Cornmeal Sparkle Cookies. Photo: He Cooks She Cooks/Flickr.

How can anyone not smile at the sight of these cookies? There's just something so positive about a little mound of sweet goodness, especially when it's homemade. Add to that a topping as fun as sprinkles or, better yet, whimsical sparkles of sugar, and all your troubles will melt away.

A simple recipe adapted by He Cooks She Cooks, this batch of sparkle cookies was made with flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, butter and sour cream, all rolled in an extra cup of sugar for that shimmery coating!

[Via Flickr]

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Gazpacho. Photo: Emily Farris, Fifty Bucks a Week.

Each week, we round up the top food articles we've spied Web-wide. This week, a special edition of our own bloggers' primo pieces from elsewhere on the Web.

Pervaiz Shallwani boards a bus with a stripper pole alongside a bunch of bartenders to harvest rye in upstate New York ... for Gourmet ... really.

"Mad Men" fiend Eric Diesel reveals his recipe for perfectly "clean" martinis -- a 2-to-1 gin-to-vermouth concoction at his Urban Home blog.

Mike Pomranz on the phenomenon of a cat opening a jar of food at Comedy Central.

Bruce Watson reports at sister site DailyFinance that the United States may "run out of sugar" in the next year!

Cook and film buff Monika Bartyzel notes that Michael Moore might be done with the documentary style that made him famous, for Cinematical.

Gretchen Roberts, our savvy sommelier-in-training, offers freebie gourmet treats at her wine blog Vinobite.

CoffeeMeister Erin Meister makes peace with the five-second-rule over at her culinary blog, the Nervous Cook.

Joshua M. Bernstein visits Scores, a Manhattan strip club, to eat steak (again, really!) for the New York Press.

Emily Farris tries to toe the budget line with a basic, beautiful gazpacho at Fifty Bucks a Week.

No brown sugar in the house, or the stuff you have is rock solid. What to do if you don't have time to deal?

Ever been stopped dead in your tracks by the words "caster sugar"? Have no fear! Here's an introduction to that strange ingredient.

I like to have a sweet treat from time to time, especially if it is a homemade cookie or a lavish dessert made from scratch in one of my favorite New York City restaurants. But even if you don't splurge every day on dessert, you might be getting a lot more sugar than you should.

But how much is too much? And is sugar really bad for you as they say?

Historically, sugar consumption is on the rise -- here are some sugar shock stats (PDF). In 1970, each American was eating on average 123 pounds of sugar a year and today that number is up to 152 pounds -- which means three pounds in just one week, a little under one cup a day. Nutritionists say to limit sugar to around 13 teaspoons a day so we are getting almost four times the recommended daily amount from a variety of sources.

A lot of people are wondering if there is a healthy form of sugar: Since most of the sugars trigger the same rise in blood sugar, there is no real difference between them except for how quickly that sugar spike hits the system. This is where eating more complex carbohydrates and beneficial fruits is a great way to slow that blood glucose change and deal with the daily crave for sweets.

As in my last post, I still think it's OK to enjoy other forms of sugar in moderation; we all like our treats from time to time, especially on holidays and special occasions. But if you're looking for low-sugar treats, try my recipes for avocado chocolate milkshake, brown sugar ice cream or rugelach.

After the jump -- chewing the fat on "diet" food.

With a little experimentation you can use honey as a vitamin-packed sugar substitute. Here's how.

Sugar, once demonized by parents and dentists alike, is back in style, this time as a selling point for food companies who want to broadcast that their products are free from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), the New York Times reports. HFCS, though believed by most scientists to be the same as sugar for your health, has become a whipping boy these days.

Log Cabin syrup recently announced that they've stopped using HFCS in their syrup; Pepsi has come out with new sugar-sweetened Pepsi and Mountain Dew; ConAgra uses only sugar or honey in its Healthy Choice All Natural frozen entrees.

"The argument about which is better for you, sucrose or HFCS, is garbage. Both are equally bad for your health," says Dr. Robert H. Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco Children's Hospital.

"For consumers, perception is reality," says Jim Sieple, a senior vice president for Log Cabin syrup.

