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.

Ramos Fizz Cheesecake- Light, Fluffy, Delicious!

Ramos Fizz Cheesecake. Light, fluffy, and delicious!

There are very few foods that I am obsessive about.  I shrug at the Chicago vs. New York pizza debates, I stay neutral on Kansas City vs North Carolina for barbecue, and I think lots of places have great hot dogs.  One of the few things that I am adamant about is cheesecake.  When I was a kid, my sister and I weren't allowed to have sugar.  Part of the thinking at the time was that prohibiting sugar in a kid's diet would prevent diabetes later in life.  In actuality it tends to just promote secretive binging, but that's another story.  Thus, to have a low sugar option for a birthday cake, we would get cheesecake.  It was light and fluffy and we would usually have it with some fresh fruit and a little homemade whipped cream.

The first time I had a cheesecake that was not the one my mom made was when I was in college.  I don't remember where it was, but I do remember being excited for cheesecake.  What I got was a super dense brick on a crumbly graham cracker crust. This was more like eating a cold, over-sweetened paste than what I was expecting.  Even worse, everyone else seemed to think that it was great!  I later learned about New York style cheesecake, and that what I had was actually a good version of it.  I just can't approve.  In my opinion, cheesecake should be light and fluffy.  It should almost be like eating a cheesy cloud.

So, if you are the type of person who prefers their cheesecake more akin to a brick, I may think you're wrong, but I won't judge.  But if this is the case, this is not the recipe that you would want.  The cocktail will still be good, but it will not be your style of cheesecake.

Ramos Gin Fizz

The handle of the spoon is a straw!

As I've mentioned before, I have great respect for a good bartender, especially for their palate.  Which is why I will use my bartender friends as taste testers and flavor advisers whenever I can.  The first time I ever had a Ramos fizz was around the same time that I started really experimenting with chocolates.  I had brought a variety of things to work for a potluck, and then brought all the extras to the bar with me after work.  When Will asked me what I wanted to drink, I handed him a s'more chocolate (small piece of graham cracker with a toasted marshmallow on it dipped in milk chocolate) and told him to make me something to go with that.  He ate it, thought for a moment, and then spent the next 10 minutes crafting this absolutely beautiful drink.  When he put it down, he said that he was playing off of the ideas of milk and cookies.  When I tried it, I was amazed.  It was light, fizzy, creamy, with citrus and a touch of orange.  And it came in a tall glass with a straw spoon, kind of like what you'd get with a slurpee, but fancy and metal.

I have since learned that this is one of those drinks where:

1. Never order it on a busy night.  It takes a long time and a lot of effort to make.  This can be fine, as long as you understand this and will tip accordingly.
2. Once you do order it, and the bartender puts it down, multiple people will all ooh and ah, and then they will all want one because it's pretty.  This is the nail in the coffin for the bartender cursing your name under their breath.

Considering that I was just talking about cheesecake, skipping to a cocktail may seem like a nonsequitor.  but look at the recipe, and think about the ingredients for a moment.

Ramos Gin Fizz

2 ounces gin (I recommend a french gin that is more subtle and floral than one that has a strong juniper flavor)
1 ounce heavy cream
1 egg white
1/2 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce lime juice
2 teaspoons superfine sugar
2 to 3 drops orange flower water
Soda water
optional: Orange peel for garnish

Combine gin, cream, the white of the egg, lemon juice, lime juice, sugar, and ice in a cocktail shaker.  Shake for 1 minute, or until the mixture starts to foam (as a note, this is a long time to shake a cocktail, and the minute timer is a minimum).  Strain into a highball glass, and top off with soda water.  The oil from the orange peel adds an extra little pop of orange.

So where is the connection with cheesecake?  The Ramos fizz has dairy, eggs, sugar, and flavorings.  A cheesecake is made with dairy, eggs, sugar, cornstarch, and flavorings.  When I considered the way to make this cocktail into a form of candy, the parallel seemed obvious.

Cheesecake

There are several things I love about this recipe.  To be honest, it's actually a very healthy cheesecake.  It's high in protein, and low in sugar, and all of the perishable ingredients can be pre-measured for you.  In the US, a standard block of cream cheese is 8 ounces.  A small container of cottage cheese is 2 cups.  I never need to worry about using up that little extra bit of, well, anything.   With the idea of low sugar, and high protein, some people (including me on occasion) want to take it a step further and get the trifecta of low fat as well, by using low or nonfat cream cheese and cottage cheese.  IF you choose to make a basic cheesecake instead of the Ramos Fizz cheesecake, substitute away.  The end result will be a firmer cake, but still definitely tasty.  If you are making the Ramos Fizz cake, I recommend against it, and this is why.

