Toffee Lace Cups

While reading Alton Brown's book, "Gear For Your Kitchen" the other night, I came across a recipe for Lace Cups. I was intrigued. They sounded fancy, but pretty simple, so they were moved to the topish portion of my "to try" list. I tried to locate the recipe online so I could bookmark it, but instead came across a different variation - Toffee Lace Cups - and decided I had no choice but to make them right away. Late at night. On a Saturday. Anyway, I made them and they turned out great. We've just been breaking them up and eating the toffee pieces. So good! But the real success was last night when I made Alton's homemade vanilla ice cream (which consequently is the best homemade ice cream recipe I've ever tried), spiked it with crushed candy cane pieces, and served it inside the cups. Successful indeed. Which was a relief since I've had so many unsuccesses as of late. Made that word up I think. So, uh, here's a picture (speaking of unsuccesses...):

Recipe adapted from Foodnetwork.com by Alton Brown

Ingredients:

1/2 stick unsalted butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup plus 1 TBSP dark corn syrup (2.5 fluid ounces)
Pinch of kosher salt
A few drops of lemon juice
1/2 cup flour

Directions:

Combine all ingredients except flour in a small, heavy saucepan over med-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring often. Once mixture is at a boil, stir constantly for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and sift in flour a little at a time, stirring to combine each addition before adding the next. Cool to room temperature or refrigerate for later use. (If refrigerated, allow mixture to come up to room temperature before cooking.) Mixture will thicken a lot as it sits.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cover a baking pan or cookie sheet with parchment paper and spoon out mixture with a metal soup spoon or a small cookie disher. Cookies will spread out like crazy, so place dollops 6 to 8 inches apart. Bake 17-18 minutes or until deep mahogany brown.

Once out of the oven, allow disks to sit for roughly 30 seconds before removing from the pan, otherwise they will be too soft to transfer. Use a metal spatula to transfer the hot candy disks to the bottoms of inverted custard cups or small drinking cups, depending on how deep you want the bowls to be. (Have a cup for each disk, or the disks will set before you can get through them all.) Work quickly and the disks will conform to the shape of the cups. Remove when cool. Store wrapped with paper towel inside resealable plastic bags. Makes approximately 14 cups.

Variation: While hot, disks can be cut into shapes with a pizza cutter or broken by hand when cool and used to garnish other desserts. Or do as the Pioneer Woman would do and give this a try, which I plan to do asap.