A tourist in the waking world, never quite awake...

Photo # 12
Week of February the 25th

I'm not quite sure if I have to do a blog post this week considering I did one last week, but here I am. This is my blog post.

I am a black hole right now.
What happens goes in through my eyes, my ears,
and somehow ends up
somewhere else
entirely.
But it's not
my brain
or
my heart.

Like,
What am I even saying right now?
I'm a wee bit emotionally
drained.

It is probably due to the weather. Without snow, the winter is nothing. Without the sun, I am nothing. I am suffering with Seasonal Affective Disorder. It is SAD. (LOL, see what I did there?)

According to the NIH, SAD is due to the reduced amount of natural light. It affects at least half a million people every winter. Symptoms (that I have experienced) include but are not limited to:

-Feelings of emptiness, apathy
-Feelings of hopelessness
-Lethargy
-Overeating
-Irritability

Isn't it strange that the weather should cause such drastic changes in the human body? Just goes to show that we, as human beings, have an undeniable connection to nature. Why are we destroying it, I don't know.

Anyhow, other than "light therapy," which to me seems quite ineffective for the healing process for such a depression, the only cure is for the sun to come out again. Only then will I feel myself again. The summer not only does wonders for my skin (I do get quite the golden-brown during the summer daze), but I always come back to school feeling rejuvenated.

Perhaps my unhappiness could stem from my Third Quarter Blues, but I'm positive that looking out of my window in the morning and seeing gray contributes considerably. 

So, naturally, as I do whenever I am feeling overworked or stressed or depressed, I decided to bake. I made Gluten-Free Caramel Cinnamon Buns, and they turned out really well, surprisingly! They are pictured above. That photo was taken before I slathered on a healthy helping of cream cheese glaze. You can see the caramel sheen on them, though, can't you? Yumm.

As you can tell, I have definitely been overeating due to my SADness. No regrets, because these things are ridiculously good.

Do I really have Seasonal Affective Disorder? Or does the fact that I am mentally overworked at school leave me emotionally drained everywhere else? Is it the fact that I feel like no matter how hard I try, I won't get the feedback that I so desire? Or is this feeling stemming from my general unhappiness at the weather?

It is just a cycle that just keeps
building on itself.
And everything just gets bigger,
every feeling of sadness
is intensified
until all that's left
is emptiness.

Luckily, I have Cinnamon Buns to make everything better, eh?

I like to eat, eat, eat.

Yes, I ate the entire fish. No regrets. #CleanPlateClub

Photo # 10
Blog Post: Week of December 31st

            Renee Heiss’ article, Flavorful Food, details the chemistry of natural and artificial compounds that contribute to the flavors found in the foods that we eat every day.  The article directly asks answers the question of “Why do foods taste the way they do?”, “Why do people have different reactions to the same food?” and “How does chemistry relate to flavors (artificial and natural)?”  Then, it goes into more detail and asks “What are Esters and where do we find them (in foods and everyday items)?”

Heiss explains that there are four factors that contribute to a food’s flavor- its texture, its color, its temperature and its aroma.  Different chemical compounds create flavors in foods; for example, chocolate is a mixture of 300 flavor compounds. Flavor chemists use a variety of chemical compounds to create artificial flavors.  By extracting the juice of an orange by removing the water in the juice, for example, flavor chemists can create an orange flavor/concentrate used in the drink mix, Tang. 

Furthermore, the article discusses esters, which are chemical compounds that create artificial aromas, formed by the chemical reaction of an alcohol and a carboxylic acid (OH).  For example, combining ethanol (an alcohol), botanic acid creates ethyl butanoate (the ester), which eventuates with a pineapple odor.

The purpose of the article as a whole was to inform readers about the foods we eat and why they taste the way they do, natural or artificial.  Most people don’t understand the chemistry behind the flavors in the foods that we eat, such as simple fruits.  The article also educates readers about the use of chemistry of artificial flavorings and aromas.  People take flavors for granted, without understanding the chemistry.

