How about a recipe?

I was playing around with making the perfect recipe for some meringue cookies and came up with these.  If done properly and depending on what flavoring agent you could have something that is light and cloudy and fluffy and airy and tastes like marshmallows.  Here is some good things with cookies like these:

1. They have no carbs. (Even though Truvia is listed as having carbs, it passes through your body undigested and therefore doesn't affect this.  Also, egg whites do have carbs, but the egg white from a large egg has 0.3 grams of carbs and so forth, eating the four needed for this recipe means that your single gram of carb will not change a thing.)

2. They have no gluten.  The cookies use the protein mesh of a meringue to create their lift and their structure so there is no need for fat and flour.  This means that there is no need for gluten and these are also gluten free.

3.  They have no points.  If you are doing Weight Watchers, you will notices that a single batch will make about 20-30 good sized cookies.  Four egg whites will have 2 Weight Watchers points, Truvia can be considered to have 0 and the flavoring will have 0 as well.  So, divide your 2 points over 20 cookies and you find out that you can eat them all and likely fill up before you eat your 2 points.

4. Made this way, they are diabetic friendly.  The egg whites needed would have a combined GL of 1.  This means that made with Truvia, someone who is diabetic, could eat all of the cookies with no affect on their blood sugar levels.

5.  They are fat free.  Egg whites are considered fat free, which means that this recipe made with Truvia, would have no fat in it at all.

6.  These are also almost no calorie.  Truvia has no calories, the egg whites would have 80 calories and that is it.  So, let's say that you have 20 large cookies made from this recipe.  Well, then, that is 80 calories divided into 20 cookies making each cookie only 4 calories.  Think of how many things someone could eat that has more calories than this.  There are 200 calories in a banana.  So, you could eat about 2 and 1/2 batches, or 50 of these cookies to get the same calories as that banana.

So, are you ready?  This recipe will require an oven, preheated to 300 degrees F, a mixing bowl with the whisk attachment and some ingredients.

You will need:

4 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon of Cream of Tartar
1 tablespoon of flavoring (Vanilla extract, strawberry extract, etc.)
1/2 cup of Truvia

1.  Pour the egg whites, Tartar and flavoring into mixing bowl and turn on medium for 3 minutes.
2   After 3 minutes, the mixture should no longer be clear and you turn it up to as fast as it can go.
3.  Mix until it starts to get foamy.  When it gets to this point, slowly sift in the Truvia until finished and continue mixing.
4.  Keep mixing until it gets to stiff peaks.  You can tell what this is by turning off the mixer and taking the whisk attachment out.  Hold it over some unsuspected child's head as they have a look of horror upon their face.  Stiff peaks mean that the egg white proteins have formed a foam which has trapped air within in and has used the sugar substitute or real sugar and cream of tartar to help stabilize the foam enough that it will not break.
5.  When it gets to this consistency, get some baking sheets out.  Place parchment paper on the sheets and then using a spoon, scoop some of the batter on the baking sheets and place in the oven for 25-35 minutes.

DO NOT USE Wax Paper!  Wax Paper will burn in the oven and fill your house with smoke.

Eat and enjoy.   

I'll be Hansel and you be Gretel

Whenever I think of a gingerbread house, I think of a happy moment from my childhood:

While I know that it was never shown or told that the house was made of candy and sweets, at least it lent the idea that it could have been and the kids were just thrown in a pot anyway.

Watching this, then made me think of a game I have recently played called Katamari Damacy:

If you are not familiar with this game, the point is that you have a ball that you basically roll stuff up with.  Like a snowball rolling down a hill, the more your roll up, the larger your ball gets and then more that the perspective and scale shifts so that it appears that you are getting larger and larger.  In this level, you had to roll up as much of this gingerbread house you could.  It even comes complete with a witch riding a broomstick.  As a fan of donuts and other great baked goods, a house made from real baked goods, does sound delicious.

