Homemade Filtered Milk Punch

Milk punch may be the "new" hipster equivalent to home infused vodkas.  It can have all the buzzwords like artisan and handcrafted, has its own history and trivia, and it's a booze that you've probably never heard of.  Out of the two types of milk punch, one is actually not that bizarre to most Americans, at least not during the Christmas season.  Take milk or cream, mix with rum or brandy and serve chilled, perhaps with nutmeg or cinnamon.  Sound familiar yet?  How about if I add egg?  Eggnogs (and flips)  are actually an offshoot of milk punch.

The other type dates back to the 1600's, and focuses more on a longer shelf life.  In fact, one of the more famous recipes comes from Benjamin Franklin himself. While anyone who has been in bad college housing knows, milk will separate given enough time (or poor enough refrigeration).  As the 17th century was not exactly known for their refrigeration technology, they took a hint from cheese makers to extend shelf life.

For those unfamiliar with how cheesemaking works, the very basic process is as follows:

• Heat milk.
• Add rennet/acid to separate curds from whey.
• Remove curds from whey, and process depending on the type of cheese.

Conceptually, very simple, right? Well, on a basic level, the process for making a filtered milk punch is as follows:

• Heat milk
• Mix alcohol, sweetener, and acid.
• Add hot milk to alcohol mixture.
• Remove the curds and retain the liquid for drinking.

From a food science perspective, milk punch is rather intriguing.  There are multiple ways in which flavors can be absorbed into the solution.  Water soluble, alcohol soluble, and fat soluble flavors can all be utilized.  The first milk punch I ever had, at Backbar, was flavored with Fruit Loops. It was disconcerting because it actually did taste like Fruit Loops, in a completely liquid form.  The first time I attempted making milk punch with a friend, I decided to be a little cheeky, and play off of the idea of milk.  We made a chai milk punch with mulling spices.  The overwhelming success of that led us to experiment a bit more. Other successful flavors that I've tasted (but have not made myself), are passionfruit, and scotch pina colada.

Basic Milk Punch Recipe

750 mL white rum

2 Cups Simple Syrup

1 Cup Lemon Juice

2 Cups Whole Milk

Flavoring*

Special equipment needed: cheesecloth

First of all, simple syrup is one of those things that you should never buy.  For 2 cups of simple syrup, combine 2 cups of sugar with 2 cups of water, and heat in a saucepan until all the sugar has dissolved.

Combine the rum, simple syrup, and lemon juice. If your flavoring is alcohol or water soluble, add the flavoring to the mixture.  If your flavoring is fat soluble, add the flavoring to the milk.

Heat the 2 cups of milk in a saucepan over medium heat until bubbles appear at the edges of the pan.

Add the milk to the rum mixture, and let sit for 30 minutes, to allow the milk to fully curdle.

Strain the mixture through cheesecloth, and discard the chunks.  Serve chilled, and store the milk punch in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Some of the Flavors I have personally experimented with (and results):

Milk Punch Flavors steeping in alcohol

Chai

Because I had the spice mix handy, I simply used mulling spices.  The label called for 1 Tbsp of spices for one 750 mL bottle of wine, so I stuck with that.  

It worked beautifully, and can be a nice substitute for falernum in cocktails.

Add spices to the milk.

Raspberry

1 cup of frozen raspberries, or any other frozen fruit.  This is one of the few situation when fresh is not necessarily better.  The process of freezing helps to damage the cell walls, so that it will release flavors even easier than fresh berries would.  

It was very tasty, and had a beautiful color.This is a flavor that I will definitely try again. As a variation, I plan to use the raspberry seltzer syrup from Flour, Too.  This recipe includes sugar, lemon juice, and lime juice.  To avoid the punch from becoming overly sweet, I would plan to use the raspberry syrup instead of the simple syrup.

Add the fresh fruit to the alcohol mixture.

Frosted Flakes

This was an idea from my friend/partner in booze.  Because the first milk punch we'd had was Fruit Loops, he was interested in what other breakfast cereals could be milk punch.  Use 1 cup of crushed Frosted Flakes.  

The flavor of Frosted Flakes came through clearly.  Personally I found this disturbing, but I also found the Fruit Loops milk punch disturbing. My friend who initiated this idea approved though.  Considering that I am the one making recommendations here, be prepared for an odd beverage.

Add the crushed flakes to the alcohol mixture.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

We wanted to play with the idea of things that would go well with milk.  One of the obvious food items that works with milk is cookies.  One cup of crushed chocolate chip cookies is used for a batch of milk punch.

This was a complicated flavor, because cookies are a complex food.  There are aspects that are alcohol soluble flavors, and some that are fat soluble flavors.  With the experiment that we tried, we put the cookies in the alcohol mixture.  I think that it may be possible to get a better flavor by splitting the cookie crumbs between the alcohol and the milk; in effect getting the best of both worlds.

The jury is still out as to whether the crumbs should be added to the alcohol or the milk.

Toast

This is the flavor that I was the most skeptical of. My friend wanted to play on the breakfast theme, taking a step away from the cereals. Originally he thought of toast and jam, but we decided that if the toast came out well, we could always add some of the raspberry milk punch as jam.  This would be about 6 slices of crushed toasted bread for 1 batch of milk punch.

I found the juxtaposition of flavor and texture of the toast milk punch a little too much of a hurdle.  The texture of toast is a very important part.  Thus, the fact that I'm drinking a nice cool liquid tasting of toast was a little too disconcerting.  My friend combined a bit of the toast milk punch with some of the raspberry, and quite liked it though.

The toast crumbs were added to the alcohol mixture.

Final Analysis

Financial Outlay: The most expensive part of this project is the rum, possibly followed by the cheesecloth. If you want to make a swanky punch for a party, this can be a very economical answer.

Time: It is probably about an hour total to make, plus chilling time.  If the plan is to make punch for a party, this means that you can make it ahead of time, and keep it in the fridge until it is time to serve. But it is best when cold, so this is not an instant drink.

Quality: This definitely depends on the flavor chosen.  In my opinion, the chai and the raspberry flavors worked very well.  In those cases, the quality was well worth it.

Fun: It is possible to get very creative with flavors.  The experimental run I did used 4 different flavors for 1 batch of punch.  All the flavors were put into the alcohol solution.  Not every test flavor may come out tasty, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try.

Cultured Butter: Better Butter with Bacteria

Can we talk about butter for a moment?  No, not margarine. Margarine is a sad attempt at butter, which may be fine for certain applications (or for the lactose intolerant), but it is still always lacking.  There is a certain richness and depth in good butter that I have never seen in any margarine.  While these days the science seems to indicate that margarine is slightly healthier, it is nowhere near enough to convince me to switch from the things that I use butter for. Why?  Because when I choose to use butter, the flavor of that butter is usually the reason.  Croissants, brioche, mashed potatoes.  It's all about the flavor, not just the fat.  I never realized the importance of good butter (or the variation between butters) until I started making croissants.  It was shocking how much of a difference there was between the basic cheap butter and the European Plugra butter.  With Plugra, "the flavor and aroma of cultured butter are added with lactic starter distillate, a natural flavoring derived from cultured milk", and there is a much higher fat content than normal American butter.

