I Don’t Roll on Shabbos

So I was invited to a seder a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t actually aware when I agreed to go that it was pot luck. I have never been to a seder before, and therefore had absolutely no fucking clue what the hell one brings to a potluck Passover meal. After trolling the internet and having multiple people suggest ‘bagels and lox?’, one of my Facebook friends suggested matzo toffee. This sounded like it would be reasonably easy and probably tasty. Unfortunately, the seder happened to be a week AFTER Passover. As a result, the chain grocery store by my house only had either 5 lb boxes of matzo, onion flavored matzo, or matzo crackers. Unwilling to drag my ass to another grocery store in what would undoubtedly be a vain attempt at finding regular stupid matzo, I went with the crackers. The recipe is pretty straightforward: combine butter and brown sugar to make caramel, spread said caramel over matzo, bake until bubbly, top with melted chocolate and nuts, let sit until crunchy and hard, then break apart into pieces. I think I used this one, but there are a bunch of them out there and they’re all pretty much the same: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/amazing-passover-chocolate-toffee-matzo/. 

First of all (which I expected), it’s much easier to spread hot caramel on sheets of matzo than on crackers. It wasn’t a complete disaster, and was actually easier than I thought it would be, but matzo sheets are definitely the preferred format. 

Look how neat and orderly we are!

Cauldron of molten almost-caramel goodness

Still hanging in there smothered in delicious, delicious caramel

Oh, shit.

Secondly, this recipe tells you to bake your caramel for WAY too long. That shit was already starting to burn on the edges at around the ten minute mark. You can see it in the top part of the picture above. I’m glad I took it out when I did. I took another pinner’s advice and just dumped a crapload of chocolate chips onto the still hot caramel, waited a few minutes, and spread them around like frosting. That was way easier than melting them in a separate container. I also roasted the nuts for a while (about 10 minutes at 300, I think, just check on them a lot to make sure they don’t burn).  I let the whole thing sit out for a while until it came to almost room temp, and then stuck it in the freezer overnight. 

Toffee having been removed from the freezer the next day, with two hours to spare for the party, dumbass me remembered that I lined the pans with wax paper (I do not take full responsibility for this, I had qualms, and my husband told me to proceed anyway) and said wax paper was now GLUED to the toffee. The recipe author used aluminum foil, which I am convinced would result in the same problem. Probably. It makes me feel better to think that at least. I spent about an hour trying to pry it off in little pieces before I completely freaked out and almost called the hostess to cancel. Having stepped away to gather my faculties and yell at my husband, I did some googling and decided that my best bet was to put a damp dish cloth on the wax paper and iron the crap out of it until the wax paper was tortured into submission. Yes iron. On the cotton setting, with steam. This ACTUALLY WORKED. I was able to remove the offending wax paper just in time to stick it back in the freezer while I took a shower to let it set back up since obviously ironing toffee tends to make it melt somewhat. Having emerged from the shower, I broke the toffee into pieces, bagged it, and set off for some Old Testament adventures.

PS this recipe made two large sheet pans worth of toffee. That’s enough to send about five people into diabetic shock. It does pretty much last forever, though, being candy and all, so I kept a bunch of it in the fridge and snacked on it over a couple of weeks.

The blurriness does not convey its true awesomeness, or its ability to completely ruin 2 hours of your day with wax paper-related mutiny

The seder turned out to be really fun, and there was a TON of food. Including (of course) another set of chocolate covered matzo someone else brought. 

All things considered, the crisis was avoided at the last minute and the toffee was really fucking good, so I would make it again. Just butter the shit out of your sheet pans and skip the stupid wax paper. 

Lessons for the week:

1. Fuck wax paper. Seriously.

2. The Rugrats Passover special is still one of the best episodes of anything. Ever. Let my babies go!

3. Apparently you’re not supposed to drink beer at Passover. Whoops. There’s no way I could have made it through all the required wine without a massive hangover the next day, so whatever. God should be happy I put in any effort at all.