Making Colonnade Frosting

The amazing thing about this frosting is that while it looks like a standard seven-minute frosting it behaves much, much differently. Whereas seven-minute frosting hardens to a stiff meringue-like consistency almost immediately after it’s made and applied, this stays smooth and spreadable — even after several days in the refrigerator. That makes it somewhat dangerous since leftover frosting is wicked good on a vanilla wafer, or two, or three…

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Well dang…

My gold cake fell. Why did this happen? Because I over-whipped my egg yolk foam. Though you wouldn’t think it, egg yolks and liquid can be whipped to a very high foam — at least temporarily. And it doesn’t need to be any special liquid, water will do. It’s all those emulsifiers in egg yolks, donchaknow…they create a thick lipid-water mixture that (at least temporarily) reinforces air bubble walls.

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Can sugar really “cook” egg yolks?

Reader Lily writes:

Joe, the other day I left some egg yolks that I was about to whip into pastry cream sitting in a bowl with some sugar for too long. The yolk sides that were touching the sugar turned pale and hard. My instructor said that it was caused by sugar cooking the eggs because sugar and yolks together create heat. I’m skeptical, but what do you think?

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Yolks & Good & Bad Cholesterol

Reader Maggie (nice coincidence!) writes that she’d love to make Gold Cake but that she’s in the habit of avoiding egg yolks because they’re fatty and contain cholesterol. Can I talk her down off the ledge? Maggie, I blogged about egg nutrition not too long ago, but this is a subject that bears repetition. So hear goes!

It’s very true that the yolk of an egg contains 75% of the egg’s calories, 50% of the protein and all of the fat. However for all that, the vast majority of the yolk is composed of water. A myth about egg yolks is that they’re very fatty. That’s not the case, as eggs are actually quite lean. Or lean-ish. A yolk contains just five grams of fat, about as much as a small pat of butter you’d put on your toast, but only a fraction of that fat is saturated (the so-called “bad fat”).

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Everyone Called Her Mudge

Reader Vera wants to know if my father’s mother cooked very much considering she grew up in a farm town. The answer is that she did, though she didn’t enjoy it. Or at least that’s what she told us all years later. Cooking just wasn’t one of those things my grandmother Margaret (nicknamed “Mudge” by college friends) every really got excited about. It was just another aspect of keeping a home and raising a family.

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Swift, Dear.

The magic my mother’s mother worked in the kitchen was learned. She wasn’t a natural, as she readily admitted. She grew up a bookworm on the South Side of Chicago, rather poor yet part of a privileged generation of women who were — for the first time in American history — going to college en masse. It’s commonly thought that it wasn’t until after World War II that women in America started leaving home and taking degrees in higher ed. In fact the trend started well before then, back in the teens and twenties. It was only interrupted by the war, when men went overseas and women went to work.

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Colonnade Frosting

This was my grandmother’s secret weapon frosting. It’s very similar to a seven-minute frosting save for the fact that it doesn’t harden. It stays supple under a thin crust. It’s a great combo with her gold cake. How could I resist posting this? This recipe makes enough for one two-layer cake.

16 ounces (2 1/4 cups) sugar
4 ounces (1/2 cup) water
2.12 ounces (3 tablespoons) corn or glucose syrup
3 egg whites
0.6 ounces (1/3 cup) powdered sugar

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Back and Busy!

Whew, after five days away from home in rainy weather you should see my lawn! Lots to do and catch up on, but I’ll be back on the case as soon as I can. Those yolks aren’t getting any younger!

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