Well I am falling desperately behind as I was out of town last weekend, and things will only get worse because I am going out of town next weekend as well.
Tonight I made Honey Sheets - a spin off of the super easy Balsamic Sheets I made a few weekends ago.
1) Boil 1/3 cup water, 1/2 cup honey, and one packet Agar Agar. Note that 1/2 cup honey is actually quite a lot. Make sure you have enough honey in stock! Also, I had a bit of trouble getting my honey to set, so make sure to bring to a boil and try holding it there for a minute or so.
2) Pour the mixture into a large casserole dish. Place in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. I tried not cooling this and letting it sit on the counter. Don't do that. You need the chill of a fridge. Note that mine wasn't solidifying very well so I let it sit in the fridge longer. This fixed the problem.
3) When solid, cut into whatever shapes you want. I cut it into a square similiar to how you can purchase American processed cheese.
4) Place on a fresh, juicy, white bread sandwich. If you are going to make a peanut butter and honey sandwich, go all out. Don't use grain bread, wheat bread, low-carb bread, etc. Use the stuff that reminds you of Wonderbread! Wonderfully doughy and like what you would normally avoid.
Put a layer of creamy peanut butter, layered on your honey sheet, and cover with the other slice of bread. DELICIOUS and the best part is the honey doesn't drip everywhere. This is a sandwich you can actually eat in the car on the way to work or eat at your desk and not make a mess.
Awesome.
I totally messed this one up because I couldn't find my syringe anywhere!! That is something you don't hear yourself say very often.
However, this is really easy and I think I could have pulled it off no problem if I had my syringe.
Here is how you make it:
1) Boil 3/4 cup water and one packet Agar Agar.
2) When at a boil, add 85 grams dark chocolate (about 9 standard size squares of chocolate), and one tablespoon of alcohol of your choice. I used creme de cocoa. Kahlua, Tia Maria, or Raspberry liquer would all be good choices.
3) Stir until melted together. My chocolate melted quickly - be careful it doesn't burn.
4) Pour into a tall glass. Using your syringe, suck up the mixture and push into the tubes (you might even be able to try pushing it into a straw if you don't have tubes). Put in an ice bath for 3 minutes, then push out using syringe. Voila! Chocolate spaghetti.
I got to the "pour into a tall glass" step and realized I have NO idea where I put my syringe. Instead, I covered a personal sized angel food cake with the chocolate. This solified into a nice layer, then I added whipped cream and strawberries, plus some decorative splashes of chocolate. Absolutely delicious but nowhere near as cool as it could have looked.
For Valentine's Day, I decided a delicious dessert would be appropriate. I was also really tired, so I wanted something easy to make. These could not be easier. They aren't weird or that interesting, but they are totally yummy.
1) Blend together 1 cup blueberries, 1 cup water, and sweetener (I used 2 tablespoons sugar). I used frozen blueberries - this would work with fresh as well.
2) Add 1 packet Agar Agar and bring to a boil.
3) Pour into your serving dishes and freeze for two hours (mine were fine after 1.5 hours). *Note - take them OUT of the freezer, even if you are not serving yet, after 2 hours. Put them in the fridge to store.
4) Top with whipped cream and more blueberries and dig in!
Mine made three dessert sized portions.
*This is basically a way to make healthier jello where you control what goes in it. I would imagine this technique should work for most fruits - 1 cup water, 1 cup fruit, sweetener, and a packet of Agar Agar. It has a texture similiar to jello, but a bit thicker.
Another easy recipe so I can get back on track!
This principle should work for turning basically any liquid into a gel sphere. To be clear, the gellification recipes (with Agar Agar) turn things into a solid, jello like substance. The spherification recipes (with sodium alginate/calcium lactate) turn things in a sphere with a liquid middle. Spherification recipes can have really cool results, but are harder to pull off and the spheres are usually larger.
Below is a gellification recipe.
To make balsamic pearls:
1) Fill a tall glass with olive oil and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.
2) When the oil is about five minutes from being done, boil 2/3 cup balsamic vinegar with one packat Agar Agar.
3) Using a dropper, drop the balsamic mixture into the cold olive oil.
4) When all the vinegar is dropped in, use a slotted spoon to transfer the spheres to a bowl of cold water and rinse.
Some notes:
*I placed cheesecloth over a bowl and poured my leftover olive oil into this to filter out any leftover pearls. Then I reserved the olive oil - this would have been a big waste to throw away that much. I then used a filter to get the olive oil back into a bottle.
*I also used a cheesecloth to rinse my pearls. After the first bath, I poured the bath over the cheesecloth and filtered out the pearls. Then I put them in another bath and repeated this process once more.
I am going to eat these in a tomato/mozzerella/basil salad. Delicious!
I wanted to make something simple in Moscow this weekend, so I made balsamic sheets. I didn't take any pictures, but it was one of the easiest ones yet.
1) Boil 2/3 cup of balsamic vinegar with one package Agar Agar.
2) Pour into a large casserole dish. Tilt dish around so entire dish is covered in a fine layer.
3) Put into fridge for 15 minutes.
Done! Then, just cut out the shapes you want. This forms sheets that look kind of like the consistency of a fruit roll up or jello. I cut mine into rectangles and it cut very well and also maintained it's shape. I used mine on a sandwich like you would use a slice of processed chese. I also think it would be great sandwiched between two pieces of mozzerella, or a tomato/mozzerella stack.
