Zuurkoolstamppot: or, Kraut Spuds and Bacon

Some delicacies must wait until no one is around to whine about the smell.

Zuurkoolstamppot 750g starchy potatoes (about 1½ pounds), peeled (if desired) and cubed* 250g sauerkraut (about 8 ounces) 100g smoked bacon (about ¼ pound), diced† 1 onion, finely chopped (or one 12-oz package frozen chopped onion) 2 garlic cloves, minced ½ cup milk Butter to taste (I didn't use any) Pepper to taste Put the sauerkraut in a strainer over a bowl (or the sink) and set aside to drain. Boil the potatoes in salted water until soft. Meanwhile, cook the bacon until crisp in a large frying pan. Remove and set aside, leaving the drippings in the pan. Add the onion and saute until soft. Then add the garlic and cook another minute or two. Next, add the drained sauerkraut and stir long enough to warm it through. When the potatoes are ready, drain and mash them. Add them to the frying pan along with the bacon. Mix everything together, adding milk, butter and pepper to taste. You can also add salt, but taste first because there's probably already enough from the other ingredients. If desired, garnish with chopped chives, green onions, or parsley. *Just round to the nearest potato. This isn't one of those recipes where measurements must be precise. †If smoked bacon is too expensive, you can just add a few drops of liquid smoke when you're mashing the potato. Note: This is really good if you mix in a little mustard (wholegrain if you have it). Source: Retro Food for Modern Times

Today, we are borrowing a recipe from our Pieathlon friend Taryn at Retro Food for Modern Times. It's basically cabbage spuds and bacon except this time, the cabbage is fermented. 

Since I really love sauerkraut, this recipe seemed absolutely perfect for me-- and that's before we get to the bonus onion. But first, bacon!

At first I thought it was a lot of bacon grease for one recipe. But people tend to put truly heartstopping amounts of butter into mashed potatoes on a normal day. So really, bacon grease is a lateral move.

Next, we got to the onion! I took the lazy route and bought frozen chopped onions instead of cutting one up on the spot. 

I've happily let myself get into the habit of keeping frozen chopped onions on hand for whenever I feel something could use a lift. Just like the spices in the cabinet, it's nice to always have onions ready whenever we need them.

While our onion was cooking, our potato was ready to come out of the pot and get mashed. The recipe calls for 750 grams of potatoes, and I decided one of the bigger spuds in the supermarket bin was close enough. Unless you're making a very precise recipe, there's nothing wrong with rounding to the nearest potato.

Moving back to the bacon fat, I think I set my burner a lot higher than Taryn did when she posted this recipe. My onions became a bit artisanally blackened while I wasn't looking. 

Everything smelled divine anyway. (Really, how can you go wrong with onions and bacon?) And when I added the sauerkraut, the steaming vinegar scoured my nose so I could really appreciate the aroma of success.

Soon, it was time to add our mashed potato, which had turned into a surprisingly firm clump in its bowl. If I wasn't making zuurkoolstamppot, I could have unmolded this onto a platter.

The recipe says to add butter to taste along with the milk. I haven't gotten to go grocery shopping in Australia (where Taryn is writing from), so I don't know what bacon looks like there. But here in glorious America, bacon has so much fat on it that the actual meat sometimes seems like it got into the packaging by accident. So, butter seemed superfluous.

This tasted exactly like what went into it. I was in sauerkraut ecstasy. 

I served this with Swedish meatballs, and the potatoes were a lot better than the beef (which, by the way, was really good). If you have a well-ventilated kitchen or a good aim with a wooden spoon when people come grousing about the smell, you owe it to yourself. 

Swedish Meatballs

Today, we are bringing Ikea into our home!