*Science Warning*
It is a matter of acid.  If you remember pH from high school chemistry class, there is a range from acid to base.  Cakes (flour or flourless) need an acidic batter to set up or they will end up just being a pudding.  The more acidic the cake, the faster it will set up (but the drier it will be).  If you use low or non fat cheese in your cheesecake, you are making the batter more acidic.  Thus, if you decide that the cake seems too mushy, this is an easy way to adjust it to your liking.  The Ramos Fizz cheesecake is actively adding more acid and drying agents.  Lemon juice, lime juice, and gin all have a drying effect on the cake.  If you make that even more acidic, by removing more of the fat, the result will be an almost chewy cheesecake, which is not what we want at all.

*Science End*

A quick word about equipment. For a long time, equipment tended to be the barrier for me trying to make this.  My mom always used the blender, the hand mixer, and a springform pan.  These days I will usually still use a springform pan, but instead of using multiple appliances, I will just use two attachments on my stick blender.  It takes up less space, and there's less to wash at the end.  Other than that, the only potential challenge is cleanly separating eggs to create a foam.

Ramos Fizz Cheesecake

6-8 large eggs

8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature

2 cups cottage cheese

1/2 cup sugar

3 Tbsp cornstarch

Flavoring

1 tsp gin

1/2 tsp lime juice

1/2 tsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp orange flower water

1. Preaheat oven to 300 degrees F.  
2. Separate enough eggs to make 1/2 cup of egg yolks.  
3. Combine the egg yolks and cottage cheese, blending until smooth.  
4. Add the cream cheese, corn starch, and sugar.  Continue to blend until smooth.  
5. Mix in the flavorings.  
6. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks.
7. Fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture gently.
8. Pour the batter into an ungreased springform pan, and bake in the center of the oven for 1 hour.  When one hour has passed, turn off the oven without opening the oven door and allow to cool in the oven for 1 hour.
9. Allow to cool to room temperature, and then chill in the refrigerator.

Tips and Recommendations

• Use a 3 bowl method of separating the eggs.  One for the egg whites, one for the yolks, and one for the egg that you are currently separating.  That way, if a yolk breaks, you only lose one egg, instead of the whole batch.
• For easier separating, use eggs that are as fresh as possible.  As eggs age, the whites get thicker, and the yolk gets more delicate.  The most recent time I made cheesecake I used some of my farm fresh eggs, and was amazed at how easy it was to separate them.
• All of the leavening in this recipe comes from the foam created by the egg whites.  That is the most important step.  If you overwhip the egg whites, the foam will collapse, and you will have a puddle in the bottom of the bowl.  This will affect the texture of your final cake.  Beat the egg whites just until the point of stiff peaks.  This means that, if you remove the beater from the egg whites and turn it upside down, the egg foam will stay pointy.
• Ensure that the bowl that you use for the egg whites is completely clean of fat.  Even if there is a tiny residual drop of dish soap, the egg whites will not create a foam.
• If using 4 smaller pans instead of a 10 inch pan, cooking time is reduced to 15 minutes, and then the cakes can rest in the oven for 30 minutes.  I have not found an ideal cooking time for cupcake sized cheesecakes at this point.
• For a basic flavor for cheesecake, you can use 1 tsp vanilla extract and 1 tsp almond extract instead of the Ramos Fizz flavorings
• If you do not have a springform pan: It is still possible to have a successful cake with a normal 10 inch round cake pan.  However, as the cake pan needs to be ungreased, line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper (the cake needs to be able to cling to the sides of the pan to help rise).  When taking the cake out of the pan, insert a knife at the edge of the cake and run it all around the edge to separate it from the wall of the pan, and then gently turn out onto a plate.  It's trickier, but can still work. Just remember that it is a very delicate cake, and while it would still taste the same when broken, it would still be sad.

Final Analysis

Financial Outlay: The ingredients aren't very expensive.  It is even possible to make this without special equipment, although I personally would not choose to foam egg whites by hand.  It is much easier with a springform pan, but I've made it work in the past without one.  It is just trickier.

