un-brittle

Rather than make my usual holiday fare, I decided to take a stab at making brittle this year. I saw a recipe for walnut brittle in Cooking Light that looked intriguing. Plus, I remembered my former H.S. bio teacher talking about making brittle and how it was an annual tradition for his family and how it was a highly coveted item. It also seemed far less time-consuming than baking cookies and making rum balls.

The only problem with the recipe was that it calls for a cup of corn syrup, and in addition to my goldilocks method of baking, I also employ the "one percent" doctrine when it comes to potential problem ingredients, which is not to be confused with Cheney's one percent doctrine: if there is a one-percent possibility that I might want a person who has an allergy to a particular ingredient to try my finished product, and there is an easy viable substitute to problematic ingredient, then I use the substitute.

I have one friend who is allergic to corn. That coupled with my own weird conceptions of a hierarchy of the virtues of different sweeteners (Brown sugar>regular sugar> corn syrup>HFCS), I was happy to substitute another sweetener for corn syrup.

The problem was in the science. It turns out that corn syrup has a useful purpose in baking. The longer chains of glucose molecules present in corn syrup disrupt the motion of the molecules thereby slowing down the crystallization process. Corn syrup, according to Harold McGee's wonderful On Food and Cooking, is also slightly acidic, so when you add baking soda (NaH₂CO₃) at the end, you get a nice neutralizing reaction that produces carbon dioxide bubbles and gives brittle that characteristic hollow bubbled consistency. The alkaline properties of baking soda also make it useful for speeding up the browning process.

Is it possible to make brittle with just sugar? I posted this query on my favorite food board and promptly got answers. Yes, it was, with careful temperature monitoring and a few modifications.

Thus I tried the all-sugar method with thermometer in hand: brittle batch #1 was toasted hazelnut brittle. The first thing I discovered was that my thermometer is not a candy thermometer, and therefore, doesn't register temperatures nearly high enough to be useful.

So long for meticulous temperature measuring. I was on my own now. So I dumped the sugar and water into a pan and waited.

At some point, the sugar began to look murky. The crystallization had begun. Being the novice candy-maker that I am, I then started stirring with a metal spoon in the hopes of retarding this process, but it kept getting worse. It didn't have the characteristic light-browned hue of brittle yet, but since it was on the brink of crystalizing, I poured in the butter, nuts, cream of tartar and then spread it out on a pan.

Batch #1 was a disaster, but I was loathe to waste a whole thing of hazelnuts. Thus once it cooled and hardened and looked like an opaque whitish mess, I stuck it in the oven, which didn't exactly turn it into brittle, but helped salvage my product. Instead of the characteristic opaque hue of brittle, "brittle" #1 was translucent, but with the requisite browned hues.

I posted more queries on the food board, read up on the science of crystallization and why you absolutely do not want to stir the sugar (the agitation increases the bumping motion of the sugar molecules and helps the crystallization process.) and if you must, then why you absolutely do not want to use a metal spoon (the lowered temperatures caused by the metal spoon form pockets of super-saturated sugar areas, thereby potentially initiating a crystallization process.) to do the stirring that you are not supposed to do in the first place.

Thus, with brittle #2 (walnut brittle), I vowed not to stir. But again, despite my diligent non-stirring, the crystals started to form again. At one point, the entire pot was one white opaque mass.

However, this time, instead of stopping, I waited. And waited.

Eventually, the crystals melted and the sugar became brown and liquidy again. The consistency of brittle #2 turned out to be the same as #1. So some kind of carmelized sugar glass candy with nuts, but a far cry from brittle.

Still, it was edible, so I decided to give it to people anyway and told them it was "not brittle".

I think next year, I will stick with my usual holiday fare and give people rum balls.

A tale of two breads

This is the story of two breads-- or more precisely, the bread-bakers, and their bread-baking outcomes.

Both aspired to make Mark Bittman's famous no-knead bread.

Baker 1 followed Bittman's recipe to a T.

Baker 2 more or less followed Bittman's recipe to a T.

