New Year's Eve Menu Is Halfway Done

The macaroni salad is cooling in the fridge and the morcon is already stewing. Oh, yeah, I remember now why I never make morcon: it is so tedious to prepare. It took me almost an hour tying the rolls and maybe used up a hundred yards of kitchen twine! I made the yemas last night and baked the meringue for the silvanas. I still have to prepare the buttercream though and I'm not sure if I still have the energy.

Philippine Yemas
1 can sweetened condensed milk
3 egg yolks (you can use as many as 6 egg yolks if you are an egg yolk lover, I'm not)
1 tablespoon calamansi or lime juice
1 cup sugar

• Mix first 3 ingredients thoroughly, cook in a non-stick pan or wok until the candy is thick and forms into a big ball, stirring constantly with a silicone spatula. Transfer to a plate and cover with plastic wrap. When cool enough to handle, form into 1 inch balls. Stick toothpicks on half of the formed balls, set aside. Roll the remaining half in sugar and place in colored paper cups.
• In a heavy stainless steel pan, caramelize half the sugar, moving quickly dip the balls with toothpicks, set on a piece of aluminum foil to cool. If the caramel turns too brown throw it out. Clean the pan, caramelize another ½ cup of sugar and dip the remaining balls. Remove the toothpicks by gently twisting them and pull out. Wrap in colored or white cellophane.
  

I don't use non-stick pan to caramelize sugar to be able to see the color progress of the caramel properly. Once the caramel gets too dark, throw it out and heat up another batch, ½ cup at a time.