This is one of my family's recipes. I think its one of the greatest, but I'll let you decide when we're done. The recipe has been in our family for at least 40 years. My mom passed it down to me after learning it from my grandma. It's easy and tastes wonderful. On top of that, you may pick up some chocolate dipping tips.
Factoid: The first Mounds Bars were sold in 1920 for 5 cents a piece, then packages as 2 for still only 5 cents.
Gotta love Wikipedia!!
We all know that person in our neighborhood, apartment building or family who bakes and makes candies during the holidays. If that's you, then this will be a piece of cake... or candy in this case. If your the person who watches in amazement, well here's your chance to wow your friends and family.
Caution: This recipe contains nuts, pecans actually!
Another Caution: this recipe makes a gazillion!
P.S. This is my first Instructable so be constructive and nice.
Factoid: The first Mounds Bars were sold in 1920 for 5 cents a piece, then packages as 2 for still only 5 cents.
Gotta love Wikipedia!!
We all know that person in our neighborhood, apartment building or family who bakes and makes candies during the holidays. If that's you, then this will be a piece of cake... or candy in this case. If your the person who watches in amazement, well here's your chance to wow your friends and family.
Caution: This recipe contains nuts, pecans actually!
Another Caution: this recipe makes a gazillion!
P.S. This is my first Instructable so be constructive and nice.
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Here's what you need to make these wonderful little candies.
You'll need:
A blender or food processor to chop the pecans.
Double broiler or microwave safe dish to melt chocolate.
Wax Paper
Sharp knife, spatula, and a good strong spoon.
Cooling rack, helpful but optional.
For those who know a bit about cooking, I'll let you cheat. Here's the recipe.
(Don't worry if this is meaningless to you, I'm going to walk you through this.)
Recipe:
Mix in a large bowl:
3 cups finely chopped pecans
1 pound sweetened coconut
1 box (1 pound) powdered sugar (4x or 10x, doesn't matter)
1 can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk (has to be Eagle Brand!)
Mix well. Form into logs to cut or roll into ball to dip.
Melt 12 oz chocolate chips in a double broiler. Dip pieces and cool on wax paper.
Optional:
You can use different types of chocolate and add paraffin.
There's the basic recipe.
Now for anyone who's eyes glazed over at that part, on to the finer points...
You'll need:
A blender or food processor to chop the pecans.
Double broiler or microwave safe dish to melt chocolate.
Wax Paper
Sharp knife, spatula, and a good strong spoon.
Cooling rack, helpful but optional.
For those who know a bit about cooking, I'll let you cheat. Here's the recipe.
(Don't worry if this is meaningless to you, I'm going to walk you through this.)
Recipe:
Mix in a large bowl:
3 cups finely chopped pecans
1 pound sweetened coconut
1 box (1 pound) powdered sugar (4x or 10x, doesn't matter)
1 can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk (has to be Eagle Brand!)
Mix well. Form into logs to cut or roll into ball to dip.
Melt 12 oz chocolate chips in a double broiler. Dip pieces and cool on wax paper.
Optional:
You can use different types of chocolate and add paraffin.
There's the basic recipe.
Now for anyone who's eyes glazed over at that part, on to the finer points...
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1. i don't bother with the wax for my chocolates, but don't use real chocolate either. Many candy companies use what is called "compound" chocolate; its almost the same as the real thing, but uses palm kernel oil or another vegetable oil instead of cocoa butter. real chocolate has a richer flavor but is a real PITA to temper. not tempering it means the chocolate will have a matte finish and will melt when u touch it. compound is easier to work with and doesn't need to be tempered it doesn't waxy, sets shiny, and wont melt when touched. i use 2 lb blocks of "almond bark" found at walmart for about $3.00 each.
2. when melting the chocolate with a water pot and bowl, make sure the water doesn't touch the bottom of your bowl. the boiling water can scorch the chocolate. you don't even need it boiling... just hot and steamy.