So Plugra is not actually cultured butter, but it has some of the indications of such. But what makes butter "cultured"?  My 12 year old sense of humor makes me want to make some reference to taking it to the opera, but actually, it all has to do with bacteria.  Before churning it into butter, the cream is given mesophilic culture, which is comprised of good bacteria.  Given time, the bacteria will eat the lactose in the milk, reproduce, eat more lactose, etc.  This makes the cream more acidic, which produces a tang and gives a different and more complex flavor, but it also creates an environment so that bad bacteria can't get a foothold.  If you left warmed cream out on a counter for several hours without adding any additional bacteria, it would be a race between the good and the bad, and it would not be a good idea to drink it afterwards.  But since we've fixed the race, the good bacteria has a huge advantage.  It's a similar process to that of making yogurt or cheese. Once the cream has been cultured, which can take anywhere from six to twenty four hours, depending on who you ask, it is ready to be churned into butter.

Churning butter.  That phrase may conjure images of an old timey bucket with a stick coming out of it, or, in my case, my second grade classroom.  We were broken up into pairs, and given a sealed mason jar of cream to shake.  Either way, it's the same general idea.  Agitate the cream until it magically turns into butter.  If you've never done this by hand, it is a lot of work.  To a six year old, it felt like an eternity.  Not to mention it led to really tired arms.  But as we all know, food processes are not magic, they are science!  So what is the science behind churning butter?

To understand how churning works, we have to take a closer look at cream.  Cream is basically fat and protein (along with vitamins, minerals, antibodies, etc.) suspended in water.  The fat is contained in a coat of protein, so it's nice and balanced.  As the milk ages, this protein coat will start wearing away, allowing the fats to clump together.  If you leave a container of milk out long enough, it will sour, fall out of suspension, and you can actually see these 3 distinct layers.  The protein and other elements, being heavier than water, will sink to the bottom.  The fats will float on the surface, and the "water" level will be in the middle. The smell of this rotten milk is amazingly bad, so I don't recommend it.  Conveniently there is an easier (and tastier) way to get the fat to clump together, i.e. form butter.  By agitating the cream, these little bubbles of fat coated in protein will start bumping together.  As they bump together, the protein coat starts chipping away, so that the fat globules are exposed.  Once that happens, the fat will start coming together faster than popular kids in high school.  Thus, you are left with all the fat in one clump (butter), and everything else (butter milk).

While I may be guilty of owning several unusual tools (like my drop spindle), I do not, in fact, own a butter churn.  I also remember the pain of trying to shake that mason jar, so that method was out.  I do, however, have a stand mixer, which is very good at agitation.  All the instructions I read about churning butter in a stand mixer said that the transformation from cream to butter happens suddenly, and to use the bowl shields, plastic wrap, or anything else to guard against the buttermilk splashing all over the place.  Unfortunately, I am also occasionally guilty of not being very bright.  I assumed that if kept my stand mixer going at its lowest speed, then it shouldn't be a problem, because I'd be able to hear the beginnings of sloshing and turn it off.  This is not the case.  The transition between a thick whipped cream and butter/buttermilk happens very suddenly, and there is a large amount of splashing once it does.  I may have had to do a fair amount of cleaning of  my floor, wall, counter, etc.  Don't be me.  The second time I made cultured butter, not only did I use the shields, but also plastic wrapped any open spaces.  I can occasionally be taught.

After the butter comes together, all that is left to do is to rinse out any spare buttermilk to help keep the butter from going rancid using very cold water, shape it into a ball (easy if you are rinsing it in cheesecloth), and add salt if desired.  Store the butter in the fridge tightly wrapped.  With all the effort you went into making this amazing thing, it would be exceptionally sad for the butter to pick up "refrigerator smell".  Also, don't forget to save your buttermilk, you can use it to make fried chicken, biscuits, or all sorts of other things.

One last note about salting or not salting butter.  Unless there is a recipe that specifically calls for salted butter (like these salted butter caramels from David Lebovitz), always use unsalted.  Not only does it give you more control over the amount of salt, the salted butter will produce a sort of sour taste in the final product.  Just like with many things, you can always add more, but you can't take any out.  Unless the plan for the cultured butter is for use on toast or bread, I recommend just leaving out the salt.

What to do with the finished cultured butter?  I'm going to test out mine by baking croissants.

Final Analysis

Financial Outlay: Cultured butter requires two basic ingredients, cream, and mesophilic culture.  The cost of cream can vary depending on where you live.  I got my culture for $5.00 from Standing Stone Farms, which is enough for over a dozen batches of cultured butter (or a variety of other types of cheese!).  So the cost is definitely higher than your run of the mill butter, but if you're comparing to something like Plugra, it becomes much more economical.  Especially if you are also using the buttermilk produced.

Time: The active processing time, if you're not churning the butter using a mason jar, is less than an hour.  However, the time required to culture the cream is at least six hours. Definitely not a last minute project, but not overly intensive either.

Quality: The result of this is a good, fresh, high quality butter.  I did not taste test directly next to Plugra, but I would put it up there at least on the same level.  The results after using it for baking were amazing.  Spreading it on a good fresh crusty bread could be phenomenal as well.  Even considering this makes me want to go make more just to use as a spread on things.

Fun: Most of the process of culturing butter is waiting (as the warming and the churning take up a very small amount of time to do).  Choosing to not use the shields on a stand mixer could provide a sort of Jack-in-the-Box sword of Damocles excitement to your afternoon, followed by lots of cleaning.  But in this case it is much better to consume the finished product than make it. It's not "un-fun", but it is no wild and crazy time either.

A Sous Vide Most Fowl

Like it or not, there are certain things that are just plain harder to cook than others, even with a judicious use of food science. Thinking of things that fall into this category, pretty much all I could think of were meats. Cooking a whole turkey is a balancing act because of the variety of sizes and shapes of the cuts of meat to contend with. A T-bone is actually two steaks in one, with a bone in the middle. Both duck and pork belly have a thick layer of fat to render, while cooking the meat all the way through and getting a crispy skin. Basically if there are multiple textures, layers, sizes or shapes, it is going to be difficult to cook properly. This is where the sous vide comes in.

After the absolutely amazing lamb, and a couple of perfectly cooked steaks, I started to branch out to try to see if the sous vide could essentially idiot proof some of these challenging foods. Through coincidence of seeing it in the grocery store, I started with a duck breast. With regards to cooking the meat, duck has all the same challenges of any other poultry; undercooked it carries risks of salmonella, overlooked it can be dry or rubbery. Conveniently, when only cooking a breast the challenge of having bones goes away. But duck also has a fairly thick fat layer which really needs to be rendered out, otherwise it just gets greasy and, well, fatty. On top of that, one of the best things about properly cooked duck is the crispy skin. Considering that the proper temperature of the cooked meat is also perfect for getting the fat to render, break out the sous vide!

