A simple yet elegant dessert

Posted on January 31, 2012 by bilrob

A simple yet elegant dessert

Something as simple as bread can be turned into an elegant dessert.

Bread pudding is a wonderful dessert, whether made from fresh bread or stale ends.

In olden times, bread pudding was a means of not wasting anything. The poor could not afford to waste even a scrap of old stale bread.

At the restaurants where I worked, bread pudding was a common “family meal” dessert. Leftover Danish and brioche from Sunday brunch and other events were turned into bread pudding and served to the staff. Big pans were filled with the bread, soaked in custard and slowly baked into a delicious pudding.

The concept of bread pudding is simple. Once you have mastered it, you can begin to make variations on the basic recipe.

Add fruits, nuts and spices or use different types of bread. Make savory bread puddings with various vegetables, meats and cheeses.

You can even change the ingredients in the custard to make the finished pudding more or less rich in taste or to change the firmness.

The versatility of bread pudding makes it something that should be in anyone’s repertoire

Basic custard — one quart of milk and eight whole eggs — will bind the bread together into a pudding when baked.

You may want to add sugar to the mixture, especially if you are using plain bread.

Three-quarters of a cup of sugar would be the most I would add, but even this may be too sweet for some, so adjust it to your liking. Bread that has its own sweetness, such as Danish, needs less added sugar (or maybe eliminate it altogether).

The custard can be adjusted as well. Any type of milk or cream can be used, from skim milk to full-fat cream. What you use will determine the fat content and richness of the pudding.

Whole eggs can be exchanged for just egg whites, eliminating the fat from the yolks.

Conversely, using whole eggs with extra egg yolks will make it richer.

Any bread works for bread pudding, from leftovers and the end slices of sandwich loaves to fresh bread bought specifically for the pudding. You can even use gluten-free bread.

Dessert Recipes with Bill & Sheila

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Bagged salad : To wash or not to wash

Posted on January 31, 2012 by bilrob

Bagged salad : To wash or not to wash

The salad chefs I know fall into two camps: Some serve pre-washed bagged leafy greens straight from the bag. The others insist on washing them first, even though the bag label promises that the contents are “triple-washed.”

Over the years, I’ve ignored those labels too. I typically dumped bagged greens in the salad spinner, added plenty of water and spun strenuously. After writing too many stories about food recalls, I vowed that family and friends were not going to swallow E. coli along with their spring mix and lemon vinaigrette.

Now it seems the straight-from-the-bag camp may have it right after all. By re-washing our greens, we may be making our salads dirtier, according to a bevy of food safety experts.

Even our best-kept kitchens can teem with all sorts of harmful pathogens, on cutting boards and in salad spinners, on knives that just sliced raw chicken, on damp, well-used cloth towels. “In brief, consumers don’t wash up very well and may contaminate produce due to dirty hands and dirty sink,” emailed Christine M. Bruhn, director of the Center for Consumer Research at UC Davis. That’s especially a problem with salad greens, since they never get cooked.

Bruhn coauthored a 2007 article in the journal Food Production Trends that is widely quoted by food safety scholars. Its bottom line: Leafy greens in sealed bags with the “pre-washed” label from a properly inspected facility do not need to be re-washed unless the label directs it.

After reading the article, I decided to halt my re-washing ritual and put the salad spinner in storage.

But the food safety world is awash with advice, and on the subject of clean greens, some of it disagrees.

Food testers at Consumer Reports announced in 2010 that their tests of 208 containers of salad greens turned up bacteria that can indicate contamination, although no E. coli O157:H7 or salmonella, was found. Some experts criticized the methodology but the testers urged consumers to be wary. “Even if the bag says ‘pre-washed’ or ‘triple-washed,’ wash the greens yourself,” they advised.

“We don’t really see the potential for harm that other people do,” said Jean Halloran, Consumer Union’s director of food policy initiatives.

Then my editor, long a re-washer himself, spotted a bag of pre-washed salad at his local market with a label suggesting a rinse. I checked my own refrigerator and found a bag of organic baby spinach with this label: “Triple washed. Rinse with cool water to refresh.”

Are merchants trying to pacify both camps, the re-washers and the non-washers?

I began asking other experts about their own salad-making rituals. None of the people I spoke to washed pre-washed bagged salads.

“Don’t wash it,” responded Douglas Powell, publisher of barfblog.com and professor of food safety at Kansas State University.

“Out of the bag,” said Robert Buchanan, professor and director of the Center for Food Safety and Security Systems at the University of Maryland.

But some, like microbiology professor Michael Doyle at the University of Georgia, forego bagged greens altogether, just to be safe. “We eat a lot of vegetables,” Doyle said. “We eat a lot of lettuce. We buy heads and peel off the outer layers.”

Friends in Santa Monica invited me over to dinner a few weeks ago. A bowl on their kitchen counter overflowed with fresh leafy greens in all sorts of shapes and colors, including oak leaf lettuce and sorrel.