Now we get to St. Louis, where to the side of the main hall of the River City Casino, they have this:

This past Saturday I was allowed to enjoy something straight from the fairy tales: the giant gingerbread house.  I thought to myself, 'how can a gingerbread be that cool?"  I was quickly surprised of exactly how large-scale this gingerbread is.  Candice Coleman, sent me over the recipe and what was required to make this and I was shocked.
[

Gingerbread House

450 pounds of gingerbread dough
100 pounds of shortening,
100 pounds of granulated sugar,
90 pounds of corn syrup,
117 pounds flour.
Baked off 500 6 inches by 12 inches square bricks.
100 house made gum drops
400 fresh baked cookies
130 fresh baked cupcakes
300 pounds of royal icing
]

Okay, so imagine how big of a item you could make with 450 pounds of cookie dough!  What they did, was create a wooden house and then using frosting, they glued these gingerbread cookie slabs on to the outside.  While reading that list I also thought of how big it could be, with only 400 cookies, 130 cupcakes and 100 house made gum drops.  My mind immediately thought of those store-bought gum drops and how 100 of them is hardly enough to decorate even the store-bought gingerbread houses.  That is, until I saw them up close:

That large yellowish thing with the sugar on it, is the "house made gum drops".  Really?!?!?   Way to fool me Chef John.  That thing is huge and looks to be about 3 inches tall and about 2.5 inches in diameter.  It reminded me of those giant "novelty" gummi bears that you can buy at the World Market in Chesterfield and everyone sinks their face into.  I'm surprised no one has taken this idea and made some kind of weird candy fetish video with giant gummi bears and huge gum drops.  Take these into account with the normal sized cupcakes and those cookies look to be at least 6 inches across.

Now, while this house enough sugar to give every child in America a sugar rush and is cool to look at, there is special food that can be ordered.  The gingerbread house has a special menu, which allows you to pick from your first course, your entre' and get your dessert all for one low price of $25.

I had the pumpkin pie soup, which  had creme fraiche and toasted pepitas.  It was great and sweet but not too, too sweet.  It tasted like pumpkin with some sweet elements to it.  A great way to judge a dish is to get a kid to eat it and my 6 year old loved it.  He kept asking for more and he sat in front of his breakfast plate.
The soup was an easy 4 out of 5 for me.

 Between the choice of the ham and the turkey breast, I chose the ham.  (It is a pork product after all.)  The ham had a 1904 Bourbon glaze, with a sweet potato and yellow potato gratin and then had some baby carrots.  The carrots were as sweet as the soup, which is a good thing, for me.  I prefer my vegetables with large amounts of butter and or brown sugar or maple or other sweet applications.

So, it was huge, a large amount of food was offered to me and presented and I was already ready, already.  The ham was tender and juicy and flavorful.  The gratin was tender and easy to eat and creamy.  The carrots were awesome.  The meal was an easy 4 out of 5.

There were others:  Like the eggnog flan that came with this prefix meal.  I'd give it a 4 out of 5.  Then there was the egg and Canadian bacon sandwich with potatoes that my son ordered and ate his fill of, loving every bite of it.  Even the Beignets came out correctly.  They were light and fluffy and delicious.  We ordered the traditional and plan on trying the maple bacon when we return.

While going to the casino and eating in a giant gingerbread house may be just regular average droll for you, it is important to note that doing so, helps a charity.  To reserve your spot for a meal in this house, requires $20.  This $20 goes straight to the Center for Hearing and Speech, which helps hearing impaired adults and children in the St. Louis area.  This isn't some organization going to help people around the world or in some other city but takes care of the people HERE.  Every cent of that $20 goes to the organization.  Now, while you may be wondering, what you get for your $20 other than a spot in this edible house, here you go: activities for your kids.  The gingerbread house is a great place to go with your kids.  It seats 4 people comfortably and after ordering adults and kids alike, are given slabs of gingerbread with colored icing, with which you can decorate your tile.  Tiles or slabs of cooked and decorated gingerbread can be donated to the house, where a chef will get to glue them on to the house, using frosting.  So, you can make a funny picture, write your name, or even write the name of your website.

So, this holiday season, spend the $20, help someone hear for the first time and enjoy some great food.

This tastes just like girl scouts...

Cookies, that is.  This tastes just like girl scout cookies.  I'm a sucker for girl scout cookies and they are my weakness.  I have seen copycat recipes online, tried them, and had to eat the failed result of a cookie.  Nestle, did something evil, they made candy bars with cookie themes.

