My late mother-in-law gave me this recipe for celery seed refrigerator pickles, which makes advantage of the plentiful cucumber supply during the summer. I recently received four (5-gallon) buckets of cucumbers from a neighbor’s garden, and I prepared pickles for the entire neighborhood out of them. In the refrigerator, the pickles will remain fresh for two and a half to three weeks.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 day |
| Total Time: | 1 day 15 mins |
| Servings: | 30 |
| Yield: | 30 sugar cubes |
Ingredients
- 2 cups white sugar
- 2 tablespoons brewed espresso, or as needed
- 1 ½ tablespoons water
- 1 ½ tablespoons instant espresso powder
Instructions
- Stir sugar, espresso, water, and espresso powder together in a bowl with a fork until all the liquid is incorporated and the mixture has the consistency of wet sand. Pour mixture onto a baking sheet.
- Press sugar mixture by hand into a firmly-packed rectangle. Straighten the sides of the rectangle with a dough cutter or metal spatula. Cut mixture into small cubes and spread cubes slightly apart on the baking sheet. Dry cubes at room temperature until set, about 24 hours.
- Be careful not to add too much liquid or the sugar will begin to dissolve. Air drying your sugar cubes takes longer but is more reliable than baking them, so be patient!
Reviews
These make the cutest sugar cubes! I used silicone mini-ice cube trays that I got from Amazon with 160 compartments, and got three trays out of it (so 480 sugar cubes). I’m dividing them up and giving them as holiday gift baskets along with some other homemade treats. And you can basically eat these sugar cubes like espresso candy even if you don’t plan to dissolve them in whatever coffee/tea/alcoholic beverage you might use these in. I did a few things differently from this recipe. I did not include the brewed espresso (seemed like it would add too much liquid, and the proportion of espresso powder to sugar already gives them a strong espresso flavor) and added maybe half a teaspoon less of water, just because it didn’t seem like it needed all of it. I also didn’t have time to just let them air dry so I baked the silicone trays at 250 degrees for 25-30 minutes, then let them cool/rest for a few hours, and got the cubes out of the trays with not too much difficulty. They retain their shape very well and are adorable and tasty. I have not tried to dissolve them in anything hot yet but again… they work well as candy, too. Definitely plan to make these again!