My friends raise a panoply of greens in their front yard. They do not buy bagged salads. They sent me home with a large plastic bag stuffed with greens that make commercial bagged greens taste like shredded paper towels.

Maybe it’s time to invest in seed packets.

Deborah Schoch is a senior writer at the California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting. Contact her at [email protected].

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Really in the soup

Posted on January 31, 2012 by bilrob

soup

Really in the soup

DURING spells of cooler weather, restaurants lie empty. Sales of canned soups soar. People need comfort food three times a day (or eight, if you are Oprah).

I was discussing this with a Frenchman, who told me that English-speakers’ gross ignorance about food stretched to the very words they used for it.

When he asked: “Would you like a history lesson?” I told him no thanks.

Still he began: In 1765, un homme en Paree started selling a tasty liquid he called restorer, which is “restaurant” in French. The idiotic English got it mixed up and promptly told the world that “restaurant” meant “place to eat out”.

Germans were soon dippling sops (their word for chunks of bread) into the delicious warm bowls of ‘restaurant’. The idiotic English got confused again, and told the world that the new dish was called “soup”.

So the English sentence: “Sitting in a restaurant, I drank some soup” actually means, “Sitting in some soup, I drank some bread.”

I was disinclined to accept this outrageous slur on English speakers so I checked Wikipedia. Astonishingly, the Frenchman was right in every detail.

Later, I was sharing this news with friends, when a Beijing-born militant raised his head.

“It’s absurd to think that all good things originated from one place, Western Europe,” he said. “The truth is, all good things originated from China.”

He called up a news article on his screen. Chinese archaeologists had unearthed a 2,400-year-old portion of soup, it said. It was so well sealed it was still liquid.

An American butted into the conversation. “Did the container say Campbells?” he asked, insisting that the US Campbell Soup Company claimed to have invented canned soups.

We all agreed that the 2,400-year-old soup should be sent to foul-mouthed TV celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.

If a restaurant serves something even a few hours old, he goes mad, cursing and throwing pots, pans and waiters around.

Imagine the scene when he tastes the soup:

Ramsay: “@#$%! This soup tasted @#^ing ancient! When did you brew this up, the @#$%ing Dark Ages?”

Archeologist: “No, Mr Ramsay, it was brewed in China two-and-a-half millenniums ago.”

Ramsay: “Flush this @$%ing @#$% down the toilet and make a fresh one, you @#$%ing morons.”

One of the diners at this gathering told me that in Hong Kong, you can click on chinesesoup.com and get a portion of “chicken with white fungus” delivered to your desk.

I replied that there was already something that could be described as “chicken with white fungus” in the office fridge, but no one would want to eat it. We also have “chicken with green fungus” and “pork fillets with mystery fur”.

We were all astonished when the American told us that US citizens buy 2.5 billion cans every year of the three main flavours of Campbell soup.

The Beijing guy said he would ask Campbell for a muti-trillion-dollar royalty payment.

The best Chinese soup was Sishen Tang, which translates as Four-Divinity Pig Stomach Soup, he said.

“Is it made from a pig’s stomach?” the American asked.

The speaker patted his generous midriff. “Yes. Also it gives you one.”

Send ideas and comments via www.mrjam.org.

Soup recipes with Bill & Sheila
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Michigan Firm Recalls Salad Products for Possible Listeria Contamination

Posted on January 31, 2012 by bilrob

Michigan Firm Recalls Salad Products for Possible Listeria Contamination

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2012 – 18th Street Deli Inc., a Hamtramck, Mich., establishment, is recalling approximately 118 pounds of julienne salad products with turkey, ham and hard-boiled eggs. The salad contains eggs that are the subject of an FDA recall due to contamination with Listeria monocytogenes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

The salad products were produced on Jan. 20, 2012 and then distributed to retail stores in Michigan and vending companies in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. The following products are subject to recall: [View Label]
9.25-ounce packages of “18th Street Deli Julienne Salad,” “18th Street Deli Julienne Salad Lite,” and “Balanced Choice Julienne Salad Lite” that bear the establishment number “P-22061? inside the USDA mark of inspection and expiration dates of “01/27/12? and “01/30/12.”

Recommendations for people at risk for Listeriosis

Wash hands with warm, soapy water before and after handling raw meat and poultry for at least 20 seconds. Wash cutting boards, dishes and utensils with hot, soapy water. Immediately clean spills.

Keep raw meat, fish and poultry away from other food that will not be cooked. Use separate cutting boards for raw meat, poultry and egg products and cooked foods.

Do not eat hot dogs, luncheon meats, bologna or other deli meats unless reheated until steaming hot.

Do not eat refrigerated pate, meat spreads from a meat counter or smoked seafood found in the refrigerated section of the store. Foods that don’t need refrigeration, like canned tuna and canned salmon, are safe to eat. Refrigerate after opening.

