I'm in Pennsylvania, December 9th, 2023,,, northcentral area. Still finding pearl oyster mushrooms, and just found a FRESH ,FRESH, chicken of the woods mushroom, thought it's a little late for the chicken.
Northwest Ohio here. Just picked a nice flush of Oysters today. Didn’t really expect to find anything in December!! I am stoked. First time finding them🤗
Love it!! I've been harvesting Candy Caps on the Island here for a month now. Sooo good. Still loads of them out there. Capnoides is just finishing (love them), & late Fall oysterling is going strong lol. It's been a great autumn for mushrooms
Candy caps are basically milk caps. Lactarius are the milk caps, and candy caps are in the lactarius genus. They all exude a milky latex, not always white. Only the candy caps Lactarius rubidus smell like maple when dried@@francesscherz8720
It wonderful to see your amazing family baking cookies. Its definitely a door opener to people who don't know anything about mushrooms until you forage and bake up some Candy Cap cookies 🍪 awesome!
I was at a mushroom foray this last sunday, i kept throwing all the russulas i found & i even stopped few people that had some & offed to show them how to test to see if its a russula even the guy leading the foray when he was going to id it then he ask me what kind of russula it was. I cant control myself & said i learned it from watching you & mushroom wonderland..
I once found a patch in an old growth forest in SW Oregon when I noticed the faint smell of maple syrup emanating from the forest floor. It had not rained in some time and the caps were more fragrant than normal.
I found my first about a month ago and air dried them in the kitchen. The first whiff I got was while I was in the living room about 50 feet away. I immediately thought male syrup was spilled. Who'd have thought just a few small mushrooms could smell up the whole house. Thanks for the video.
One interesting thing that I didn't include in the video that I should have is that when I use heat in a dehydrator they don't have nearly the same smell. When I let them air dry it's way more pungent.
Just before the start of the spring mushroom season in the majority of Washington is a short window of time on the San Juan Islands (specifically around Mt. Constitution and Mt. Finlayson) where there are morels everywhere on the south facing slopes. They thaw out a bit quicker because of the tiny size of the islands and the mountains and I think that’s what causes the huge flushes so early! I’d highly recommend checking them out during the downtime for the rest of Washington as well since they’re not frozen nearly as long as the rest of Washington.
I love this! Just uploaded a short video earlier this morning of a huge Candy Cap patch that I found right here in Western Washington a couple days ago. I can't think of a better mushroom to welcome the holiday season. Thanks for continuing to provide us with excellent content! Keep up the good work!
PS - you are spot on with the Hazelnut connection! I was just referencing this observation to a buddy earlier this season, but I buffered it with acknowledging that I have never seen any reference to there being a mycorrhizal association between the two in any published field guides. So it was more a question/theory at the time - hearing you reference the same observations bolsters the theory! Thanks for that! Curious - have you seen reference to that association in any guides?
Thanks for this video aaron! i watched it this morning and it inspired me to go hunting for these my first time. Your description of habitat got me to the right environment first place i checked. I came up on many lbs in a couple hours before it got dark! Excited to try your recipe and others. I have some baker friends and family that i think will love these.
That is correct. I usually cut them for the basket just to keep the dirt out, actually you can hold them between two fingers and just gently snap the stem with your middle finger the base is in the ground, mainly just to keep the basket clean, but if I'm trying to show the entire mushroom then I'll definitely pluck it. And I'm a little random lol. Mush love
Thanks for ALL your shows! You're doing a great service and keeping people informed..I've been doing the mushroom thing for over 50 yrs and am still learning. Keep up the good work.! Jerry B
Thank you for the great recipe. I love your channel. I have been interested in mushrooms for a long time. When I was a young adult we only picked liberty caps around here but when I moved back from Alaska to Joyce Wa. 20 years ago I picked every mushroom I saw, took it home and looked it up in this huge mushroom encyclopedia thing I had. A somewhat frustrating endeavor. After I moved back to Port Angeles I just got to busy and stopped looking. Now that I am retired your channel has really sparked an old interest and Ive watch every episode faithfully. My walks in the woods here have become so much more interesting. Thank you for that. Your daughters are beautiful, very charming and 👀 just like you.
Saw a similar mushroom with a fantastic smell while fresh. This was orange too but had teeth on the underside, tasted a bit citrus on the after taste. Small but enchanting.
I found some fresh ones that smelled a LOT like maple syrup, but maybe it had to do with the weather? Anywho, I'm making these cookies next time I have a chance! Great video!!!
Hey Aaron thank you so much for your recent video always enjoying your content and have learned so much since You started posting. I was wondering if you had any episodes about the ferry ring mushroom. I know there's some confusion about these and my buddy and I think we are finding tons of them but there's just not that much information about them out there that we can find other than sportprint color. Let me know if you've put out a video on these and/or any thoughts you might have. keep up the great work that you're doing buddy!
In Norway we only have the closely related lactarius camphoratus, and very few people use or pick them, do you know if they can be used the same way? More candy cap recipes would be appreciated!
Great timing on the video, I just made candy cap shortbread for the first time! One of the things I noticed is that they seem to get more potent the larger they are. Have you had the same experience?
Any other sure-fire ways to ID these on the trail, to tell them apart from bad look-a-likes? I'm seeing creamy orange gills, darker orange spot in the middle. Edge turn up/in when young. Maybe slight upturn of the gills where they meet the stem. Anything else that stands out?
Thank you for watching! When you see them side by side there are so many obvious differences that they would be pretty hard to confuse with each other, but a small nibble off the edge of the cap would definitely let you know if it was rufus.. It's very spicy! Just spit out the little piece that you nibble on, the spiciness only lasts for a couple minutes. Candy caps are not spicy at all. Any mild Lactarius is non-toxic, but it definitely wouldn't have the telltale maple syrup scent when dried.
I’m in Alaska so no mushroom hunting this time of year. There are many varieties of mushrooms that grow in my yard but I’m not good enough at identifying them to harvest them. With my luck I’d pick something that was bad. 🤣 How do you identify these mushrooms to be sure they are candy cap? Just pick and let them dry so you smell them?
Thanks for this. I thought that Rubidus didn't come this far north. I've been wanting to find these. Not that you need to say where you were, but do I needs to go outside of Kitsap County to find some? East side? Olympics? thanks!
No they're right in Kitsap county, these ones are actually found right on the edge of Pierce county and Kitsap county. They're out in big numbers right now!
They smell, *and taste*, like maple syrup. I think that would be great but gingerbread is pretty strong flavored and might mask the flavor of the mushrooms. You kind of want to make them the star of the show.
Two questions Aaron: First, is there not a dangerous look-alike? (You usually advise caution and provide explicit I.D. features in such case, but I heard nothing in this video beyond the "smells like maple syrup when dried" regarding field identification.) Second, what temperature on the oven?
