I was hankering for caramel sauce on ice cream. But I only wanted a little and I didn't want to spend an hour making it. I decided to experiment with making a little sauce in the microwave. I heated the brown sugar and corn syrup in the microwave, then added some butter.
The result wasn't ideal. I had overcooked the sauce. The tiny quantities make it extremely difficult to time the cooking; the microwave vessel makes it impossible to monitor as it cooks. That gave the sauce a burnt taste as well as very brittle. I suspect that a lot of practice could make this a viable option. But that defeats the purpose, doesn't it?
I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...
Comments
Post a Comment