Caffeine is my performance enhancing drug

I broke down this summer and bought a road bike . . . I got a screaming good deal on a last-season Cannondale and quickly learned that my neighborhood is full of cyclists and wannabe cyclists (me). In the mornings we'll pound out an hour of "Fast & Flat" neighborhood riding before work. On the weekends, the East Bay is full of great rides that I can start and end at home: north to Mt. Diablo, south to Calaveras Reservoir, and east to the Livermore wine country.

I'm not big fan of breakfast during the week, but often start those rides with a cup of coffee . . . not only does it warm my core, but it makes me coherent when I'm wishing I hit the snooze button. When we started breaking the 40 mile mark on those weekend rides--and I started hitting the wall--I was turned on to the virtues of Gu and the various derivatives on the market. We decided to break the half-century mileage mark on our trip to Livermore and back, so I decided to bring three flavors of coffee-flavored energy gel to taste test along the ride.

(55 mile ride San Ramon to Livermore - Click for details of the ride in Garmin Connect)

The products I tried were: Gu Espresso Love, Hammer Gel Espresso, Clif Shot Double Expresso. The basic promise and form of each product is very similar . . . about 100 calories of easily digested sugars and caffeine in a squeezable pouch with a consistency somewhere between chocolate sauce and frosting and possessing a coffee-like flavor. Every hour I took one so I got to try one of each on my ride.

I've gotta give Gu some creativity points for their flavor name "Espresso Love," however, I was a bit confused about the "2X Caffeine" statement since it wasn't given any more detail on pack. Best I could determine is by slogging through their website to find that the standard product has 20 mg, so this must be 40 mg? My general impression is that Gu has their base formula of sugars, antioxidants, aminos, etc well figured out and that this is just another flavor deployed in the portfolio (note, only coffee flavor is added).

Hammer Gel was definitely the dark horse in this comparison, and I felt that overall their offering fell a little short. The hammer shaped packaging was clunky and I wondered why they only packed 90 calories into 36 grams of product when their counterparts both went with 100 calories in 32 grams. To make it more digestible? At least they were clear that they offered 50 mg of caffeine and had coffee concentrate as an ingredient.


The Clif product went with a 'entirely natural' positioning that resulted in a product that may not be as technically advanced from a raw nutritional performance standpoint. They favored organic brown rice syrup over carefully selected maltodextrins (result is probably less nuanced burst of blood glucose offered up to your muscles) and didn't add in many extras. Even the caffeine (100 mg) came from all natural sources . . . dried espresso and green tea extract. The Clif product stood out with one interesting packaging design feature called the litter leash. Unless you've had the problem you don't realize how it is a pain to tear the top and consume this product on a moving bicycle without loosing that little tab to the environment. This simple cut in the foil allows you to consume with ease and retain all the trash for proper disposal.

One Word Wednesday...Leftovers

Now that Halloween is over, we have a few leftovers that I can't stop munching. Of course, the most desirable candy was eaten first and now we're left with mellowcreme pumpkins and black licorice bites. Here's a fun link for 5 things to do with leftover Halloween candy. What candy leftovers do you have?

The Making of a Bread Bomb

On a recent trip to Lake Tahoe with friends we were treated to a bread bomb. A bread bomb is an explosion of cheesy, garlic goodness and more calories that you would want to think about. The bomb is a specialty of our friend, DezMo, and she taught us how to build our own.

The necessary elements for one bomb are as follows: a large loaf of bread (a boule is standard), a stick of butter, half a tube of garlic paste (about 2 oz), 3/4 to 1 lb of shredded Gruyere, and a bunch of sliced green onions. However, DezMo always doubles down and makes enough for two bombs to spread the love. To start, prepare a quick garlic butter by softening the butter and then mixing in the garlic paste.

Take your boule and make deep slices about an inch apart and then repeat to form a cross-cut pattern. Going along one direction slather the garlic butter deep into the grooves.

Along the cuts going the other way liberally tuck the Gruyere until it seems that the bread can hold no more! Make sure you actually stuff the cheese into the grooves and don't just sprinkle it on top.

Next apply piles of the sliced onions over the surface of the bomb. At this point you want to form a foil bowl under and around the sides of the bread. This way you be able to capture any butter and cheese that may try to leak away in the oven (you can reapply to the top when finished).

Bake in a 375 degree F oven for 30-40 minutes covered with a foil tent. When the cheese shreads are visibly melted, remove the tent and bake uncovered about 5-10 more minutes to brown it up.

It is difficult to take a picture of an intact bread bomb since they're unceremoniously attacked once removed from the oven. Do not forget your best balsamic vinegar for dipping the bread chunks (this is delicious!). The bread bomb is a true crowd pleaser as an awesome appetizer for wine or accompaniment for a meal.

