Project Melissa & Martha: Cooking All 1,100 Recipes: Three Simple Recipes

It's Day 10. Since I fell asleep on the couch this afternoon when I could have been cooking and since my kiddos had their annual pizza picnic at school tonight, I decided to give myself a little break and make a few recipes that didn't require a whole lot of work. I whipped up these three recipes in about 30 minutes: simple syrup, glossy caramel icing and chocolate glaze for cupcakes.

Simple syrup simply put is sugar and water boiled together and then cooled in an ice-water bath. It serves as a sweet base for many drinks that I'll have to make from the cookbook (yes, there are drinks to make, too), and once made, it can be refrigerated in an air-tight container for up to 2 months. It's not too exciting to look at, but here's a picture.

Simple syrup in an ice-water bath

The next recipe was the glossy caramel icing. This recipe only called for 2 ingredients: sugar and heavy cream. I had never melted sugar before in a skilllet, but the process was kind of cool, like a science experiment. It also kind of looked like snow melting as the sugar turned into an amber-colored liquid. Plus, it brought back memories of our trips to Savannah, Georgia when my husband and I lived in South Carolina. One of my favorite places was the Savannah Candy Kitchen, and the smell of the sugar and heavy cream cooking together was the exact smell of the candy store.

Glossy caramel icing

The last recipe of the night was the chocolate glaze for cupcakes. It's true I didn't make any cupcakes to dip into the glaze, but I had the semi-sweet chocolate squares and the heavy cream so it was a go. It's amazing what just 2 ingredients will create when combined.