Soooooooooflay!
This morning I found a great-looking menu for Valentine's Day over on Epicurious. Immediately though portions were eliminated for excessive fussiness. Herbed crepes with smoked salmon and goat cheese? How about some nice olives and cheese on a board instead. Raspberry champagne cocktails? There's really no improving on the basics when you have a bottle of Veuve Cliquot Grande Dame sitting in the fridge. I did really want to give the frozen praline souffles a shot though as they seemed tricky but within my scope of abilities. Hurdle #1: getting past the incredibly obnoxious review left by someone in Manhattan, New York. Quoting from it won't do it full justice so here it is unedited:
"Brilliant but a little time consuming. Portions are way TOO large--our guests (except piggies) left at least half or more. Suggest using 2-3 oz ramekins with 1/2" crown."
Excuse me? "Except piggies?" This one little parenthetical afterthought left me amazed and terrified at the same time. Do people actually have dinner parties where they judge their friends based on how little they eat? I thought the whole point of inviting your friends over to eat was to laugh a little, drink a little, eat a little and maybe get a compliment or two on your cooking. How naive have I been all these years, and just how piggy do they all think I am?
"Brilliant but a little time consuming. Portions are way TOO large--our guests (except piggies) left at least half or more. Suggest using 2-3 oz ramekins with 1/2" crown."
Excuse me? "Except piggies?" This one little parenthetical afterthought left me amazed and terrified at the same time. Do people actually have dinner parties where they judge their friends based on how little they eat? I thought the whole point of inviting your friends over to eat was to laugh a little, drink a little, eat a little and maybe get a compliment or two on your cooking. How naive have I been all these years, and just how piggy do they all think I am?
Hurdle #2: Making the praline. Actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. Got it to work on the first try without any issues. I should have known something worse was coming.
Hurdle #3: Make a meringue. Meringue? I thought this wasn't baked! Crap. So how hard can it be. Starts off similar to part 1, making a caramel of sorts, really more of a simple syrup. Use a candy thermometer. No worries, got one of those. Except however, it's too long for the small pot. Uh, ok, I'll time it. Turn my back for one second to start whipping the egg whites and boom, it's a light brown. Well, guess it's done. As per recipe directions, start adding syrup to whites in a slow stream while on high. Suddenly large, hard blobs of sugar are banging around in the bowl, the fluffy white egg whites are now dried blood brown and bits of sugar are clinging to everything. Having never made this before I can't judge if this is the desired outcome but I can guess that's it's not quite what Ruth Reichel would call up to editorial standards. In a fit of perfectionism I dump everything down the sink, wash it all off and start off. This time I watch the syrup like a hawk, and pull it off well before it turns dark. The egg whites are doing well, and again, slowlyslowlyslowly I pour the syrup into the whites. Now I get one giant chunk of glass-like sugar crud in the bottom. But the color is better - pure white. I switch the whisk out for the harder beater and decide to beat the hell out of the egg whites. This sort of works in that the giant Pangaea-like chunk has broken into seven smaller continents of sugar. Meaning it didn't really work. I decide I'm not really up for pastry chef imitations this evening and make up for the unevenness of the egg whites by making the whipped cream consistent. Everything folded together well enough and is now sitting in the freezer. Next year I'm sticking with chocolate sponge cake, even if it is predictable.