Simple Sous Vide

After doing some poking around online for times, temperatures, and seasonings, I salted and peppered the duck and stuck it into a vacuum sealed bag. A few hours later I came back to prepare the rest of dinner. 

Just out of the Water Bath

I seared the duck skin in a very hot cast iron skillet, and, as it didn't seem quite crispy enough yet, broke out the heat gun to give it some even higher, more directed heat.

Seared Duck Breast

After that, just slice it up, and I had a perfectly cooked medium rare duck breast.

Sliced Duck Breast

So the important question, how was it? Well, it was quite all right. It was a little bit chewy, and didn't quite have the melt in your mouth texture that the lamb did. But the balance of the skin, fat layer, and meat was nearly perfect. From doing a little poking around on the internet, it is possible that the texture issues were due to the duck itself. Apparently breasts from older ducks tend to get a bit tough, so knowing the source of the duck is even more important than most other meats. For me, duck itself is not so transcendent a meat to make it really worth it. It's good to know that I can make a properly cooked duck breast, but it is unlikely that I would do it often.

The second experiment for a complicated meat was fried chicken. When starting with raw chicken, the temperature of the oil needs to be just right to cook the chicken and the skin properly, and not make the chicken chewy, under cooked, or greasy. Personally, I don't tend to deep fry enough things to have a really good feel for the proper oil temperature (although if you asked me several years ago when I was working grill, I probably would have a different answer). So what if you could idiot proof making fried chicken so that the chicken is already cooked, and the only thing that you had to fry was the skin?

Most good fried chicken recipes that I've seen encourage marinating the chicken in buttermilk or yogurt for a while, to let the enzymes soften up the chicken. Why not just let the chicken marinade while it was cooking, since the temperatures were not going to be high enough to cause any detrimental effects? So, after breaking down the chicken, I mixed up some yogurt, paprika, garlic powder, and cayenne, slathered it all over each piece of chicken, threw them into the bags to seal up, and popped them into a 150 degree water bath.

In this case, I put the chicken into the sous vide before I went to work, so it was probably in there for about 10 hours. All that was left to do was to take it out, coat it in flour, and fry it. Since the internal temperature was already cooked, I didn't need to worry about having my fat too hot (as long as it was below its smoke point). If you were ever interested in how frying actually works, check out this article at Fine Cooking. So the chicken could be fried in a very short time.

How was it? This may have been the absolute best fried chicken I have ever had in my life. The sous vide process eliminated any toughness from the meat, but because it wasn't over cooked, it also wasn't falling off the bone. It was just about perfect. I now want to find the perfect spicing for the chicken, because I would eat it ALL THE TIME. Sorry that I have no pictures of it, it just didn't survive that long.

Final Analysis

Financial Outlay: In terms of special equipment, this requires a sous vide and bags. With the Dorkfood sous vide and my dumb crock pot, that would mean an initial outlay of $140 or so (for both the sous vide and crock pot). The bags themselves aren't very expensive. If you are the type to use a crock pot liner, it would be about the same cost. On top of that, meat costs will vary.

Time: Similar to crock pot dishes. There is usually a reasonably low amount of prep time, then a fairly long wait, then a low amount of finishing time. So not the method for someone who gets home at 6PM and then starts thinking "what do I want for dinner?" but for anyone who is already enamored with their crock pot, or even plans meals ahead, it's not a problem.

Quality: Yes. The quality is definitely better, because it helps to idiot proof preparation methods. With respect to the duck, which was still very tasty, I think that the quality was still much higher than it would have been if I had tried any other cooking method. The fried chicken, I just have to say again, was amazing.

Fun: This is a hard one to quantify. There is a novelty factor involved with the vacuum sealing, and the fun of playing with a new gadget. Other than that, I'd say the fun level is about the same as cooking with a crock pot in general. However, there is one drawback to normal crock pot cooking. Because all the food in a sous vide is vacuum sealed, if something is cooking for multiple hours after you leave the house, when you come back, it smells exactly the same. There is no wonderful wafting scent when you walk in the door. But, for some dishes, it's a small price to pay.

Sous Vide: Take Your Crock Pot to the Next Level

I've written a few times about the Harvard series of food science lectures from this year.  I consider it a really good thing to understand how food works, both from a nutritional standpoint as well as understanding how to cook an amazing meal.  The problem with having high end chefs do lectures, however, is that they tend to have all sorts of expensive toys that aren't available to the home chef.  While a home chef may have a food torch (although a heat gun can work just as well), virtually no one would have a salamander (or even really have a need for one).

After one of the lectures, a friend and I were wondering what, if anything, would be the next great kitchen appliance that trickled down from the professional kitchen.  Most appliances have remained generally unchanged over the last 50 years.  Sure, you may have a blender that makes soup, and has a heating element, but it is still basically a blender.  It just has some extra bells and whistles.  The last great kitchen innovation was the microwave.  When they first came out they cost thousands of dollars, but now virtually every college student has at least a $20 model in their dorm room.  So what's next?

Anyone who has watched Food Network over the past few years will have eventually heard of sous vide (pronounced "Sue-Vee").  They may have even heard chefs rave about how amazing the results from this are.  But what is it?  Basically, it is a super duper slow cooker.  The idea is that food is put into a vacuum sealed bag, and cooked in a water bath at the temperature that the final product will be. I can hear all the non-foodies now, in unison, going "Okayyy, but why would that matter?"  Let's focus on meat for a minute.  Cooking meat tends to be a balance between time and temperature.  If the temperature is too hot, the outside can be burnt with a raw inside, and if it is too cold, by the time the center is cooked, the rest of it is dry and chewy.  Cooking a good steak using a grill or even a good cast iron skillet takes a bit of skill, and requires good timing.  Even then there is a gradient of "doneness".

Outside seared goodness

medium cooked

pink center

medium cooked

Outside seared goodness

Sous vide takes both the time pressure and temperature concerns out of the equation.  When cooking in the sous vide, the entire piece of meat will be the same temperature as that nice pink center.  It just takes a little longer to get to the right temperature.  So with a steak, the whole thing will be equally medium rare when it comes out of the water bath.  Give it a very quick sear in a very hot pan to get some maillard goodness, and it becomes an immediate perfect steak.  A person can cook a cheaper, tougher cut of beef, which tends to be a lot more sensitive to overcooking without the risk. This makes it obvious why restaurants would want to have a sous vide.  They can serve cheaper meat that turns out just as tasty as more expensive cuts, and they can pre-cook steaks (or many other dishes) to be quickly served at perfect temperatures. But for home use? Is it feasible, and is it even worth it?

