While on break (thank you VCU for your monstrous, rejuvenating winter breaks) Weston returned home from work positively flushed with excitement over his latest cooking idea: homemade Snickers. These things are the real deal and here is a little photo documentary...
First we made the nougat...
Foam the egg whites
Use obscene amounts of sugar...
Heat the sugar to a bubbling 230
Mix the cocoa powder with, more sugar, I believe
Gently drizzle in the boiling HOT sugar (thankfully, Weston was very careful not to burn me)
Beat until a beautiful snowy white
It gets SUPER STIFF, though!
Fold the egg white/sugar mixture into the cocoa - very difficult since the nougat is already pretty stiff at this point
Spread into a Pyrex to let harder
The recipe doesn't say this, but I buttered my palm and used my hands so it wouldn't stick
So, we only had natural Spanish peanuts, so we had to roast and shuck them ourselves
Then we layered...
First the peanuts
Then the caramel, heated in the microwave until spreadable
Finally, the chocolate and a few bits of Heath brittle to make it "Sheston approved"
You'll find the recipe for Homemade Snickers here, but it was a very laborious process with not a very satisfying result. We tried making the caramel homemade but it boiled over and didn't set properly so we went to the website and saw about 50 comments saying the same thing, so there was something wrong with it. Hence the store-bought caramels. If I were you, I'd just buy a Snickers... learn from our mistakes :)
I quite appreciated an evening spent with Weston, but it being our last night together before I returned to Virginia, I would have been happy with a take out pizza and an old movie.