Reduced Sugar Lactation Cookies, Attempt Two: Freeze-dried strawberries

 

Disclaimer: I know nothing about nutrition / diabetes. I just googled "how to reduce sugar in cookies" and made this up.

Makes 18-20 cookies

Ingredients

Dry mixture

105g rolled oats

70g choc chips

65g oat flour

35g non-bitter brewers yeast [1]

30g flaxseed meal

10g malt extract powder (optional) [2]

4g baking soda

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

100g freeze-dried strawberries, blended into a fine powder [3, can be part of dry mixture or added later, see notes]

"Wet" mixture

100g banana, mashed

35g barley malt syrup

50g canola oil

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon salt

Method

1. Mix together dry mixture in a large bowl to evenly distribute ingredients. Add strawberry powder and mix it in now if you want a subtler strawberry flavour.

2. Mix together "wet" mixture in another bowl (can be smaller than the first bowl).

3. Add mixed "wet" mixture into bowl with dry mixture and mix until combined. Add strawberry powder now if you want a stronger strawberry flavour. Chill in fridge for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 180C (350F). Once dough is chilled, roll into balls (roughly golf ball sized, maybe 1.5 tablespoons each).

4. Place balls on a tray and press on them to flatten until they're about one third of the size of the ball (they don't spread very much in the oven). Bake for 10 minutes, rotating the tray halfway if your oven doesn't heat evenly. Cool on a cooling rack.

These last a week baked, but go soft after cooling. They can be frozen and thawed. Dough lasts up to  days in the fridge.

Notes

[1] According to comments from the recipe this was adapted from, it's important to get non-bitter brewers yeast. Most of the flavourful ingredients in the recipe are to mask the gross taste of the brewers yeast.

[2] I think the malt extract adds a bit of nice flavour to the cookie, but it is more sugar, and may be hard to find (I got mine from a store selling stuff to brew beer), so it's fine to leave it out.

[3] Adding the blended strawberries with the dry mixture results in the pink cookies in the photo above. The strawberry flavour is more subtle. If you want a stronger strawberry flavour, mix in the strawberry after mixing the wet and dry mixtures together. Doing it this way results in little pockets of strawberry, like a strawberry version of choc-chip cookies, which gives it more of a strawberry punch. They look like the ones in the first picture, above. 

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The story behind the recipe:

I offered to make lactation cookies for a pregnant friend, as this recipe came up in my RSS feed and I had it bookmarked: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2019/09/lactation-cookie-recipe.html. Said friend accepted my offer, but revealed that she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes last year (which I didn't know, as COVID-19 lockdown has meant we haven't seen each other in a long time. Not that it would have stopped me from offering). Never having made cookies for a diabetic before, I tried to adapt the original recipe and try to cut down on the sugar. 

I halved the original recipe to give myself more attempts at it. This is another one of the attempts that tasted good enough for me to want to eat more than one. As I mentioned in the disclaimer above, I don't know if they are suitable for diabetics. My friend has tried a cookie and she seems OK. Baby seems OK, too.

Reduced Sugar Lactation Cookies, Attempt One: 40% Sugar

 

Disclaimer: I know nothing about nutrition / diabetes. I just googled "how to reduce sugar in cookies" and made this up.

Makes 18-20 cookies

Ingredients

Dry mixture

105g rolled oats

70g choc chips

65g oat flour

35g non-bitter brewers yeast [1]

30g flaxseed meal

10g malt extract powder (optional) [2]

4g baking soda

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

"Wet" mixture

100g banana, mashed

35g barley malt syrup

50g canola oil

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon salt

40g brown sugar

40g white sugar

Method

1. Mix together dry mixture in a large bowl to evenly distribute ingredients

2. Mix together "wet" mixture in another bowl (can be smaller than the first bowl).

3. Add mixed "wet" mixture into bowl with dry mixture and mix until combined. Chill in fridge for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 180C (350F).Once dough is chilled, roll into balls (roughly golf ball sized, maybe 1.5 tablespoons each).

4. Place balls on a tray and gently press on them to flatten slightly (they will spread a little in the oven). Bake for 10 minutes, rotating the tray halfway if your oven doesn't heat evenly. Cool on a cooling rack.

These last a week baked, but go soft after a day. They can be frozen and thawed, but again, they'll be soft.

Notes

[1] According to comments from the recipe this was adapted from, it's important to get non-bitter brewers yeast. Most of the flavourful ingredients in the recipe are to mask the gross taste of the brewers yeast.

