Is The Dessert Trolley A Health Hazard?

Dessert, pudding, sweet, afters – all very inadequate names for the glory that comes before the coffee and for some of us it is the very best part of the meal, the part worth waiting for, the reason we are there.  There are some for whom it is the only part worth having and in a restaurant their eyes constantly stray to where it sits in all its tempting lusciousness.

Cold puddings, hot puddings, fruit puddings, steamed pudding with treacle or jam, pecan pie, apple pie, sorbet, custard.  Desserts made from cream and meringue and chocolate, ice cream with hot fudge sauce, pineapple cheesecake and chocolate mousse – chocolate anything really.  Gateaux, profiteroles, trifle and soufflés; pancakes with every conceivable topping, hot chocolate cake, brownies.  Enough, enough. 

It's a funny thing but the chocolate desserts are usually the first to go – can't think why!

For others though, those fortunate or unfortunate depending on your point of view, to have been born without a sweet tooth, the wonders of the dessert trolley hold no appeal.  They can ignore it, treat it with disdain, never glance in its direction.  It has no power over them and they are strong.  They are also usually men.

Now this is not to say that men don't like pudding because they do of course, at least some of them do, but in my experience if anyone out of a group is going to opt for either cheese or nothing at all, it will generally be a man rather than a woman. 

Is the dessert trolley a health hazard?  Well, in some ways it probably is as puddings by their very nature tend to be sweet and sugar is without doubt one of the enemies of a healthy diet and a trim figure.   Pastries, pies and puddings contain fat and flour and they are not far behind sugar in being something to approach with care.   Also, by that stage of a meal we have probably had sufficient food so any extra is just that – extra.

But it is also life enhancing in so many other ways, the taste, the texture, the absolute chocolaty creaminess of it, and a little of that, in moderation, can't be all bad.

And to help you achieve it with minimum calories try using a milk frother for thick creamy froth - the effect without the guilt.  Chocolate optional.

How Much Do You Know About Cake?

Probably the most important ingredient for making any kind of cake is the flour and while most people rely on just one, self-raising flour, for most things, there are lots of others to choose from.  It might surprise you to know that there is a right kind of flour for everything and that the choice of which to use for what largely depends on the amount of gluten the flour contains.

Gluten is the substance which makes all the difference to the finished result of your baking.  Flour roughly divides into two types, high gluten, which is strong flour and low gluten, which is soft flour.  High gluten strong flour is usually known as bread flour and is used for most yeast based dough where high-raising, water absorbing qualities are needed.

For cake making soft, low gluten, flour works best as such a high rise is not needed and it gives a closer, finer texture to the finished product.  Biscuits and shortbread need even less rise and that is why corn flour or rice flour is often added to the ordinary flour.

Most people who are making a cake for their family will probably just use self-raising flour from a packet they have bought during the weekly household shop and this will normally produce a perfectly satisfactory result.  If, however, you get really into baking you will discover that there is lots and lots to learn about flour, the various types, which sort works best for which recipes, the different combinations, when to add a raising agent – I could go on and on – and there are many excellent books on the subject.

The other ingredients necessary for making cake are a fat of some sort, butter, margarine, lard or oil, eggs and probably the most important, especially for sponge cakes, sugar. 

Caster sugar is the most commonly used but each of the other sorts of sugar, granulated, icing and the brown sugar family, can be used to good effect in the right recipe.  Syrup, treacle and honey all have their place, as do spices, essences, fruit, nuts and peel.

A word of warning – unlike quite a lot of the culinary arts cake making is fairly precise and weights and measurements should be taken reasonably seriously, as should oven temperatures and cooking times.

It's fun to bake and it is quite easy for it to become a serious pastime.  Homemade cake tastes just wonderful and the smell of something baking is one of the most evocative – right up there with bacon, coffee, frying onions and toast!

It's Easy To Make Cola – Isn't It?

Well, actually no, it is not that easy to make at home although it is apparently possible, with quite a lot of trouble, to make something that tastes very similar.  But why would you want to bother to do all that work when you can buy such great cola in the shops? 

The answer is that you probably would rather leave cola to the experts and concentrate on making delicious citrus fruit based drinks in your own kitchen, which taste just as delicious, if completely different, and which are much easier to make.  They also will have the great advantage of being pure and free from additives, with as much or as little sugar as suits your palate.

I'm talking about lemonade, lemon squash, orange and grapefruit squash, lemon or grapefruit barley water, elderflower cordial and a host of other drinks that your Grandma might have made but which have gone out of fashion as a home produced delicacy.  Of course you can buy some of these ready bottled but as with most things, nothing quite beats the taste of something you have made at home.

If you live in the country and grow your own fruit or if you have access to a market, you can take advantage of the seasonal glut of fruit and of the free food from the hedgerows, elderflower for example.  But everything you need for most standard citrus based drinks is easily obtainable in most supermarkets.

Fresh old fashioned still lemonade is one of the easiest of these to make and it is one of the most refreshing things you can drink on a hot summer day.  Best of all as it's only made with lemons, sugar and water you will already have everything you need.

Wash and thinly peel three lemons – a potato peeler will do the job perfectly well – and put the rind into a large jug with six ounces of sugar.  Pour on about a pint and a half of boiling water and cover the jug and leave it to cool, stirring occasionally.  When it is cold squeeze the lemons and add the juice to the jug, strain the lemonade and serve chilled.