The Supreme eG Pastry and Baking Challenge (Round 6)

[Shalmanese]

Oh man, I think it's safe to say you totally blew us all away with that. Very, very well done. I hope you get the recipes up onto recipegullet soon. I know I took far too long with mine as it's so daunting but this is something that needs to be shared.

Looking very forward to the next one. So far, each person has managed to go seriously above and beyond the call of dute to produce something very cool.

[Kouign Aman]

I hate sweet tea. In spite of that, I reallllly want to taste those beads! Thats how good you make them look.

And the idea of combining them in one bite with a cake icecube!

AND a pecan tart.

My sweet tooth just died and went to your house.

[Swisskaese]

Very very cool and I have to say for a Damn Yankee, you make this ex-pat Southerner very proud!

Edited November 7, 2006 by Swisskaese (log)

[LittleIsland]

CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP

That martini glass of glistening tea caviar looks absolutely stunning and awesome, K8 !

Edited November 7, 2006 by LittleIsland (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Round 7. 5 kernels of corn. An intiguing play on Thanksgiving (and a totally new story to this Canadian girl).

[Tweety69bird]

K8! Woo Hoo! What a beautiful job you did!!!

How did your hubby like it? You must explain about the tea caviar please. Well well done!!!!

[miladyinsanity]

I love it, K8!

And please, a demo of the caviar?

[K8memphis]

SweetSide, JeanneCake, cookman, Kerry Beal, gfron1, chiantiglace, Pam R, Shalmanese, Kouign Aman, Swisskaese, LittleIsland, Tweety69bird and May.

Thanks you guys! I appreciate all your kind, very generous and outrageously funny comments.

How is the flavour in the spheres? It tastes exactly like iced tea.

How did your hubby like it? It's ok. It's not on the menu for the holidays. We're not huge foodaholics. Chef-boy on the other hand will go nuts for this concept. It's so easy, it would be fun to do going forward to freak people out though. Like make 'apple' pie and do it all deconstructed.

I'm curious about the caviar - do they 'pop' or is it more of a melting in your mouth? They more kinda melt, they didn't really pop. But they can leak. They have to be kept refrigerated or they pee.

I am not sure if you were aiming for that or even aware, but it definately attributes to the idea of being homey. I missed it. Thanks!

I will work on the recipes and show how & where I learned to do the tea.

Thanks again.

Edited November 7, 2006 by K8memphis (log)

[miladyinsanity]

I'm curious about the caviar - do they 'pop' or is it more of a melting in your mouth? They more kinda melt, they didn't really pop. But they can leak. They have to be kept refrigerated or they pee.

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That's hilarious!

[Chezkaren]

Brilliant!

[shaloop]

Great job!! I absolutely love the tea cavier. The whole dessert looks great. Can't wait to learn how you did it.

[Darcie B]

I'm a little late to this party, but WOW! I love the tea caviar and will patiently (ok, impatiently) await the details. It all looks great.

[duckduck]

Great job! It looks great! Wishing I could reach right into the computer screen and snag one of those pecans. Yum!

[Pontormo]

Oops ! Wrong thread, but I get to say I love the upside down glass with tea caviar standing in for beads of moisture on a hot Southern day. Clever.

Edited November 7, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[C_Ruark]

About the challenge and the answer, WOW . I bet it's delish.

~ C

Edited November 7, 2006 by C_Ruark (log)

[CanadianBakin']

Great job! Good for you for trying something out of your comfort zone.

[Patrick S]

The iced tea cookie is a linzer style dressed with glistening tea jelly accented with Southern Comfort. Blew my diet on these buggers today--lol!

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Great job all around, K8, but I like the cookies the best!

[dejaq]

Superior presentation,very original-you did well Kate, I know this took some serious time to put together.

Michael Robert Porru

[K8memphis]

Chezkaren, shaloop, Darcie B, duckduck, Pontormo, C_Ruark, CanadianBakin', dejaq,

I can't thank you all enough.

The iced tea cookie is a linzer style dressed with glistening tea jelly accented with Southern Comfort. Blew my diet on these buggers today--lol!

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Great job all around, K8, but I like the cookies the best!

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Me too, Patrick! And my husband's and daughter's and son-in-law's favorite too. The flavor, the (clever) looks, the components, the cookies are the true star of the challenge.

[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!

Edited November 8, 2006 by K8memphis (log)

[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.

Edited November 8, 2006 by K8memphis (log)

[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.

Edited November 9, 2006 by K8memphis (log)