Frying and Drying, aka Holy Cannoli

Okay, so apologies for those of you who have come to expect long and wonderful posts on a regular basis. I have now started law school, and between classes and activities I'm lucky if I remember to shower everyday (you think I'm kidding, I'm not). And it is about to get worse. We are headed into double Torts Fridays, a series of Fridays where we have five straight classes and no time for lunch. To soften the blow I am baking for the section, or in this case frying. And that got me thinking about frying. You put a wet dough in a pan of wet oil and you end up with something crispy. Does that confuse anyone else? Well I have found the answer, and guess what, it's in chemistry. Who knew, right?

So, different liquids boil at different temperatures. Alcohol boils at one of the lowest, water is kind of in the upper middle, oil is one of the highest. When you fry something you start by heating up the oil until it is hotter than the boiling point of water and alcohol. Next you put the dough in the hot oil. The liquid in the dough, either the alcohol or the water heats up to its boiling point very very quickly (the boiling point is the point at which a liquid becomes a gas) so quickly in fact that the oil doesn't have time to diffuse into the dough. For more about diffusion see Outstanding Osmosis. Instead the steam and evaporated alcohol quickly escapes from the dough. The flour and other dry ingredients dry out. If you pull them out before the oil can seep in and then put them on paper towels to absorb the extra oil they stay dry and crispy. Mystery solved.

If you haven't figured out by now I have a small obsession with Italian desserts. And when it comes to frying I love making cannoli. It's a labor of love, but these are so totally worth the effort that goes into them. The flavors mix and meld to make something so amazing, so much more than all of the individual parts. A couple of hints, you really should use cannoli forms, they make a huge difference, you can substitute white vinegar with white wine vinegar with no really change, and finally these are the best if you make the dough and the filling a day ahead then fry the day of.

Holy Cannoli

Cannoli Shells

Ingredients

2 cups flour

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon cocoa

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 Tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

1/2 cup plus a little Marsala wine

1 egg white

Oil for frying

Combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in oil, vinegar, and enough wine to make a soft dough. Knead until smooth and well blended. Shape into a ball. Chill for at least 2 hours. Roll dough out until super thin (~1/16" to 1/8"). Cut out 3 1/2" circles. Roll into a paper thin oval. Roll dough around cannoli form. Dab a little egg white to seal. Heat oil (at least 3") to 375 degrees (or until a little dough becomes dark brown after 3 min). Fry the shells until golden (1-2 min). Remove from the form immediately and cool on paper towels. Fill immediately before serving. (I dipped the ends of the shell in chocolate before filling)

Cannoli Filling

Ingredients

2 lbs marscapone cheese

1 2/3 cup confectioners sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3 Tablespoons finely chopped chocolate

zest of one orange

1 teaspoon vanilla

Blend the cheese until creamy. Beat in sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and blend until smooth. Stir in chocolate and zest. Chill until firm. Use a pastry bag to fill the shells.

Cool Colligative Properties, Really Really Cool

So, as I mentioned before there are a lot of things I love about August. There is one thing I don't, the heat. When the thermometer gets above about 95 degrees I start melting like dropped ice cream in Phoenix in July (okay if I'm being honest its more like 90, okay 85). It's not pretty. But it can be counteracted by none other than ice cream. A delectable treat with almost mystic origins, especially when you make it yourself. How does a little ice and a little salt make it cold enough to freeze milk, sugar, and other really good stuff?

When liquid is cold enough the molecules stop moving around as much and it becomes a solid. It happens at a very exact temperature for each pure substance. The freezing temperature can be manipulated by adding something to it to create a solution. The change is known as a colligative property. When an impurity is added to a pure substance it starts to get in the way. It breaks up the bonds that creates a solid, making it harder and harder for it to freeze. Like when you are at a concert and that annoying guy at the bar is standing between you and the people you came with. This is know as freezing point depression (in a related process, when a liquid is near the boiling point the impurities cause less molecule of the pure substance to be near the surface, meaning less can escape into the gas phase making it harder to boil, this is known as boiling point elevation). When you add salt to ice the salt begins to mix in and lowering the freezing point. The ice melts. But melting requires energy, a lot of energy. When you insulate the ice from the outside it starts to take that energy from the inside container (see Marvelous Mixtures Part 4 for info on heat transfer, temperature, and energy). The inside mixture gets colder and colder and colder until it freezes. The constant stirring keeps everything inside soft, instead of a hard crystal like ice, and makes sure that the freezing occurs at an even rate. After a long time of stealing energy and stirring, tah-dah!, a delectable summer treat of ice cream, sorbet, or, my favorite, gelato!

So, I mentioned in an earlier post that I have a favorite way to eat my sweet summer peaches. The suspense is over, here is the answer. I like my peaches sliced in half with a 1/2 Tablespoon(ish) of butter, a Tablespoon(ish) of brown sugar, and a big marshmallow where the pit use to be. Wrap the whole thing in a greased piece of tin foil and throw it on a hot grill until everything is gooey and melted. Then serve it up with this cinnamon gelato. This particular gelato is very lightly flavored so if you want a little more cinnamon flavor I would add some extra ground cinnamon when you are letting everything seep.

