[K8memphis]

Many thanks to willpowder.net without who's product and graciousness to deliver to me overnight this would not be possible. I mean they called me on the phone a coupla times so we could do this. Customer service out the whazoo. As well as many thanks to Jonathan M. Guberman's adventure in alginate thread. Last but first really thanks go to the brilliance of Ferran Adria at El Bulli.

........................................K8's Tea Caviar

I gathered the sweetened lemon tea, sodium alginate and sodium citrate and some great whisk-ers. Now I gotta be honest. The first time I made this I was careful to weigh and measure but still I didn't know what I was doing because my guiding recipe had fruit puree in it so...I guessed on the right amounts of materials. Somewhere in the neighborhood of two teaspoons-ish of each to a liter or two of tea. I combined those ingredients before I added them because the alginate needs help to dissolve--I used hot tea and actually used my blender the first time but then just whisked for the other two times.



I strained my tea mixture to remove any stubborn alginate blobs.



I gathered a large pan, a food baster, a liter of water and the calcium chloride --again something in the neighborhood of two teaspoons to the one liter of water. This easily dissolves.



Sucking up the tea in the food baster...



A few baby cavi's being born...



Lots of brothers and sisters...



See the loch ness monster over there?? Just squirt out a stream, or of course you can make spoonsfull etc.



Pour your babies into the big strainer into the big bowl




~~insert surreal memories of my girlfriend's guppy harvesting~~

Get your guppies, er I mean, caviars into the frige quick--keep 'em cold. Pour your solution from the blue bowl back into white container and...Viola!

This post has been edited by K8memphis: 08 November 2006 - 11:11 AM

[JeanneCake]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

How cool is this?! Great job, girl!

[Tweety69bird]

Thank you K8! Where is the applause smilie? If it's really that easy I'm going to have to find a reason to make something like that. Were the products from willpowder expensive?

[Mette]

Absolutely brilliant - the whauw factor of the caviar is massive! Please, may I taste

[K8memphis]

Thank you, Jeanne and Tweety.

Yes of course, Mette, help yourself, don't be shy.

Umm, no not expensive. The sodium alginate was twelve dollors and the calcium chloride was seven and the sodium citrate was six I believe. It's all on his webpage plus the recipes I used.

This post has been edited by K8memphis: 08 November 2006 - 03:58 PM

[K8memphis]

Ok wait, when you have the gum (sodium alginate) mixed into whatever substance you have chosen, and the ph balance is correct (I guessed) which is why I added sodium citrate then when that is all combined and you drop that mixture into the calcium chloride water bath then the dropped mixture forms a little 'skin' around it.

If you drop a drop, it makes a sphere. If you drop a snake, a long continuous drop of it, it makes a noodle. If you carefully drop a spoonfull, it makes a spoonful, ravioli or whatever you want to call it.

Using a larger baster makes a larger drop to fall off and form into cavis*.

*Cavis of course are baby caviars.



The process and the chemicals do it all for you. I was a cog in the wheel.

Fun fun fun though.

This post has been edited by K8memphis: 09 November 2006 - 11:42 AM

[K8memphis]

Last but not least the recipes. Nothing very complicated.

The tea jelly recipe plus I added Southern Comfort to taste--approx one quarter cup.

The linzer cookie recipe -- I used it exactly as written with the toasted pecans.

I used store white flour bought phyllo. Did you know whole wheat phyllo is available? I buttered the leaves, cut them with a star cutter and placed them criss cross in a minimuffin pan to bake. The cornucopia-ish one lying down I baked over a heating core.

For the pecan pie filling, I had leftover Piere Herme's lemon cream formula from "Desserts by Pierre Herme" Pierre Herme and Dorie Greenspan page 31 and added instant unsweetened tea to taste. I think that one could add horseradish or sour kraut, head cheese or wasabi to PH lemon cream and it be a beautiful thing. That stuff is pure magic.

I used this fabulous sugar icicle recipe You MUST click here!! If poured sugar is daunting to you, the thermometers, and the danger and the what am I doing here mentality. This formula is so nice for the pro who wants to conserve on how much attention they need to give to this accent item and for the the baker who wants a fool proof user friendly method.

Oh the cakes,
I used Regan Daley's angel food recipe from "In the Sweet Kitchen" page 390. I made it with tea flavor & didn't care for it. I used the instant tea for that. Then I made it with rose water. And I made a small pan of it tinted green and the pan was lined with fresh mint leaves because I was concerned about the oil in the leaves breaking down the meringue. It was weird but it worked with the caviar.

And the lavender pound cake is in recipegullet. That formula is dedicated to two wonderful online cake-buddies, our own Beanie who turned me on to lavendar and Chanlette from SDBT who makes the best pound cake on the planet. So sorry I never posted in the best pound cake thread--I was fixin' to just any minute

This post has been edited by K8memphis: 09 November 2006 - 11:44 AM

[joiei]

I bow to you k8. I think we will be seeing tea caviar in a lot of applications in the near future. How fun. THanks for sharing.