The Dalgona Decision
This lockdown is getting to us. To all of us. The fact that our usual dessert fixings are now reduced to dark fantasy cookies (We realized early on that the chocopie was the first casualty of unrestrained bingeing on junk food), and chocolates that were bought for the sole purpose of their volume and craving satisfying properties (I am looking at you Perk) finally got to me and my mom.
While my mom has been successfully making cakes without ovens and trying out Indian sweets to her hearts content, I have always had my eye on the classy looking jar desserts that are soooo easy to make. (This is what YouTube has made me believe, and believed it I did)
Well I watched some videos and a particular coffee dessert stood out - The Tiramisu. It had all the makings of a good jar dessert. It had layers of biscuits (Which were replaced by store packed sponge-cake). It had layers of Marscapone cheese (which was conveniently replaced by whipped cream). It also had coffee decoction (Which I TOTALLY had, THIS decides it, I am making this dessert!)
I knew early on that the dessert I WAS making was not going to remotely resemble traditional Tiramisu. But I had only tasted it a couple of times, so who was I to judge? I carefully went about on my next shopping trip collecting the remaining replacements. I didn't get whipping cream, and my parents had told me that any high fat cream would do, so I promptly bought multiple packs of those. I bought chocolate flavored sponge cake that usually came dry in the pack itself to soak in all the coffee goodness. (Vanilla is for the lame people. Who on earth eats vanilla?). I trudged back home proud with my finds and confident of having a worthy dessert to wow my parents with.
I made the decoction with not much incident, and left the cake to soak in it. Then came the cream. Oh Lord the cream. This was my first time working with diary products for desserts. I did not know that cream in general was supposed to be liquid. What I got right out the pack was a thick solid CREAMY YELLOW goop that I emptied into my bowl. Then I used a mixer at it's slowest setting to start whipping it into some semblance of whipped cream. It promptly turned more yellow and started forming chunks. My naive mind decided it needed more whipping and began frantically increasing the speed and whipping it even more. The resulting mixture turned more yellow and almost began to look like butter.
Now I was panicking a lot. Most of this dessert depended on the light airy consistency of WHIPPED CREAM. I couldn't spread this oily mixture (that tasted awful) and pretend it was cream. I decided this buttery goop was missing sugar and proceeded to add sugar and whisk it some more. I also added some milk in order to make the goop realize, that it was meant to be cream. I wanted it to realize the error of its ways and turn into what it was meant to be all along.
It turned to butter.
Apparently it was butter as soon as it started chunking and yellowing by itself. I just sweetened it, making it unusable for daily savory purposes. The milk sadly collected separately and silently judged me as I stared at the monstrosity I had created. Dejected I finally called my dad, who tried hard to save it from ending up in hell. Sadly, there are things even my dad cannot salvage. We showed it to my mom, who promptly deduced what had happened and told us we had to let it go.
Then I had this brilliant idea of making the Dalgona mixture and using that as parts of the frothy dessert. Cue me and dad (I had given up on solo experiments) adding sugar and whipping it continuously. Thankfully the Dalgona turned out fine. We had some left over cream that hadn't turned to butter which I spread into the glasses over the cake and then spooned the Dalgona into it. My mom and dad both warned me that since it was just coffee it was going to get quite bitter. But I was at a point of no return. I was going to drown in this swamp I had created, and I was going to do so bravely.
I chilled it,and served it to my folks. They tried a couple of spoons before making warm glasses of milk and slowly savouring all the coffee with it. I soldiered on crying to myself, saying - Shhhh. It's okay, we are going to be Fine, We will love you, for we made you, and love you we shall. We will eat you, because no-one else will. We will take pictures of you because we created you did we not?
PS: Here's a picture
Until next time,
DragonRider
While my mom has been successfully making cakes without ovens and trying out Indian sweets to her hearts content, I have always had my eye on the classy looking jar desserts that are soooo easy to make. (This is what YouTube has made me believe, and believed it I did)
Well I watched some videos and a particular coffee dessert stood out - The Tiramisu. It had all the makings of a good jar dessert. It had layers of biscuits (Which were replaced by store packed sponge-cake). It had layers of Marscapone cheese (which was conveniently replaced by whipped cream). It also had coffee decoction (Which I TOTALLY had, THIS decides it, I am making this dessert!)
I knew early on that the dessert I WAS making was not going to remotely resemble traditional Tiramisu. But I had only tasted it a couple of times, so who was I to judge? I carefully went about on my next shopping trip collecting the remaining replacements. I didn't get whipping cream, and my parents had told me that any high fat cream would do, so I promptly bought multiple packs of those. I bought chocolate flavored sponge cake that usually came dry in the pack itself to soak in all the coffee goodness. (Vanilla is for the lame people. Who on earth eats vanilla?). I trudged back home proud with my finds and confident of having a worthy dessert to wow my parents with.
I made the decoction with not much incident, and left the cake to soak in it. Then came the cream. Oh Lord the cream. This was my first time working with diary products for desserts. I did not know that cream in general was supposed to be liquid. What I got right out the pack was a thick solid CREAMY YELLOW goop that I emptied into my bowl. Then I used a mixer at it's slowest setting to start whipping it into some semblance of whipped cream. It promptly turned more yellow and started forming chunks. My naive mind decided it needed more whipping and began frantically increasing the speed and whipping it even more. The resulting mixture turned more yellow and almost began to look like butter.
Now I was panicking a lot. Most of this dessert depended on the light airy consistency of WHIPPED CREAM. I couldn't spread this oily mixture (that tasted awful) and pretend it was cream. I decided this buttery goop was missing sugar and proceeded to add sugar and whisk it some more. I also added some milk in order to make the goop realize, that it was meant to be cream. I wanted it to realize the error of its ways and turn into what it was meant to be all along.
It turned to butter.
Apparently it was butter as soon as it started chunking and yellowing by itself. I just sweetened it, making it unusable for daily savory purposes. The milk sadly collected separately and silently judged me as I stared at the monstrosity I had created. Dejected I finally called my dad, who tried hard to save it from ending up in hell. Sadly, there are things even my dad cannot salvage. We showed it to my mom, who promptly deduced what had happened and told us we had to let it go.
Then I had this brilliant idea of making the Dalgona mixture and using that as parts of the frothy dessert. Cue me and dad (I had given up on solo experiments) adding sugar and whipping it continuously. Thankfully the Dalgona turned out fine. We had some left over cream that hadn't turned to butter which I spread into the glasses over the cake and then spooned the Dalgona into it. My mom and dad both warned me that since it was just coffee it was going to get quite bitter. But I was at a point of no return. I was going to drown in this swamp I had created, and I was going to do so bravely.
I chilled it,and served it to my folks. They tried a couple of spoons before making warm glasses of milk and slowly savouring all the coffee with it. I soldiered on crying to myself, saying - Shhhh. It's okay, we are going to be Fine, We will love you, for we made you, and love you we shall. We will eat you, because no-one else will. We will take pictures of you because we created you did we not?
PS: Here's a picture
Until next time,
DragonRider
Comments
This was my favourite part. Just epic!
I also added some milk in order to make the goop realize, that it was meant to be cream. I wanted it to realize the error of its ways and turn into what it was meant to be all along.