Do not drink raw (unpasteurized) milk and do not eat foods that have unpasteurized milk in them.

Do not eat salads made in the store such as ham salad, chicken salad, egg salad, tuna salad or seafood salad.

Do not eat soft cheeses such as Feta, quesco blanco, quesco fresco, Brie, Camembert cheeses, blue-veined cheeses and Panela unless it is labeled as made with pasteurized milk.

Use precooked or ready-to-eat food as soon as you can. Listeria can grow in the refrigerator. The refrigerator should be 40° F or lower and the freezer 0° F or lower. Use an appliance thermometer to check the temperature of your refrigerator.

The problem was discovered when 18th Street Deli was notified by one of its suppliers that hard-cooked eggs (a product inspected by the FDA) had tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes and are being recalled by Michael Foods Egg Products Co. The julienne salads contain the recalled eggs and are the subject of this FSIS recall. FSIS and the company have received no reports of illnesses associated with consumption of these products.

FSIS routinely conducts recall effectiveness checks to verify recalling firms notify their customers of the recall and that steps are taken to make certain that the product is no longer available to consumers. When available, the retail distribution list(s) will be posted on the FSIS website at: www.fsis.usda.gov/
FSIS_Recalls/
Open_Federal_Cases/
index.asp.

Consumption of food contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes can cause listeriosis, an uncommon but potentially fatal disease. Healthy people rarely contract listeriosis. However, listeriosis can cause high fever, severe headache, neck stiffness and nausea. Listeriosis can also cause miscarriages and stillbirths, as well as serious and sometimes fatal infections in those with weakened immune systems, such as infants, the elderly and persons with HIV infection or undergoing chemotherapy. Individuals concerned about an illness should contact a health care provider.

Consumers and media with questions about the recall should contact Robert Guzzardo, head of Quality Assurance for 18th Street Deli, at (313) 921-7710.

Consumers with food safety questions can “Ask Karen,” the FSIS virtual representative available 24 hours a day at AskKaren.gov. “Ask Karen” live chat services are available Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET. The toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline 1-888-MPHotline (1-888-674-6854) is available in English and Spanish and can be reached from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET Monday through Friday. Recorded food safety messages are available 24 hours a day.

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Inspired vegetarian recipes to chase away the winter blues

Posted on January 31, 2012 by bilrob

Vegetarian recipes

Inspired vegetarian recipes to chase away the winter blues

In the dead of winter, with greenmarkets either closed or offering very limited selections of produce, it’s all too easy to think that healthy, meat-free meals are out of reach. But you can still find a variety of veggies that are either in season or available year-round. With a mind toward that healthy-eating New Year’s resolution, we scoured the web for winter vegetarian recipes that even a meat eater will love.

Eat your greens

Hardy greens like kale, chard and collards are easy to find this time of year; plus dark greens are loaded with nutrients. Like many veggies, greens can be acquired taste, but don’t let that scare you. As the Center for Science in the Public Interest notes, “If you’re new to leafy greens, start with a mild variety like kale or collards. Mustard greens (which can be quite peppery) and beet greens and Swiss chard (with their earthy taste) have their charms, but they’re an acquired taste that can come later.”

Sauteing is an easy way to prepare greens. All you need is some olive oil or vegetable stock and some salt and pepper to taste. But if you crave a more substantial or adventurous dish, check out health-oriented publisher Rodale‘s website. Editors suggest five recipes for greens, including escarole and lentil soup and stir-fried Swiss chard.

More substantial recipes can be found at the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune, which recommends a handful of green-laden dishes like a chard, kale, green apple and cheese omelet. Meanwhile, The New York Times‘ Well blog recommends five vegetarian options, including slow-baked beans with kale and a mushroom-greens gratin.

Cruciferous cookin’

Cruciferous vegetables are plants that form a head as they grow — broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussels sprouts and the like. They’re hardy, readily available and can either stand on their own or be added hearty casseroles and gratins. The Vegetarian Times offers a trove of meat-free recipes on its website, including a decadent cauliflower version of mac and cheese, a crunchy purple cabbage salad, and a broccoli pesto that’s perfect for pasta. You can also find a smattering of recipes that uses these veggies at the Lexington (Ken.) Herald-Leader, the American Institute for Cancer Research, and About.com (Note: ConsumerSearch is owned by About.com, but the two don’t share an editorial affiliation.)

Beans and lentils

Beans and lentils provide a great a source of fiber and protein without a lot of calories, and nothing’s better for beefing up a meatless entree or fortifying a veggie soup. Surprisingly, one good place to find recipes that incorporate beans and lentils — as well as recipes that contain meat — is on the website of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Here, you’ll find recipes for simple sides like red beans and rice and heartier fare like corn and black bean burritos and a Caribbean stew of beans, tomatoes and peppers.

