Caramel is my Nemesis...
Apr. 14th, 2009 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angharad_gamI hope you all had lovely Easters. We didn't do much on Sunday as my parents were flying in, but we had Andy's parents around for lunch on Monday. I made pumpkin and ricotta ravioli. It was rather good.
I thought I'd make creme caramels for dessert. Originally I was going to make something else, but I forgot one of the principal ingredients on Saturday, and of course the shops were closed. So I had to make something with stuff we already had, and creme caramels fit the bill. So after the kids went to bed on Sunday I got to work. I had two gos at making caramel and they both didn't work out. The sugar liquid did not caramelise, it crystallised. This is a peril of making caramel apparently. I should have checked more carefully as apparently you are not suppose to stir it, and also I suspect Adelaide water did not help. I should have used filtered. Anyway, since it was about 10 o'clock at this point, and I was feeling a bit under the weather (I thought I was working up to another respiratory tract infection, but fortunately it does not seem to have materialised) I gave up and decided we would have Cointreau custards instead.
This is not the first time I've had issues with caramel. I can never get the tops of creme brulees to go all nice and burnt and crunchy either, despite having one of those funky little blow torches. It's strange because I can make period toffee type recipes perfectly well. And I've always wanted to have a go at those caramel nest sort of decorations, but I'm not sure I dare now. I'd probably end up with caramel stuck to the ceiling!
Ashwyn is supposedly having a sleep atm. I put him to bed for a nap and the plan was that Mum and Dad would take the other two out and I would have a nice quiet afternoon on the computer. However the sound of the gate woke him up (it's a noisy gate and he seems particularly atuned to it). So now he is not sleeping but rather yelling. I managed to distract him for a little while with more milk, and then with a TARDIS, but I just heard him drop the TARDIS. He really needs to have a sleep or he will be a little ratbag by about 5pm. And I can see my nice quiet afternoon disappearing....*sigh*
I thought I'd make creme caramels for dessert. Originally I was going to make something else, but I forgot one of the principal ingredients on Saturday, and of course the shops were closed. So I had to make something with stuff we already had, and creme caramels fit the bill. So after the kids went to bed on Sunday I got to work. I had two gos at making caramel and they both didn't work out. The sugar liquid did not caramelise, it crystallised. This is a peril of making caramel apparently. I should have checked more carefully as apparently you are not suppose to stir it, and also I suspect Adelaide water did not help. I should have used filtered. Anyway, since it was about 10 o'clock at this point, and I was feeling a bit under the weather (I thought I was working up to another respiratory tract infection, but fortunately it does not seem to have materialised) I gave up and decided we would have Cointreau custards instead.
This is not the first time I've had issues with caramel. I can never get the tops of creme brulees to go all nice and burnt and crunchy either, despite having one of those funky little blow torches. It's strange because I can make period toffee type recipes perfectly well. And I've always wanted to have a go at those caramel nest sort of decorations, but I'm not sure I dare now. I'd probably end up with caramel stuck to the ceiling!
Ashwyn is supposedly having a sleep atm. I put him to bed for a nap and the plan was that Mum and Dad would take the other two out and I would have a nice quiet afternoon on the computer. However the sound of the gate woke him up (it's a noisy gate and he seems particularly atuned to it). So now he is not sleeping but rather yelling. I managed to distract him for a little while with more milk, and then with a TARDIS, but I just heard him drop the TARDIS. He really needs to have a sleep or he will be a little ratbag by about 5pm. And I can see my nice quiet afternoon disappearing....*sigh*