A sous vide "oven" is $300 to $600. A thermometer/heating unit/circulator which will attach to a pot is still around $200. These still seem a little gadget-y, expensive, and unlikely to really catch on.  During the course of the conversation about the next great home kitchen appliance, I posited that a sous vide would not necessarily become its own appliance, but that I could see it as a feature of something like a crock pot.  They both are designed to cook at a low temperature for a long period of time, and there are some crock pots where you can set the temperature already; just not necessarily as low as some of the sous vide temperatures.  Also, as the crock pot tends to have heat coming in from both the bottom as well as the walls, it wouldn't require quite as much circulation.

So wasn't I surprised when I received this as a Christmas present.  It's a $99 device that works with any "dumb" crock pot, like mine! To make it work:

1. Plug the temperature controller into the wall.
2. Plug the crock pot into the temperature controller.
3. Fill the crock pot with water, leaving space for the food to go in without overflow.
4. Set the temperature on the temperature controller.
5. Place the heat sensor into the water.
6. Turn the crock pot to high.

The temperature sensor controls the power to the crock pot like a thermostat controls heat to a house, turning the heat on and off to maintain a proper temperature. I like the concept.  It is small, it is cheaper than all the other options (that aren't a "Build it yourself" model) and it improves one of my favorite kitchen appliances.  Which begs the question: Does it work, and does it make a difference in food quality?

The first item I tried cooking in it was a lamb roast that had been sitting in my freezer for... let's just say probably way too long. But, as there was no indication of freezer burn, there was a reasonably low chance of food poisoning from undercooked lamb (as opposed to chicken) in case it sort of worked, and I didn't have to pay any extra for it (since I already had it) I thought it was a good choice for a first run. I stuffed the lamb with some herbs, tied it up, and sealed it up in a zip top sous vide bag.

Based on the thickness of the finished roast after it had been put into a bag, the recommended cook time was somewhere between 4-12 hours at 137 degrees. After seeing that the apparatus was, in fact, working, I left it to do its thing and went out for a few hours.  The downside to this method compared to using a crock pot is that when I came home, my apartment was not filled with the scent of lamb.  It was all sealed in a bag. Oh well, talk about first world problems. After letting it cook for about 7 hours, we took the lamb out of the water bath, and to be safe, I took the temperature of the middle.  137 on the dot. So the temperature controller really did do its job.

Sous vide lamb roast, after 10 minutes under the broiler

About ten minutes under the broiler to get a nice crispy skin, and we were about ready for the final test.  Did the long low cook make any discernible difference to the flavor, texture, or experience of the meal? I mean, it looked amazing, and smelled really good, but was it worth seven hours?

Look at the picture below, and compare it to the gradient of doneness that I mentioned above.  Notice something?  There is no medium level.  There is a beautiful seared skin, and then perfectly uniform medium rare lamb as far as the eye can see.

The prettiest sliced lamb roast I've ever seen

So finally, what did it taste like? It was absolutely amazing. It was perfectly cooked, tender, and absolutely delicious. I have a feeling that I will be using a lot more of this device in the future.

Three Blind Mice Never Tasted So Good

There are many things that I dislike about winter, which is why I choose to look at the positives as opposed to hiding under my bed for multiple months, waiting for it to go away. While the utter lack of humidity leads to my hair doing an impression of a hedgehog due to static, the same lack of heat and humidity make it the perfect weather to start making chocolates again!

A friend of mine recently bought a house, and after I was lusting over the size and counter space of her kitchen, invited me over to help break it in.  She and I had originally taken a truffle class together, but where I obsessively proceeded on to make all sorts of different candies, she was happy to just go home and eat her candy. When I asked what she wanted to make in this new kitchen, she said that she wanted something with chocolate.

I think that chocolate mice are probably the least exacting type of candy that I've made. When I went poking around online to see if it were possible to make something like Mounds or Almond Joy, I came across directions that essentially said to mix corn syrup with coconut until you have about the right texture.  Cool, shape, and coat in chocolate. Conveniently, that is, in fact, about all there is to it. But, as I'm really bad about staying short winded, there's a whole lot more below.

Before we talk about ingredients, I just want to say a word about corn syrup. If you have never made candy, but have all of the talk about high fructose corn syrup, you may balk at any recipe that uses corn syrup (although High Fructose Corn Syrup and what is in the baking aisle are actually different). What's insidious about high fructose corn syrup isn't actually the ingredient on its own.  It's the fact that it's in everything, so that "moderation" that the corn refiners ads talk about gets really difficult really fast. Start checking labels.  Things that you would never expect to have sugar in them have high fructose corn syrup, like bread. In candy, corn syrup helps to keep crystals small, and helps to keep things chewy.  So it is highly advisable to not just omit it.  Also, remember, we're making candy.  We already know it's not healthy.  My advice, enjoy the treat for what it is, and keep portion sizes reasonable.  If you're still concerned about the difference, check out this article.

Ingredients

• Shredded Coconut
• Corn Syrup
• Chocolate or Candy Melts (dark or milk, your choice, but don't use chocolate chips.  They contain anti-melting agents that will just make your life harder.)
• Optional: almonds (or anything else that you think will taste good with coconut).

Prepare the Chocolate

In this application, the chocolate will be used as a coating over the coconut, so we need to melt it. If you have never worked with chocolate, there are two very important things to know. First, chocolate is actually very sensitive to heat. It has many different crystal states within a pretty small range.  What does that mean? If you have ever had a candy bar that has melted and re-solidified, you have experienced this.  It won't have a nice snap to the chocolate, it will melt at a lower temperature, it won't be shiny.  Just generally not as pretty.  In chocolate terms, it's out of temper.  The good news is, if you are working with a good solid block of chocolate that is already in temper, it's not that hard to keep it that way.

Secondly, water and chocolate are not friends.  They are anti-friends.  Even a tiny bit of water in melted chocolate will cause it to seize, and then you can't use it for dipping your mice.

Some people will advocate using the microwave to melt chocolate.  This can work, but I've not had much success with it.  I have the bad habit of over heating the chocolate.  So I prefer to do things the old fashioned way.

If you decide to use candy melts, there is no need to chop your chocolate. I find the flavor isn't quite as good as with real chocolate, but I will admit that they are a lot easier to use, and there is no risk or seizing.

If, instead, you are using a large bar of chocolate, get out a good solid knife to chop it down. Why?  Because as I said above, chocolate is sensitive to heat.  I want to use as little heat/time as possible to get it all melted evenly.  Smaller pieces, that have a high surface area, will melt faster.  The general goal is to get the chocolate into nice, tiny pieces that are all about the same size.

I melt my chocolate at home by putting it into a metal bowl, and putting that bowl on top of a small pot with a couple of inches of water in it.  In this case, my friend had a Pyrex bowl that would also withstand the heat, so we just used that.  Put the bowl of chocolate on top of the pan before turning on the heat.  Steam= water, and if any gets into your chocolate, that can leave you very sad with a bowl full of seized chocolate that will never be used for dipping, and little naked coconut mice.