If you’re looking for a meaty meal without the meat, beans are indispensable. Among their many vegetarian recipes, Eating Well magazine suggests a bean burger made from pinto beans and quinoa, as well as a bean bolognese sauce that’s the perfect topper for a whole wheat fettuccine or linguine. As editors note, it’s not only hearty, “the dish has only a third of the fat and 80 percent less saturated fat” than a meat-based pasta sauce would have.

Want more? The Food Network has oodles of vegetarian dishes, including a number of chili recipes that are loaded with beans.

More inspiration for vegetarian cooking

Got a family full of finicky eaters? WebMD.com offers 15 tips and recipes for veggie haters.

If you’re a vegan, some vegetarian recipes may contain ingredients that don’t fit your diet. For vegans and adventurous carnivores, The New York Times Magazine suggests 10 recipes that won’t fail to satisfy, be it a simple spinach and chickpea saute or substantial sweet potato stew.

Enjoy surfing the web for new recipes? Washingtonian Magazine editors do, too, and they profile six of their favorite bloggers who focus on healthy eating.

Soup is simple to make, warms you up, feeds many and is easy to take to work or school for a quick, hot lunch. Eco-minded website The Daily Green suggests five vegetarian soups that are loaded with flavor.

Fruits, veggies, beans and legumes aren’t just tasty and healthy, they’re also good to eat if you’re watching your weight. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discusses how to choose foods that will fill you up without packing on the calories.

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Infections confirmed from raw milk sold in Chambersburg area

Posted on January 31, 2012 by bilrob

Infections confirmed from raw milk sold in Chambersburg area

CHAMBERSBURG – Six cases of a bacterial infection found in raw milk from a Chambersburg dairy have been confirmed by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Consumers who bought milk from The Family Cow store in Chambersburg have reported several illnesses, according to a DOH news release.

Three Pennsylvania residents and three Maryland residents confirmed cases of campylobacteriosis, the release states.

Campylobacteriosis, known as Campy, is an infection that affects the intestinal tract and, in rare cases, the bloodstream, according to a DOH fact sheet.

“People can become infected with campylobacter bacteria if they consume raw or undercooked poultry meat or from consuming food that has been cross contaminated during cooking by these items,” the fact sheet states. “Many outbreaks are associated with unpasteurized milk or contaminated water.”

Symptoms of Campy generally appear two to five days after exposure and include mild or severe diarrhea, often with fever, abdominal cramps and blood in stool, according to the DOH fact sheet.

People infected with Campy usually recover within two to five days, but the illness can last for up to 10 days, the fact sheet states. In rare cases, Campy infections can lead to complications such as Guillian-Barre syndrome, a serious neurological condition, or arthritis.

Most people with Campy will recover on their own; however, for severe cases or to shorten the carrier phase, antibiotics are occasionally used, the DOH fact sheet states.

The farm has voluntarily suspended raw milk production. A formal recall has not been announced, but the department recommends people discard any milk purchased after Jan. 1.

Raw milk from The Family Cow is sold at its dairy at 3854 Olde Scotland Road, as well as various locations across the state including Pure Simple Cafe in Greencastle, Paul’s Country Market in Waynesboro, The Healthy Grocer in Camp Hill and Appalachian Whole Foods Market in Carlisle.

The organic raw milk and the organic cows go through 10 safety tests, including one for campylobacter jejune, where a sample is taken from the final packed bottle, according to The Family Cow’s website.

“At The Family Cow we voluntarily go beyond the state requirement for pathogen testing of raw milk. We do this extra testing for your peace of mind, the safety of your families and out of abundance of caution,” the website states. “When it comes to your family’s safety, it’s not the government’s standards that we are trying to live up to it’s yours. We have faith that you will appreciate our caution, honesty, transparency and forthrightness.”

A representative from The Family Cow could not be reached by presstime.

- The York Daily Record contributed to this report.

———-

Samantha Cossick can be reached at [email protected] and 262-4762 or follow her on Twitter at @SCossickPO.

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How to Make Cake Balls

Posted on January 31, 2012 by bilrob

How to Make Cake Balls

Until just a short time ago I’d never heard of cake balls before. It all started when my husband said his stepsister was “craving cake balls” on her Facebook profile. Cake balls? I consider myself somewhat informed when it comes to the world of baking so I had to figure out the mystery behind these so-called edible balls of cake. After doing a little bit of research online I discovered that cake balls are also referred to as “cupcake pops” or “cake pops”. What you call them all depends on their presentation. Either way, the result is always delicious!

Basically, you bake a cake, crumble it all up, mix the crumbs with frosting, roll into balls, and dip in chocolate. Sounds delightful doesn’t it? That’s exactly what I thought. You can eat the balls with your fingers or create cake pops and put them on lollipop sticks. Once my research was done I found this all very intriguing and had to try it out for myself.