Swedish Meatballs 4 eggs 2 cups milk 1 cup breadcrumbs 1 cup finely chopped onion ½ cup butter 2½ pounds lean beef* 3 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon each nutmeg, allspice, and cardamom 4 tablespoons flour 3 cups beef stock or bouillon 3 cups half-and-half or cream salt and pepper to taste 1 teaspoon dill weed, crushed if fresh In a large bowl, whisk together eggs and milk. Add breadcrumbs. Cook onion in 2 tablespoons of the butter until soft. Mix into bread crumb mixture. Add salt, nutmeg, allspice, cardamom and beef. Mix everything thoroughly. (The mixture is very soft.) Let chill for an hour or so for flavors to blend. Shape into 1-inch balls. Refrigerate for a few hours so they firm up. Brown the meatballs slowly in remaining butter, turning them carefully to prevent squishing them. Select a large casserole or Dutch oven with a lid, and put it next to the stovetop. Place the meatballs in it as they come of the frying pan. Add the flour to the pan drippings and cook until lightly browned. Slowly pour in the beef stock, stirring vigorously to prevent lumps. Cook, stirring constantly, until sauce comes to a boil and is thickened. Add cream, salt, pepper, and dill. The sauce will be very thin. Pour the sauce over the meatballs. (If desired, pour it through a strainer.) Place the casserole on the stove, cover it, and simmer 30-40 minutes. Or, bake covered at 325° for 30-40 minutes. You can freeze the leftovers in their sauce, and either microwave them or reheat them in a 325° oven. *You really want to use lean meat for this recipe. The extra fat has nowhere to drain off to. Note: As always, we at A Book of Cookrye make no promises about whether this recipe is "authentic" or not. We are but ignorant Americans. Source: California Beef Council via Old Recipes on Reddit

For the longest time, I thought that Ikea invented Swedish meatballs because I have never seen them anywhere else. Of course, my inner cheapskate never let me buy them. This recipe came across Reddit a while ago, and I decided that I would finally try Swedish meatballs if I have to make them myself.

The recipe calls for "finely chopped" onions. This was a perfect time to use this knife thing I got a couple of Christmases ago. I was able to mince these before they had a chance to thaw.

Next, the recipe calls for "¼ teaspoon each" of the spices, and then says two of them are "optional." Would these still be Swedish without them, or would they just be meatballs? I tripled the spices instead of omitting them.

At this point, it looked like making meatloaf. Here I made the first of two big mistakes: I used 80% beef. If you read the directions, you will see that the future drippings would have nowhere to go as everything cooks.

A few refrigerated hours later, the time had arrived to put the meatballs in a lot more butter than I thought was necessary. 

Every recipe teaches you something new, whether you're prepared to learn or not. This recipe taught me that if you refrigerate meatballs for a few hours, it is so much easier to sear them without squishing them. See? Every single meatball is still meatball-shaped!

Meanwhile, we were supposed to turn the pan drippings into a gravy, at which point I made my second big mistake. I decided that our white sauce looked too runny. I know the directions say "Sauce is very thin," but this was practically water. And so, I added more flour. It was rich, creamy, and soon proved utterly wrong for the recipe. It's supposed to seep between the meatballs, but instead it sat on top. To salvage what I had nearly ruined, I cheated and poured water into the pan, hoping things would magically resolve themselves in the oven.

As the meatballs cooked, I found out why I should not have used 80% beef. You know how I said the drippings had nowhere to go? Well here is the fat, floating on top of everything in yellow puddles! 

On a happier note, our gravy and water fixed itself as the meatballs baked. It had started bubbling fairly early in the baking time. By the magic of convection, it mixed itself into a really nice creamy sauce. You just had to look past the puddles of grease before you could appreciate it.

The meatballs are sharing a plate with zuurkoolstamppot.

This recipe was a lot better than I thought it'd be. The meatballs tasted like a really good breakfast sausage without all the extra grease. (Well of course the meatballs weren't greasy. All the fat was floating on top.) I would never have thought to put dill and nutmeg in the same dish, but it is an inspired combination. 

I think they were a lot better the next day, if only because I carefully put the leftovers in the fridge without disturbing the grease, thus allowing me to pluck the fat out of the pan after it hardened. I mixed them with egg noodles, adding an extra-large spoonful of gravy. It was amazing.