Heat the chocolate slowly over low heat, stirring often, and turning off the heat periodically if the water in the underlying pot reaches a simmer.  The chocolate will be heated by the water under it, not by the stove.  You only need to get it to about 70 degrees Farenheit, so there's no need to rush it.

The Coconut Mixture

After trying the method referred to above, I realized that yes, there's very little actual measuring involved.  In this application, about half a bag of coconut made give or take 20 mice.  So I use the amount of coconut to approximate the number I want to make, and will mix in the corn syrup accordingly. Mix in small amounts at a time until the mixture will stick together well enough to work with.  To test it, grab a small ball from the bowl and squeeze it into a ball.  If it sticks, and isn't sprouting little coconut hairs, you are good to go.  At this point, if you just want to make little candy bars, shape them, dip them in chocolate, let them set, and you're done.  Personally, I think the mice are kind of cute.

I have a scoop that I use for this next part, for the sake of making mice that are about the same size.  But a spoon will work just about as well. Start scooping out little balls of coconut, and roll them between your hands to get it nice and compact.  This step can be very sticky, so I will often rinse my hands in cold water to help keep the coconut from sticking.

Each mouse will take 1.5 balls of mixture, so make several balls as bodies, and then half as many balls of the same size for the heads.  The balls that are made for heads, cut in half and roll them into little cones, using your hands.  To add the ears, I will take a dab of melted chocolate, and add it to one end of the body.  Take two slivered almonds that are about the same time, and use the chocolate as glue between the head and the body.  Chill the mice in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes or so, making sure that there is no residual water on the bodies (I usually will do the mice in batches, so that by the time I have finished the last bodies, the first ones to go in are ready for dipping).

Dipping

Now that the bodies are chilled and the chocolate is melted, it's time to start dipping.  Take a mouse, put it into the chocolate, coating completely, then remove (a fork works just fine here), letting excess chocolate drip off.  then place on parchment paper or a silicone mat to set. The cleaner this step is, the better, but you can also just trim some extra chocolate off the edges once it's hardened.  As you can see from the photos, I'm definitely neither a professional nor perfect!

If you don't want blind mice, you can use icing, or candy googly eyes, or anything else I haven't thought of.  In my experience, they don't tend to last long enough for anyone to notice.

Most importantly, have fun. You can always eat mistakes, and cleanup can be a tasty job too! Don't forget to lick the bowl!

Analysis

Financial Outlay: Under $10 for over 20 mice, each about 2 inches long
Time: About 1 Hour
Quality: Tasty!  The visual beauty may vary depending on your skill with chocolate, but these are handcrafted!  If you got one at a candy store, it would probably be at least $2 each. Also, people tend to be really impressed when the notice that it's a chocolate mouse as opposed to just a blob of a candy bar.
Fun: I like doing these. The recipe is easily scale-able, the coconut mixture is kind of like a really crumbly clay, it's tasty, and can be done with multiple people who may not have much kitchen experience.

Squash-ing Misconceptions

A bit of a caveat: In the act of coming down off of Halloween, and building up to Thanksgiving, I admit I've been running into a certain level of writer's block on what to post. I have several projects in progress, but nothing at any level of completion. I feel obligated to use the season to be topical, and nothing was really working for me.

I think the role of marketing, distilled down to one sentence (other than buy this!), is: “Make hard things look easy, and make easy things look hard.” One of the reasons that I tend to try to do just about everything once is so that I can judge for myself. Croissants, for example, are exactly as much work as one would expect – a fair amount. Pie crusts, however, with a little bit of science knowledge, are really easy. Sometimes the improved quality that results from making something from scratch far outweighs the time sink, like most of the candy I've made. On the other hand, sometimes the experience can be summed up as a a check box of "Ok, I've done it. Let's not do that again.”


Which leads us to soup.

In a completely unscientific judgment, I would say that after cereal, chips, and pasta, soup tends to take up the most aisle space for a specific food item in the supermarket. Sometimes it gets its own aisle, which for a food is basically winning. And honestly, soup can often be super easy and super cheap to make. It can take time, sure. But there's also a big difference between something that requires a great deal of effort or constant attention, and something that just needs a while to cook.

If you make your own stock, it will take some time. This is reason number x why I love my crock pot. I can throw in bones, cover with water, and let the crock pot leech all the lovely collagen out of the bones while I'm at work. Which really, is the difference between broth and stock. Stock is thick and rich, and permeated with gelatin. Broth, if we're being completely honest, is just "chicken water". When I get home, voila! Chicken stock that I can later freeze in ice cube trays and use for various purposes. Of course, I am not going to judge you for buying stock. Depending on the soup you make, it may make no difference whatsoever. And if a can or box of chicken stock is the deciding point between ordering a pizza or making soup? Buy the stock.

Despite my obsessive experimentation with zucchini earlier this year, I don't tend to cook with squash all that often. It's just not something that tends to fit into my repertoire. But that was one of the positives of having a CSA this year. It forced me to cook with ingredients that I wouldn't normally use, and try things that I wouldn't normally eat. So I looked around this weekend, and noticed that I still had a bunch of squash left over from the CSA. Conveniently, they're squash, and could be called "nature's canned goods". They will last a really long time, if they haven't been cut open.

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and grabbed whatever squash that I had. I think there were two delicata, one kabocha, a sugar pumpkin that I had not actually carved for Halloween, and a butternut squash (as I said, I had a BUNCH of squash). So I grabbed a roasting pan, sliced the smaller squash in half, the medium sized ones into quarters, and the pumpkin into chunks large enough to fit into pans without being unwieldy. I tossed the seeds (although toasted pumpkin seeds are both easy to make and super tasty), threw the pieces into two pans (as there was way too much for just one), sprinkled a little brown sugar over the top, threw in a couple cloves of garlic, and stuck them in the oven for somewhere around an hour while I did other things around the house. Does it sound like this was done somewhat haphazardly with little attention to detail? Good. Because that's exactly what it was. Periodically, I would check the progress, by sticking a fork in the various pieces. When everything was nice and soft, I took the pans out of the oven and let them cool on top of the stove for a bit.

Once they are were cool enough to handle, I took my ice cream scoop and each piece of squash, and just scooped it out of the skin. I figured that it would be a whole lot easier to do it this way than to carefully peel each one (which it was!). I put the meat of the squash into a large saucepan, and added some chicken stock. At this point I used my immersion blender, but you could also use a potato masher or even a wooden spoon to mix it up, and break down clumps. A little bit of salt and pumpkin pie spice (I thought the combination of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger worked rather well), and a little heat from the stove, and I had a large pot of creamy, homemade squash soup. It's not rocket science, and honestly, not even that much food science. But it was easy, tasty, and (before adding the spices) could be used for many different types of soup. Curried soup? Sure. Want to add cream or even sour cream to thicken it up a bit? Why not? It may be a bit slow, but it is easy.