This seems like an incredibly cynical move, preying on people's misperceptions about HFCS to market products filled with equally obesity-promoting sugar as "healthy." It feels very wrong that a soda company or a frozen dinner company slaps the words "all natural" (a totally meaningless marketing phrase) on a piece of junk food to make people feel like it's wholesome.

The problem is not HFCS OR sugar, it's the fact that items like frozen dinners are larded with sweeteners to make them more appealing (I don't put sugar in my pot pie, do you?), and that we drink gallons of soda instead of water.

What do you think? Is it wrong for companies to promote sugar-sweetened foods as healthy alternatives?

[Via: New York Times]

I have been on a wild sugar kick the past couple of months. It started with demerara sugar. I used this sugar instead of ordinary white sugar or brown sugar, and I was shocked at the difference. The flavor was extraordinarily sweet and syrupy in a way I had never been used to in past culinary endeavors. What makes different sugars unique is how they're processed. For instance, demerara sugar is unrefined sugar coming from pressed sugar cane that's steamed .

Now, I'm on to the next sugar: muscovado. Muscovado is also unrefined but, compared to demerara, it has a more pronounced molasses flavor. Unlike brown sugar which is refined white sugar with molasses added to it, muscovado's brown color and flavor come directly from sugarcane juice. Recently, I have been using muscovado as a replacement for brown sugar. Its exquisite long lingering flavor makes it perfect for other rich flavors when baking ginger bread cookies, chocolate cakes, fudges, and much more.

Below are 8 ways to add muscovado sugar to a recipe next time your baking:

1. Martha Stewart's muscovado soy biscuits
2. Muscovado and hazelnut tart with yoghurt sorbet
3. Butterscotch Pots de Crème
4. Gingerbread cookies - Substitute the brown sugar with muscovado
5. Muscovado sugar cookies
   
6. Christmas Pudding - I highly recommend making this decadent fruity pudding this holiday season.
7. Caramelized Nectarines
8. Pigs' ears - These delicious confections are in the shape of pigs' ears.

Yeeeeoowwwch! My pal Kathleen is an avid and talented baker, and in the midst of a late night apple tartlet frenzy, managed to wound herself severely with a lashing of molten sugar. If you've never suffered a sugar burn, consider yourself among the blessed. Professional bakers refer to boiled sugar as "edible napalm," as it's blisteringly hot and adheres to skin in a way that make it almost impossible to wash or scrape off in the frenzy of the moment.

Yes, a hospital trip would have been a logical solution, but a New York City emergency room on a Friday night seemed like neither an efficient nor inexpensive bet. Kathleen took to the internet to research the appropriate first aid for a sugar burn, and made a quick stop by Facebook to announce her plight. The sympathy and suggestions from friends began pouring in: "package of frozen edamame," "If hot sugar or water burns skin, place skin in cold water (not ice)." "Pure aloe squeezed from a leaf will promote healing, you should be able to obtain it from the greengrocer or garden shop." "Wrap lightly in gauze."

She settled for a combo of the latter two and is in much better shape today, but Monday (or, uh, Sunday) morning quarterbacking it -- what is in fact the best way to deal with a sugar burn? Even for veteran web researchers like those rallying around Kathleen, it proved incredibly difficult to pin down an definitive answer. If we can collectively share some wisdom here in the comments, perhaps it might serve as a starting point for someone in a similar situation in the future. Links or advice, anyone?

Oh -- and I'm getting her an elbow-length silicone oven mitt for Christmas. Shhhh!

If your soft brown sugar turns into a hard solid, follow some quick and easy directions to moisten it up again. Solidified brown sugar is not sugar "gone bad" - don't throw it out!

Flour is the basic structural ingredient. It's the starch in the flour that will, when mixed with liquid and heated in the oven, gelatinize and set when cooled. Flour also contains the proteins you need to make gluten, which is great for baking bread but not so desirable for making pie crusts. All you have to do is use a flour with a lower protein content, which generally means all purpose flour (cake flour might be too weak).