So in conclusion, these are really good. But you definitely want to use extra-lean meat for this recipe. Also, I'm going to try putting nutmeg and dill together more often now that I've learned about it.

Chocolate Dot Cookies: or, They're really good if I can stop ranting

Today, we are attempting chocolate chip cookies from Canada!

Chocolate Dot Cookies ½ cup shortening ½ cup white sugar ¼ cup brown sugar, lightly packed 1 egg, beaten 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour ½ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon baking soda 1 cup (or 6 ounces) chocolate chips ½ cup chopped nuts, if desired Heat oven to 350°. Have greased or paper-lined cookie sheets ready. Beat the shortening until soft. Gradually add the sugar, beating the whole time. Add egg and vanilla, beat well. Sift in the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix into the batter. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by the spoonful onto the pans. Bake 10-12 minutes. Makes about 3 dozen cookies. Chatelaine's Adventures in Cooking, 1968 via Imgur

This comes to us from Chatelaine's Adventures in Cooking, published by the Canadian magazine of the same name, by way of a recipe swap group. 

Chatelaine's Adventures in Cooking, 1968

From this uneducated foreigner's perspective, Chatelaine's Adventures in Cooking looks like a "standard kitchen text" of Canada.  You know, one of those cookbooks that countless people got as a housewarming or wedding present, or  bought with their first saucepans. If anyone from Canada is reading this, do let me know: is this one of those "I learned to cook from my Mom's copy" books that nearly everyone had?

For various personal reasons, I am suspicious of chocolate chip cookie recipes. They always turn into runny splats unless I add a lot more flour than the recipe thinks I should. But every recipe I've tried came from the United States. Maybe Canada can do better.

Our adventure with Chatelaine starts off with shortening. I am leery of shortening unless I'm brushing it onto a hot pizzelle iron. But after an endless succession of chocolate chip cookies that melted into sad splats onto the pan, I was willing to give it a go. After all, shortening has a higher melting point than butter, which might help the cookies hold themselves together long enough to bake properly.

At the sight of the brown and white sugars almost but not quite commingling, I thought "Look at that Canadian marbling!"

As we reached the end of mixing, I was surprised and delighted to see that this recipe uses roughly equal amounts of chocolate chips and cookie dough.

Now, I was almost willing to risk an entire panload of cookie dough without testing a single cookie first. The recipe seemed sound, and the dough felt right. But after so many runny failures, I don't think I can let myself trust any chocolate chip cookie recipe. Even the recipe on the Toll House bag, the one that literally introduced chocolate chip cookies to the world, turned into sad splats until I added a truly uncalled-for amount of extra flour.

 

When I pulled the cookie out, I was not as surprised as I thought I would be. It's true that the recipe comes from Canada (which seems to endorse it for reasons I can't explain), and the dough didn't seem as "floppy" as all of our earlier cookie failures. But apparently chocolate chip cookies are treacherous business.

And now, I would like interrupt this recipe with a rant.

Whenever I flip through baking and recipe forums, there's always a steady flow of people asking "Why did my cookies come out flat?" (More often than not, it's chocolate chip cookies.) And people will (un)helpfully answer with the same incorrect myths. They'll ask "Did you refrigerate the dough? Did you thoroughly cream the butter and sugar? Did you use a dark pan or a light one? Were your eggs cold or room temperature? Did you set your oven too low?" The "advice" I see the most often is the false claim that refrigerating the dough overnight will "hydrate" the flour, thus allegedly helping the cookies not melt so badly.

I have tried all of those things. I've jockeyed with the oven thermostat. I have gently mixed the butter (or shortening) and sugar, and I have also beaten "until pale-colored and very light." I have refrigerated the cookie dough, and I have also pre-shaped it and then frozen the individual unbaked cookies until ice-solid. And while all of those things can change how the cookies come out, they will not fix a runny dough. 

It infuriates me to see these myths persist in various comment sections, because then people try them. And when they don't work, the people baking at home blame themselves and get frustrated.