Personally, from this article, I learned a lot about the flavor profiles of the foods I use and eat every day.  I pride myself as an amateur baker/pastry chef, so understanding the chemistry of flavorful foods doesn’t change my perspective of food, but rather makes me feel better educated and self-satisfied that I understand what I am doing when I add a teaspoon of vanilla extract to a cupcake batter. 

I learned that the aroma of foods is just as important as the actual flavor of the food.  The aroma travels from a channel between the throat and the nose which strengthens the flavor of food.  I also learned that artificial and natural flavors are both chemical compounds, though most people assume that only artificial flavors are chemicals.  Artificial flavors are actually derived from chemical compounds found in plants, fruits and animals.  In addition, I learned that artificial flavors come in different forms.  So, limonene used in lemon-lime candies is different from the mix of chemical compounds in lemon-lime drinks, such as Sprite (which I drink quite often) because limonene is not soluable in water.  I also learned that when ethanol (the alcohol found in alcoholic drinks) is combined with an acid, such as the ones we learned about in class like heptanoic acid, it creates and completely new flavor and aroma.  These esters are used in both foods and the hand soaps, lotions, and perfumes that we use every day.

After reading this article, I am left with a few questions. For example, other than the natural components from an orange for example, what compounds/chemicals (unnatural or natural) are used to create artificial flavors, such as those used in Tang or in Sprite?  Also, are there chemical reactions to create different textures in a food (the article discusses both flavor and aroma)?  

Chocolat

(I will post photos later.)

Blog post: Week of December 10th 

Photo # 9

I have quite a lot of homework this weekend, so naturally, I'm very stressed out. As when I am normally stressed out, I kind of separated myself from the stress and decided to bake instead! 

I have been baking for years, beginning serious baking probably when I was about seven years old. My mother has Celiac-disease which is an allergy to gluten (most commonly found in breads, cakes, pastas etc). If my mother were to eat any source of gluten, her small intestine lining/villi would deteriorate and end in a lot of pain- so gluten (wheat, barley, etc.) was out.

Eating in our family became pretty hard for a while. We had always eaten waffles or pancakes for breakfast on Sundays, pasta on Mondays, and who doesn't love a sandwich for lunch everyday? My mother, a born sweet-tooth, missed baked goods more than anything. We were able to find various mixes for waffles, brownies, we replaced whole grain pastas with corn and egg pastas- but it wasn't enough.

My mom complained daily about her mother's classic Christmas cookies, her mother's moist chocolate cakes, her mother's pies, her mother's this and that. My dad can't bake, my sister didn't want to, so the job was left to me. I took quickly to baking and I continue to bake to this day, mainly gluten-free items, of course!

Last weekend, I made an orange-coconut cake with coconut pudding filling and citrus-vanilla Swiss-meringue frosting (toasted coconut on the top, of course!). This weekend I decided to make cake truffles! My mom is out tonight, so she hasn't had them yet, but I think they're delicious! 

They are dark chocolate cake, mixed with chocolate-orange buttercream. They are topped with chocolate ganache and toasted almonds. This recipe literally made about 50 cake truffles!

Now, your normal all-purpose flour is simply a super cheap little bag of unbleached wheat flour; however, this flour does everything in baking! Gluten is a protein (most abundant in wheat flours) which binds doughs and creates stick and sponginess. In other words, one couldn't just replace all-purpose flour with brown rice flour because it doesn't have enough protein to bind anything together. If you simply replaced flour that way, the result would be a crumbly, dry mess.  

My basic gluten-free flour is the following (made just enough for this cake recipe!):

1 cup brown rice flour (one could use sorghum flour, garfava/chickpea flour, corn flour or white rice flour, but I prefer brown rice and sorghum)

1/2 cup tapioca flour/starch

1/2 potato starch

I adapted and made all of the following recipes my own from what I have learned over the years.