Well, except that she increased the amount of yeast to 1 tsp, b/c she read in a more recent version of the no-knead recipe, that the scant amount of yeast means a long rising time and the need for a dutch oven to contain its amorphous shape. Baker 2 doesn't have a dutch oven. She also didn't have an apartment that would stay at 70 degrees for 20 hours straight, so she attempted to get around this by increasing the yeast content. After all, recipe #2 calls for a tablespoon of yeast.

She also didn't add 1 5/8 cups of water, because she doesn't have a measuring cup that measures down to the eighth of a cup, so she averaged the two water quantities given in the two recipes.

She also used all whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose bread flour, because she hasn't baked white bread in years.

And mixed in some smoked mozzarella and radicchio, because it needed to be used up.

Ok, so baker 2 didn't adhere to Bittman's recipe at all, except maybe the salt content. (Baker 2 has Baking ADD and often employs the "goldilocks" method of following recipes, which is to say, if there are two recipes for the exact same thing, instead of adhering to one, she will average the two recipes.)

At the end of the rising period, the two bakers put their breads in the oven. Baker 1 followed Bittman's directions and put hers in a pot with a lid. Baker 2 followed the other recipe's directions and baked on a pizza stone.

Baker 2's bread came out fine, but with a funny crust. It was good and edible enough, but nothing to wow over. The consistency was very dense.

Baker 1's bread came out looking like artisan bread-- with a hearty crust, flecked with just the right amount of flour and with a beautiful golden crust. This bread could've been sold at a bakery.

Baker 2 is yours truly. Baker 1 is my downstairs neighbor.

When it comes to baking, I suppose it pays to follow directions.

"Three" Ingredient Recipes Part II--I Heart Chowhound

For someone as obsessed with food as I am, Chowhound is a wonderful resource. I've asked several questions on the board, and 98 percent of the time, I've gotten an answer. Then there are the times I find a fabulous idea for a simple recipe. Like the "3 ingredient" beer recipe that someone put up just yesterday. I haven't had a whole lot of time to bake, with choir and finals and everything else going on, but here was a perfect way to get rid of my Guinness beer that I've had in my fridge for 8+ months. Plus, this bread required no kneading to boot. Thus, while eating dinner, I baked this bread. I tweaked it a little by adding rosemary and grated gruyere cheese, and using half whole wheat flour. I just pulled it out of the oven 10 minutes ago and had it with the wonderfully yummy pumpkin seed butter that Patita gave me. YUM.

Someone on the board called it 3-2-1 bread:
3 cups self-rising flour
2 TBSP sugar
1 12 oz. bottle of beer

If you use regular flour, you add 3 tsp of baking powder and 1.5 tsp NaCl to help it rise.
You bake in a 375 degree oven for 1 hour.

Be forewarned-- it does have that distinct beer taste, but the rosemary, cheese and the sugar abated it a bit or complemented it nicely. It goes splendidly well with this pumpkin seed butter, though, and would make a grand side to a hearty soup.

It was my first try, so I need to do some tweaks (the crust came out too dry/hard, for example), before I can bring it to a party and wow people with it, but 3-ingredient recipes--even if the "three" is really a "five"--are a godsend around this time of year.

It frees up time for me to blog and extol the virtues of such recipes, for example. :)

Brussels sprout pasta

My friend sent me a recipe for a brussels sprouts pasta dish that called for 3 ingredients: brussels sprouts, fettuccine, and pine nuts. Ok, it calls for butter and olive oil, too, but I don't count those as ingredients. She raved about this recipe so much (plus the fact that it called for just 3 items), that I had to try it.

Oh my gosh. It was sooooooo simple and delicious. If you don't have a food processor, you will spend a bit of time thinly slicing the brussels sprouts, but after that, the recipe doesn't take long. You want to have the water boiling before you start sauteeing the brussels sprouts, b/c they will cook very quickly, and you don't want to get them to turn brown. You basically saute the brussels sprouts in some fat (1/2 butter and 1/2 olive oil), which alone is quite good, but then you mix this in w/ pasta and toasted pine nuts. I sprinkled Pecorino cheese on top, and voila.

It says it makes 4 servings, but it was so good, I probably ate 2 servings worth. It's not as good the day after, so this is the perfect dish to invite yourself over to other people's places and cook for them.

Thanks to Celadon for helping me rediscover brussels sprouts.