Time: For a full sized cheesecake, it will be in the oven for 2 hours.  So it does take longer than a normal "floured" cake.  The prep, however, doesn't take much more time than making a cake out of a box.  It's not a last minute cake, but it's also a cheesecake, so there is no time spent frosting it either.

Quality: The quality is amazing.  Of course, I may be biased.  People will be amazed if you tell them there is only 1/2 cup of sugar in the entire cake.  The quote from a bartender friend of mine after I gave her a mini cheesecake was "Wow, it's like you make pot brownies, but with cocktails!"  As a note, with only a teaspoon of gin in an entire 10 inch cake, there is no way for anyone to get drunk off the cake.

Fun: I find a certain satisfaction in properly dealing with the egg whites.  From getting the eggs separated without breaking yolks, to the brief moment of fear (every single time) that the egg whites won't foam, to getting the whites whipped to just the right consistency.  Then, of course, is the best part.  Eating a cheesecake that doesn't make you feel like you ate a brick, plus is less than half the calories of a Cheesecake Factory cheesecake.

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.

Baking for Child's Play

I have finally almost recovered from PAX East. While a three day convention of gamer geeks is always one level of exhausting, this year I decided to take an extra step to get involved with the Cookie Brigade.  The cookie brigade is a group of, essentially, guerrilla fundraisers for Child's Play. Child's Play is a charity that provides toys, games, and books to children's wards in hospitals.  Essentially it's gamers coming together to fight the stereotype that video games are a force of evil, and do an awful lot of good in the process.  Child's Play also just happened to be founded by the same guys who run PAX. I know it's somewhat circuitous, but it makes sense in the end, right?

Volunteers will bake an insane number of cookies, candies, and other types of baked goods.  Some people will bake thousands of cookies for this three day weekend, and there's even an achievement of the dozen dozen dozen. Yup, that is 1,728 cookies baked by one person, for one three day weekend. Then, other volunteers (and sometimes some of the same ones) will give out all of these treats for free, while being exceptionally grateful for all the donations to child's play that we receive.  Every cent goes directly to the charity.

I actually took a couple of days off of work before PAX just to have more time to bake. There were some oatmeal raisin cookies, chocolate chip cookies, rice krispy squares, raspberry meringue kisses, and some other bake sale-esque standards, but I thought I would share some of the lesser known things that I made:

Kirby Marshmallows

If you ever played video games in the 90's, you will probably recognize Kirby.  The marshmallow to the left is somewhat simplistic, but hey, so is the design of the character.

Marshmallows are fairly easy to make, in the realm of candy, and I've found that there are two different types.  Those that contain egg whites, and those that don't.  It isn't a question of being vegetarian, as they still contain gelatin.  So unless you choose to use a purely plant based gelatin, they will not and cannot be vegan.

Other than the egg whites, the recipe is basically the same.  Sugar, corn syrup, water, gelatin, vanilla, and then a "marshmallow mix" of powdered sugar and corn starch.  If you have tried any of my gummy candy, the basic ingredients aren't that different. 

Alton Brown has a reasonably good marshmallow recipe that does not contain egg whites.  I've tried the recipe, and it's not bad.  I don't, however, think that the result creates quite as light and fluffy an end product as what I could get in a store.  So as much as they look cool, and I could impress people by saying that I've made marshmallows, or go ahead and make all sorts of interesting flavors, they don't make it all the way to "oh my god" good.

If I want to get to that level, I have to turn to David Lebovitz. His is my go to recipe. Instead of weighing out my gelatin (as it's between 2-3 envelopes of standard gelatin), I will usually just use the 3 whole packets. I've done it both ways, and there is enough flexibility in the execution that they turn out great.  If I'm feeling lazy, or if I don't have an immediate use for the egg yolks, I will just use meringue powder/dried egg whites. 