Cinnamon Gelato

Ingredients

2 cups whole milk

1/2 cup heavy cream

4 cinnamon sticks

5 egg yolks

2/3 cup light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine the milk, cream, and cinnamon sticks in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook for several minutes, until the mixture starts to bubble around the edges. Cover, remove from heat and let set for 30 minutes. Discard cinnamon sticks. Beat yolks, brown sugar, vanilla and salt at medium speed until the mixture is thick and pale (the spatula should scoop up long ribbons that do not instantly dissolve back into the mixture). Add milk, return to sauce pan and cook over medium heat until custard thickens slightly (stir constantly). Strain through a fine mesh strainer to remove all the lumps. Chill for 4 hours - 1 day. Use an ice cream machine to freeze.

Exceptional Expanding Gases, aka Awesome Amaretti Cake

Hello fellow internet cooks/scientists, sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything. Things have been crazy here, because... I've moved to new digs in Minneapolis. In fact today is the first time in a few weeks that I have had groceries and used an oven. And how did I start? I made an Italian birthday cake. Appropriate since my birthday is this week.

European cakes, especially Italian cakes, don't use chemical leavening agents (baking soda, baking powder, etc.) to create expanding gases. Instead they use the gases that is already there to raise their cakes. How this works is that egg whites are whipped. As the get stirred up the proteins get further and further apart creating little pockets of trapped atmospheric gases. Eventually the mixture becomes a stiffened protein network with air pockets. Something that we call a meringue. This is then carefully folded (so that the air isn't released) into a cake batter and baked. Most gases follow the ideal gas law (see Preservation Part II). So, because the gases, for the most part can't escape, as the temperature goes up the pressure increases, pushing on the liquidy cake batter harder and harder, until it expands. This creates more volume for the gases to occupy, and the cake to rise.

This cake, like most European cakes is rich and dense, and served without frosting (as a side note my cake was denser than most, I only used 2 eggs, I don't know why so don't ask). The cookies are key because they give it a characteristic sweet almond flavor. I got my tin of cookies online, but you can also find them in Italian groceries and some specialty stores. I highly recommend serving it with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, or cherries. You can find the original recipe here: http://www.ciaoitalia.com/Recipes.aspx?id=1072

Torta di Amaretti e Cioccolato

Ingredients

2 sticks butter

1 cup sugar

5 eggs

10 pairs amaretti cookies

1/2 cup flour

2 oz semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour the sides and bottom of a 9 inch spring form pan. Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixture. Separate the eggs and beat the yolks one at a time into the batter. Save the whites. Process the cookies and flour in a blender until powdery. Add the pieces of chocolate and process until finely chopped and mix in to the batter. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Stir 3-4 Tablespoons of the egg whites into the cake batter to loosen the batter up. Then carefully fold in the remaining egg whites. Pour into the prepared pan and smooth until even. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry (~1 hour)*. Remove the cake from the pan and enjoy.

*be sure to put a baking sheet under the pan to keep the drippings from smoking up your kitchen (like I did mine).

Perfectly Practiced Preservation Part III, Scrumptious Spiced Vanilla Peach Jam

It is getting to be my favorite time of year, peach season. Peach season reminds me of the warm ripe days of summer, lightning bugs, lakes, and my birthday, mmmm. I tell you later about my absolute favorite way to eat peaches, when the are really really ripe. For now I'm talking about jam. Again I know, but it's my blog and I love homemade jam. What can I say?

So what makes soupy fruit soup become gel like jam? There isn't any cornstarch or gelatin, but there is something else, pectin. Pectin is a naturally occurring heteropolysaccharide found in the cell walls of non-woody dry land plants (as opposed to water plants). It's a long word, so I'll break it down. Saccharide = sugar. Sugars a usually chains (like beads on a string) but sometimes they become rings instead. Poly = many. When a lot of these rings get together they make a chain of rings called a polysaccharide. Hetero = different. So a heteropolysaccharide is a long chain of different sugar rings. Citrus fruits, like lemons have lots of pectin.

When the a jam mixture starts to cool down the water and the sugar get together leaving the pectin all alone. The pectin the groups together and bonds to itself creating our favorite colloid, the gel. Word to the wise, do not reduce sugar in any jam recipes or you will end up with soup instead of jam.

This jam recipe combines my new love for homemade jams, my old love of vanilla, and my summer love of peaches. It's a lot of love, and this jam is so totally worth it.

Spicy Vanilla-Peach Jam

Ingredients

5 cups peeled, pitted, and coarsely chopped fresh peaches

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

9 cups sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 vanilla beans

1 pouch (3 oz) liquid fruit pectin

Process the peaches in a blender until finely chopped. In a large heavy stockpot, combine peaches and lemon juice. Stir in sugar and cinnamon until well blended. Split vanilla beans and scrap seeds into peach mixture Add vanilla beans. Stirring constantly, cook over low heat 4 minutes. Increase heat to high and bring mixture to a rolling boil. Stir in liquid pectin. Stirring constantly, bring to a rolling boil again and boil 1 minute. Remove from heat; skim off foam. Remove vanilla beans. Can using the jar directions (~10 half pints). After cans are sealed place in a pot with enough water to cover the lids about 1/4 inch. Boil for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool.