Creamed it
Apr. 21st, 2020 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jkatkinaLet me tell you a tale of defeat and victory, my friends.
It's my wife's birthday on Friday, and our nephew's birthday today (kid's gonn have a fun time in college with that). TL declared that she wanted a cake for today, so we could skype in with our nephew and his cake and pretend to be there with him. I said okay! Excellent, sounds good, can do!
And then I made hummus, and ended up with some extra aquafaba. And then I discovered that Aquafaba Swiss Buttercream Icing is a thing.
Now, I am not a baker. Last time I tried to make buttercream icing, with actual butter and, you know, all that, it curdled and I couldn't fix it. Grainy misery. Delicious but just awful-looking. Don't use raspberries in buttercream, folks. I am also subject to a wide and interesting array of dietary restrictions, including such baking all-stars as eggs and milk. I stick with my meats and my veggies. So, buttercream icing? Not my bailiwick. Not my wheelhouse.
But I am a stubborn bitch, and last night after a cider and a half I got out my chilled, sugar-laden aquafaba and my hand mixer, put on Tim Sutton's Marble Hornets rewatch stream, and I started in on the task.
Friends, I have made mistakes in my life. Here are some that I shall share with you today:
The (substitute, vegan, of mysterious ingredients that I don't ask about but never came from a cow's tit) butter had somehow made its way into the fridge. I did some googling, and despaired. Butter must be room temperature, they said. This is non-negotiable!! they said. Then one sneaky, deceptive little bastard of a website said, here's a way to room-temperature your butter in TEN MINUTES! and like a rube I believed it.
Thirty minutes, a damp microwave, and lukewarm butter later, I'm exhausted and in the first stages of being hungover (I'd been beating that aquafaba for hours by now), I make the executive decision to well-fuck-it-it's-warm-enough.
It's not warm enough.
My aspirational buttercream, after another twenty minutes of beating, looks like wet cottage cheese. It's not going to emulsify. I'm near tears, because I am a dramatic binch, and the internet offers me the excuse I need to go to bed. "Let it sit for a while and then try again!" OKAY. GOOD NIGHT.
Now, during isolation I basically have been rolling out of bed and immediately getting to work. It's great; I can leave work earlier, and it ensconces my grumpy a.m. hours in solitudinous labour. It does mean I got up with intention not to touch the curséd buttecream stew until noon at least, so I shuffled off to the computer mines to paint some space ships.
Maybe forty minutes into my workday, I hear sounds coming from the living room. TL has put on a full, noisy choral rendition of Hallelujah. I wander out, =___=??ing... and she shows me a bowl of. Perfect. Smooth. Silky. BUTTERCREAM.
Folks, leaving it overnight worked. She whipped for like ten more minutes by hand and bam. Magic.
Now we have too much buttercream, and I couldn't be happier.
It's my wife's birthday on Friday, and our nephew's birthday today (kid's gonn have a fun time in college with that). TL declared that she wanted a cake for today, so we could skype in with our nephew and his cake and pretend to be there with him. I said okay! Excellent, sounds good, can do!
And then I made hummus, and ended up with some extra aquafaba. And then I discovered that Aquafaba Swiss Buttercream Icing is a thing.
Now, I am not a baker. Last time I tried to make buttercream icing, with actual butter and, you know, all that, it curdled and I couldn't fix it. Grainy misery. Delicious but just awful-looking. Don't use raspberries in buttercream, folks. I am also subject to a wide and interesting array of dietary restrictions, including such baking all-stars as eggs and milk. I stick with my meats and my veggies. So, buttercream icing? Not my bailiwick. Not my wheelhouse.
But I am a stubborn bitch, and last night after a cider and a half I got out my chilled, sugar-laden aquafaba and my hand mixer, put on Tim Sutton's Marble Hornets rewatch stream, and I started in on the task.
Friends, I have made mistakes in my life. Here are some that I shall share with you today:
- Hand mixers were not made for buttercream, even with whisk attachments. We kept having to ice it as it overheated. Hellish for us and embarrassing for the hand mixer.
- The chemistry of buttercream icing is precise and unforgiving, and does not allow for such travesties as COLD BUTTER.
The (substitute, vegan, of mysterious ingredients that I don't ask about but never came from a cow's tit) butter had somehow made its way into the fridge. I did some googling, and despaired. Butter must be room temperature, they said. This is non-negotiable!! they said. Then one sneaky, deceptive little bastard of a website said, here's a way to room-temperature your butter in TEN MINUTES! and like a rube I believed it.
Thirty minutes, a damp microwave, and lukewarm butter later, I'm exhausted and in the first stages of being hungover (I'd been beating that aquafaba for hours by now), I make the executive decision to well-fuck-it-it's-warm-enough.
It's not warm enough.
My aspirational buttercream, after another twenty minutes of beating, looks like wet cottage cheese. It's not going to emulsify. I'm near tears, because I am a dramatic binch, and the internet offers me the excuse I need to go to bed. "Let it sit for a while and then try again!" OKAY. GOOD NIGHT.
Now, during isolation I basically have been rolling out of bed and immediately getting to work. It's great; I can leave work earlier, and it ensconces my grumpy a.m. hours in solitudinous labour. It does mean I got up with intention not to touch the curséd buttecream stew until noon at least, so I shuffled off to the computer mines to paint some space ships.
Maybe forty minutes into my workday, I hear sounds coming from the living room. TL has put on a full, noisy choral rendition of Hallelujah. I wander out, =___=??ing... and she shows me a bowl of. Perfect. Smooth. Silky. BUTTERCREAM.
Folks, leaving it overnight worked. She whipped for like ten more minutes by hand and bam. Magic.
Now we have too much buttercream, and I couldn't be happier.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-21 10:39 pm (UTC)Also the Hallelujah choir was inspired.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-22 11:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-23 10:27 am (UTC)Also I'm glad it had a happy ending.