Also, when was the last time a can of soup made your entire house smell amazing? I'm guessing never. Roast some squash for a while and you'll be able to skip the air freshener.

The Other Fall Flavor: Apple Cider Gummy Candy

Over the past few years I've watched the "pumpkin" trend become huge.  Pumpkin lattes, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin beer, pretty much anything that someone can add the flavor of pumpkin to becomes pumkin-y as soon as it hits fall.  I tend to shrug at the whole thing.  I don't have anything against fall or pumpkins; I'm just not a huge fan of anything when a fake flavor is added to it.  That, and I tend to prefer the other "fall flavor".  Apples.

When I was a kid, we had an apple tree in my yard.  I remember picking apples with my sister, attempting to climb the tree, me trying to stand on her shoulders to reach the top...  It really is amazing that neither of us ended up in the emergency room because of that thing.  But the apples that grew on it were amazing, and we always made plenty of applesauce from the apples that we picked.

Living in Boston, many years later, I tend to be conflicted with regards to the fall past time of apple picking.  On one hand, getting the apples directly from the tree tend to give you the best possible fruit; the apples that you pick will last for months in the refrigerator; the cider, and cider donuts at Honeypot Hill are amazing; and it's one of the few times when it is socially acceptable, as an adult, to climb trees (a skill which I am quite pleased to still posses). On the other hand, it is more expensive, and because it's a "thing" that all the folks in the city do as a fall activity, I kind of want to tell everyone there that I'm not just a tourist, that I've worked on "real" farms; that I'm not the type who will run screaming away from a mosquito, having never seen one before.  The tipping point is a good friend of mine who grew up in Hawaii.  He gets a huge kick out of being able to pick an item of food off a tree and just eat it directly.

Being close to Halloween, I decided to stick with the theme of candy.  One of my favorite types of candy to make is gummy candy.  It's easy to make, and easy to adjust the flavor profile.  Also, it allows me to make them into all sorts of fun shapes. It's one of the great things about the prevalence of silicone ice cube trays these days is that they work equally well for the making of candy. I may be slightly obsessed, and have several of them in all sorts of fun shapes.  For anyone with geek tendencies, there are several fun ones at Thinkgeek.

So much better than store bought gummy bears!

Apple Cider Gummy Candy

• 6 Cups Apple Cider
• 1 1/4 Cups Granulated Sugar 
• 6 Envelopes gelatin
• 1 1/4 Cups Water
• Optional: cinnamon, sugar

Reduce the apple cider until there is only 1 cup, by simmering in a 2 quart saucepan.  This is the slowest part of the whole recipe. If you boil the apple cider, it will give a different flavor due to caramelizing the sugars. I try to do this part the day before, because it needs to cool before adding gelatin.  The good side of having to spend a long time simmering apple cider is that the entire house will smell amazing.

After the cider has been reduced and cooled, place it in a bowl and sprinkle the gelatin on top, to allow it time to bloom while cooking the syrup (if you want to add cinnamon, now would be the time to do so).

Always be careful when making candy, as serious burns can occur.

Put the water and sugar in a saucepan, and attach a candy thermometer.  Cook over medium heat until the syrup reaches the hard crack stage, at 300 degrees Farenheit.  Add the cider/gelatin mixture, and mix until fully incorporated.

Candy setting in silicone ice cube trays

Pour mixture out to cool, in either a greased 8x8 inch pan, or into silicone molds, and allow to cool to room temperature.

If the mixture was set in a pan, then either slice the gummies into squares, or use cookie cutters to cut out shapes.  If silicone molds were used, then the candies can simply be popped out of the molds. At this point, they will still be sticky, and you have a choice.  If you set the candies out to finish air drying, the edges will be a little tough, like a swedish fish, but will still be soft and chewy in the center.  If you want to keep the entire piece soft and chewy, you can roll each in a coat of granulated sugar.  Personally, I like to maintain the details from my molds, and will let them air dry just a little before packing them in tupperware.  While they will get tougher over time if they are not coated in sugar, they never seem to last long enough to make that an issue.

Don't Fear the Candy: Turning Candy Corn from Trick to Treat

My fall "decorative" table.  Pumpkin, apples, and homemade candy corn!

It's getting close to the end of October, and we all know what that means, Halloween! Costumes, candy, apples, pumpkins, colorful leaves (and in my case a silver tabby who decides that it's cold enough to be a constant lap cat); it's a holiday almost made for creativity. As a kid I always made my Halloween costumes. And no, you don't get to see any pictures of those.  To the best of my knowledge, none exist. But between my sister and I we did have some great ones.  Spider, skunk, coke machine, some monster type creature that sprung fully formed like Athena out of the random depths of my young mind... All I remember was that it was purple and green, and I got to use these rubber monster gloves with fur on the back of the hand.  Yes, I was an odd child. Not really a surprise.

You should always be prepared for the challenges of your costume.

Over the past several years I've really lacked costume inspiration. My attempt to rock the classic "Charlie Brown" style sheet with eyes in it as a ghost led to an unfortunate incident where a group of people questioned if I was supposed to be KKK. And I am currently less than a week out from a Halloween party and still haven't even decided on a costume.

Where I have found inspiration, however, is with the Halloween candy. One of the great things about October is that it is usually cool and dry enough to make candy making a good idea. I have decided that, even if you're not the type who wants to try making candy, everyone should have the chance to eat the "real" version of candy types, just to understand the comparison.  The use of preservatives, cheaper ingredients, modified production methods and such do make candy available to a wider market, but at a price.  And that price is usually either flavor or texture.  There is absolutely no comparison between homemade marshmallows and the kind that you get for $1 a bag (although if I'm going camping, I would probably still just grab the bag of them for s'mores).

To that extent, I know lots of people who really hate candy corn.  It tends to fall squarely into the "why would people eat that?!" category, and can be considered sugared wax. To those folks, I would definitely recommend trying the real thing.  And, while I am not one of those people, it is exactly what I decided to do (and I'm really glad that I did).

As this is the first time I was attempting to make something, I turned to Alton Brown.  Because while the flavors of his recipes often require a bit of tweaking, the technique is usually spot on. So the link to the recipe is here. The basic idea is to mix powdered sugar, powdered milk, and salt thoroughly (no lumps!); make a syrup with corn syrup, granulated sugar, water, and butter (bring it to the softball stage); combine the two along with a little vanilla; cool, color, and shape.  The only special equipment that you would need is a candy thermometer. That really doesn't sound so hard, does it?

Here are the three colors of dough for the candy corn.

Here you see the dough after it has been cooled, separated and colored (sorry, it's hard to take pictures while carefully managing temperatures of a syrup.  I'd really rather not get a sticky 230 degree substance on myself, or my camera). Yes, you also see the first run of candy corn I made, before I was planning on making this a post.  I just didn't take any pictures during the first go round. I guess that just means I have more to eat.  Oh horrors...