Now the question, why egg whites?  If you've ever made a meringue or an angel food cake, you can probably guess.  Thinking about food science, what is an egg white and what does it do? If you said that it is a source of protein, and adds structure to whatever it is in, you get a gold star.  When baking, protein creates the scaffolding to provide form and structure.  This is the reason why bread (which uses a high protein flour) is chewier and can support larger air bubbles than a cake, which uses a low protein flour.  Another way to consider it is to think of bubble wrap.  Bubble wrap is a strong structure that will trap air inside.  In this case, the egg whites (along with the gelatin) is the 'plastic' from the bubble wrap that will hold the air.  If the plastic is weak, the bubbles will break, and the air escapes, leading to a dense, flat marshmallow.  If the plastic is too strong, however, there would be a lot of air, but it would be way too chewy.  Because of the huge amount of air that are in store bought marshmallows, I want to be able to maximize the air inside.  The egg whites help me do that. 

Because I wanted Kirby his traditional pink, I added a few drops of red food coloring until the mixture was the right color, and poured it out to set in cake pans.  Once the marshmallows set, a cookie cutter and some cake decorating gel brought his cheerful face to life.

Chichi Dango Mochi

Tri-Colored Chichi dango mochi

This is a type of rice cake that I came to learn about from people who grew up in Hawaii.  It not only has a coconut flavor to it, but also happens to be both gluten free and vegan, just by accident.  While friends of mine consider anything that's not at least 2-3 color mochi substandard (as it is traditional in Hawaii to do 2 or 3 colors) it is equally as tasty if it is just plain white.  The recipe I use is a blend of a few other recipes I've found, so I will put it here.  But virtually any chichi dango recipe will be pretty much the same.

Ingredients:

1 Box (1 lb.) of  Mochiko 

1 12 ounce can of Coconut Milk

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 cups water

1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt

Kinako (optional)

Food coloring (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In a bowl, combine the Mochiko, sugar, and baking powder.
3. In another bowl, combine the coconut milk, water, and vanilla.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until combined, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl.
5. If making single colored mochi, pour into a greased 9x11 inch pan, cover tightly with tinfoil, and bake for 60 minutes, or until the top appears fully set.  Let it cool fully in the pan.  Slice into small squares (1-2 inches) and eat.  If desired, roll pieces in Kinako before eating or storing.
   
   If making tri-colored mochi, separate batter into 3 equal parts.  Add food coloring to achieve desired colors.  Grease a 9x11 cake pan, and pour the first part in the bottom.  Cover tightly with tinfoil, and bake for 10 minutes, or until the cake has set (there are no puddles on the top).  Pour the second color on top, re-cover with aluminum foil, and return to the oven for 20 minutes, or until the layer has set.  Finally, add the third layer, cover with aluminum foil, and bake for an additional 30 minutes, or until the final layer has set.  Let it cool fully in the pan.  Slice into small squares, roll in kinako if desired, and eat.  

Peanut Butter Fudge

I previously did a post on my peanut butter cookie fudge here, but even the basic peanut butter fudge is so good that it bears repeating. While the peanut butter cookie fudge is quite good, the original recipe is just about perfect, and can be found on the Marshmallow Fluff Page.  I tend to use a candy thermometer when I make it, but it is not necessary.  The ingredients are all very basic, with the only potential difficulty being marshmallow fluff.  Outside of New England I've heard it can be a little harder to find.  On occasion I've substituted regular marshmallows for it if I was running short.

There are also variations to try if you're being adventurous.

• The peanut butter cookie fudge linked above
• After pouring out into the pan to cool, mixing in swirls of Nutella, or other peanut butter friendly spreads
• After pouring out into the pan to cool, add a thin layer of chocolate to the top.

This fudge is fun because it is relatively easy to mold (for the larger silicone molds).  I did one batch as the portal companion cubes.  However, I have found that the molds tend to dry out the edges of the fudge, so there is a give and take there.  The molds make the pieces adorable, but the quality is a touch higher with just the squares.  I did have an idea during the craziness of baking, but I haven't had the opportunity to try it out yet. If it works, it will warrant its own post, so you'll just have to check back.

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.

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.

The Building Blocks of Baked Goods Part 2: Spotting a Bad Recipe

This is the second installment of Building Blocks of Baked Goods.  This post is about using ratios to analyze a recipe.  Otherwise known as, if a recipe goes bad, it's not necessarily your fault.  If a recipe comes from a famous chef, or a famous site or book, it doesn't mean that the recipe has been fully tested for anyone to make.  So before you proclaim that you can't bake, and that everything you make is horrible (unless, of course, you're trying to get out of having to ever bake again), take a closer look at the recipe itself.

