Buttercream in The Big Easy

First things first : They have I.D.ed the mugger. They have impounded the car and issued an arrest warrant. Apparently, he has a record and another warrant was issued during the "course of the investigation." Either way, I picked him out of a photo lineup today and he shall be arrested. He's going DOWN. Deserves it too.
Next: The scarf is finished! Long live the lace scarf. God that was difficult. Pictures once it's blocked (eg. next week, probably). And then, once I have two dollars to rub together, it's off to Grandma's house. I'm sure there's a river and some woods between here and Southern California.
I leave at 4pm today. I'm so excited. I hate flying, but I'm so excited. Wow. I haven't been home in over a year. I'm flat broke, but it doesn't matter. I have friends. I'm going home!!!! I just pulled the first batch of cookies out of the oven. The mix has to cool more before I can do it again. Then we get to the topic... Making Buttercream in New Orleans....
Now, there's an easy way and a hard way to make buttercream. Safeway and Costco for example, go the easy way: Powdered or Superfine sugar and shortening (aka Crisco). That's the ingredients... some vanilla, maybe. Beat the hell out of it when it's cold. Done. The hard way ("traditional") involves eggs and a boiling sugar syrup. Now we all know what happens when we take two cups of a boiling liquid and put 6 eggs in it... the eggs cook, right? Wrong. Ah, the miracles of the kitchen... if you beat them fast enough, and you add the boiling liquid slow enough, they "emulsify"... meaning mix together smoothly and permanently through magic. It's a very tricky thing, emulsification... gives cooks like me headaches on a regular basis. I chose French buttercream because it uses egg yolks instead of egg whites and yolks are more stable. Good thing to know. Honestly, I have only enough ingredients for one try so I can't fuck it up. So I beat the hell out of some egg yolks... until they're at "ribbon stage"... technical term meaning that if you stick something in them and pull it out, it makes ribbons. Meanwhile the sugar is boiling. Now, I don't have a candy thermometer handy, so I just use the cold water test. It gets to "around" 240 degrees... 20 above boiling... and I can SLOWLY... VERY SLOWLY pour it into the eggs. The trick is to do this with a mixer and keep the mixer going at a decent speed. Then it says, "beat until bottom of bowl is cool to touch". Ok, it may be 3am, but Nothing in my kitchen is cool to the touch right now. And I'm wondering how in the hell this bowl is supposed to become 20 degrees below my current room temperature just by beating...It's not.
Luckily, these are recipes from culinary school and I went to culinary school in Portland, Oregon. It's very humid in Portland, but not very hot. It's also sea level. You have no idea how much this matters until you've lived in a bone-dry climate 6500 feet above sea level. Nothing works there. Here, I'm again at sea level in a humid climate. Stuff works! It amazing... But in June, in New Orleans, nothing is cool to the touch without A/C. Ever. And I don't feel like closing all the windows and turning it on. So I let it get just a little warm and mix in the butter. It's all good. The secret to this particular recipe, a secret that doesn't work with any other buttercream recipe, is that if it breaks (separates), just keep the mixer on a decent speed and beat the hell out of it and it will come back together. Thank whatever God you pray to that it can be that easy. Tada... somehow I made it, with only a little bit of plain meringue-ish stuff left stuck to the bowl. But I'm a professional, don't try this at home, unless you have A/C and are willing to use it. So now I have chocolate buttercream and green vanilla buttercream. The chocolate is for the insides, the green for the outsides. This year, it will be a red velvet forest cake. Inside the cake, there will be buttercream filling with Oreo pieces and gummi worms to simulate the dirt inside the hill. Outside, there will be green buttercream, gummi trees, gummi bears and animal crackers to simulate the forest. I think he'll like it. Thank God he's only 7 as it's a bit dashed off. It's going to have to endure a long trip is all... and I can't have it falling apart. I'm bringing extra Oreos and green frosting for repairs when I get there. God I hope we make it ok. I'm not decorating it until I'm IN san Mateo. But I will make the trees tonight. Just take those sugar covered "spearmint leaves", roll them flat, and cut serrations like christmas trees. Then stick a stick pretzel in the bottom and you've made a tree. Perch some gummi bears and some animal crackers around it and you've got a forest. At least to a 7-year old. But I think the best part is the gummmi worms in the middle. Sneaky.
Y'all may have noticed that lately, my usual grammar naziness has slipped. I'm sorry. I'm very busy, and I try to catch them all, but I just can't be bothered. I don't have a lot of time right now. I'll fix it later when I have more time and it starts really bothering me. You'll live in the meantime.
I'm really tired and I don't have much time to sleep. I won't get to sleep much for a while now. I haven't even packed yet. I just hope I can make it through somehow. I know I will. I'm stubborn and I've been dreaming of this vacation for a while. The excitement of being home will push away any need for sleep. I mean, after all, it's home.... always was, always will be.
Y'all have a nice weekend now, I have to pack. I'm going home. nothing else matters.