I feel like I reached a culinary milestone this afternoon.
I made caramel frosting, from scratch, with granulated sugar. Without a candy thermometer.
This may not sound like a big deal to you, but to one who has never achieved a "soft ball stage," it's monumental.
Back when I was in my early 20s, I had a craving for old-fashioned fudge - the kind you cook to "soft ball stage," not the marshmallow creme stuff. For years, I'd been trying to make fudge. It never properly set. Sometimes, it would come out a bit like taffy, sometimes a bit firmer. But always you could cut out a little square (or maybe dip it out) and go back to the pan an hour later, and the square hole had closed up, like you'd never taken a piece. I never achieved that firm yet crumbly texture I wanted.
So one night, I decided, This time I'm going to cook it long enough.
I cooked it.
The recipe said to set the pan aside to cool, then come back and beat it until it lost its gloss.
I set it aside to cool.
Made the mistake of leaving the metal spoon in the pan. BROKE THE SPOON OFF trying to get it out of the fudge.
The pan sat, full of water, overnight and all the next day, but the candy did not budge. Tried to warm it on the stove. Nope. We ended up setting the pan outside with the candy still in it. It never did come out. The pan went to the dump.
I never attempted fudge - or any type of candy - again.
But Granddaughter #1 is due a birthday cake this weekend. She asked for a chocolate cake with buttercream frosting. I found a from-scratch recipe for a delicious-looking dark chocolate cake, and another recipe for chocolate buttercream frosting. It seemed to me that a layer of caramel frosting in the middle might be yummy.
I almost backed out of the caramel frosting when I saw that one part of it had to be cooked to a "soft ball stage."
If there had been such a thing as YouTube when I was in my 20s, my life might have turned out differently. Today, I saw what "soft ball stage" is supposed to look like. And achieved it!
Into the soft-ball-stage mixture (milk and sugar) goes hot, caramelized sugar. The thing about making caramelized sugar is that there is about a 5-second difference between not caramel-y enough, perfectly caramelized, and burnt. I somehow got that right, too. Beat it with an electric mixer for 5 minutes, and got it on the cake before it set up too thick. The cake is now in the refrigerator, ready to be frosted tomorrow.
Now, if I can manage not to screw up the chocolate buttercream.
In case you're interested, here are the recipes:
Dark Chocolate Cake II Recipe | Allrecipes (has coffee in it; made two nice, tall, dark layers)
Perfect Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe | Allrecipes - we'll see how this turns out tomorrow
Caramel Frosting Using Granulated Sugar - Recipe | Cooks.com - totally yummy
No comments:
Post a Comment