In the last section, I talked about ratios, and problems that I had with Paula Deen's zucchini bread recipe. Today I want to walk through it, and try to figure out if I just failed somewhere with my baking, or if it was a problem with the recipe.  Before I get started, I need to say that I don't know how Paula measures her flour.  It is not stated in the recipe, and the actual amount used can vary widely depending on how that happens. So I am going to start with weight averages, and move on from there.  As I am just using this to give me a rough guide of whether or not this recipe is balanced, these variations are not going to create major issues.  If the measurements are close, then I will assume that the recipe is fairly balanced, and then just work off of my weight measurements for the next go round.

The first step is to convert the structural elements to weight measurements. By structural elements, I mean the flour, eggs, sugar, fat, and liquid.  These are the elements that create the form and the texture of the bread. Ingredients like cinnamon and nutmeg, which only provide flavor, we can leave alone for the moment.

I tend to use Wolfram Alpha for doing conversions, just because it's easy to use.

Flour

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour = 447 grams

Sugar

3 cups sugar= 916 grams

Eggs

4 eggs, beaten= 200 grams

Fat

1 cup vegetable oil= 218 grams (204 grams fat weight)

Wait, why are there two seperate measurements?  Because vegetable oil is not a pure fat.  Therefore, we have to reduce the weight a bit here.  I am using calculations based on what I found in Bakewise for this.

Liquid

4 eggs, beaten= 200 grams
1 cup vegetable oil= 218 grams
1/3 cup water= 79 grams
2 cups grated zucchini= 340.2 grams (170 liquid weight)

Total Liquid weight: 667 grams

Just like we had to adjust for the amount of fat in the vegetable oil above, here we have to adjust for the amount of liquid in the zucchini.  Some zucchini can be up to 95% water weight.  Just for the sake of giving the recipe the benefit of the doubt, I'm going to peg it at 50% (since I may have already done the math on this, give me the benefit of the doubt on this one that it will still work out right).

Quickbread Ratios

There are 3 steps that I'm going to take to look at the balance of this recipe.

First, I am going to take the ratio for a quickbread from Michael Ruhlman.

1 parts flour

1 parts liquid

.5 part egg

.5 part fat

So let's see how our recipe stacks up on this measure. My flour is 447 grams, and I'm going to peg my calculations on that.  So 1 part equals 447 grams.

Flour: 447 grams * 1 part/447 grams= 1

Liquid: 667 grams * 1 part/447 grams= 1.49

Egg: 200 grams * 1 part/447 grams= .45

fat: 204 grams * 1 part/447 grams= .49

The ratio for the egg and the fat look pretty good, especially considering that I said all of this is a rough estimate.  But look at the liquid! It's 50% higher than it should be. No wonder I noticed all my precious bubbles escaping.

Second, let's look at the sugar.  There are 916 grams of sugar to our 447 grams of flour.  That is more than twice the amount.  Even when making a high ratio cake, the sugar should only be slightly higher than the weight of the flour.  So I know that there is way too much sugar here.

Third, let's look at leavening. There should be about a quarter teaspoon of baking soda per cup of flour, with a little extra to account for the weight of the zucchini. That would mean that there should be somewhere around 1 teaspoon of baking soda, instead of the 2 teaspoons found in the recipe.  But considering that there is only 1 teaspoon of lemon juice to activate the baking soda, it may not all be activated to begin with.  Either way, I think we can reduce the amount of baking soda in this recipe as well.

Lessons Learned

Yay, it's not just me!  I know, if it had been just me, I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of writing this up. But where do we go from here?  I could just ditch the recipe and try a new one.  However, I don't want to do that.  First, validation for my math tastes oh so good.  Secondly, I really liked the general flavor profile of this bread.  Re-balancing it will be much easier than tearing it down, I promise.

Know Your Ingredients: The building blocks of Baked Goods

When it comes to making food, I've found that there tend to be three potential peaks of interest.  There is interest in cooking, interest in baking, and interest in ignoring the whole thing and getting take out.  For the sake of a shorter post today, we're going to leave the third category to their own devices.

There is definitely a divide between cooks and bakers though.  Many people can do both, but they usually will have a strong preference.  I know several people who love to cook who are intimidated by baking.  One an item goes into the oven, you can no longer tweak it and fiddle with it.  It is completely transformed in the oven with some form of magic.  And if the magic fails, there is no salvaging the result.

