Welcome to How To Cook That I'm Ann Reardon and you are going to love today's dessert.
It's just so pretty and look at all of those beautiful colours as the light reflects on
it and it's easy to make once you know how.
I wanted to make bowls out of sugar that look like a colourful splash so first I tried covering
a bowl with plastic wrap and pour the hot sugar syrup over the top.
But when I did that the plastic wrap just melted and it ended up the whole thing stuck
to the bowl, so that was a total fail.
So then experiment number 2, I thought about trying a silicon glove stretched over a bowl
because you use silicon gloves when you're doing hot sugar work but the sugar was too
hot and it just melted the silicon glove.
So, not to be put off, I thought I'd try one more experiment.
So experiment number 3, I thought I'd try with a balloon.
Now I know what you're thinking ... if you put something hot by a balloon and ... POP
... argghhh!
Yes it does pop!
But I remember seeing an experiment ages ago where if you fill the balloon with water first
and then put some heat underneath it, the water inside the balloon disperses that heat
so the balloon doesn't pop.
Isn't that just incredible that you can have something that would normally just melt and
pop and it's just not popping at all.
Now I'm sure if that's going to work with sugar syrup because 1.)
the sugar syrup might be hotter and 2.)
we're putting it over a bigger surface of the balloon.
But you only know if you try so I'm going to use helium quality balloons and I'm going
to test them uninflated first.
This is a metallic one I don't know if that makes any difference but we'll pour it over
the top and it seems to be lasting and holding up ok.
There isn't a hole in it like there was as soon as I did it with the glove and with the
Glad wrap so ... hopefully that's a good sign.
Now we need to fill the balloon with water.
We don't want to overfill it, you want the balloon to not be stretch too thin.
Well that's my theory that that's going to work anyway.
Take it off the tap and let out a little bit of the water and that's so we don't have any
air bubbles in the balloon because when we tip it upside down, the air bubbles will go
to the top and I want that heat to get dispersed by the water.
I don't want air sitting at the top of it.
And then dry it using a paper towel.
And now we need to make the actual sugar syrup.
To make that you will just need sugar, water and glucose syrup.
And I'll put all those recipe quantities on the HowToCookThat.net website for you and
I'll link to that below.
Stir that over high heat until the sugar crystals dissolve and then wash down the sides of the
pan using a pastry brush.
And the reason you do that is to get the sugar crystals off the edge.
If you don't then later, once you've got the syrup, it can make it all crystalise back
out so you won't have a nice clear smooth bowl you will just have this crunchy mess
instead.
Heat that up to 150C or 302F then immediately turn off the heat and add in some liquid food
colour.
Then pour it carefully all over the balloon and let it drip down.
I was pretty sure at this stage that this was going to pop but it didn't pop to my surprise!
It just stayed intact.
Now you need to make sure that the bowl underneath is obviously smaller than the balloon so the
drips can fall down freely and have baking paper underneath so that you don't stick the
whole thing to your counter top.
Now don't worry about the sugar there that you've attached to the bowl, if you just soak
that in hot water that will come off no problem.
Once it is cooled, take it off the bowl and make a small cut near the knot.
And then let that water drain out slowly, trying to make sure that you don't get any
of it spraying up on the sugar because sugar and water don't mix very well together and
it will make it soggy.
And the balloon is going to slowly deflate and then fall out of your sugar bowl.
Now you can experiment using different colours and mixtures of colours.
To make it multi-colour all you need to do is get your saucepan and put a few different
drops of colours, so maybe red, yellow, blue and then mix it together just in each area,
don't mix the whole thing together.
And then as you pour it over the balloon those colours are just going to blend together and
make a pretty pattern.
I love the way the light just shines through these sugar bowls, it's like they're coloured
glass or something.
It makes awesome patterns on the plate and the spikes up the top make it look like it's
just a gravity-defying splash.
And you can put whatever you like inside.
I'm making really easy ice cream sundaes.
All I'm adding is some scoops of ice cream, a little sprinkle of fresh fruit, some chocolate
ganache and some more fruit on top.
If you use red and yellow the bowl looks a bit like flames leaping up there, I really
like that.
And the plain blue is pretty too.
Let me know what you think would go well inside these.
Now these are best made on the day you want to use them and if you make them in the morning,
just store them in an empty airtight container, don't put the desserts inside them because
sugar absorbs moisture from the air, so that's going to make them go soft if you leave them
full of anything wet.
You want to keep them dry.
With thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video.
Sponsors help the channel to run.
Squarespace makes it easy for you to create your very own website.
They've got templates that you can choose from and then you can customise it and you
don't need to know any coding.
If you do need any help they have 24/7 online support.
I'll put a link below to squarespace.com where you can start your free trial and if you use
the code 'reardon' then you can get 10% off your first purchase.
Subscribe to HowToCookThat for more crazy, sweet creations.
Make sure you turn on the little 'bell' on notifications so that you can get notified
when a new videos goes up, I'm always online live for the first hour after it goes up chatting
to people and answering comments.
You can come and say hi too, I would love that.
And click here for other videos and here for last week's pregnant belly cake which has
caused quite a crazy comment war in the comments, I don't know why!
But you can go check that one out.
Make it a great week and I'll see you on Friday.