Sugar Eaters Rejoice!!

I was up early again a couple days ago, which is no surprise at all, to find my poor Cooper all stove up with a look of pain on his sweet face.  Well that's not good!!  Apparently there was too much ball/toy playing.  Luckily I still have some pills from his last episode.  After a prednisone pill and muscle relaxant, we made ourselves comfortable .... on the floor .... again!!

We sat for four hours watching ... you guessed it ... those Christmas movies on TV.  At least they have a few new ones, but with the same plot and the same bad actors.  Actually some of them are very good ... there's only a couple that aren't believable.

By noon I couldn't stand it any more.  I didn't dare leave the house, afraid I would return to find Cooper up on the couch.  So ..... my latest craze is going to Bigger Bolder Baking's website for these crazy recipes ... like two ingredient ice cream.

You may have seen Good Cook merchandise in the stores here and there.  Gemma is their spokesperson, posting videos on Facebook all the time with some mighty tasty recipes.  It doesn't hurt that she is from Ireland and has a great accent.  The guys might want to tune in for a show or two.

She's very good at coming up with amazing recipes for everyday things .... like marshmallow fluff.  You know, the stuff in the jar that you make fudge with?  When she said it was good on pies, cakes and ice cream, she had me at pies.

So here we go ..... another experiment in home-no-preservatives-cooking.  This is sugar and water, placed on the stove and stirred until the sugar is melted.  Then you stick in a candy thermometer and walk away.  I was pretty skeptical at that point.  Walking away from anything boiling on my stove isn't such a good idea, but walk away I did.

Fifteen minutes later it was up to 240 degrees.  I took it off the stove.

This is egg whites with a tad of cream of tartar ... that weird white stuff.  I've no idea where it comes from or how it works.  I just beat the egg whites into soft peaks, then started adding the boiled sugar.  Too bad I forgot to read the part about being particularly careful exactly WHERE the stream of sugar enters the pan.  

Too close to the beater and it will spread it completely around the inside of the bowl instead of INTO the egg whites.  Let it go for ten minutes.  By the time I stopped it, there was a nice thick layer of hard-as-a-rock syrup clinging to the side of the bowl.  I guess my aim wasn't very good.

Undaunted, I got a spatula and scraped as much as possible into this bowl.  Does this look amazing or what??  Yes there are the occasional chunks of rock hard sugar that you do NOT want to bite down on, but let me tell you, this stuff is the BOMB!!!  OMG!!  I think I ate half of it with a spoon before the lid got placed on top.  

Gemma was right .... it's REALLY good on pie.  Remember those berry pies I put in the freezer?  There are only two left now.  I dipped grapes in it, peanut butter cookies (the BEST), apples ... I even dipped my finger in a time or two.  

Alas, it didn't last long, six days the recipe said, but somehow it disappeared in four.  Remember the old Jello pudding with cool whip, layered in a glass?  This would be WONDERFUL atop anything in a glass!!!  In fact, it was delicious on top of my hot chocolate.

You would think I would be sugared out, but my sweet tooth is the size of the Grand Canyon.  I will try to be good for the next week or so before I make it again.  This time I'll concentrate on where the syrup falls.

The good news is that Cooper is much better today, searching the house for the toys that are all put away.  I'll have to listen to his barking for awhile, but that's okay.  At least he's got a smile on his face now.