Baking is chemistry. And I think we could get more kids excited about chemistry if we taught it that way. Whether it's a cookie, cake, pie, bread, souffle or muffins, there is a balance between things that strengthen and toughen, and things that soften and tenderize.  Flour, egg whites, and milk solids are some of the most common proteins that make up the tougheners.  Fats such as butter, shortening, and oil are tenderizers, along with egg yolks, sugar, and leaveners (such as yeast, baking powder, and baking soda).

Why is this balance important?  Well, a baked good made only with tougheners would have the texture of something approximating a brick. A baked good with no tougheners in it wouldn't hold together, and would end up nothing but goop.  But a well balanced baked good will be like a well built building.  Enough structure to keep it solid, but with plenty of open space and windows.  Of course the combination of baking and building reminds me of this scene from Charlie and the Chocolate factory (If you don't remember the scene, I put the clip to the right).  What we're looking for is a balance between flaky and tender. Something that is structurally sound, but is also fun to eat. No broken teeth, no strained jaw, no disturbing and unexpected textures.

It's all well and good to say that we need a balance, but what is it, and how can I find it?  That's the real question, right?  First of all, it is really helpful to use a scale, because the ratios that we want to use are weight based, not volume based. There can be a significant difference in the amount of flour that is in 1 cup, depending on how it is measured, who measured it, etc. So measuring by weight is a much better way to go.

Shirley Corriher, in Bakewise, walks through how to make a poundcake using only ratios.  If you want a taste of her writing before trying to track down a giant tome (although the giant tome is TOTALLY WORTH IT), you can check out an article that she wrote on this topic here.  Michael Ruhlman also has a book entitled Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking.  I must admit, I have not had a chance to check out his book yet.  However, there is also an app called Ratio, which provides the ratio of 28 different applications, from bread and pasta dough to cake batter, to stock and roux.  The app I have found rather useful, and has me intrigued to check out the book.

The image from the recipe itself.

With that said, this is the first of a set of posts on zucchini bread.  I started writing it as one single post, and realized that it would be way too long, and way too much information to put in one post.  With the torrent on squash that I get from my CSA, I decided to make some zuchhini bread. I have very few stand by recipes, and zucchini bread has never been a complicated application.  So I went online to find a nice, simple recipe that I could mindlessly throw together. This recipe from Paula Deen looked like it would fit the bill nicely (and surprisingly for a Paula Deen recipe, it has no butter in it at all!).

I mixed up the batter, doing a little bit of a double take on the amount of sugar, but following the recipe exactly, up until the point of adding nuts, which I don't do. I put my pans in the oven, having noticed that the batter looked a bit thin.  Then, as the bread began to bake, I watched in horror as my precious air bubbles were popping on the surface of the loaves. When I saw those air bubbles popping, I was really afraid that this meant that my recipe was over-leavened, and that my zucchini bread was going to be dense and chewy.  Luckily, it came out ok.  Very sweet, but ok.  It took a long time to finish baking, and the resulting loaves felt a little greasy on the sides and on the bottom, but the general flavor profile was still quite tasty.

Question 1. Were the problems with the loaf due to my error, or flaws in the recipe?
Question 2. If it's the recipe, can it be fixed? How?
Question 3. By just using ratios, can we make more than one successful recipe?  If not, how would those changes affect the finished product?

Hopefully this will help show that looking carefully at a recipe isn't that scary, and will help teach you how to look at a recipe that failed.  If it does, it's not necessarily your fault.

Drowning in Squash?

If you are the sort who gardens, belongs to a CSA, shops farmers markets, or just shops local grocery store sales, there is a good chance that you have ended up with a lot of squash (at least in New England).  When you still have squash coming out your ears after roasting, sauteing, making zucchini bread, crudites, and any other application you can think of, you might start looking for other ideas.

If you haven't made a "pasta" out of squash before, you're definitely missing out.  Using a vegetable peeler or mandolin, peel the squash into thin strips.  put the strips into a colander, place the colander in the sink, coat them with a bit of salt, and wait for about twenty to thirty minutes. Do not skip the salt, or this will not work.  I will explain why.

