Because yesterday's failure wasn't bad enough, I decided to double the recipe this time. It was a near failure. I melted the chocolate, added the boiling water,
'cooked' it down to a 'paste' which I still had no
idea what the consistency was I was looking for having never watched
my mother make this and as I was stirring it I thought that perhaps
the consistency of the melted chocolate might be what they were
thinking to which I thought, so why add the water just to cook it
down. As it was I went on to the next step before it got that thick,
more like soft peaks that held their shape, adding the sugar and the
evaporated milk at which point I was supposed to continue to cook it
for 2 – 3 minutes, except that adding the not hot evaporated milk
pretty much put an end to any cooking so I turned up the heat til it
got warm again and then cooked it for a few more minutes. Added the
soaked gelatin which was now a solid gooey mass, stirred until it had
all dissolved (as far as I could tell). OK, so far so good. I set it
aside to cool and start to thicken as instructed before folding in the remaining whipped
evaporated milk and some time later it is still faintly warm and
still runny.
I'm
on the phone to my sister, by cool do they mean set it out on the
counter til whenever or put it in the fridge?
Set
it on the counter, she says.
Impatient
me says, but it's still runny.
Well,
stick it in the refrigerator, she says.
I
already had. However many minutes later when I looked at it I'm on
the phone again. OK, it's thickening around the edges but still
runny.
Getting
there but not ready yet, she says.
Do
you think I have 20 minutes to walk the dog.
Yes,
she says, probably.
I
got back and sat around for a few more minutes (it was a short walk,
cold and damp and we weren't gone long) and then went to check on it
and oh shit! it was completely thickened. I could have stuck a
spoon in it and the spoon would have stood up. Great. No folding
whipped anything into that so I stabbed at it with the spoon, mashed
it up, stirred it around into gooey lumps and added about 2/3 of the
whipped evo-milk, stirring and folding and stirring and folding and
stirring and mashing and nothing was getting blended. Well, fuck. All
that time wasted. I wonder if the mixer would help. I figured it was
already ruined so it couldn't get worse, grabbed up the mixer and
blended the shit out of that stuff, folded in the last third of the
whipped evo-milk and spooned the gloppy mess into the pan lined with
lady fingers. Gave it a good shake or two and stuck it in the fridge
to finish chilling.
OK,
so maybe I didn't exactly snatch success from the jaws of defeat.
Let's just say it wasn't a total failure.
It tastes good but
the stuff never set as a whole. There's no real slicing and
serving because it has no body to speak of, the mixer having whipped
tons of air into it and it didn't settle back down.
It
would have been more efficient to serve it with a spoon than the spatula I had used.
edit: it was a little firmer the second night
edit: it was a little firmer the second night