3. be careful dipping frozen stuff in chocolate. the temperature shock can crack the chocolate as it cools. also... if you dab a small bit of the melted chocolate to your lower lip and it feels cool, its the right temp for dipping. too hot and the coat will be really thin with the excess pooling around them making a hard platter.
4. in lieu of milk (for those allergic to it) and sugar; honey, corn syrup, or a simple sugar/water syrup (soft ball stage) would bind the ingredients equally well.
I put the mixture into a jelly roll pan and let it get cold. Then I cut it into squares, dip it into the chocolate/wax mixture using wooden skewers, and place it on wax paper.
Thanks for posting this!
From Wikipedia:
"Like Almond Joy, it consists of a coconut based center; however, it is enrobed with dark chocolate rather than milk chocolate and does not contain almonds."
So if you want to make actual mounds, skip the nuts and substitute the chocolate for dark chocolate. But you noted that this was a family recipe and so they are not mounds but "mound-esk"
After two seconds on Wikipedia, what you have actually made were Bounty Bars sold by Mars (M&M people) yet still minus the nuts.
Yes folks, parafin wax! It is not uncommon in confections that have a chocolate coating. Without it the morsel would be a mess to pick up and eat. It has no ill effect on the body...unless you ate a couple hundred of these. But by that point the was would be the least of your problems! Anyway, most grocery stores sell "Gulf Wax" that is used in canning...works great.
And yes, coconut....deal with it. This tropical foodstuff is either loved or hated but either way it is very underrated. I'm glad to see this recipe doing it justice.
Thanks for sharing your time, your talent and your recipe, SpinWard! I'm still pondering how the pecans fit in the picture...
1) A recipe with more pecans than coconut really is a chocolate-covered pecan coconut ball. Mounds and Almond Joy bars have no nuts so honestly while I can't wait to make this, calling it a Mounds just doesn't seem right.
2) Mounds is a brand in the US hence the confusion with the person wanting to swap out coconut. Bounty is a similar bar sold elsewhere in the world (with better chocolate I might add) :)
3) In Maine they make bars called Needhams where they use potato starch and coconut and cover it with chocolate. Doh...after I typed that I realized I said coconut. If you can't eat coconut this really isn't the best recipe - although I wonder if you made a bar using potato starch and pecans how it would come out. You can google this candy to learn more. I'd never heard of it and thought it was kind of cool since Maine is a big potato growing state.
4) The chocolate sans paraffin should be just fine. If you don't have a "gourmet" covering chocolate on hand like Callebaut I'd use a Symphony bar (in the US made by hershey) or Lindt or something like that.
5) In the old days recipes often referenced specific brands like my mom's rice recipe always said "use uncle ben's rice" which is because well..the Uncle Ben box said to! I'm sure any brand of condensed milk would do.
I'm soooo jealous that you live on a pecan farm! I love nuts and pecans and want to come to a harvest sometime. This was a great detailed instructable and now I want to make some homemade Mounds' (well really almond joys which I think are yummier, perhaps pecan joys!)
Makes a lot of sense to add Gulf Wax to the coconut because one is indigestible and the other is, indigestible. It makes for a pretty, shiny coating, right?
Now, for those coconut-less recipes....
Why would I write a reply? Because where I come from, it is a free country, with the right of free speech.
I read the recipe because it was entitled 'Easy, Homemade "Mounds" Candies.' The word coconut is not in the title or I wouldn't have looked at it at all. Forgive me for forgetting that "Mounds" is one of the few candies that I absolutely detest. Once here, the directions for dipping in chocolate were of interest, even if it did contain Gulf Wax (which is what I used to use to wax my surf board 30 years ago.) Then of course there was the image of coconuts = toe nails.) That was just too fabulous to resist.
And I repeat, now onward to those coconut-less recipes....
lol I never realized that making candy could be so dangerous. :)
They look delicious, very nice job.
I was just wondering because you see a lot of American TV shows up here, they all seem to diss CA at one point.... Ah well =)