"sweet" news and stories

Every once in a while, only something sweet, cold and bubbly will quench your thirst. Even those who say they don't drink soft drinks (this writer included) crave one on the rare occasion, whether it's at the movies, a sporting event, a fast-food restaurant (for shame!) or mixed with an adult beverage.

These eight bottled beverages, ranging in color, flavor and size, are from Flickr user sevenworlds16 who sampled each as part of a pop taste test. The default winner: the very red Cherry Limeade.

While I think you could make argument that baking is an activity good for every time of the year, I find that this season we're heading into now - the chilly, cozy, pre-holiday days - makes for the best baking. There's something about the shorter days and thinner sunlight that cries out for pies (sweet potato or pumpkin), quick breads (carrot or apple) and lots of soul-warming, fragrant spices.

For those of you wanting to dig into fall-time baking, but also want to experiment with other sweeteners than just your standard granulated sugar, you must check out the new cookbook by Mani Niall, called Sweet! Niall understands the important of a good treat at any time of day, but also recognizes that lots of folks want to reduce the amount of sugar they consume while upping their whole grains. This book walks that line with ease and a great deal of delicious grace.

The book opens with a short history of sugar and then introduces the wide variety of sweeteners out there that you can turn to in place of the standard, white stuff. Then he moves into the recipes, offering up ways to do Breakfast Treats, Cakes, Pies/Tarts/Cobblers, Cookies, Spoon Desserts, Candy and Frozen Desserts. The final chapter is devoted to Main Courses that have both savory and sweet flavors. My only complaint with this book is that it doesn't offer much in the way of pictures. I understand that fewer pictures saves money, but the four pages of images are so lovely that I would have enjoyed seeing how more of recipes looked in the hands of the photographer/food stylist.

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Pâte Sablée is another example of a tart dough used mainly for desserts, and it can also be used for cookies or as a component to French style cakes. Sablée translates as sand which is befitting its crumbly, cookie-like texture. Some recipes, though it's not traditional, include egg yolks, and a few recipes actually call for the yolks to be cooked which makes for a more tender crust.

Cooked yolks, 2oz (3-4)
softened butter 9.5 oz
salt 1/8 tsp
powdered sugar 5oz
uncooked egg yolks 2oz (3-4)
pastry ( or all purpose) flour 13 oz

Cream the butter, salt, and sugar well. Press the cooked yolks through a sieve and blend that into the mixture along with the uncooked yolks. Mix in the flour just until everything is gathered up into the dough. Refigerate for at least four hours.

It sounds to good to be true -- a berry that makes sour things taste sweet!

The berry is very real. It's called "miracle fruit -- that's actually what it's called -- though the scientific name is Synsepalum dulcificum for those of you who want to get technical. And more for the technical folks, a protein in the fruit binds to taste buds and alters the tongue's so-called sweet receptors to activate when sour foods are eaten. Sour things taste sweet for about an hour after the berry is eaten.

It may seem just a novelty or a fun foodie trick to do at parties, but there could be some health and medical uses for the berry once the science people figure it out. I can think of a few now: lose weight by tricking your taste buds into thinking that extremely low calorie foods are actually as sweet as dessert, and any other use in which people need a sugar substitute.

[via: Gimundo]

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I once whined to my mother (aka: Knower of All Things Culinary, and Go-To Person for All of Life's Quanadries) that I couldn't make a decent crepe without a crepe pan, and she waved my complaint away with her hand, insisting that while a crepe pan is nice, it's definitely not necessary.

On NPR's Kitchen Window series, we're reminded of this glorious food. Really, how can one simple butter-flour-milk mixture hold so much potential? NPR provided two simple recipes - one for a sweet crepe, and one for savory. I decided to tackle the savory one, substituting Morningstar faux chicken strips for real chicken. (The greenish blob on the top is 365 Brand Pesto - I really have to work on presentation).

As I attempted the little devils, I came to some important conclusions:
1). Let the butter soften before mixing it in the food processor. Otherwise, you will wind up with weird lumps in your batter.
2). Make sure your pan is really, really hot and really, really well-oiled.
3). If you do not like gummy, rubbery crepes, add ONLY 1/4 cup of batter and cook until the thing is lightly dotted with brown spots.
4.) If at first you don't succeed...

As you can see by the myriad conclusions, it took one or two tries before I figured it out. Granted, they aren't as good at the ones at Philly's Beau Monde, but I was pretty darn proud of myself. But if anyone has any tips for next time (I still have some batter left), please - I'm all ears!

(Oh - and mom was totally right about the pan thing).

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