How far in advance?

[dragnlaw]

Food Network Magazine recently published two recipes that I would really like to make as gifts for Christmas. t has been a REALLY long time since I have made either of these types of recipes.

One was Cashew Clusters ( as in a Brittle) and the other is a Salted Caramel-Bourbon Sauce.

Question:- How far in advance can I make these recipes before the Clusters go gummy and the Caramel - which has heavy creme in it - needs to be used up.

 

[medtran49]

Nuts will go rancid and cashews are one of the bad ones since they are high in unsaturated oil, besides going stale. I don't know how long the brittle will last because it has never lasted more than a few days when I've made it. I'd make a trial batch, plastic bag/container it after it cools and check it again in a week (maybe make 2 batches just so you won't eat all of the 1 ). Just make sure you try at least one of the nuts in each batch you buy. I made a huge batch of mixed spiced nuts for gifts once and didn't try them all since I'm not particularly fond of walnuts and 1 of the other nuts (can't remember). One or the other of them was stale and it ruined the whole batch, made them all taste funky. Expensive mistake I won't make again.

Does the caramel sauce get canned or just jarred? One of Craig's coworkers made up homemade Baily's one year for gifts and we kept it in fridge for a couple of months and it was still good. It was just jarred. Heavy cream has a pretty long life as far as expiration dates go.

 

[dragnlaw]

Hopefully none of it will last - at least once I've gifted them.

It is just I want to make them at least a week (or two) in advance.

I know the creme lasts a long time - I've got an open carton of cooking creme and can't believe how long I've had it - still good! Maybe I'll wait for around the 9th or 10th of December for that one. Want it to last for them, not just for me.

As to the nuts... well I've always found that walnuts have a slightly off or rancid flavour. They used to be the most popular nut to add to baking and it always just put me off - yech! Now I'm a bit more tolerant of them.

So perhaps I shall wait a week before gifting for the cashews as well. Maybe the best idea would be to give them early so they can enjoy during the holiday entertainment time.

Thanks medtran appreciate the input. Oh yeah, almost forgot, it is jarred and refrigerated. Didn't know you could "can" a sauce like that.
Pressured at ....? timed til ....? I could do that!

 

[medtran49]

I haven't the foggiest about canning the sauce. Just asking since I didn't look up the recipe.

 

[GotGarlic]

It seems like the cashew clusters could be frozen, so that would make them last longer. Regarding the sauce, salt, sugar and alcohol are all preservatives, so that will help there. I would think you could freeze that as well, but it would certainly last longer if refrigerated or frozen. No idea what that might do to the texture.

This is all an educated guess, of course, which anyone's comments here would be.

Btw, once you have mixed additional ingredients with something like ultra-high pasteurized heavy cream, the expiration date on the package no longer applies, because additional ingredients can add pathogens to the cream.

 

[dragnlaw]

Yup, thanks GG, that's actually just what I thought but seeing, as you said, the sugar, etc are preservatives in their own right, might not be so bad- but you never know.

I'm also afraid the freezing would change the texture. That one would be easy enough to test.

Time will tell...

LOL I don't want to make too much of a test run - because I would probably eat the whole thing@