If your cookie dough is too runny, the only fix is to stir in more flour.

If you think about it, cookies that are supposed to spread are more finicky than almost anything that people bake. If you don't get the dough exactly right, it either turns into a hot runny mess, or it bakes into hardened dough clods. Even things like shortbread, which are supposed to keep their shape, are more forgiving. If you add a bit too much flour to them, they'll just be extra-firm rather than ruined. 

This brings me to my next complaint: I can't stand the myth that if you measure your ingredients exactly right, things will always come out as predictably as a chemical reaction from a science textbook. Reality is messier than a splattered countertop. 

Cookies* are technically "freestanding loaves" if you stretch that term as far as pedantically possible. Most other bread recipes give a range of flour instead of a single-number amount. Or at least, most recipes that are written by actual people instead of content farms do.

When skimming the ingredient list for most breads, you tend to see things like "3 to 5 cups flour" or "3 cups flour (approx)." The directions usually go on to tell you what kind of dough you want (springy, soft and slightly sticky, very firm, etc), so that you can make sure you get the flour right. But in cookie recipes, I have only seen this natural variability acknowledged once. On the Mirro cookie press instruction sheet, they wrote "Do not [emphasis theirs] add all of the flour specified in the recipe before first trying the dough for consistency. Due to variations in flour or the size of eggs it sometimes becomes necessary to omit some of the flour or to add an additional one or two tablespoons." (Of course, it would have helped if they said what consistency the dough should be. But they still did better than everyone else.) 

It is impossible for recipe writers to control for variations in wheat crops, your local humidity, or how much water is in your butter and eggs. Sure, simply saying "mix in two cups of flour" sounds more assured than "add enough flour to make a firm dough." But it is a lie.

Speaking of wheat crops, I think something might be amiss in this year's harvest. Granted, I know nothing about the art and science of wheat cultivation. But it seems like I've been adding extra flour to everything lately. I made a batch of oatmeal carmelitas the other week, and the dough looked like this. Keep in mind that that you're supposed to crumble it over everything else. 

I went to the book and double-checked the recipe to make sure I measured everything right, then I checked it again because I knew something was surely amiss. But either the book has a typing error in the ingredient list, or flour today just isn't what it used to be. I ended up nearly doubling the flour before I could "press into the pan" or "sprinkle remaining dough on top" like the recipe said I should. 

More recently, I made a batch of chocolate waffle iron cookies.  Now, waffles are more forgiving of measuring errors than a lot of other recipes. They are molded in from all sides, so the batter or dough (depending on the recipe) literally cannot go astray while it's cooking. Guess which ones have exactly as much flour as written. 

Also, I have made this recipe as written many times. This is a new failure.

Getting back to Chatelaine's Adventures in Cooking, I added just enough flour that the dough didn't stick to my fingers anymore but was still very soft. It was a lot more than the one or two spoons I expected. But the cookies came out of the oven just fine with their extra dose of wheat. I put one of the sad and flat original cookies next to the extra-floury ones for comparison.

If you take anything from today's adventure of cooking, forget all that business of twiddling with the oven temperature dial or trying to refrigerate your cookie dough to magically "hydrate" it. Just add more flour and your cookies will be fine.

As for today's recipe, these are really good if you like your chocolate chip cookies crispy. They're also very rich, so you feel sated after just a few. For this reason, I think they'd be great for parties. Everyone will like them (well, everyone who likes chocolate chip cookies anyway), but most people will be satisfied after just a few. So you don't need to make a quadruple-batch of them the day before. 

With that said, I think these would be better with a little bit of cinnamon in them. But I'm willing to salute Canadian magazine recipe writers, even if they launched me into a long rant about flour and bad advice. The empty cookie jar tells me all I need to know. 

 

 

 

 

*or more specifically: flour-based cookies that are baked in individual portions on a flat pan, as opposed to bar cookies, anything baked in individual molds, and other types not enumerated here. ↪

Just-Stir-It-Together Pizzelles: or, I never thought I'd make these

Today, we are making the first pizzelle recipe I ever saw.

