Roca Madness

My adult son called me a bitch last Christmas, but before you get all huffy, you should know that I was not insulted. On the contrary, I was delighted. Let me explain.

It all started back in the sixties with my mother’s friend, Jen McNaught, who made almond roca, this amazing toffee candy that everyone raved about. My mother had no luck making Jen’s almond roca, but I gave it a try and turned out a perfectly delicious batch of toffee. From then on I have been famous for my almond roca.

That’s the thing about this candy. It has a possessive quality. If you are successful in making it, it becomes yours no matter whose it was before. It was Jen’s Almond Roca before it became Liz’s Almond Roca. I passed the recipe on to Darlene, who now makes Darlene’s Almond Roca for friends and family, and to Bob, whose boss expects Bob’s Almond Roca to arrive at the office every December. And so on - the almond roca family tree.

Almond roca also inspires obsession – obsession to eat it and to be the one who makes it. So I am happy to share the recipe, grow the family tree.

The recipe is simple: Place a cup of sugar, a cup of butter and a cup of whole blanched almonds in a skillet with the burner on high. Stir constantly until the butter is melted and the ingredients are blended. Turn the heat to medium high and continue stirring for about eight minutes or until the mixture is toffee colored. It sounds easy, but for some reason people have trouble with it.

After forty-some years of making almond roca every Christmas, I’ve developed my rituals, and I don’t stray from them. I use a cast iron skillet and a wooden spoon. I follow the recipe exactly and have gone to great lengths to get the whole blanched almonds, which aren’t readily available anymore. Maybe it’s silly, but I don’t want to mess with success. I have a reputation to maintain. I want my disciples to succeed, too, so I make sure the recipe I give them includes all my tips.

Which brings me back to last December when my son, Eric, and my friend, Nancy, decided they wanted to make the candy. That’s when the trouble began.

One evening I received a frantic call from Nancy.

“I’ve got an oily mess here,” she said. “What am I doing wrong?”

Since this happened to me the one time I used regular almonds, I asked if she’d used blanched almonds.

“I couldn’t find whole blanched almonds anywhere, so I blanched them myself,” she said. “It took forever, popping off all those skins. It became kind of a Zen experience, so I didn’t really mind. But now I have a disaster and all that work was for nothing. Help!”

“Maybe there was still some oil in the nuts,” I said. “Did you have the right amount of butter?”

“One cup,” she said.

“Maybe the heat wasn’t right,” I said.

“Maybe it’s the pan,” she said.

Over the next couple of days, Nancy tried again and again – blanching almonds, not blanching almonds, using blanched almond slivers and sliced almonds, different skillets and burner temperatures. She’d call to report in that she’d burned this batch, undercooked that batch, thrown away yet another batch. I had to admire her persistence, but I was stumped as to why it wouldn’t work. She was finally about to give up, but was going to replenish her supplies and try one more time the next day.

That’s when Eric called.

“I’ve got an oily mess,” he said. “What am I doing wrong?”

He’s an excellent baker, so I couldn’t imagine how he could have failed.

“Whole blanched almonds?” I asked.

“Well, I blanched them myself. I couldn’t find whole blanched almonds anywhere,” he said.

I had a new respect for my son and my friend, blanching all those almonds themselves. But, clearly, it didn’t work.

“Did you use one cup of butter? Not one pound?”

“Mom,” he said with disgust, “I know what a cup of butter is.”

“Okay,” I said. “How about the pan?”

“Cast iron, just like yours,” he said.

“And the level of heat?”

“Just exactly what the recipe says,” he replied. “Maybe if I get some of those blanched slivered almonds.”

“You could try, but Nancy didn’t have any better luck with those,” I said.

“I’m going to the store,” he said. “I have to have this for school tomorrow.”

An hour later he was on the phone again.

“I still have an oily mess,” he said. “I bought slivered and sliced and regular almonds and I’ve tried them all and I still have junk.” He sounded frantic. The mom in me needed to make this right for him.

“Well, let’s break it down,” I said like a detective. “There are only three ingredients, so one of them has to be a problem. Sugar is pretty much just sugar, so it can’t be that. You’ve used every possible kind of almond, so it’s probably not that. That leaves the butter. You’re using the right amount, so maybe there’s something wrong with the butter. What kind is it?”

“It’s just regular unsalted butter,” he said.

“Unsalted?” I said. “I don’t use unsalted. Maybe that’s the difference. Maybe there’s some chemical reaction that requires the salt.”

By then it was ten o’clock at night, but Eric was determined to have almond roca to take to school the next day. He couldn’t go empty handed. So off to the grocery store he went. I waited nervously until finally the phone rang.

“You brilliant bitch!” he said.

“It worked?” I said.

“Yep,” he said. I could hear the big smile in his voice.

There’s something exhilarating about sharing a victory with your kid, even if he has just called you a bitch, so we basked in the glow of our roca triumph for a while, congratulating each other before we hung up. Right away I sent Nancy an email relaying the salted butter story. The next afternoon she called to report her own success with salted butter. Hooray! The roca gods were smiling again.

This year brought no almond roca traumas, especially since I have amended my recipe to require salted butter. But I discovered that all salted butter is not equal. On the fifteenth of my sixteen batches the mixture started separating and getting oily. In a moment of inspiration I reached for the saltshaker and sprinkled it generously into the skillet. Voila! It all started to bind together again and the batch was saved.

Damn, I am a brilliant bitch!

Oh, and now there are two more solid branches on the almond roca family tree. Eric’s teacher friends are talking about Eric’s Almond Roca, and a friend of Nancy’s told her, “I have never had anything so good as your almond roca!”

I’m so proud.

Copyright 2011 by Liz Zuercher