Butter

I saw these the other day over on Suzie the Foodie and knew right away that I had to make some! These were my favorite treats when I was a kid, and I'd never made them before. My mom always called them "Chocolate Macaroons", but most of the kids I knew called them "Haystacks". I knew my boys would love them so I went right to the kitchen and started into it. It went really quickly - less than a half an hour from the point when I decided I was going to make them, until I was done. And that included getting the ingredients out of the cupboard, measuring them, and so forth.

You do not bake these cookies - you just make up the chocolate mixture first in a pot on the stove, then mix in the dry ingredients. I tried a batch reducing the amount of sugar but they did not set up properly, so if anyone has any ideas on how to reduce the sugar without that happening, I'd love to hear it. Typically they have coconut in them, which is how my mom made them, but I wanted to do it without coconut. I've read you just use all rolled oats, but I used flaked barley instead of the coconut.

When I was a kid, the grandmother of one of my friends used to make toffee apples and sell them to all the kids in the neighbourhood. This was an important part of the summer in the Red Row - Mrs Fiefield's toffee apples! Recently a friend was talking about making caramel apples, and this reminded me of my childhood. I finally got around to making these for the boys, and the first attempt turned out extremely well. As I perfect the recipe I'll do a video.

This was surprisingly easy to make even for someone like me who has never made boiled candy before. I did not have a candy thermometer but I did have my trusty brewing thermometer, which is accurate even up to the 150C required to make this.