To create the corns, roll the dough into thin ropes, and lay out three ropes.  One white, one yellow, and one orange.  Squeeze the colors together so that there is just one long tri-colored strip.

white white white white white white white white white white white white white white white

yellow yellow yellow yellow yellow yellow yellow yellow yellow yellow yellow yellow 

orange orange orange orange orange orange orange orange orange orange orange orange 

Cut the strip into triangles kind of like this, using either a knife, a pizza cutter, or a bench scraper:

_____________________________

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Unlike with the storebought candy corn, you will end up with half of it with a white point, and half with an orange point. After the candy corn is cut, if you feel the need you can smooth out any rough side edges.  It acts just like edible clay and if you want to make other shapes, it would be easy to do so.  I have some thoughts that I want to play with, to add to my "geek candies" The last step is to lay them out for a little bit to dry, just so that they don't get all smushed.

Completed candy corn, set out to dry

And one of the advantages of being the one to make it? You can snack on all the rough edges or ugly pieces!

The taste is really a lot better, and it is not waxy at all.  I assume that in the store bought stuff, there is actually wax.  Does this take a lot more time than just buying it?  Of course. Is it worth it?  That's up to you.  Personally, I've been developing the perspective that if I'm going to eat something that's not that healthy for me, I'd rather have it be the highest quality possible (unless I'm specifically craving junk.  I have not yet undertaken making my own devil dogs, hmmm...).

A note about doing this with kids. Once the dough has cooled enough to color and handle, assembling the candy corn is something that I think that kids could help with (of course, be completely honest with yourself about the kids that you are working with. I have some adult friends that I may not trust making candy corn, let alone children.).  As far as the first steps go, however, please remember that making candy has the potential for serious burns, and should not be done with young children.

Blog Recommendation: Michael Ruhlman

I have recently developed a love for Michael Ruhlman.  I originally discovered him via the iPhone app Ratio, but have not yet picked up the book that it is supposed to accompany.  And It wasn't until very recently that I started reading his blog. There are recipes, cocktails, food rants, and all sorts of fun stuff. It's a very easy read, the photography on the blog is fantastic, and I often learn something while reading it.  The perfect combination!

I was originally just going to share it on the Puritan Therapy Facebook page, but there were too many posts to really pick just one.  So here is the list of where I think you should start.

1. America- Too Stupid to Cook: Ten thousand times yes! Over the decades marketing has convinced us that many life tasks are just too difficult.  Cooking is not hard.  Cleaning (while obnoxious) is not hard. Sewing is not hard. But marketers have spend millions of dollars and many years trying to convince us otherwise, so that we will buy whatever it is that they are trying to sell.
2. The "No Nitrates Added" Hoax: Another giant "boo!" to marketing. The moral of the story, if you don't understand how food works, you can easily be manipulated by deceptive marketing.
3. Food Fascism: This is one that I experienced myself when I was in Portugal doing my massage training.  I was the black sheep because, not only did I not aspire to be a macrobiotic vegan, but I actually ate RED MEAT! (I would also like to point out that even if you are smoking "organic" cigarettes, it's still highly likely you will end up with a smoking related illness... but I digress)
4. Bacteria! Run Away! Run Away!: This article even has delightful images drawn by Alton Brown! This article addresses the concerns about washing chicken. While I am much more prone to agree with Harold McGee with regards to the chicken stock argument, there is definitely an overreaction with regards to "germs", at least in the US. 
5. Cook Your Own Food Eat What You Want Think For Yourself: Where common sense trumps the most recent news story of what common food will kill you this week.  See, for example, the poor, maligned egg.
6. Friday Cocktail: The old-fashioned with homemade bitters : This gets me on multiple levels.  I do love me a good cocktail, but I also like knowing how to make random things.  I may now need to try making bitters...
7. In Love with French Onion Soup: Lastly, here is one of his food recipes, to give you a taste (pardon the pun) of what they are like.  I have not tried this recipe, but it holds up to what I have come to believe about very old school peasant food recipes.  It is very simple, does not have a lot of complicated ingredients, and does not involve a lot of fancy techniques.  It reminds me of challenges on shows like Top Chef where the chef has been asked to make the judges "last meal".  Inevitably the chef who wins is not the one who composes a highly technical and complicated plate.  The one who wins is the chef who makes the requested dish like their grandmother would make.  Simple, comforting, and well executed.

Not that Michael Ruhlman needs any help from me to gain readership, but I like to promote people who I think are doing good things.

Science and Cooking at Harvard

I saw this link multiple times on my Facebook feed, and even had two people send it to me directly.  My reaction when I saw it was something akin to "aw crap".  I've been going to the lectures throughout the series.  They are after work, and the lines have been getting long enough for me to really not want anyone else to show up, lest I not get in.  I'd heard about the first one from a friend of mine, and when I heard that Harold McGee was going to be speaking, I jumped at the chance. You may not know who he is.  My friend, who invited me to the first lecture, didn't know who he was. He is, essentially, the father of modern food science.

Ever wonder why toast turns brown? Why milk will curdle when mixed with lemon juice? What's the deal with water and chocolate?  Why are beans, in fact, the musical fruit?  Harold McGee knows. His first book "On Food and Cooking" is not a cookbook.  It's much more of a textbook, but about the science of food.  On his blog, Curious Cook, he recently did an article on the required heat for making caramels.  He has also been inspiration for people like Shirley Corriher and Alton Brown. Yes, I may be a little excited about the fact that I now have a signed copy of "On Food and Cooking".

The evening that he spoke, he split the time with Dave Arnold from Cooking Issues. He had some really neat demonstrations with regards to the heat transference of oil vs. water, the effect of liquid nitrogen on marshmallows, and the process of infusing substances with flavor (during which I made the mental connection with why drip coffee is more bitter than espresso, and why the proper steeping time for black tea is only 2-3 minutes). He also brought in a new toy he had for making popcorn. I think the point with this (other than being able to paly with his new toy) was to further demonstrate the ideal gas law in respect to cooking (PV=nRT). But back to popcorn.  If you watch Mythbusters, you may have seen this work before.  If not, here's a clip of how it should work.  Got it? Now let's take a look at what should NOT happen.

It doesn't matter who you are, you can still clear a building with burnt popcorn

This would be what happens when you don't pay close attention to how your valves are sealed, and just keep adding heat to try to get your pressure up.  This photograph, taken by Nate Holstein, captured the moment just after the fire alarm went off. Yes, this professional chef, highly successful restaurateur, and one of the founders of the Museum of Food and Drink set off the fire alarm and evacuated the entire science building at Harvard.

Jose Andres at Harvard University

The best combination of science and entertainment thus far has been the lecture by Jose Andres. Yes, the picture on the screen is of Jello, he was talking about diffusion and  spherification. If you search for images of his food, he composes these absolutely beautiful plates, where he has concentrated flavors, and encapsulated them into a liquid ball with a gelatin skin. Or you can watch even better videos.  The video of him building a Chihuli salad to the right is kind of amazing.

