or so. Melt chocolate in 20-30 second intervals in a microwave safe dish or in a double boiler on the stove then add the butter/shortening and stir until melted and smooth. With each mound on a spoon, dip them in the chocolate and cover to coat completely. Set them back on the wax paper and refrigerate until set. Makes 24.
Hey, thanks for stopping by my blog and letting me know you made these. It helps to use mashed potato that has no milk or butter in it, or anything else that thins it down. I think it would even work great with just the "guts" taken out of a baked potato, then let it cool.
ReplyDeleteI have a hard time making chocolate dipped goodies look good, too, but I've learned recently it helps while they are sitting on a fork after being dunked, to tap the fork on the edge of the bowl to allow more of the excess chocolate to come off the candy.
Get this, I keep seeing 8 or so of those that I made back when I posted them still in the freezer! I have a feeling they are pretty freezer burned, but if I don't tuck stuff away, then I eat TOO much of it. Not sure why I didn't give them away! Your post makes me want to get them out and give them a little taste (then probably throw them out)!
Ah ha! I bet that is why the filling was too moist. I did add a tiny bit of milk when I did the potato mashing. Next time I'll give the baked potato version a whirl. I'll also try the fork tapping trick the next time I dip stuff in chocolate.
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