Pizzelles 2 cups all-purpose flour* 1 cup sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder ¾ cup margarine or butter, melted and cooled 1 tablespoon anise extract or vanilla 4 eggs Whisk together all ingredients. Cook 1 tablespoon at a time on a hot pizzelle iron, following manufacturer's instructions. Use a knife to push the dough off of the spoon. Brush the iron with melted shortening before the first pizzelles. You may not need to re-brush it before each pizzelle, but you definitely need to do it the first time. *If using self-rising flour, omit baking powder. Source: Betty Crocker's 40th Anniversary Edition Cookbook, 1991

It turns out that a lot of Betty Crocker cookbooks are on the Internet Archive, including the edition we had growing up. (The pages fell out of Mom's copy ages ago, so she threw it out.)

After a lot of windowshopping when I just want to look at pretty geometric designs, I can actually tell what brand that iron is even though they cropped out the logo.

Back when I made the brownies on the same page, I would stare at this picture while I was waiting for the baking time to elapse. (It was more fun than cleaning up after myself.) But we didn't have a pizzelle iron in the house. Even normal waffle irons came and went as we abused and broke them. (Very few countertop appliances are child-resilient.) But now that we have arguably too many pizzelle irons in the house, I thought it'd be fun to make these.

It turns out the instructions are extremely short: "Mix all ingredients." And the batter tasted so good that I nearly didn't bother cooking it.

I was a little concerned because the official picture looked like a thin batter that poured into place, but mine made semi-stiff mounds. 

The directions say to cook for "30 seconds or until golden brown." Which, come to think of it, is about as long as it takes to say one Hail Mary per side as I was advised when I first got help and advice. But today, I hailed Mary a bit too slowly. Things looked a lot better the second time, and every time onward.

The first one is always for the fairies.

These tasted exactly like I'd always imagined they would. They're so crisp, airy, and fragile. They're like if you poured cake batter onto a waffle iron, but with a much better texture. They're a bit tricky to take anywhere because they're so delicate, but that is what makes them so good. After this lovely experience, don't be surprised to see a few more recipes from this book that made me say "I always wondered if those were any good..." 

 

Satiny Beige Frosting: or, Brown sugar shaving cream

We finally got a cake plate!

Satiny Beige Frosting ½ cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed ¼ cup light corn syrup 2 tablespoons water 2 egg whites 1 teaspoon vanilla Mix sugar, corn syrup, and water in 1 quart saucepan. Cover and heat to rolling boil over medium heat. Uncover and boil rapidly to 242° on candy thermometer (or until a small amount of mixture dropped into very cold water forms a firm ball that holds its shape when pressed). As mixture boils, beat egg whites in 1½ quart bowl (ie, the small bowl that comes with most stand mixers) just until stiff peaks form. While still beating, pour hot syrup very slowly in thin stream into egg whites. Be sure to keep the mixer going the whole time. Add vanilla; beat on high speed until stiff peaks form. It may seem like the icing will never have peaks, but have patience and let your mixer keep going. Spread on the cake while it's warm (no need to let it cool off). Enough for a 9"x13" cake, or the tops and sides of two 8- or 9-inch cake layers. Note 1: You really want to use a stand mixer for this recipe. If you use a handheld mixer, you have to carefully avoid pouring dangerously hot syrup on the back of your hand while you beat the icing. If you use a stand mixer, both of your hands are safely out of the way. Note 2: The molten sugar cooks the egg whites as you pour it in. So you don't need to worry about raw eggs. Note 3: Any extra icing freezes well if placed in a well-sealed container, or a plastic bag with the air squeezed out. Source: Betty Crocker's Cookbook, 1986 edition

I've been wanting a nice, big, flat platter for cakes for a long time. After temporarily removing the microwave from service to borrow its platter a few times, I thought to myself "This is actually a really nice plate! I don't think you could get one as good if you tried to buy an actual cake platter!"