Fats are considered tenderizing agents for baked goods like cakes and pie crusts, rather than shortening agents like they would be for bread. In pie crusts, fats like oil, vegetable shortening, butter, and lard prevent gluten from getting formed in the first place by coating the flour granules, thus ensuring tenderness. Flakiness is achieved by the way you mix the dough: larger chunks of fat from less mixing make for more flakiness while more mixing and smaller fat chunks make a less flaky crust. They also add a lot of flavor, especially in the case of butter and animal fats. Lard and butter are also generally considered to have a better feel in the mouth, and lard is reputed to create a flakier crust than other fats.

Water and milk are the most common liquids, while buttermilk, eggs, and cream can also be used. Liquids function as a binding agent: they allow all of the ingredients to be evenly dissolved and incorporated. They also hydrate the the starch and protein in the flour and activate whatever leavening is being used. If you're using a liquid besides water, you're also adding fats, sugar, and acidity which is a good thing. The fats add tenderness, the adds to crust color, and the acidity makes the dough more stable and easier to roll out as well as taste better. Make sure to always use a cold liquid to keep the fat nice and cold, so it'll retain its shape/temperature and produce a flaky product.

Eggs are used for hydrating the dough, creating structure, giving color to the dough, and flavor. The whites are 90% water and the rest protein, so that aids in hydration and structure. The yolks are 50% water with the rest being mostly fat, contributing to hydration and tenderness as well as flavor and crust color.

Sugar adds sweetness and contributes the most to crust color. Ths crust turns golden brown because the sugar in the dough caramelizes as it's baked. Also, the texture of the dough can be changed by using sugar ground to different levels of fineness. For instance, powdered sugar makes a dough that is smoother, even if it doesn't taste as good as granulated.

Sometimes some of the best and most worthwhile meals or treats are the ones that take no time at all. While there's nothing quite like a carefully prepared dish, it's also great to wow the tastebuds with simplicity. The above video, Green's Cuisine, has rejigged the Chinese treat toffee apples with deep-fried bananas into a super-quick and sugary treat. Sesame bananas are basically chopped bananas sprinkled with sesame seeds and then doused with a good drizzle of freshly made toffee syrup -- just a melted mixture of water and sugar.

This looks like the perfect dish for entertaining -- whether you're gathering together for a chat and want some munchies, or curling up with a good movie. Personally, I'd treat it like fondue -- prepare a nice, large pile and then give everyone skewers to pick up banana chunks as they wish. In fact, I'm thinking that the bananas on my counter won't be going into a smoothie after all...

Do you remember those commercials that Splenda used to run? You know, the ones where they said that their product tastes like sugar because it's make with sugar? Well, if not, you heard it here first! The sugar industry is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Splenda and they're going to court.

Apparently, the sugar association has a big problem with the way that Splenda (owned by Johnson and Johnson through subsidiary McNeil Nutritionals) markets itself. The sugar industry representative claims that the advertising for Splenda is deliberately misleading and designed to cause consumer confusion. Marketing for the sweetener is allegedly aimed at getting consumers to think that Splenda is a natural sugar product with magically no calories.

Of course the makers of Splenda deny this and say that their advertising is perfectly truthful. Well, both sides will now have the chance to duke it out in court. A District Court judge has set the starting date of January 6, 2009. What do you think might be the outcome?

As someone with an insatiable sweet tooth, I was fascinated when I found out that hormones in our body affect how we perceive and crave sweetness. They do this according to our body's nutritional needs. Since I have a pretty bad sweet tooth, does this mean my body needs more of it? Not exactly. A recent article in The Economist explains that scientists have done the first step; they've isolated hormones that affect our palate's sensitivity to sugar.

The reason why this study is so important is because it may lead doctors and nutritionists to find a solution for ways of reducing the desire for sugar-heavy foods, and thus reduce calorie-intake. Yuzo Ninomiya, a neuroscientist at Kyushu University in Japan, researched the effects of leptin, a hormone that regulates appetite and metabolism. His results show that when leptin levels are low, we are more sensitive to sugar, which means something tastes sweeter than when our leptin levels are low. The level of the hormone increases over the day. This might explain why we tend to eat lots of sugar in the morning ('cause it tastes so good!).

So, it seems, if scientists can figure out how to raise leptin levels (or at least keep them steady) throughout the day, then all of us sweet-tooth types might have a chance at eating less cake!

In a world full of sweets, it's not easy to avoid them. What are some ways you control your sugar intake?