Ok, first off, the "Caramel & Coconut" cookie, taste just like the "samosa" cookies.  Everything tastes exactly, EXACTLY, the same.  The "Caramel & Coconut" bar was by far my favorite.  (I actually purchased and ate two of them)

The next one was the "Peanut Butter Creme", which tasted just like the Do-Si-Dos™.  I love me some peanut butter.

The last one was the "thin mints" and unlike the other two cookie inspired bares, in this one, they just called it Thin Mints.  This was actually easy to do because the other two cookie names are trademarked and they couldn't trademark the name "thin mints", likely because it was too generic.

So, anyone reading this and anyone that loves girl scout cookies, I highly suggest getting these Nestle Crunch bars.  

So, they finally did it. A healthy cookie.

Wow, I don't know when it came out, but while at Global Foods, I saw something that caught my eye which I had only recently seen a commercial for: a healthy cookie.

Ok, the cookies are vanilla, in this case and are tasty.  What is interesting about them is what can be found on the back of the box:

Now, I'm not going to repeat what you can see there, but 3 cookies at 170 calories is an okay ratio.  But look at what you get, look at those percentages!  Three cookies are comparable in nutrition to half of a cup of Carnation instant breakfast!

Now, if you want cookies at home for you or your kids, I highly suggest these and if I see more anywhere I intend to try the other flavors.

Wow, that's what I call a box.

I know that the line is "Now that's what I call a knife," in reference to Mick Dundee showing a would-be robber his large knife versus the tiny switchblade that the guy uses.  But, for some reason it was in my head when I saw this.

This box of cookies, I purchased for $7.99 plus tax, at the local Walgreens store.  This box is about 3 inches high, 6 inches wide and 36 inches long!  This was a box of real cookies made and imported from Germany.  I know that those in Germany may think that this is no big deal, but here in America, Germany has this connotation of being a location where cookies are the best.  This large box of cookies had 4 smaller packages inside of it.

So, going in a clockwise-rotation, you have; some super buttery chocolate chip cookies, some shortbread/ginger bread cookies, some shortbread cookies with a layer of milk chocolate on the back, some chocolate covered shortbread with a dark chocolate drizzle, some vanilla wafer cookies with a chocolate filling, chocolate covered chocolate cookies with white chocolate sprinkles and some of those rolled cookies. Every cookie was delicious and completely worth the price I paid for them.  If you are a cookie fan, I suggest you race to your nearest Walgreens and look for these cookies.

Also of note, that this is the last article for the year.  This year of 2011, I have written 127 articles, which puts me at 227 total.  Thanks for reading and keeping along.

Is this too many cookies?

A recent trip to the local Walgreens proved interesting when I found and purchased this:

No, there is no smoke or mirrors here, this is a yard stick and that is a box of German cookies that is 3 feet long!  The best part about these cookies, isn't the fact that it is in the largest box I have ever seen.  The best part is because they were made outside of the US, there is no High Fructose Corn Syrup.  So, go to Walgreens and pick up a box today.  (Only $7.99!)

What is the difference?

As per a suggestion, this past Sunday I made a batch of my chocolate chip cookies.  This time, I made them using all organic ingredients. 

So was there a difference between the ingredients?  Well, as more and more laws are put into place to protect the consumer, the term "Organic" constantly changes.  What was organic last year may not be organic this year.  What did I have?  Organic eggs, organic butter, organic sugar cane sugar, organic flour, organic semi-sweet chocolate chips.  I let the butter warm a bit before creaming it with some sugar.  I used this sugar instead of white and brown and just used one 'color'.  It turned out not as sweet as I normally like them.  I also used semi-sweet chips because they didn't have organic milk chocolate chips.  The organic butter didn't seem to taste any different than regular butter.  The organic chocolate chips didn't taste any different than regular chips and the organic flour smelled and tasted just like regular non-organic flour.  All-in-all, the organic cookie tasted just like a cookie made with inorganic materials.  So, what is the big deal? 

