Caramel lace, cobwebs, drops are original and stylish decorations for homemade desserts. It is not difficult to make them; after a couple of unsuccessful attempts, even an inexperienced hostess will be able to create a professional-level decor that will transform the simplest pastry or cake.
Caramel decorations: advantages and manufacturing features
Laces, spirals, monograms, whole bouquets of transparent colored caramel look very professional. However, in order to create such masterpieces at home, it is not at all necessary to be a pastry chef. Caramel is easy to cook on your own, and then form any decorations from it, from drops and cobwebs to spectacular bouquets.
The advantages of caramel decor are many. It looks beautiful on photos and videos, gives any product a professional and stylish look. After hardening, caramel jewelry is very difficult to spoil. Unlike chocolate, cream or jelly, they do not spread, melt, or change color. The natural shade of caramel is all shades of gold and honey. With the help of dyes, the mass can be tinted, a pleasant aroma will be given by essences, which are added dropwise after cooking.
Caramel jewelry keeps well. They can be made in advance, placed in boxes and stored in a cool dry place. The only drawback of the material is fragility. Beginners should not make complex monograms, flowers and volumetric designs. It is better to limit yourself to cobwebs, openwork hemispheres, drops, leaves and spirals. They look unusual and stylish, and are made quite easily. Professionals advise making jewelry with a margin, in case of breakage, the damaged element can be quickly replaced.
The caramel decor is ideal for cakes covered with mastic, cream (butter, protein, custard), chocolate or sugar icing. Caramel cannot be combined with hazelnut sprinkles, grated chocolate or streusel, in which case you should choose a different decor. Losing weight should take into account that sugar decorations are high in calories.
Making caramel: a step by step recipe
There are several ways to cook caramel, beginners should stop at the simplest one.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup granulated sugar;
- 0.75 glasses of water;
- 5 drops of 3% vinegar essence;
- food coloring (optional).
Pour water into a saucepan, bring to a boil. Add sugar, stir, wait until the mixture boils again. Add vinegar essence, stir again and cook until the mixture thickens and acquires a golden hue.
Test by dropping the caramel onto a plate and chilling it. The frozen drop should be well crushed on the teeth, not bend or stick to the fingers. Pour the prepared mass into a dish greased with refined vegetable oil, cool slightly and add food coloring. After thorough mixing, you can proceed to the most interesting thing - the creation of jewelry.
Candy Mosaic: Magic Kaleidoscope
The easiest way to make chopped caramel. Such decor is very beautiful on cakes and pastries covered with airy white cream: creamy, custard, protein. It is very easy to prepare a decoration. Both unpainted golden brown and tinted caramel will do. Colorants and flavors are added after cooking.
Grease a large skillet, flat dish or sheet of foil with butter or refined vegetable oil. Apply a thin layer of hot caramel to the prepared surface. If a mass of several colors is used, it is better to apply them on separate sheets and plates so that the shades do not mix. Allow the caramel to harden, and then break the fragile sheets into pieces of any shape. They can be scattered over the surface of the cake, lay out a pattern, stick vertically. By crumbling caramel into small crumbs, it is easy to get colored sand, ideal for decorating themed cakes.
According to the proposed recipe, you can also make caramel monograms. The hot mass is poured into a bag of parchment paper or foil, the tip is cut off. On paper, you need to draw a monogram, a beautiful letter, an openwork heart or other motive. After hardening, the caramel monogram is removed with a knife and carefully transferred to the cake.
Caramel dome: stylish and simple
An openwork caramel dome will help to decorate homemade cakes and petit fours. It looks fantastic and is very easy to do. All you need is a sufficient amount of sugar and grapefruits, which will become a form for decoration.
The amount of grapefruit depends on how many cakes you need to decorate. Wash the fruits thoroughly with hot water and a brush, dry with a paper towel, cut in half, grease the codura with odorless vegetable oil. Roll a bag out of a sheet of oiled parchment paper, cut off the tip, leaving a small round hole. Fill the bag with warm caramel.
Place the grapefruit halves on the plates. Apply caramel lines in a fancy mesh. Leave the structure until it solidifies completely. When the caramel becomes hard, very carefully remove it from the grapefruit halves, being careful not to damage the openwork hemispheres. Cover each cake with a caramel dome and serve.
Amber drops: an elegant decoration for cakes and pastries
A homemade cake is delicious, but it looks simple. To add the missing style to pastries, it is not necessary to wrap them in marzipan and sugar mastic. It is enough to cover the cake with a delicate cream, and add large drops of caramel as decoration.
Making the decor is easy. In order for the decoration to acquire a rich yellow color, citric acid is added to the caramel during cooking and mix thoroughly. The cake covered with cream should be laid on a dish, the surface around the pastry should be covered with parchment paper. It is needed so that the sugar drops do not remain on the dish.
Dip a silicone brush into the caramel, quickly transfer it to the surface of the cake and make a few sharp shaking movements. The stringy caramel will drain into large droplets with long tails. It is better to think over the general decor in advance, as well as the location of the drops. After solidification, they will resemble real amber: large, luminous, translucent. By this principle, you can arrange cakes, mousses and other desserts.
Caramel leaves: step by step preparation
Hot caramel can be quickly used to make decorations for cakes, petit fours and other pastries. Before starting work, caramel is colored and flavored. Then, from potatoes, carrots or turnips, you need to cut out a stamp-template in the form of a leaf with clearly marked veins-grooves. You can make several blanks of different shapes at once.
Pin the stamp on a fork, dip in hot caramel so that it covers the outer part, but does not flow to the back. Transfer the workpiece to a clean greased plate. The caramel will stick to the cold plate and can be easily removed from the die. After that, you can repeat the process and make a second leaf. The main condition for success is not to rush and adjust the temperature of the caramel. A little trick: so that the sugar mixture does not freeze, a little vinegar essence is added to it during cooking. Sometimes it is replaced with citric acid, but in this case, the transparent caramel will turn yellow.
When the caramel leaves have hardened, they are removed from the plate and transferred to a cake or pastry. From transparent multi-colored leaves, you can create wreaths and garlands, complement them with flowers from cream and mastic. While the sheet is not frozen, you can roll it out and mold any volumetric figure. Another interesting solution is spirals. Warm caramel is rolled into a tourniquet and wrapped around a greased pencil. After hardening, the pencil must be carefully removed.