The Pie for People Who Fear Baking: Pear Custard Pie

Hear are two simple questions to assess if you will have the skills to make this amazing dessert:

1) Can you slice fruit?
2) Do you own a blender and can you successfully operate it?

If you said yes to both, then you can totally make this delicate pear dessert that looks like it came from a gourmet pastry shop. I completely heart this recipe because it does NOT involved making pie crust. Let me say that again- no pie crust.

So here is the link to the full recipe but below is the step-by-step:

1) Peel and slice pears into thin ( ~1/4") slices and lay them in a buttered pie pan overlapping in a fan like pattern. This doesn't have to be perfect.

2) Dump the rest of the ingredients: flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla, melted butter, salt, milk, into the blender and blend until mixed.

3) Pour the blended mix ( this is the custard) over the pears and bake in the oven.

And that's it. The custard sets and forms a firm enough base to be both filling and crust and the pear pattern can be seen just enough to give it that gourmet appearance.

Dust the pie with a bit of powdered sugar and you will wow your roommates/ spouse/ friends/ family with this.

So, please, make this pie and post a comment telling us how it went. We fell in love with the flavors of pear and vanilla and the lovely texture, can you tell?

Food Science Friday: Leavening Bread

We had a bread tasting workshop at my work this week featuring different breads made by my coworkers. We had a wonderful variety of textures, flavors and even methods of preparation. Today's food science fact is about leavening via yeast. We already talked about the difference between baking soda and baking powder on a past post as a means of chemical leavening. Biscuits, cakes, pancakes and quick breads like zucchini bread typically use baking powder and/or baking soda (which produces carbon dioxide gas through a chemical reaction) to leaven. In bread, yeast is often used to provide the leavening and create wonderful complex flavors for breads. The yeast is a living microorganism that ferments sugar to produce carbon dioxide and therefore leaven the bread. This biological process takes more time and is referred to as proofing or rising prior to going into the oven. The temperature and the humidity are two important factors that can affect the fermentation rate of the yeast and therefore how long it takes the bread to rise or proof.

So what did we taste this week and was it a quick bread or a yeast bread?

1. Avoca Brown Bread made by Helena

This hearty bread is a quick bread that uses baking powder and baking soda. Since it doesn’t use yeast, it is very quick and easy to make. Helena says it takes just 15 minutes to put together before baking.

2. No-Knead Bread made by me, Lauren

We have a whole blog post on this bread including the step-by-step here. This famous recipe uses 4 ingredients, including yeast, and is easy enough for a first time bread baker. It has very little steps but a very long fermentation time of 12 to 18 hours. This allows the yeast to ferment and develop the wonderful flavor. The high moisture dough and long rising time allows the gluten proteins to form a matrix without really kneading. By cooking the high moisture dough in a sealed pot, this simulates the professional steam injected ovens that make wonderful crusty bread. The steam bake is what allows the beautiful crust to form. The results are phenomenal.


3. Cinnamon rolls made by Adam.

These homemade sweet rolls had a wonderful texture and flavor. These are also yeast raised. Adam served them with frosting but they were eaten before I could take a photo! You may have had cinnamon rolls in a can from the supermarket. Those cinnamon rolls don't use yeast but instead use a baking powder/ soda to leaven. You will notice a different flavor and texture than the yeast raised ones.

4. French-Style Bread by Adam

Adam also shared two loaves of lovely white bread- great alone or with butter and jam or for a sandwich. These are also yeast raised loaves.

5. German buttermilk bread by Thomas

These two versions of dense and hearty bread are great with butter and a bit of salt. Their texture was somewhat similar to Helena's avoca bread but again this was a yeast raised bread.

6. Challah bread made by Rachel

This traditional Jewish braided loaf of bread was almost too beautiful to eat! This was a beautiful yeast raised bread that is plaited into the traditional braid- just gorgeous!

So as you can see, it was a bountiful feast of bread. I have the recipe for each loaf. Please comment or email us if you would like us to send it to you!

One Word Wednesday: Glassy

Lauren's friend brought these candies back from the Papabubble location in Seoul, Korea. I have to say I took much delight in these candies when I realized how they were made as I watched the video on YouTube. When I first bit through and saw that the lines continued throughout the product, I knew that they weren't printed and thought they must be co-extruded. However, upon watching video I was immediately taken back to Venice when I realized that these were made like the centuries old method of Murano Glass. The various colored sugar pieces are fused together first in a thick log, then in a near-melt condition it is stretched thin to form small pieces with fine detail. The word "glassy" has an additional and appropriate double meaning for food scientists: when an amorphous (i.e. non-crystalline), solid state of matter is physically hard they say it is in the glassy state. So, in this case the sugar in this candy would be termed to be in the glassy state. Oh yes, and they're delicious!