Organic things have to go through certain procedures, use only organic fertilizers and no GMO's or other inject-able materials into the animals to make them.  Like no steroids or anything in the cows.  The organic egg making chickens probably ate regular feed instead of being forced corn or something else to make big meaty areas on their bodies or worse.  The organic raising cows would only eat natural grasses and what-not so nothing gets passed into the food.  Was it more expensive? Yes.  Is it concerned healthier for you?  I think.

Super cookie

Everyone loves a cookie, right?  Even more people love a chocolate chip cookie.  Well, the other day I got lazy and instead of making a dozen cookies of my own chocolate chip cookie recipe, I decided to do something new and different.  That is my cookie.  That cookie is 9 inches in diameter and as yummy and tasty as a good chocolate chip cookie. 

Does anyone want one?

The science behind a cookie.

Cooking is both an art and a skill. It uses creativity, risk, science and math in order to pull out a good dish out of just about anything. Just ask Morimoto about the strange ingredients he is given and the wondrous concoctions that he creates. The biggest thing that draws me into cooking is the science and math, which is thrown together under the gastronomy term: the science of cooking. While there is a simple recipe to making chocolate chip cookies, the hard part is not making them with white chocolate chips instead of milk-chocolate, but instead taking out many or replacing many of the ingredients becomes more of a trail-and-error with science and math.

For example: I am working on a low GL chocolate chip cookie. Whoa, wait, what? What's a GL? Okay, let's start from scratch. A GL is an abbreviation for a Glycemic Load, which is the amount of sugars that enter your bloodstream and how long it stays in your body before being countered by the insulin your body releases. So, if you eat something that has a high GL, say of 50, then that means that even after your body releases insulin to deal with the sugars in it, it will take a longer time for those sugars to dissipate than an item that has a lower amount of GL's. Now GL's measure the sugars in an item and if there is too much sugar in an item, more than your body can handle, the excess sugar in your blood stream can mess with your body, causing headaches, fatigue, mood swings or get stored as fat. So watching your glycemic load levels day-to-day can help you feel healthy, stay healthy, and help you lose wait.

Now, my recipe for chocolate chip cookies calls for 3/4th of a cup of packed brown sugar. A cup of brown sugar has about 1 tablespoon of molasses and 1 cup of white sugar. Well, that means that a 3rd of a cup of brown sugar has about 1 & 1/2 teaspoons of molasses. Molasses is relatively low on the GL scale and when mixed with something that can act as a sweetener in its place, like 3/4ths of a cup of Stevia, you get something that tastes like brown sugar, but has almost no GL's and almost no calories.

But while the math is there, I had to play around with the science. Sugar plays an important roll in cooking and baking. In cookies, it helps create the texture. The first step is to mix butter with the sugars, to creme them together. The idea is that the sugar mixes with the butter while it pulls air into the mixture. The sugar helps to tear pockets in the fat and air fills the gaps. This creates a creamy texture for the base of the cookies. When they tell you that the butter needs to be room temperature, this is important as the temperature and the softness of the butter determines how easy it is to create the fluffiness of the cookies. If the butter is too cold, you will have super fluffy cookies that would come up as large and crunchy and if your butter is warm then your cookies will become flat and soft and chewy.

That texture, shows through to when the cookies are cooked as well. As if the cookies have air pockets made from the sugar and butter, then the air heats up and cooks its little cell, creating a crunchy cookie. If there are not as many air pockets, then the air only heats up it's immediate area, which normally is just the whole cookie, allowing for cookies that are still soft and chewy.

In the case of my stevia/molasses use, it functions the same way, as far as tearing through the butter to create the air pockets for the cookie. However without the addition of unnecessary calories, it works better for everyone will delivering the same thing. The glycemic load of the molasses and stevia would be 4.5 GL's. Whereas the glycemic load of 3/4ths of a cup of brown sugar would normally have roughly 113 GL's.

What this is leading up to, is a low GL sugar-free chocolate chip cookie. One that doesn't taste like the sugar-free cookies in the store, but one that tastes like a normal fat filled, sugary and rich cookie. No one one a sugar-free diet will touch a sugar-free cookie, unless it tastes good. As my mantra of a chef, "if it doesn't taste good, don't eat it", there is no reason that diabetics and dieters should be forced to eat anything different than the rest of us.