For my first attempt at making cake balls I decided to try German chocolate cake with coconut/pecan frosting and chocolate coating. One of the great things I discovered about cake balls is the endless variations you can try. Think about how many different types of cakes there are. These different variations of cakes can be combined with all the different types of frostings and coatings. Yum!

Gather Your Ingredients

There’s basically three things you need to bake cake balls:

1. Cake
2. Frosting
3. Coating

You can make your cake and frosting from scratch or you can use a pre-packaged cake mix and frosting. As far as the coating goes, you can use any sweetened, meltable chocolate. For my first cake ball project, I used chocolate bark coating which Kroger carries for $3.79 for 24 oz. (12 bars in the package are 2 oz. each) I would imagine just about any other grocery store would have something like it. I found it in the baking aisle hiding out next to the chocolate chips.

You’ll need one package of bark coating for each batch of cake balls you want to make. I found for the 30 cake balls I made there was just enough. My first attempt was pretty messy and I probably wasted some chocolate coating but it all worked out OK. (Update: Now that I have some experience under my belt I’ve found that I normally have about two bars left of the bark coating. I usually end up using the last two bars for decorative drizzle or save them for another project.)

Instead of the bark coating you can also use those little confectionary wafers. The nice thing about those is that they come in all sorts of different colours. I’ve seen these at Michael’s in the cake decorating aisle. If you chose to add colouring to your bark coating or wafers be sure to use oil-based colouring or paste. Colouring that contains water will cause the coating to become crumbly and unworkable.

I also recently made some mint chocolate cake balls using Andes mints for the coating. I ended up using about 75 mints which is about 3 packages or 1 pound of mints. It’s usually cheaper if you can buy them in bulk. I’ve purchased them in bulk at Meijer.

The Birth of a Cake Ball

Step One: Bake Your Cake

This one is pretty easy. Just bake your cake the way you usually would. You can use just a rectangular sheet pan because you’ll be destroying the cake anyway once its done baking. It’s really fun! Let your cake cool for a while but it should still be slightly warm before you crumble it into the bowl. I think I let my cake cool for 15-20 minutes. Once your cake is crumbled by hand you can continue the process a step further by using a hand mixer or food processor to get a finer texture.

Step Two: Add Frosting

Now, mix in your frosting to make a paste. You’ll need to add 3/4 to a full can of frosting. It all depends on what type of cake and frosting you use. I started off with 3/4 of the can and the mixture still looked a little dry so I added to the rest of the container. If you want your cake balls to be more cakey you’ll probably want to add less frosting. In the words of Martha Stewart your mixture is going to “feel weird.” So if those are your thoughts–don’t worry–you’re on the right track!

Before you roll out the balls you want the mixture to chill for a while. If you try to roll them out while warm or at room temperature they will crumble into bits. I put my mixture in the freezer for two hours only because I was busy and didn’t have time to get back to it right away. However, according to the cake ball experts the mixture only needs to stay in the freezer for 15 minutes. I noticed after rolling out about half the mixture that it started to get warm again and hard to work with. So I put the rest back in the freezer for about 15-20 minutes and finished it up.

I used my hands to roll out the balls but I’ve heard using a melon baller can make things easier. You can make the balls as small or as big as you like but 1 to 1.5 inches is recommended. I found some of the larger cake balls where a lot harder to dip in the coating and was wishing I had made some of them smaller. After rolling them out I placed the balls in a plastic container to keep in the freezer. You can stack them on top of each other between sheets of waxed paper.
Some websites recommend putting the rolled balls onto cookie sheets but I don’t have that much room in my freezer!

You’ll want to freeze the balls for at least 6 hours. This makes it much easier to dip the balls in melted chocolate. If the balls are too warm when you try to coat them with chocolate you’ll have a big mess on your hands!

Step Three: Coat With Chocolate

Once your balls are nice and chilled you’re ready to dip them in chocolate. I used the microwave to melt my bark coating but you can also a saucepan or double boiler. Here’s melting directions from the back of the bag:

Double boiler: Heat water in bottom of double boiler to boiling. Remove from heat and add coating in top of double boiler. Stir until melted.

Saucepan: Melt candy coating in heavy saucepan at very low temperatures, stirring constantly until smooth.

Microwave: Place candy coating in microwave safe dish. Microwave for one minute at full power, then stir thoroughly. Continue microwaving on high for 15 seconds intervals, stirring well after each interval, until smooth.

Helpful Hints: Chop or break up coating to speed melting times. Melt at lowest temperature possible to produce the smoothest final product. Overheating will cause bark coating to scorch. Use only dry utensils or cooking pans because moisture will causing coating to seperate, solidify or granulate.

Some More Helpful HintsCoating the balls in chocolate was the hardest part for me. I’m somewhat of a perfectionist and I had a hard time trying to figure out how to cover the entire ball with a smooth coating. Some baking websites recommend manipulating the balls with a toothpick or fork while others recommended using a spoon. I made a huge mess with the spoon and ended up using toothpicks. I would stab a ball with the toothpick, roll it around in the melted chocolate and twist it around to get most of the excess chocolate to drip off. Then I had to figure out how to get the ball off my toothpick and onto my sheet of waxed paper without messing it up. While I was trying to figure this out I noticed that the chocolate set and dried very quickly. I could just pull it off with my fingers.