The "Reverse" Cappuccino

This is done by a professional chef.  But, like virtually any form of cooking, with a little science, and the right ingredients, you can do versions at home.  This encouraged a friend of mine and I to do a "sphere" dinner.  For a starter we had olives, then we made spheres of a roasted vegetable soup, had 4 types of meatballs (Italian, Asian, middle eastern and Mexican flavors), and spheres of yogurt served with fresh raspberries and macerated strawberries for dessert.  To top it off, we did a "reverse cappuccino".  This entailed spheres of a yogurt/milk mixture combined with some honey, and some espresso balsamic vinegar caviar on top.  Everything was exceptionally tasty, but nowhere even remotely near as pretty as a world famous chef can do.  Even without having any catastrophic failures, only the reverse cappuccino was pretty enough to even try to photograph.  So now that you've seen the best, here is the layman's attempt.  It was very tasty, but I think that I could use some more practice...

Why am I telling you all this today?  Today is the first day of the Massively Open Online Course (MOOC).  Registration is still open, and it promises to be a lot of fun.  I'll be taking it, and I recommend that anyone else does as well.

You can find the course at: https://www.edx.org/course/harvard-university/spu27x/science-cooking-haute-cuisine/639

The Building Blocks of Baked Goods Part 3: Correcting a Quickbread

This is a continuation from The Building Blocks of Baked Goods, as well as The Building Blocks of Baked Goods 2. The previous two parts discuss ratios in baked goods, and how to check to see if a recipe is unbalanced.

The recipe that I started with is this zucchini bread recipe from Paula Deen. It has too much liquid, too much sugar, and it is slightly over leavened. The flavors, however, are still good.  So I know that I want to keep the spices, and balance out the rest of the recipe.

The first step is to peg your limiting reagent. In other words, pick one ingredient that you want to use to calculate the rest of the recipe. Eggs are an easy pick, since it is much more difficult to measure half an egg than half a cup of flour. In the case of zucchini bread, if you only have a limited amount of zucchini, that could be the limiting reagent.  When I've made angel food cake, I've sometimes used the flour, to ensure that I have the proper volume for my pan.  It doesn't really matter, as long as we just pick one.

Let's start with the original ingredients (using weight measurements for all structural components, of course):

447 grams all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
916 grams sugar
218 grams vegetable oil
200 grams beaten egg (appx. 4 eggs)
78.9 grams water
340 grams grated zucchini
1 teaspoon lemon juice

I want to make sure that I maintain the size of the recipe, so that I still end up with 2 loaves of bread.  Therefore, I am going to opt to use my flour as the limiting reagent.  Hopefully my eggs will play nicely for weight. Therefore, 448 grams of flour (I am rounding up slightly to make math easier) will be 1 part.  Because the volume will be about the same, I am going to leave the spice amounts to be about the same.  I also want to keep the zucchini amounts the same, if I can, based on what I tasted from the previous recipe.

Now, let's take the ratio for a balanced recipe:
If 1 part = 448 grams

1 parts flour = 448 grams
1 parts liquid = 448 grams
.5 part egg =224 grams
.5 part fat = 224 grams
1 part sugar = 448 grams

Flour and sugar are clear enough, as we are only using one type of each.  The fat is the adjusted weight of the vegetable oil, and liquid includes the egg, vegetable oil, water, and zucchini.

Adjusted weight of vegetable oil: 224 grams fat * (218 grams vegetable oil/204 grams fat)=239.4 grams.

Liquid: 633.4 grams (1.4 parts)
224 grams egg
239.4 grams vegetable oil
170 (.5 * 340) grams zucchini

The sum of the weights (and yes, I am being rather low with the weight of the zucchini) is already higher than that of the flour.  Therefore, I'm going to leave out the water altogether.  If I wanted to be even pickier about weights, I could substitute shortening for the vegetable oil, or try to extract some extra water weight from the zucchini, or even take out an egg yolk for a little extra structure.  Based on how the recipe turned out previously, though, I'm going to just risk it.  I'm going to assume that the zucchini will also help to provide some structure to the bread as well.  I would not, however, try to make this recipe in a cake pan.  With the high liquid amounts when compared to the amount of protein, it would just sink in the middle.  So it's convenient that I'm using a bread pan to begin with.

Two last notes, before I give you the recipe (which you've waited oh so patiently through 3 blog entries for). First, a word about salt.  I use kosher salt.  I buy it in a big box at the supermarket, and it lasts a really, really long time.  I never thought much about salt, but I started noticing that everything I baked was requiring extra salt.  I really didn't understand it until I read an article about the differences between types of salt, and then once tried weighing out the salt for a recipe.  Table salt has been milled, so that all the crystals are a uniform size.  Kosher salt, on the other hand, is made up of bigger, chunkier crystals.  Not only does this mean that sometimes it doesn't distribute quite as well throughout a baked good (oops!), but because the crystals are bigger and chunkier, there is actually less salt (and more air space) in a teaspoon of kosher salt than a teaspoon of table salt.  Confused?  Think of it this way: If you take a jar, and fill it with wooden blocks, the jar is not completely full.  There is a lot of air in between the blocks.  If you take an identical jar, and fill it with rice grains, there is a lot less air.  When I weighed out the salt for something I was baking, it turned out that, in order for me to get the right amount of salt, I needed to use about 50% more than what I was measuring.

Secondly, I want to talk about leavening.  I have now done the recipe below with both baking powder, and baking soda/lemon juice.  There are benefits and drawbacks to each method.  Baking powder is usually double acting (as opposed to single acting baking soda), so I have found that it produces a slightly lighter, fluffier bread. Using baking powder means that we would leave out the lemon juice, however, which contributes to browning on the top of the loaf.  If you want to try using baking soda instead of the baking powder, just remember to use 1 teaspoon of baking powder per cup of flour, plus just a touch extra to account for the weight of the zucchini.

Finally! Here is my "corrected" Zucchini Bread Recipe

Who says Math isn't tasty?

448 grams  (appx. 3 1/2 cups) all-purpose flour
448 grams (appx. 2 1/4 cups) sugar
239.4 grams (appx. 1 cup) vegetable oil
224 grams beaten egg (appx. 4 large eggs)
340 grams (appx. 2 cups) grated zucchini
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (freshly grated recommended)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon lemon juice

.Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Use the muffin method to mix the ingredients.  Mix the flour, sugar, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and baking soda (all of the dry ingredients) in a bowl.  In a separate bowl mix all the wet ingredients thoroughly: vegetable oil, eggs, lemon juice, and zucchini. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and stir only to combine. *

Bake in 2 loaf pans for about 1 hour, or until a toothpick entered into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

*Remember, we are making a quick bread, and don't want it to be tough or chewy.  Therefore, we want to limit the amount of gluten that we form.  Mix the wet and the dry ingredients well separately before combining them. The more we stir the mixed batter, the more gluten we have a chance to form.