*Warning, Science Ahead*

Salt is hygroscopic, meaning that it will pull moisture from the surrounding environment.  Kind of like why we get really thirsty if we eat a bunch of potato chips.  With the squash, this means that the salt will penetrate the cell membrane, and pull out the water stored inside.  When that happens, similar to popping bubble wrap, the squash will go from being turgid to being floppy, like a pasta noodle.  By doing this in a colander, all the excess water will drain away. Alton Brown explains this in an episode that you can find here, and using props.

*Science Bit Complete*

Once squash noodles have been made, they can be used in a lot of different ways. Trying to feed someone who is gluten free?  I've made lasagna with eggplant and zucchini instead of noodles, and had it turn out really tasty.  Pasta salad?  Done. Pretty much anywhere you can use pasta, you can substitute squash.  But as the noodles were already salted, remember to cut back on any more added salt.

The recipe that I made recently also came from the Alton Brown episode listed above, and can be found here. It was perfect for what I had from my CSA.  I used zucchini, lettuce, spring onions, and hakurei turnip (which was more like a radish).  The dressing consists of olive oil, lemon juice, mustard, and black pepper.  I did not have any basil on hand, so I substituted the olive oil with a fantastic basil infused olive oil from the Boston Olive Oil Company. All I had were whole almonds, so I threw them into the spice grinder for a minute or two to chop them up, and topped it with that and some manchego cheese.  Manchego is a spanish varietal of cheese from La Mancha, and if you've never had it, I highly recommend it.

Zucchini Pasta Salad- You can see the manchego in the lower left on top of my mandolin.

It's a really easy, fast recipe that was super tasty.  Since I was using one of the largest zucchini I had ever seen for the salad, I had plenty for a couple of days, and it stayed cool and refreshing for that whole time.

One final note on recipes from Good Eats/Alton Brown.  I find Alton Brown fantastic in regards to technique and science.  His recipes, however, are not always as transcendent as I would like them to be.  By sticking with the science, but tweaking the flavors, I always end up with a good final product. From what I understand about his philosophy, I'd like to think that he'd approve of this perspective.

Sit, Stand, Move, and Everything in Between

More and more research is showing how bad it is to spend a large amount of time sitting in one place. A sedentary lifestyle has been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity, sleep apnea, diabetes,  a big butt (yes, separate from weight gain itself) as well as all of the musculoskeletal issues that it can contribute to (carpal tunnel syndrome, headaches, and back problems just to name a few). And more and more research is showing that just going to the gym doesn't quite cut it.  Our metabolism has had a "power save" mode much longer than our electronic devices.

I have heard some people argue that, as humans, we are not designed to sit at all.  I find this assertion ridiculous. We did not create chairs, and then decide that sitting seemed like a good idea.  What is unnatural is spending eight to twelve hours a day sitting.

Yup, totally unnatural to sit. You would never see sitting behavior in nature.

Many people, reasonably, would think to just opt for a standing desk.  If a person is standing for 8 hours a day, then obviously they would be moving, fidgeting, and being less of a couch potato. There are pluses and minuses to this.  People tend to report interacting with co-workers more, having more energy, and being more ready to get up and go whenever necessary (it might help that they are already up...). Some of the downsides are pretty easy to see: just look at the issues that people who stand all day at a "desk" already have. Poor posture standing can lead to the same issues as if you have poor posture when sitting, aching feet, the stress on the circulatory system contributes to arteriosclerosis and varicose veins. Also, your choice of shoes becomes a lot more important.  Personally, I have a hard time standing in heels for two hours for an event.  A standing desk would mean that they would never be worn to the office.  Of course, some offices are not conducive to setting up a standing desk to begin with (let alone a walking desk).

Unsurprisingly, many studies opt for moderation.  Don't spend too much time sitting, don't spend too much time standing.  Moving, on the other hand, is something that we should do a lot more of. One of the reasons that our ancient ancestors were such successful hunters was that they could injure their prey and just follow it, relentlessly, until it died. So that means that we should spend more time at the gym, trying to tack on a whole lot of extra exercise into an already packed schedule?  Nope. Those hours of being sedentary have already put stress on the muscles, and vigorous workouts can lead to muscle or joint injury. Also, studies demonstrate that an increased amount of aerobic exercise (in professional level athletes) can lead to increased instances of arrhythmia. Conveniently enough, recent studies have started proving the efficiency of a shorter duration, higher intensity workout, making the most of interval training, which means less time spent actively exercising.