(Update: I’ve found the easiest way to coat your cake balls is with a fork and spatula. Hold the fork in one hand and the spatula in the other hand. Drop the cake ball in the coating and make sure all surfaces get covered using the fork and spatula. Lift the cake ball up out of the coating with your fork and let the excess coating drip off while you tap the fork on the edge of the bowl. Gently let the cake ball roll off the fork onto a piece of waxed paper. If you have a plastic fork, break off the two center tines and this will make it even easier for you. For less than the cost of a nickel you’ve just created a dipping-fork much like those the professional candy-makers and chocolatiers use.)

It’s best to only work with a few balls at a time and leave the rest in the freezer. Once the balls warm up they become much harder to work with. The chocolate coating also becomes harder to work with once it begins to cool off so you have to find a happy medium. It’s best to only melt 2-3 of the chocolate cubes at a time. I think next time I might try using the saucepan instead of the microwave because I think it will be easier to keep the chocolate at a good temperature.

After your balls are rolled in chocolate you’re pretty much done unless you want to get fancy and add more decorations or sprinkles. If you want to add sprinkles you’ll have to work pretty quickly and decorate one ball at a time because the chocolate hardens very fast. I placed the finished balls on a sheet of waxed paper while I worked on the others. Cake balls can be stored at room temperature or in the refrigerator. Chances are you won’t have to worry too much about long-term storage because they’ll be gobbled up right away!

Note: if you store your cake balls in the refrigerator they might get sweaty. This usually isn’t a huge problem taste-wise but can make them look a little strange–especially if they’ve been decorated.

Funfetti Cake Balls

After my original adventure with German chocolate cake balls I decided to give Funfetti cake balls a try. The result was equally delicious! This time around I used Funfetti cake mix with vanilla frosting (the Funfetti variety that come with the package of sprinkles on top) and white almond bark. While the coating was setting I also dipped them in rainbow sprinkles for some extra “flair. Instead of dipping them in sprinkles you can also just “sprinkle” the sprinkles onto the cake balls.
One thing I learned with the Funfetti cake is that after you bake the cake and mix in the frosting the coloured bits seem to fade quite a bit. So what I did was mix the sprinkles that came with the frosting into the mixture. It seemed to work out pretty well. When you bite into the cake ball you still get to see some of the bright candies. I also learned that you need to buy A LOT of sprinkles if you want to make your cake balls look pretty. I bought a small container and only had enough for half the batch. Oops! Oh well. No one that ate them seemed to complain!

How to Decorate Your Cake Balls

I didn’t decorate my cake balls the first time around but this is something you might want to consider since it’s really not that difficult. There are all kinds of different ways to decorate your cake balls. When I make Funfetti cake balls I like to decorate them with different colored sprinkles. An important thing to remember when decorating your cake balls with any type of sprinkle is that you need to add the sprinkles BEFORE the outer coating has set and dried. Otherwise, the sprinkles will just slide off and that’s no fun at all. You can also dunk your cake balls into a bed of sprinkles for more coverage but that can get pretty messy. I prefer to just sprinkle on the sprinkles.

One embellishment that can make your cake balls look fancy is to drizzle on a contrasting color of coating using either a squeeze bottle filled with melted coating or a spoon or fork dipped in the coating. You can also pipe different designs onto your cake balls using a variety of cake decorating tips. Some people also go so far as to decorate their cake balls with pieces of fondant to make them resemble different creatures and characters. I’ve even seen some cake balls decorated to look like little football helmets! Clever!

If you have a golf fan in your family you can make some cake balls with white coating and then purchase some round paper candy cups. Using Wilton tip #233and some green frosting, pipe some grass around the edge of the candy cup and then place a cake ball inside the cup. Cute!

Really, the possibilities are endless when it comes to decorating cake balls and you’re only limited by your imagination.
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Austin Cake Ball offers mature take on playful pastries

Posted on January 31, 2012 by bilrob

Austin Cake Ball offers mature take on playful pastries

Cake balls, like macaroons, cupcakes and petit fours, bring to mind images of ruffled lace tablecloths, scalloped window treatments, pink aprons, freshly cut daisies in pristine glass vases and lots and lots of sunshine — the idyllic home-style bakeshop. However at Austin Cake Ball, a locally-owned and operated company, you will not find polka dot wallpaper or lace doilies. Employees don’t wear pink, and there are no pastel-colored bows. Anywhere.

This may be disappointing for those who want their entire cake ball experience coated in sugar, but Kristen Haga, a partner in the business, said the decision to shy away from a super-saccharine and hyper-feminine space was intentional. She and the founders of the business, UT alumna Stacey Bridges and Ben May, envisioned a space that outlasts ephemeral food fads and appeals to a wide consumer base, including men.