[2] I think the malt extract adds a bit of nice flavour to the cookie, but it is more sugar, and may be hard to find (I got mine from a store selling stuff to brew beer), so it's fine to leave it out.

--------------------

The story behind the recipe:

I offered to make lactation cookies for a pregnant friend, as this recipe came up in my RSS feed and I had it bookmarked: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2019/09/lactation-cookie-recipe.html. Said friend accepted my offer, but revealed that she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes last year (which I didn't know, as COVID-19 lockdown has meant we haven't seen each other in a long time. Not that it would have stopped me from offering). Never having made cookies for a diabetic before, I tried to adapt the original recipe and try to cut down on the sugar. 

I halved the original recipe to give myself more attempts at it. This is one of the attempts that tasted good enough for me to want to eat more than one. As I mentioned in the disclaimer above, I don't know if they are suitable for diabetics. My friend has tried a cookie and she seems OK. Baby seems OK, too.

Vegan vs Non-Vegan: Choc-Chip Cookie

The latest in my battle with Jal about whether vegan food is disgusting or not. We realised we were both trying to argue different points: I wanted to prove that vegan food can be as good, if not better, than non-vegan food, and he believes that adding "vegan" to anything is just a sign to say it's going to be horrible.

This experiment pits the Serious Eats Choc Chip Cookie recipe against America's Test Kitchen's Vegan Choc Chip Cookie recipe. A quick comparison of the ingredients:

Non-vegan:

• butter
• ice
• flour
• baking soda
• salt
• white sugar
• brown sugar
• eggs
• vanilla extract
• choc chips

Vegan:

• flour
• baking powder
• baking soda
• salt
• light brown sugar
• coconut oil
• water
• almond butter
• vanilla extract
• choc-chips

Unfortunately, the addition of the almond butter (I couldn't find that, but did find almond spread at our local supermarket) meant that the cookie was not redbeanpork-friendly.

Anyway, I did the usual experiment set-up, and here are the results:

Non-vegan: 3

Vegan: 10

Both: 1

In a surprising sweep, the vegan cookies won by a large margin. I was surprised because I think the Serious Eats choc-chip recipe is my current favourite, and I'm always on the look-out for better choc-chip cookies. It's one of the few foods that I will nearly always try even if it contains dairy / egg (the only thing that would stop me was if it had peanuts).

I proudly showed the results to Jal who said that the addition of almonds changed the flavour of the cookie, and it's likely that people just liked the taste of almonds, and that is what made them better. He said I had to make one without the use of almonds. I asked if this was going to turn into a no true scotsman fallacy eventually, but in hindsight, I don't think that's right. Maybe moving goalposts, but maybe that's not right either. 

He conceded the point that at least for choc-chip cookies, a vegan version could pass, but said that in order for him to accept my vegan choc-chip cookie, I had to make a nut-free version, as nuts are a common allergy. It is possible that the results could be biased by people who have nut allergies not being able to take part.

Still, my vegan co-worker was pretty happy with the cookie, and for the first time since I met him, he sent me a message over IM with rainbow emoji thanking me for the cookie.

In other cookie-baking news, we had another housewarming and Captain challenged me to another cookie bake-off. I beat him with the same vegan cookies, so the next challenge is Singapore noodles. Eggy also challenged me to make a decent sugar-free cookie. And redbeanpork challenged me to make a decent vegan gay time ice-cream. So many challenges, so little time!

How Now Brownie Cow

It all started with IP. The conversation turned to vegan food, and as usually happens, someone will eventually say that vegan food is a waste of calories and inferior to non-vegan food. I think the vegan brownies I make aren't that bad, and usually have people going for seconds, or thirds, so I thought maybe I could complete against a non-vegan brownie.

I've never made non-vegan brownies before, and my first attempt was a disaster (tried to do a full batch in a smaller baking tin, and the outside burned before the inside was cooked (even considering brownies are meant to be undercooked in the middle). I made a half-batch and it turned out much better.

Vegan brownie recipe: http://www.veganbaking.net/recipes/brownies-and-bars/brownies/ultimate-brownies
Non-vegan brownie recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2018/02/bravetart-glossy-fudge-brownies.html

Anyway, the usual set-up, plate A was the vegan one, and plate B was the non-vegan one. I also put one each on IP's desk to make sure he'd get his own sample, as well as Jal, because he's my new experiment design consultant, and I wanted to know what he thought.