Unlike a lot of decorative trays, the glass platters in microwaves never crack-- not even when I'm a bit fumble-handed when getting one in and out of the dishwasher. I'm not a glass expert, but I know there are multiple types of glass, and some kinds are sturdier than others. Some kinds of glass seem to love chipping, but the glass they use for microwaves can withstand a lot of mishaps before it finally gets damaged.

Rather than pay for one, I went on the town's Reddit page asking if anyone was unloading a dead microwave. I offered to dispose of the entire microwave in return for letting me take the plate out of it. Someone responded that they had one, and furthermore I didn't even need to make room in the car for the whole microwave. By happy coincidence, this was bulk trash week. So they said they'd remove the plate and put it out of the way, and leave the rest of the microwave on the curb with the rest of their dead tree branches and broken furniture.

They said that it would be "behind the picket fence on the side of the house," adding "Don't knock, you'll only rile up the dogs. Just grab it." I didn't know what they meant (well, I understood the part about the dogs), but I figured it'd make sense when I got there. And sure enough, there was a tiny little picket-fence box on the side of the house, with nothing but bare dirt in it.

It's not the Canadian way to post pictures of random people's houses, so I had fun in MSPaint instead.

I don't know why these people had a little fenced-in box on the side of the house. There were no signs of a former tomato patch or something in there. It's almost like they fenced in a special area just for leaving out random things they were giving away.

I absolutely love the idea of having a designated giveaway zone on the side of your house.

As an anecdotal side note, I think this year's bulk trash piles show the state of the economy better than any graph on the news. In more prosperous times (and heck, even during the "Great Recession"), you'd see a lot of things that were not necessarily worthless, but also not worth the time to put on Craigslist (or later, Facebook Marketplace.) You could easily get new(ish) dinner plates, a slightly rusted patio bench, and other things like that. But this year, I only saw broken junk in people's curb piles. Few people can afford to throw out a solid-wood table just because the finish is ruined.

Here it is, fresh out of the car and ready for its first trip through the dishwasher!

Setting aside this year's shortage of slightly-distressed curbside furniture, I had to modify the platter for its post-microwave life. Some microwave plates have a raised ring on the underside so that they can sit flat on a tabletop in spite of those three nubs in the center. This one did not, so it wobbled very badly when removed from its former home.

I could have taken it to an art glass studio, and they probably could have flattened it in a few minutes. But they would likely have charged for their service, at which point I may as well have taken my money to the nearest thrift store and bought a castoff serving tray. Instead, a brutal and surprisingly tedious job with a Dremel ensued.

It's not the best tool for the job, but we had one at hand.

Those three glass bumps seemed a lot bigger when I was trying to grind them away. But the plate can now rest on the counter without shaking, even though it looks terrible.

Those peak-pandemic-era face masks came in really handy.

I wanted to polish the scars away, and I did have at the plate with extra-fine sandpaper which helped a little. Then I went online to ask if there ways a way to properly smooth it out without any specialized tools. The best answer I got: "Cover it with cake." And I realized that actually, no one will see the damage until after the cake has been served.

Anyway, I wanted this plate's first cake to be something special and self-indulgent. I tried a new recipe that didn't work and wasted half a dozen eggs on its way to the trash can. I didn't want the next cake to add too much to the pile of eggshells. Fortunately, Mrs. Wilson of the Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger came to the egg-carton rescue with her one-egg cake!

I really love fun cake colors, even if most people don't like blue and purple cakes. But this is my cake, which I am making for my special new cake plate. After dyeing it a rather fetching shade of aqua, it was ready to bake. And because Mrs. Wilson's recipes never fail, it came out perfect.

I tried to do a two-toned swirl, but it didn't quite work.