Austin Cake Ball’s newest venture, a kitchen and bar that opened in December in the Domain shopping center, conveys maturity while maintaining the sense of fun that a cake ball inherently exudes. Bridges, who has a master’s in costume technology, has a sharp eye for detail and sees her role in the business as “a continuation of an artistic expression … this time with cake instead of fabric.” She applies her aesthetic sensibilities to everything from the unique overhead lighting to the color scheme of the seating.

The immaculate cake ball display exhibits rows of tantalizing, gleaming pastries, each expertly-shaped and hand-decorated with almost machine-like accuracy. The half-wall that separates the dining area from the kitchen and restrooms is a mosaic of pennies, designed by Bridges herself.

It is this “tactile execution,” as Haga referred to it, that makes the space appeal to both men and women alike. If you think of the typical bakeshop, “most men are afraid of it,” Haga said. Because of the unique personality of the business, Austin Cake Ball “has a lot of male clients,” according to Haga.

Despite this diversity in clientele, skepticism about the viability of a business concentrated on and branded by cake balls is not unwarranted. Aren’t cake balls just another food fad bubble that will burst in the same way that the cupcake bubble has and that the frozen yogurt bubble is bound to? Does Austin Cake Ball truly have a competitive advantage over other local dessert businesses that have specialized in cake balls?

Austin Cake Ball’s flavors — vanilla bean, tiramisu, chocolate mint, red velvet and salted caramel — are not terribly original, and the cost of a dozen cake balls starts at $29, far exceeding that of its competitors. Holy Cacao, a cake ball and hot chocolate trailer, sells a dozen for $22, and Iffy’s Sweet Treats sells a dozen for $20.

Furthermore, Austin Cake Ball is now straddling two distinct industries — the specialty baking industry and the restaurant and beverage industry. This strategy can be dangerous, since Austin Cake Ball runs the risk of spreading its resources too thinly and not focusing intently enough on the quality of the product (think of Blockbuster’s botched attempt to straddle the retail industry and the online movie rental industry when Netflix pioneered the online market).

Another concern that John Spillyards of Holy Cacao warns against is approaching the cake ball as a high-end truffle. “We love the idea of high-brow and low-brow mixed together,” Spillyards said. He cited his own locally-sourced ingredients and granite countertops paired with handmade treats with funny names (Brass Balls, Rabbit Balls) served on an unassuming popsicle stick as evidence of his cake ball philosophy.

Despite the potential roadblocks, Kristen Haga is not worried. “None of us think that cake balls will be the hottest thing 35 years from now,” Haga said. But she maintains, “Cake balls are not going away.”

In true Darwinian fashion, she believes that the strongest company will survive and that Austin Cake Ball has the potential to be that company.

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Gluten Free - Dietary needs are firmly on the menu

Posted on January 31, 2012 by bilrob

Gluten Free – Dietary needs are firmly on the menu

Make that a main of chargrilled free-range pork loin with fennel gratin, orange and macadamia salad.

Or roast lamb rump with ratatouille tian and carrot vanilla sauce.

Maybe goldband snapper with mussel and bacon chowder, lemon pepper squid with fries, flaked salmon risotto and, oh, a vanilla slice?

RELATED NEWS: It’s the perfect alternative

These are all gluten free and on the menu at mainstream restaurants and cafes, which are only too happy to oblige, no explanation required.

It wasn’t always like that.

Mother-of-two Cathy Pinto, diagnosed with coeliac disease 10 years ago, says going out for dinner once required meticulous planning, calls, explanations, special arrangements and different foods.

“The wait staff would end up having to make a number of trips to the kitchen to check with the chef while other people were waiting to place their order, so it held up everything,” she says.

“Alternatively, you would get various levels of skill from the wait staff – and that still happens in some places – who’d say you couldn’t have the risotto because it contained rice and rice is a grain.

“The options are a lot better now; there are even gluten free pastas and breads in many places.”

For French chef Xavier Pique, gluten-free is not a problem.

He trained in Michelin-star restaurants in Europe and has worked in five-star hotels around the world, where catering to specific dietary requirements was part of the job.

Most dishes on the menu of his P’tite Ardoise (it means little slate, like the roofing material in his homeland, Normandy) in Highgate are gluten free or available gluten free on request.

With the French onion soup, which is made on a beef stock, it means simply changing the bread.

Otherwise, sauces are made from reductions or, like bechamel, perhaps thickened with arrowroot – a starch from a West Indian plant – instead of roux.

It’s no big deal.

Much of it is the legacy of nouvelle cuisine, which got a bad rap because of small portions, but was lighter than traditional French cooking and took into account dietary needs. Instead of heavy sauces made with flour, dishes were flavoured with, say, jus.

