The Saint Paddy's Day Dessert Debacle

My local library has a monthly cookbook book discussion and I'm a little in love.  Each month, the librarian who leads our merry band of home cooks, picks a cookbook and we all select a recipe to try and share at the next meeting.  Since this month has both Saint Patrick's Day and Saint Joseph's Day, she had us select either a cookbook covering the essential classical Italian dishes or one covering traditional Irish dishes.  FYI: corned beef and cabbage were nowhere to be found in that book.

Now, I'm a bit of an overachiever, so I decided to bring two dishes with me. As my official recipe I chose a dish from the Italian cookbook - Saffron Risotto Milanese Style - and as a fun extra I decided to make the rather unfortunately named traditional Irish country dessert - Yellowman.

Yellowman is no joke.  Yellowman and I do not get along.  Sugar work and I do not seem to get along in general and Yellowman simply proved it.  My attempt at Flan last month was ridiculous and I was really hoping this new sugary dessert attempt would redeem me.  Nope.  Sugar - 2, Me - 0.

 

Please say hello to Harry The Sugar Snake.  He was a remnant of the sugar explosion that happened over my stove... hold on, let me go back to the beginning.

 

Making Yellowman requires you to dissolve brown sugar in corn syrup with a bit of white vinegar.  You then need to heat the sugar mixture to 290 degrees.

 

 

The fact that 290 is located just past CRACK on the candy thermometer should tell you something.  But I was doing it, and I got so close.

 





 

And then I got impatient.  I turned the heat up too much too fast and the sugar started to boil over and burn.  I had to hold the pot over the dish I had prepared for setting it. 

 

As the molten sugar monster threatens to burn my feet off, I frantically race to add the last ingredient - baking soda. Why baking soda you ask.  Well, Yellowman is science in action.  Because there is vinegar in the sugar mixture, adding the baking soda makes the entire thing fizz.  Yea, that's right, I had a giant molten sugar fizzy monster... well no.  Thankfully the addition of the baking soda actually retarded the boiling.  That's not what should have happened, adding the baking soda should have caused it to rise rather rapidly.  Apparently though, the sugar monster decided I had been tortured enough. 

 

I quickly scraped what I could into my baking dish to set.  I had no idea what I was going to get, but surprise of all surprises...

 



I actually got something that is almost what I was supposed to get.  Now, that darker, solid caramel bottom is not what I wanted.  BUT... the top is exactly what I wanted.  The addition of the baking soda creates this honeycomb look to the candy.  It is extremely hard.  I had to break it into pieces using my rolling pin.  The flavor is this sweet subtle caramel taste that is like nothing I have ever had before.

One of these days I will try again and hopefully be a bit more successful.  Until then however, I will be pleased at my attempt, no matter had weird it looks.