Divinity

To me, it's not the Christmas season without Divinity. It's my favorite holiday candy. You know how much I like candy, so that says a lot. I absolutely love, love, love Divinity! My husband made it for me once, but he's not much into candy making or baking, so I haven't been able to get him to make it again. Disneyland has a really good Divinity. I found a decent one at Albertsons this year. Finding good Divinity is hard. It has to be a certain texture. One store here sells it, but it's too powdery. Divinity should be soft and chewy like fudge. My friend Sharon asked if I could post the recipe, so I thought I'd do it on my blog. I was looking online also and it suggested not to make Divinity if the humidity is higher than 50-60%. That's something I'd never heard of, but since we're due for some snow, I guess I'll have to hold off making it and head back to Albertsons. I absolutely love this stuff. This is the recipe Rick used last time --

DIVINITY

• 2-1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 2 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)

In a 2-quart saucepan mix sugar, corn syrup and 1/2 cup water. Cook and stir over medium high heat to boiling. Clip candy thermometer to pan. Cook on medium heat without stirring to 260 degrees, hard-ball stage (about 10-15 minutes). Remove from heat and remove thermometer. In a large bowl, beat egg white with an electric mixer on medium speed until stiff peeks form and the tips stand straight up. Gradually pour hot mixture in a thin stream over whites, beating on high speed for about 3 minutes. Add vanilla and continue to beat on high just until candy starts to lose its gloss. When the beaters are lifted, mixture should fall in a ribbon onto itself. This last beating should take about 5-6 minutes. Drop a spoonful onto waxed paper. If it stays in a mound, the mixture has been beaten good enough. If it flattens out, beat for another minute and test again. When it's ready, quickly stir in the nuts to the remaining mixture. Use a spoon to drop the mixture onto waxed paper and let cool. Store in a tightly covered container. Makes about 40 pieces.