Caramel Chameleon

Remember that fresh, spry idea we floated way-back-when in the first post, Frozen Bananas Foster Ice Cream Pie? Great. Now, what I really want to talk about is declensions. You see, the dative perhaps lends itself most easily, and confusingly, to elision in that...

Fine. I will admit to a highly embarrassing cooking gaffe, one so worn and predicable even dear Anne of Green Gables committed it: I mistook the salt for sugar. In my defense, and not to rip too much on her, Rachel keeps her flour, sugar, and salt in three neat storage containers on the counter, and has an inordinate amount of salt. As in, I drowned some bananas in almost a cup of it without really thinking because that amount did not significantly deplete the salt supply. Rachel also admitted to making this same mistake some weeks ago, despite having poured the salt into the container herself. So here are a few lessons:

- if you're making caramel (well, simple syrup in this case), don't use salt
- if you're making caramel and the "sugar" doesn't dissolve into the rapidly boiling water and become caramel, it is not sugar
- if you're making burnt-molasses-tasting, tooth-breaking, cement-setting candy, do rapidly boil brown sugar with butter for three minutes
- if you're making caramel with salt instead of sugar, but it didn't turn into caramel, and you're feeling like a flop, do not think that stirring in bananas will in any improve the concoction

I did not taste one, but apparently bananas soaked in a boiled solution of 3 parts salt to 2 parts water are horrifyingly inedible.

Before going completely bananas (ha...ha.) we thought, well, the Pills competition's secondary ingredients include Smucker's, so we'll just buy some caramel sauce. Bless them, Ted and Shenging volunteered to go to the store, and returned with caramels. The cubes. Note: these can not be grated at room temperature. They can be slowly melted with some water to form a pretty tasty sauce. Rachel snuck out and got some caramel sauce, and it felt like we might finally be on our way.

I somewhat redeemed myself by cleverly hacking away the ice-cream container and using a butcher knife to slice the ice cream, to more easily pack and shape it over a layer of bananas and caramel on the pie crust. We topped the ice cream with more bananas and caramel, and returned it to the freezer. Oh, topped with a single square of caramel.

Really, the most important thing is we had a good, though thoroughly exasperating -- in that way that comical mishaps make you giggle-groan, time. Culino ergo sum. And also, we are what we eat. Have another helping of laughter-producing-phallic-fruit-topping-with-frozen-cow-udder-discharge Dessert Delight. It will make you smile even if it doesn't taste amazing.