Sunday, July 13, 2008

Cinnamon twiddle pickles

Pickle Log: Friday
Start with 2 gallons of sliced, peeled cucumbers, with centers removed. Rinse well and add 8-1/2 quarts water and 2 cups lime. Let stand for 24 hours.
Pickle Log: Saturday
After your 24 hours is up, rinse cucumbers until the water runs clear. You want to get all of the lime off of them. Cover cucumbers with cold water and let stand for 3 hours. Go twiddle your thumbs. Drain.
Make a mixture of 1 cup vinegar, 1 ounce red food coloring, 1 tablespoon alum and enough water to cover cucumbers. Let simmer for 3 hours (go twiddle your thumbs again)and drain.
Make a syrup of 3 cups vinegar, 3 cups water, 15 cups sugar, 12 sticks of cinnamon, and 30 ounces of red hots. Dissolve red hots in water and then add sugar stirring diligently until it dissolves. This is no time to be twiddling your thumbs.

Pour mixture over rings and simmer for 3 hours. Does anybody but me see a trend here? Go twiddle your thumbs. Turn off the burner and let the mixture stand. It's not going any where and honey, those are pickled. What could possibly happen to them? Go to bed. That's what I did.

Pickle Log: Sunday
Simmer pickles for 3 hours. Again, twiddle, twiddle, twiddle. After 3 hours of twiddling, I mean simmering, bring the pickles to a boil. Immediately put into jars and seal. There you have it, cinnamon pickles.

Aunt Jo's changes: I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I decreased the sugar considerably and used 3 cups of Splenda baking blend instead. I'm sure die hard pickle purist will hate me, but I can live with it. I can't live with blood sugar over 1000 which is what would happen if I'd used 15 cups of sugar. Can you imagine?

I was stingy and wouldn't pay 5 bucks for five dinky little half cinnamon sticks. I bought a bottle of cinnamon extract and an extra bag of red hots instead.

Other than those two changes, I did it by the book. Not only are my pickles plenty sweet, they're also plenty cinnamony.

Oh yeah, I have one pink finger and a pink thumb. I'm so proud.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I have a recipe for these but have never made them? They look good! WOW that was a storm and a half, we get those kind now and then, more so this year, so glad your place was spared!

Annie said...

Very interesting!

SchnauzerMom said...

Wow that is a lot of sugar isn't it? I think I would have cut back on it too. They look really good.

Anonymous said...

I have never heard of cinnamon pickles. They look and sounds good!


I want to invite you to participate in the The Carnival of Home Preserving.

It is a Carnival to Share Recipes and How-To's for Canning, Freezing, Dehydrating (drying), and Root Cellaring of Fruits, Vegetables, and Herbs.

The first edition is posted if you would like to come visit:

Carnival of Home Preserving - July 14, 2008 Edition

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sweetiepie said...

Wow, these pickles look good. I love cinnamon anything. I also love the name cinnamon "twiddle" pickles...very cute. Thanks for sharing.

Maryjane-The Beehive Cottage said...

My grandmother use to make this with apples and we called them Rosie Apples! Yummy! I am sure these pickles are a big hit to!

Hugs,
Maryjane