TO MAKE THE CAKE:

Ingredients:

2 cups GF flour

1 tsp. xanthan gum (one could use guar gum, I use Bob's Red Mill xanthan gum most often)

2 cups sugar (this seems like a lot, but usually cakes often have around the same amount of sugar as flour...plus, it's cake, what's wrong with sugar?)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark unsweetened cocoa powder (I used a mix of Droste's and Valhrona cocoa powder- they're super high quality and, I think, they make a big difference in the depth of flavor- not to sound pretentious. If you only have Hershey's, that would be fine too!)
2¼ tsp. baking soda
1½ tsp. baking powder
1½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. Egg Replacer (Ener-G brand. I know, I know. Why add Egg Replacer if there are 3 eggs in it already? Well, it helps bind and leaven the cake. With gluten-free baked goods, one has to make up for A LOT.)
6 tbsp. vegetable oil (one could use butter, but I find oil really moistens a cake up and makes it feel a bit lighter)
1 cup plus 2 tbsp. buttermilk (if you don't have buttermilk, just add a T of cider vinegar or 2 T of lemon juice to a cup of whole milk)
1 cup plus 2 tbsp. brewed coffee (this is optional; however, it really helps deepen the chocolate flavor)

3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (I use Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla. Again, it's not necessary, but it definitely makes a difference! I really really recommend this vanilla, it's perfection in a bottle. I usually find it at Williams-Sonoma.)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F.  

Grease and flour the edges of 3 8-inch baking pans.  (Optional: add a round of parchment paper. I don't do this for cake truffles because it doesn't really matter if the cake sticks at all. If you're making just this cake and you're trying to impress, parchment paper is the way to go.)

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, xanthan gum, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt and Egg Replacer.  

Add the vegetable oil and sugar into a bowl and mix together until combined. (If used using butter, cream together the sugar and butter until white). Add coffee, and vanilla to the bowl and mix on low speed until well blended and completely incorporated. 

Add the flour mixture and buttermilk alternately, beginning and ending with the flour (you would think that ending with flour wouldn't make a difference, but it does, trust me).

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in the pans about 15 minutes, then put them into a large bowl and beginning mashing! Use a fork or potato masher to mash the cake into crumbs. 

Add the buttercream to the cake crumbs and mix together until homogeneous. Roll this mixture into small balls and refrigerate on a wire rack while you make the ganache.

Dip the cake balls into the ganache and place onto a baking sheet lined with parchment or wax paper. Refrigerate.

TO MAKE THE FROSTING:

I use this simple vanilla buttecream cream for almost EVERY cake or cupcake I ever make. It's super fast, super fluffy and my mom just loves it (as do I). There are a lot of different variations for this recipe, so I will list the one I used for this recipe.

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter (A stick of butter, y'all! -Paula Deen)

1½ cups confectioner's sugar

½ cup whipping cream (most recipes use milk, but whipping cream makes the frosting super light! It makes such a difference.)

½ tsp. vanilla 

Beat the butter until white and fluffy (using the whisk attachment, not the paddle). Add the confectioner's sugar in ½ cup increments. Beat until smooth and fluffy.

Slowly add the whipping cream until the buttercream doubles in volume. Finally, add the vanilla. Easy as pie!

For this recipe, I used this variation:

Omit the vanilla. Add two ounces of unsweetened chocolate, melted (Usually, I use Ghirardelli chocolate, but I had none left. Baker's chocolate worked just fine.) Also, add 2 T. grated orange zest (making sure not to grate the white part of the peel.

TO MAKE THE GANACHE:

Ingredients:

6 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, chopped

½ cup heavy cream
½ cup milk (Whole milk is my personal favorite, of course.)

1 T. butter

Heat the heavy cream and milk over medium high heat until boiling. Immediately take the pan off of the heat once boiled and pour it over the chopped chocolate. Mix together until smooth and mix in the butter.