Halloween Lover's Cocktails

We love Halloween and we were looking for an appropriate cocktail for our party. Bargirl to the rescue! Bargirl is one of my oldest and dearest friends- since birth actually! Among many of her talents, she has some experience bartending and cocktail waitressing and she offered to spend a day of mixology with me. Here are two Halloween cocktails that we prototyped:

Cocktail #1: Black Lagoon Vodka (our favorite pictured above)

This was our favorite cocktail and the one we served at the party. It had wonderfully blended flavors of black licorice, rosemary and lemon with a spooky, murky appearance. The recipe is from this year's Martha Stewart Halloween Special Edition. It's a great limited edition issue with tons of ideas. I save it each year! She doesn't have a link to this recipe online, so I'll share it.

You will need:
anise seed
fresh rosemary
lemons - peel and juice
sugar
vodka
seltzer water
black food coloring

1. Make the ice cubes. You have to plan ahead and make the ice cubes first- preferably overnight. Bring 4 cups of water and 2 tablespoons of anise seed to a boil. Remove from heat and let cool for about 30 minutes.

Strain the seeds out using a sieve and...

then add a few drops of black food coloring until dark. Pour into ice trays and put into the freezer until frozen.

2. Make the lemon-rosemary simple syrup. Peel the two lemons with a vegetable peeler to avoid the bitter white pith.

Bring 2 cups of water, 2 cups of sugar, 2 sprigs of rosemary and lemon peels to a simmer, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Strain the syrup to remove the solids and place in the fridge to chill.

3. Now you are ready to make the cocktail! For each cocktail, combine 2 oz of vodka, 1 oz of the lemon-rosemary simple syrup, and 1 tsp of fresh lemon juice in a cocktail shaker and stir to combine.
Pour the mixture over two of the black ice cubes per glass and top with about a half cup of seltzer and a stick of black licorice for garnish! As the cube melts, the lagoon gets murkier!

Two tricks:
• Martha says you can make the vodka, simple syrup and lemon mix in advance and keep in the fridge for 3 hours.
• The non-alcoholic version of this is pretty good too. Just substitute seltzer for the vodka!


Cocktail #2: Berry Scary Martini

This recipe is available here online.

It uses black vodka- that's right, it's called Blavod and the black coloring supposedly comes from a Burmese tree.

This cocktail mixes vodka and cherry juice with fresh berries as a garnish. We thought the black vodka had more herbal notes and we didn't love it with the cherry juice as much as we hoped. But we did think a nice variation would use fresh pomegranate juice instead.

So, that's it for our spooky cocktails!

Halloween Party Recap: Cupcakes, Caramel Apples, Halloween Cocktails and Whisky

The pumpkin of pumpkins

We hope you had a Happy Halloween! We had a Halloween party with quite a few treats.

Fire and Ice

Justin and I dressed up as "Fire and Ice." I was the Snow Queen and Justin was Fire! The capes were handmade by my mom and my white prom dress was courtesy of the Goodwill, a real bargain at $8.00.

Here's the food recap:

Pumpkin cupcakes with brown sugar and cream cheese frosting

We made pumpkin cupcakes with brown sugar cream cheese icing. Click here for the cupcake recipe and substitute brown sugar for the powdered sugar in this recipe for the frosting. These are easy ones!

Spooky Bats

I made the bats and pumpkins using the Wilton melting chips and sprinkles.

Pumpkins

I drew the pattern myself and placed the wax paper over it. I then traced the pattern with the pastry bag and the melted coating and added sprinkles immediately before it set.

Caramel Apples with Homemade Caramel

I made caramel apples using this recipe from Martha. I confess that I had some trouble getting the caramel to stay on the apple. It slid down the apple. I took it to 245F as it suggested and I tried this twice with the same results. It tasted delicious though. I might try another recipe. Justin thought the fat to sugar ratio (butter + heavy cream : sugar) was possibly too high.

And for beverages...

Black Lagoon Vodka

This cocktail was made with anise seed, lemon-rosemary simple syrup and vodka by me and my good friend, Bargirl. It's worth a whole post which is coming tomorrow. It's delicious!

Breaking out the Single Malt Scotch

One of our guests had recently taken a trip to Scotland and toured distilleries on Islay and brought some whisky to share. Putting his selections together with a two from personal stash we had an impromptu Single Malt Scotch Whisky tasting! Five of the eight Islay distilleries were represented: Lagavulin, Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Caol Ila, and Bowmore.

Happy Halloween!