This finally brings us to today's recipe. We are covering our plate's first cake in something called "Satiny Beige Frosting." I always noticed this this when I was flipping through my mother's Betty Crocker cookbook and thought it was a peculiar name. It's an odd choice to proudly call something "beige." How many people get excited about beige anything? I still remember when people derisively called home computers "beige boxes" until the whole industry switched to black plastic. Anyway, I never made the satiny beige frosting because I only got one birthday cake per year and didn't want to risk bad icing.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get the recipe from our family's copy of the book. It fell apart years ago and Mom threw it out. So even though I wanted to finally find out if satiny beige was any good, I couldn't. But what should I espy in a used bookstore but... this!

It's a different book edition from one we had, but I doubt they altered this particular recipe. I nabbed a picture of the relevant page and left the book in the store. 

As a recipe note, the directions say this covers 2 cake layers. Even though only baked one, I made the full amount of icing anyway. As we have learned, it's better to have too much icing than to run out early.

Satiny beige frosting starts with a lot of brown sugar (always a good sign) and... corn syrup. I tried not to think about how long this syrup has been in the pantry. I bought it when I needed two tablespoons of it for a candy recipe. To my surprise, it still hasn't expired as long as you ignore the date on the cap.

We are told to put a lid on the pot and then let it come to a full rolling boil. This is the first time I have ever wished I had a glass lid. I figured I'd just keep one ear on the pot and wait for the noise. 

Meanwhile, it was time to set our cooled cake onto our beautiful, dishwasher-friendly cake plate! When I got it out, I thought to myself "Ooo, those grinding scars look even worse." And of course, the glass shows every dirt smudge on the counter beneath it. But really, any clear plate will do that. But I followed the advice I got online and covered both problems with cake.

All hail Mrs. Wilson!

They say a watched pot never boils. Well apparently, an unwatched one tries to boil over. I took off the lid to see if we had any bubbles yet, and found this.

Sooner than I thought, the uncovered syrup reached the firm-ball stage. It was time to take the pot off the stove and try to aim a slow dribble at our mixing bowl. Keep in mind that candy syrup is literally hotter than boiling water. (Also, this is how you get away with covering a cake with raw egg whites. The hotter-than-boiling syrup cooks them.)

After we had emptied the pot of its molten contents, our frosting didn't look very beige. It was more tan-colored. It was also far too gloppy to stay on a cake.

I left the mixer going, periodically checking if the icing had stiffened up a bit. Even with our stand mixer going at full-speed, it took a few minutes. But eventually, the icing managed to stand up on its own. By this point, its color had lightened until it was as beige as the recipe name.

And so, it was time to get this icing onto the cake!

This was the softest icing I have ever put onto a cake. It felt like shaving cream under the spatula. I am pleased to say that without an annoying dinner plate rim to get in the way, we managed a pretty good icing job in just a few minutes! (Well, a pretty good icing job by pre-social media standards.)

Seriously, this is what cakes used to look like unless Mom had worked in a bakery at some point. Our Pieathlon friend Poppy Crocker has a book of home cake decorating from back then. And while I didn't attempt any ambitious decorations, the icing itself looks about the same as the cakes that made it to print.

As for the icing, it tasted a lot like divinity. (If you've never had divinity, it's basically whipped white sugar. Imagine unflavored taffy, but not hard enough to pull out your tooth fillings.) The brown sugar taste had all but disappeared, leaving nearly-blank sweetness. And it it really is as soft as shaving cream. 

I'm actually going to say that because it's so hypersweet, it's perfect for kids' birthday parties. Slather this stuff on a cake, and they'll all have their sugar fix a lot quicker. This would theoretically allow you, the parent on a budget, to get away with much smaller cake pieces.

But this icing is not good after the first day. It turns into a hardened, sticky mess. I could have repurposed the cake as a fly trap. Satiny beige frosting is okay the first day if you like sugar-flavored mousse, but by day two it's just not good. So, if you want to keep this cake around the house for a few days and gradually cut slices off of it, this is not the icing for you. But to Betty Crocker's credit, the icing didn't deflate at all. Three days later, it was just as fluffy as when we first took it out of the mixer. 

And so, we joyously welcome our new cake plate into the kitchen! The next cake on it will be something less vividly colored, even if I don't think that's nearly as fun.