My latest quirk is to build a gateau series, and leave my mind to scout for different flavour combinations.
The first one is intense but safe, indulgent but crowd-pleasing. Dark chocolate, coffee, caramel, milk chocolate; this list gives an audience, very little to dislike. It's an elaborate recipe (there I said it!) but can be pulled out for fancy dinners or date nights.
But, can I let you in on a secret? This recipe has a FAILED component! Yes, that's right.
I started making my praline by doing everything by the rule, one thing at a time. Make caramel > roast almonds > Mix and spread > Let it cool, break into shards and blend till paste. But very soon, along with the shards, my perfectly painted picture of it shattered too.
As soon as I started blending the almond caramel shardy bits, the temperature rose, the crumble turned into paste, the paste turned into a hard ball and while it was one hard blend away from turning into the right praline, my grinder huffed and puffed and finally conked off.
I was heartbroken. All my precious ingredients turned into a rock, and there's nothing that can turn back time and fix it.
Right then, my mind started racing to reach a desperate attempt at salvation.
I had a problem. Rock hard crystallised sugar that won't blend further. It had to be broken down using something..anything!. That's when I took some cream out in a bowl, dropped this rock ball on it and microwaved it for a min. The cream emulsified into the crystallised sugar almond rock, and turned it into caramel!
Right there, I was rescued by science and quick thinking, and the result.. Divine goodness!
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