“It makes a big difference if the chef has taken the time to work out a gluten free dish and identify it on the menu,” says Mrs Pinto.

“It puts the ball back in your court, so you can have the same fun choosing what you’re going to eat instead of stressing over the food.

“With fine dining, the difference is definitely there. The chef almost loves the challenge of doing a dish with a twist.

“I can remember a number of times an amuse bouche has been brought out tweaked so that my husband and I can both enjoy it – and it’s been very elegantly done.”

At the Raw Kitchen, in Fremantle, the menu is gluten, dairy, sugar and wheat-free. Phew.

Owners Emma Gilbert and Heath Daly make their pizza bases from sprouted buckwheat (despite the name, it is the seed of a herb related to sorrel), flaxseed, zucchini and sun-dried tomatoes, all dehydrated for crunch.

On top, fresh tomatoes, herbs, olives and dollops of creamy “cheese” made from cashews and macadamia nuts with lemon, garlic and nutritional yeast.

Raw pasta is made from dehydrated zucchini spirals with macadamia “parmesan cheese” and raw sauce is made from blitzed tomatoes, red capsicums, olive oil and garlic. The nacho chips are made from dehydrated corn, zucchini and flaxseed. They’re seriously good.

Windsor Hotel chef Gavin Wright said a lot of items on the main menu – it also has a gluten free menu – had been changed to remove flour from some sauces and most batters to cater for special requests.

The cheese plate comes out with gluten free crackers made with nuts and seeds and the kitchen is looking at doing a pizza with a gluten free base. But that’s down the track.

Balingup Bronze Cafe in, yes, Balingup, was started by coeliac Rose Morgan six years ago. She sold it last year, but the menu’s still gluten free and she’s keeping her hand in with some cooking, plus running gluten free workshops and doing ready-to-go gluten free and vegan products for IGAs.

“Gluten free is not difficult so long as you think outside the square,” she says.

“A gluten free pie will never taste the same, so I prefer to do something different. With meat pies, I use chickpea pastry on the bottom and put some horseradish, cracked pepper and maybe some red wine in the filling, then mashed potatoes on top. You forget you’re not eating wheat because there’s so much flavour.

“Pastas can get a bit stodgy, so I use a lot of raw vegetables, like carrots, shredded cabbage and spinach for crunch.”

The Coles Gluten Free Food Healthy Living Expo will be held on March 17 and 18 at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre. More information from CMS Events on 9228 9166.
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Replace Anti-Aging Creams with Raw Food?

Posted on January 31, 2012 by bilrob

Written by:
Raw Food Health

Replace Anti-Aging Creams with Raw Food?

A raw food diet has undeniable health benefits that are plentiful and almost innumerable. It really all boils down to common sense. In a nutshell, eating foods in their raw form results in more energy, less calories, and more vitamins and nutrients. Those that transform their diet in full to only eat raw foods proclaim other benefits that are seemingly unrelated, but are they?

A 64-Year Old Woman Passing For 40

Oprah recently interviewed a woman named Karyn Calabrese, who swore by her raw food diet. Her vibrancy and youthfulness made it seem like she jumped into the fountain of youth, however in all reality, she attributes her energy to her raw food commitment. Her youthful appearance and her raw food diet are no coincidence. There are very clear raw food benefits that relate to skin renewal.

When the array of raw food is considered, the range of ingredients will be foods that have not been heated over 104 degrees. It is known that cooking results in eliminating enzymes that are essential to our body’s health. Without these particular enzymes, a meal may not deliver the full myriad of benefits that a body requires. Shifting to a raw food meal allows the body to receive the enzymes and over time, hair grows stronger, nails grow harder, the inner energy seems more synchronized and yes, skin seems more elastic and overall more youthful looking.

The Raw Food Secret is in Plants

As the raw food benefits are studied in the sciences, it is argued that the very enzymes that are preserved in the consumption of food are still unraveled through the acidity of digestion. So the question arises, is the raw food hype really factual, or is there another factor that needs to be considered with these benefits? The China-Cornell-Oxford Project studied 6,500 subjects over 20 years and concluded that the secret is really in the increased consumption of plants. By adhering to a raw foods diet, it is necessary to consume more leafy foods and that is the real secret to raw food benefits. Regardless, the overall benefits are undeniable; those that consume raw foods generally maintain more youthful appearances.

Doctors Comment on Raw Food Benefits

Dr Joel Fuhrman, author of Eat To Live, argues that the benefits are not necessarily solely rooted to the existence of this particular enzyme that raw-foodists seem to capture in their diets, but rather the vitamins and nutrients that are lost in cooking that they manage to consume.

So although science seems to argue over where the true benefits can be credited, it is clear that raw foods will result in better overall health and yes, more vibrant skin. It is an excellent natural resource to augment your anti-aging regimen, and based on the feedback of those that swear by the diet, the results will be an increased appreciation for the various flavors of food, and looking good in the process!

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