Antonia and I are planning to learn to make sweets of all kinds.  And we will be calling it chemistry.  We started with crystallised violets, which can only be done at this time of year of course.

Crystallised violets are very retro.  I suppose we must be in that kind of mood.  By the time I was a kid they had already morphed into artificial purple blobs.  Now they’ve disappeared completely, presumably because the purple food colouring turned out to be carcinogenic.  I can see why the real ones aren’t mass marketed.  If we want to improve them next time, we will paint each one with egg white individually using a small paintbrush, as the recipe suggests, instead of just dunking them.  And I would go with the ultra-refined, pure white, finely crystallised sugar instead of the earthy, organic stuff we usually use.

We also made fudge, but as we didn’t have a sugar thermometer at the time we undercooked it.  The mixture sat around the kitchen for, errrm…, several weeks while it dried to a suitable consistency.  Now it tastes just right.

We are fairly expert at origami by now, so making the box to keep the sweets in was a singe.  I love making boxes, plates, envelopes and folders, which must be one of the most useful and easy branches of origami.