I'm interested in the chocolate chip cookie project. I really like the idea of popcorn in cookies. That's a great idea. How do you get the popcorn to stay crunchy or not get hard from getting mixed in the batter? I've had rice crispies in cookies before to add crunch. Those are yum! Candied lemon is stretching my imagination a bit. Is it the lemon peel or the whole lemon? I've eaten candied lemon rind before and dried whole lemon that was sort of pickled in brine. The whole dried lemon becomes more about the peel since the insides (which is mostly water) get dehydrated out. Are the lemons cut up or left whole? Since the rind dries faster than the pulp, I'm having difficulty imagining it.
I don't :P. Cookies just need to sit somewhere for a day or two and as they get drier, they regain some of the crunch. I was inspired by method of preparation behind pierniki that should be left to 'age' for a month or two to get the proper taste. It's a bit quirky, but many of our sweets seem to have been invented by sadists who want to strain your patience ;). Regarding the 'candied lemon', I'm actually going to talk to with my mother and grandmother about that, because it would seem that it's a derivative of one of many recipes that were made during the period of food-rationing and general post-Soviet (thanks, Russia) lack of resources. It's sweet and chewy, but it's not just a rind. It's almost like a hardened chewing gum in texture. I'll share the method once I'll get to it, but you could probably use any type of candied fruit, since it's likely a long process done to cope with lack of ingredients :/. In the meantime, if you happen to have some Polish foods store near your area you could ask them if they know what I'm talking about. As a side-note: since lemons, oranges, bananas etc back then were pretty much a luxurious good I think the method was initially applied to apples. Probably only around 1990 when that period ceased and borders started to open anyone used the method for other fruits.How do you get the popcorn to stay crunchy or not get hard from getting mixed in the batter?
I've looked on Amazon and on search and found nothing that resembled what you're describing. No chance of my finding a Polish store around here. I'll be interested to hear what you found out. From what you're describing, it sounds a lot like the whole lemon in a brine I described earlier. It had that same type of texture you're describing, both chewy but hardened. That was actually one of my favorite foods at one time.
No problem, I'll keep you in loop. On another note, I have recently began to look around some of the recipes from around that time and found some intriguing ones. I'll be making Blok Czekoladowy (best translation I can come up with would be Brick of Chocolate :D). The bits inside are biscuits, but you can add various types of fruit or anything else you like. It's made from ~35% fat milk powder, chocolate/cocoa powder, biscuits and whatever else you fancy in your chocolate. By no means something that I would call healthy, but I don't think that I have met anyone who did not want another slice.