I didn't want to bias the results by asking people to guess which one was the vegan one, and I thought it wouldn't matter whether they knew or not (is that unethical?) as long as they were judging based on taste. But I asked Jal and IP to guess which was the vegan one. Jal picked B almost right away, saying that he figured the better tasting one would be the non-vegan one. IP said he had an idea, but wanted to know what the ingredients were for each before guessing (as in, he wanted me to tell him the ingredients of the vegan and non-vegan brownies, without telling him which is which). He picked B as well.

As for the taste test part, B won quite convincingly.

9 votes for A
23 votes for B
1 vote for both

One person even wrote this on their vote:

It looks like the people have spoken: vegan isn't as good as non-vegan. Or maybe I have to continue my search for a vegan brownie recipe.

I wish I had put more thought into trying to get a scale out of the experiment, rather than a binary A vs B result, so I could tell just how bad the vegan brownie was compared to the non-vegan one. I found out who wrote the vote above, and he said that B was easily superior to A, so I'm guessing they were quite far apart in quality levels.

As I found with my number guessing experiment, people don't follow complex instructions, so making the set-up too complicated results in a poor response rate (and the food being eaten for nothing!).

What I also find interesting with these experiments is that the food is usually all gone by lunchtime. I put out 50 brownie pieces, but only ended up getting 33 votes. Where did 17 of the votes go?

Vanilla Custard Ice-Cream

I tried using the vanilla custard from Donna Hay's vanilla slice recipe (minus the cornflour and water) to see if it can be turned into ice-cream. And the answer is... no. I think it needs a bit more sugar so it isn't as hard when it's frozen. I also changed it a bit, because cream and milk comes in 200ml cartons. Maybe that's why I needed more sugar.

Ingredients
400ml milk
400ml single cream
60g unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
150g caster sugar
6 egg yolks

Method
Heat milk, cream, butter, vanilla and sugar until just boiled. Whisk mixture into egg yolks. Allow to cool for at least 4 hours in the fridge, but make sure to keep whisking every now and again so the butter doesn't settle on top. Churn in ice-cream machine.

The result...?

It's just vanilla ice cream....

But I made it because I know MrFodder loves custard. And ice-cream has origins in custard, so I thought it would be nice to make this as an accompaniment for Christmas pudding. I never knew what the difference between vanilla custard and vanilla ice-cream was, and now I know: vanilla ice-cream has been churned and frozen.

You're welcome, everyone.

Michael gave me the recipe for the custard he made for his tarte aux pommes, so I'll try that as an ice-cream flavour, as I think it'd go really well with apple-pie. Mmmm...

Anyway, the Christmas pudding had unexpected alcohol (cider and brandy), and I'm full of turkey, pork, duck and ham, so that'll be all for today's post. I made it past halfway to 500...

Tracking Cookies

'Twas the night before the night before the night before Christmas, and all through the home,
There was lots of stirring, 'til well after gloam.
The eggs were beaten, to fill them with air,
In the hopes that my presents, show that I care.

Every few years, I get a bout of insanity, and decide to bake something as that year's Christmas present. Since I have a fairly large extended family, if we had to buy a significant (i.e. $20+) Christmas present for every single family member, we'd all go broke, and fill our houses with junk while we're at it. Instead, we've all agreed that we'll just get each other something small, and rather than having to personalise each gift, it's acceptable to get everyone the same gift.

Before I was married, I still feel under the umbrella of my parents, so I was able to piggyback off their gifts. Now that MrFodder and I are our own independent "unit", we are now part of the gift-giving tradition. In 2013, I decided to bake cookies (milo, mars bar and sablé).

Hundreds of cookies later, I said to myself, "I'm never doing this again." To the extent that I bought pre-gift wrapped presents last year, which is huge for me, because I find it ridiculous to pay someone else to do something I can easily do myself. And we have kilometres of Christmas wrapping paper from Costco that we need to get through...

Three years later, I seem to have completely forgotten that lesson, because I feel compelled to repeat that mistake. And the family has grown.

Current status is 6 batches in, and I feel like there's no end in sight.

At least this year, I've streamlined the process, having made all the dough the night before, so it's just a matter of spooning it out and baking it. I've got a process where I'm pre-scooping the cookie dough into balls, putting them into another container (so it has time to cool down again before baking), and rotating through the different batches so none of them spend too long out of the fridge at once (again, to keep it all cold).

