Sugar

Dessert, Dairy Free, Home & Family, Fall, Spring, Summer, Video, Winter

Home & Family: Rock Candy

Looking for a fun experiment in the kitchen for your family this weekend? Learn how to make rock candy, an exciting exploration of geometry, crystallization, and super-saturation!

Dairy Free, Dessert, Fall, Gluten Free, Home & Family, Side, Snack, Spring, Summer, Winter

Rock Candy

I'm a sucker for candy, particularly candy of the sucking variety. Though to be honest, when I'm presented with a stick of rock candy I am much more likely to crunch its crystals to smithereens than delicately decay them with saliva. There is something so terribly pleasing about the obliteration of sugar between teeth. 

Home & Family, Read, Dessert, Dairy Free, Gluten Free

Rock candy Crystallization

Rock candy, so popularly associated with garishly colored sticks and strings, makes its first appearance in world culinography in 9th century Iran. It seems even at such an early time in human history we had already learned to grow sugar crystals. And why would we be growing sugar crystals? Keep reading!

Drink, Summer

Strawberry Piloncillo Shrub

A shrub is nothing more than fruit preserved in both sugar and vinegar. The resulting brew is a bracing syrup, at once sweet and sour. Stir this into sparkling water all summer or shake it up with a cocktail and startle your palate. Vinegar has remarkable health benefits, but let us forget those in favor of its obvious flavor strength. Brew once and let this jar of power support you in the coming months.

Home & Family, Winter, Summer, Spring, Fall, Read

Sweet and Easy

Sugar has withstood much slander of late, and I am tempted to defend it in some sense. Yes, sugar is problematic in the human diet, but not solely because of its chemical structure. You see, we are abusing it. We are junkies. We are addicts. And so I present, not a defense, but an exploration of sugar. Knowledge is power, information is delicious. Eat. Think. Be Merry.

 

Breakfast, Dairy Free, Dessert, Dinner, Fall, Gluten Free, Side, Snack, Spring, Summer, Video, Winter

Home & Family: Kitchen Hacks

Let me save you from the terrifying moments when you realize, mid-cake, that you're missing an ingredient. A little chemistry goes a long way when it comes to kitchen hacks!

Breakfast, Dairy Free, Dessert, Dinner, Drink, Fall, Gluten Free, Side, Snack, Spring, Summer, Veggies, Winter, Read

Kitchen Swaps

The cold sweat that drips down your neck when you realize you're missing an ingredient, and the cake batter is halfway finished, is real. You have guests scheduled to arrive in mere hours, nay, minutes. Do you rush to the store and grab a bundt cake shelled in plastic? Oh no, not here. NEVER ACCEPT DEFEAT. 

Dessert, Gluten Free, Dairy Free

Caramel Seafoam

Against my mother's will I used to choose this airy, caramel confection when we were taken to the candy shop as kids. She will eternally favor truffles, the grand nexus of chocolate. But I like a bit of hardened texture in my confections, and this treat could not be more satisfying. Caramel seafoam is the adult equivalent of a teething biscuit. It presses against your teeth as you bite into the brittle caramel, rewarding you with sweetness for the task of chewing.