On a practical level, what does all of this mean? Consider the metabolism like a computer. Without activity, it will go into power save mode. But even just periodically doing a little work will help keep it going at a higher rate (great for anyone who is also looking to burn some extra calories). To put it in technical terms, the goal is to increase the non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT, that we do. This is all the energy that we use that isn't sleeping, eating, or exercising. Considering that, in order to prevent OOS maladies (Occupational Overuse Syndrome), we should be taking a break from our computers, crafts, or anything else that has us repeating motions repeatedly at least once an hour to stretch and move, this gives us a plenty of opportunities to increase our NEAT.

I am notoriously bad at paying attention to things around me once I am engrossed in a project.  Because of that, I have set an alarm on my calendar to remind me to stretch.  I've had carpal tunnel syndrome once, and I'd rather keep it from coming back.  Most of the "recommendations" I've seen on other sites for how to increase NEAT included things like use the restroom that is the farthest away from your desk, go out to pick up lunch instead of having it delivered, have walking meetings, and things like that.While I'm sure that these are all good ideas, they just strike me as... unfulfilling (not to mention that I'm not even going to try to convince anyone in my office to have a "walking meeting").

I have, however, figured out how to work more NEAT into my day where I do feel like I'm getting something out of it.  My office building became involved in Climb Corps, which means that the stairways are open. Now, going up stairs sucks.  Even when I was a distance runner, I hated hills. But, with the stairs right there, I can't make excuses about having to get up early to go to the gym, or forgetting to bring my gym bag to work, or anything else (all right, the day that I tripped and fell outside, and had a bloodied knee, I skipped the stairs.  But I think that's fair). Every time I come or go from my office, I go up/down (or a combination of the two) some stairs. I started by taking the stairs down on my way home (12 flights from my office to the lobby).  Then, I added in a few flights every time I went to the rest room.  I'd go down a couple of flights, and then back up. Next, I'd take the elevator in the morning six floors, and walk the rest. Currently I am walking up all 12 flights on my way into work, I do sets of 4 flights 2-3 times a day, and I try to go down all 12 flights and back up just before lunch, and walk down all 12 flights on my way home.  Each time I do this, it takes 1-5 minutes.

See! Less than 5 minutes to go down and back up 12 flights of stairs.

So, what can you do to increase your NEAT?

References (my apologies for not citing in the blog post itself) :

"ACSM's Health & Fitness Journal." HIGH-INTENSITY CIRCUIT TRAINING USING BODY WEIGHT: Maximum R... :. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2013. <http://journals.lww.com/acsm-healthfitness/Fulltext/2013/05000/HIGH_INTENSITY_CIRCUIT_TRAINING_USING_BODY_WEIGHT_.5.aspx>.

"American Physiological SocietyAmerican Journal of Physiology - Cell Physiology." Static Mechanical Stretching Accelerates Lipid Production in 3T3-L1 Adipocytes by Activating the MEK Signaling Pathway. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2013. <http://ajpcell.physiology.org/content/early/2011/10/17/ajpcell.00167.2011.abstract>.

"ClimbCorps - Brigham and Women's Hospital." ClimbCorps - Brigham and Women's Hospital. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2013. <http://giving.brighamandwomens.org/climbcorps>.

"CUergo: Sitting and Standing." CUergo: Sitting and Standing. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2013. <http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/CUESitStand.html>.

"Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews." Too Much Sitting: The Population Health Science of Sedentary... :. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2013. <http://journals.lww.com/acsm-essr/Abstract/2010/07000/Too_Much_Sitting__The_Population_Health_Science_of.3.aspx>.

"Prolonged TV Viewing Linked to Increased Risk of Type 2 Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease." Prolonged TV Viewing Linked to Increased Risk of Type 2 Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2013. <http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-06/hsop-ptv061011.php>.

"Result Filters." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 25 July 2013. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12468415>.

"Result Filters." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 25 July 2013. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18001322>.

"Result Filters." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 25 July 2013. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21330616>.

"SEDENTARY LIFESTYLE." Womenshealthmag.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2013. <http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/sedentary-lifestyle-hazards?fullpage=1>.

"STANDING DESK." Womenshealthmag.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2013. <http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/standing-desk>.

"Television Viewing Time and Reduced Life Expectancy: A Life Table Analysis." -- Veerman Et Al. 46 (13): 927. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2013. <http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/46/13/927.abstract>.