This means that I can write blog posts or play Stardew Valley while the cookies bake. Unlike what I did in 2013, where I was fumbling with timers, while trying to measure things, and having to stop mixing part-way to pull the cookies out of the oven.

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Post-baking addition:

Unfortunately, it all didn't go to plan, as I managed to factor in baking time correctly, even giving myself an extra two hours to account for longer bake time, but I didn't factor in the time it takes the cookies to cool, so I had a period where there wasn't enough space on the cooling racks and I had to wait a bit before I could keep baking. Still, my last couple of sheets of cookies were larger than normal, so you can tell I've lost interest and just want to get it over and done with as quickly as possible, but it has been pretty smooth this year. I even had enough time to have a shower before we needed to meet MrFodder's parents for Christmas Eve eve dinner!

Final count: 348 cookies.

I think the reason why I keep coming back to wanting to make something as a gift is because some of my extended family members do it, and I feel bad about my low-effort gifts in return. But right now, I'm back at that, "I'm never doing this again feeling". Will I ever learn?

Anyway, to all my wonderful readers who have stayed with me this far through the year, I wish you a safe and happy seasonal holiday of your choosing. Only a week left to go...!

They See Me Rollin'

D has been prodding me to try making sausage rolls for a while now, and I happened to watch a video from Chef John about making sausage rolls (text version can be found here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/260013/chef-johns-sausage-rolls/).

I think my version came out a bit too meaty - the_boss said it had the texture of meatloaf. I've never had a meatloaf before, but from what I hear, they're bad. The meat part did taste a bit tough, unlike what you'd expect from a sausage roll, which has nice flaky pastry and a soft bit of meat in the middle that you can bite through easily. Despite that, I think making your own meat filling was pretty fun, as you can add whatever spices you want, and even some vegetables (the_boss suggested adding some carrot and onion (it did have minced onion in it, but I guess it was too finely minced)). Mine were a bit dry (as the pastry took longer to cook than the meat), but it was nothing a bit of tomato sauce couldn't solve. Who wants sausage rolls without tomato sauce anyway?!

The reason why I made sausage rolls for D was because he had decided to donate blood. The last time I tried, I was rejected, so when he asked me if I would accompany him, I had to turn him down. I thought it was really great of him to do it, and his tips for pre-donation care included eating something savoury, so when he asked me to make some sausage rolls for him, I agreed.

Unfortunately, the time he got allocated was not long after lunch, and we talked about whether it would be a good idea to eat something so close to donation time (I assume the reason they suggest something savoury is to avoid spikes in blood sugar levels). I think he must have felt bad for asking me to make sausage rolls, so even though he was incredibly full, he tried one and said he liked it.

I wasn't very happy with my sausage rolls though, so I want to make more until I can get it right. I always thought sausage rolls were more flat, rather than round, like this:

(picture from Kidspot)

So I think I'll make them like that next time. Though it was nice having a higher meat:pastry ratio. Even though I love the taste of pastry, I love the taste of sausage more.

My love for sausage rolls first started with Junior, where Arnie's character gets so excited over seeing pigs in a blanket. I didn't know what they were, but the way he was so happy about them made me want them so badly (I'm a huge sucker for product placement). We don't seem to have pigs in a blanket in Australia, but someone told me that they're kinda like lap cheong bao, except with pastry instead of Chinese bao (and with a sausage that's different to Chinese sausage). I figured pastry + sausage = sausage roll, so I tried one and I haven't looked back. We always have sausage rolls and party pies at morning teas at work, and the sausage rolls are always the first to disappear (followed by the pies, and then the vegetarian things).

A told me not to watch how they're made, because he used to make some for his parents' bakery, and it was pretty gross. But I think Chef John's recipe is pretty good. It uses pork mince, garlic, onion and some herbs and spices. There was a lot of fat dripping from the tray while baking (which is probably why mine ended up so dry), but maybe if you used lean pork mince instead, it wouldn't be as bad.

I kinda want to try wrapping a bratwurst in bao now, just to see how it tastes. I mean, they're both delicious on their own, so they must be amazing combined, right?!

Pasta La Vista

For a long time, I used to get super excited when I saw handmade pasta on a menu because it was a sign that the restaurant was really fancy and the food was going to be good. Then MrFodder and I went to Florence and signed up for a pasta cooking class. Handmade pasta has never looked the same since - though I still find it delicious. I don't know how to make fancy shapes like penne, farfalle or anything like that. They only taught us how to make linguine, fettuccine, tagliatelle, pappardelle, lasagne and ravioli. They pretty much all involve rolling out a sheet of pasta dough, folding it, and cutting it to different widths (or in the case of lasagne, not cutting it at all).

