Early Morning Disaster

When I was at secondary school, my favourite subjects were German and Chemistry - which I thought might possibly lead to a life as a mad scientist. However when the time came to choose what to study at college, in my wisdom I chose theology and was fully intent on becoming a minister, or priest, or whatever you want to call them. Most people who discover that I studied for the priesthood are somewhat taken aback and usually reply "you?".

I think that my love of mixing things around is part of the reason why I love cooking and experimenting with using beer in food. As I wrote on Monday, at the weekend I attempted to make beer toffee, I have since learned that I fact succeeded in making a beer caramel sauce, which would be great stirred into cream and frozen to make beer ice cream, or possibly to use it as an alternative sweetener in desserts such as apple crumble - which Mrs Velkyal makes very very well.

The caramel had been sitting in the fridge until last night when I decided to put it in a jar, mainly because it had been in our main roasting tin and I have plans for this weekend - involving ribs hopefully. Over the last few days more and more of the sticky goo had started to crystalize, and on opening the fridge this morning the goo in the jar had set solid, but had a strange head on the top - which looked very much like a normal beer head.

Then disaster struck, I dropped the jar. Rather than smashing and sending a sticky mess all over the kitchen floor, which Mrs Velkyal would have loved at quarter past six in the morning, the jar cracked then shattered but the goo stayed intact. The reason it was solid was not my culinary genius in making toffee but the fact that my fridge is overactive and had almost frozen it solid. I still think that beer toffee is a viable idea, and one I will continue to experiment with, but for the time being it is back to the drawing board and on with other projects.

On a happier note - the chilli doppelbock chutney is fantastic!