Angel food is one of my favorite types of cake (and cupcakes). Its light sweetness and cloud-like texture make it the perfect end to many meals because it pairs well with coffee and doesn’t feel heavy after even a large meal. But the texture is not without its drawbacks. For example, it doesn’t go particularly well with heavy, buttercream-type frostings and it is prone to being squished during slicing if not handled with a light touch.
There are ways to cut an angel food cake without squishing, however. The Baker’s Catalogue is currently stocking an angel food cutter, which is a many-pronged fork that allows you to perforate your cake (much like using a fork to split an english muffin) and easily pull off pieces. If you prefer your cake slices to have clean edges, rather than being “gently torn” by the Baker’s Catalogue cutter, all you need is a long, sharp serrated knife. A gentle sawing motion will have your cake sliced evenly, and without squishing, in no time.
Dagashi bars are fueling a sugar high in Japan. They’re candy bars – but in the sense that they serve candy, not that they’re made of it.
Basically, the bars are stocked with lots and lots of inexpensive and retro (circa 1960) candies which adults can pig out on, fulfilling childhood fantasies decades late. The candies often include “chewy soybean candy and pickled squid on a stick.” Usually the bars also offer a selection of other nostalgic, mid century favorites, such as spaghetti with ketchup, along with drinks, like beer.
As is the case with all “retro” trends, the bars are very popular with 20-somethings, in addition to 40+ consumers, who enjoy the novelty of the bars but didn’t live through the era originally. The lure of cheap candy and beer can be a tough one to resist.
According to surveys and research done on the subject, the average American eats approximately 156 poundsof added sugar every year. One teaspoon of sugar has 16 calories, which isn’t bad in and of itself, but those 156 pounds come out to be 269,568 extra calories, or 16,848 teaspoons of sugar! Generally, most of this extra sugar comes from sodas, juices and other sweetened drinks (not just from baked goods, so you don’t need to worry too much!) and avoiding those extra calories seems like a good reason to cut back altogether, or to switch to lower-sugar drinks when you want a soda. A bottle (20-oz) of pepsi, for example, contains the equivalent of 28 teaspoons of sugar. The same volume of Coke has 16.25 teaspoonfuls.
As with all things labeling can get confusing when you start to look for lower sugar products. The thing to note about the above statistic is that it is talking about added sugar, not natural sugar, and many products don’t differentiate on their labels. Here are a few definitions that should help.
- No sugar added: No additional sugar is added during processing, although the product can still contain natural sugars. 100% fruit juice falls into this category.
- Sugar-free: Less than 0.5 gram of sugar per serving.
- Reduced sugar: 25% less sugar per serving than the regular version. If there is no regular version, this could be taken from the average of other, similar products, so it would be wise to compare the labels when purchasing and make sure you’re getting something that is actually lower in sugar.
- Low sugar: Not an officially defined term, so it a product has this on its label, check the back to see how much sugar it contains.
Traditions are very well and good, as are traditional recipes. But every tradition can use a little spice now and again, if for no other reason than to cultivate a new appreciation for the original. This is evidenced to an extreme by the rise of the molecular gastronomy movement, which was accompanied by a hugely renewed interest in traditional comfort food. Here, we’re taking the “spice” literally and merely updating a classic cookie with a few new flavors.
Snickerdoodles, which I have mentioned before, are one of the great standards in American cookies. In spite of their plain appearance and total lack of chocolate (often a deal-breaker for some cookie eaters), the chewy vanilla cookie with the crunchy cinnamon sugar coating is pretty close to perfect in both texture and flavor. It is a unique and hugely satisfying balance that you won’t find in many other cookies. They’re the kind of cookie that absolutely everyone enjoys.
The standard recipe calls for you to roll the unbaked dough in cinnamon sugar before placing the cookies on a cookie sheet. For these, I updated the flavors from the old standbys to a somewhat trendier combination of chai spices, using cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and allspice both in the dough itself and for the coating.
These spiced up cookies cookies are wonderfully crunchy on the outside – thanks to their sugary coating – and chewy on the inside, just like the classic. The chai flavors come through enough to twist the traditionally basic flavor of the cookies, but aren’t strong enough to dissuade die-hard traditionalists from enjoying a classic.
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Memorial Day seems to be the official kickoff for the summer season and beaches, pools and backyard bbqs are just a few of the things on can look forward to in the coming weeks. The party planning is up to you, whether you want to have a block party or just invite a few close friends over to try and beat the heat, but this Remote-Controlled Floating Serving Tray is a neat gadget that could make things at a pool party a little bit easier. The Tray holds up to five drinks and has a bowl in the center for chips, fruit or other munchies. It is remote controlled and has a range of 25-feet, so you and your guests can either use it to serve yourselves or you can give the control to someone on-shore to help them dispense drinks.