If you want to impress someone, but you don't want to put in much effort, I think making your own pasta is the way to go. All you need is 1/2 cup of pasta flour ('00' flour, which you should be able to find at your local Coles / Woolworths, it's a very fine grain flour), 1 egg, a fork, some plastic wrap, and a rolling pin (and a knife if you are cutting it into strands). This is about 2 people's worth of pasta if you have decently chunky sauce.

Make a mound of flour, and while holding all the fingers together on one hand to make a point, press into the centre of the mound and swirl your hand in a small circle, slowly getting larger, in order to make a well in your flour. Crack the egg in the middle.

Using a fork, slowly beat the egg, gradually incorporating the flour from the wall.

Keep going with the fork until it starts to clump together and isn't as sticky. With one hand, scrape the dough from the fork, and slowly knead the dough until it comes together in a smooth ball (you may need a bit more flour if it's still sticky to touch. How much flour you end up using depends on the size of your egg, and the humidity of your kitchen.). Don't over-knead it, because you don't want the dough to become too springy, otherwise it'll be a pain in the ass to roll out!

Lightly coat the ball with flour, and tightly wrap with plastic wrap. Leave for 20 minutes so that the gluten can relax.

Roll out the dough into a flat sheet. If you're going to cut it, it's easier to cut if you fold it over itself a few times. That way you only need to make a small cut to get nice straight strands. If making ravioli, you can get special cutters, but you can just cut your pasta sheet into rectangles, add the filling and fold it over, using a fork to seal the edges.

To cook, just cook like regular pasta, though I've found it cooks a lot faster.

Obviously it'll be much prettier coming out of a pasta machine, but I like the misshapen look (it's the hipster way of saying, "I made this myself!"). I don't know how well this stores in the fridge uncooked, as the last time I did it, there were black spots in the dough the next day. Not sure if that was just something I kneaded into the dough, or if something bad was growing in it. Now I just cook it after making it, and since it's so simple to do, you can make it while the sauce is simmering!

Even though I know how easy it is to make, I still get impressed by handmade pasta. And as I mentioned in another post, I like how I can shape it however I want, which makes it easier to make a lasagna (the pre-made sheets never seem to fit my baking dishes perfectly).

Honey Ice-Cream

Ingredients
400ml soy milk
200g coconut cream
17g dextrose
100g honey (I used manuka)

Method
Mix all ingredients together over low heat. Leave in fridge to cool for at least 4 hours. Churn in ice-cream machine.

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The first time I made this, I followed Nick Palumbo's recipe from his book Gelato Messina, but I think the xanthan gum gave it a weird gummy texture, and the soy bean powder I used to replace the skim milk powder made the soy flavour too overwhelming (and gave it a weird spotted grey appearance). I decided I'd try cutting back on the ingredients, and the overall texture leans a bit on the icy side. I wanted to reduce the coconut cream : milk ratio to lessen the coconut flavour, but maybe going for a honey-coconut flavour would be better. It almost tastes like a frozen version of the honey-sweetened teas you can find in Japan.

If I were to do it again, I'd probably do a 50:50 ratio of milk to cream, but otherwise, the flavour is nice. Not too sweet.

The inspiration came from a gelato we had from Pretto Gelateria Arte Italiana in Milan (the bottom flavour). Even though it looks plain, it had a nice honey flavour to it, that wasn't too overwhelming. It was listed as a milk-honey flavour, which is something we hadn't seen before, and that's what led me to pick it.

The nice thing about using honey in ice-cream is that you don't have to add as much sugar, since honey is also a sweetener and can lower the freezing point of the ice-cream mix.

Speaking of ice-cream, redbeanpork, MrFodder and I got to try the watermelon ice-cream sandwich from Milkcow.

We weren't sure if the "seeds" were non-dairy chocolate, so only MrFodder tried them. The sorbet was nice, but it was far too much for one person to eat. We struggled to finish it between the three of us. The little plastic spoons weren't great for eating the actual watermelon either. And it was pretty messy to eat, so definitely not something you want to get take-away. But for $10, it's a novel dessert that was pretty tasty, so I think it was worth it.

Skipping Girl Take Away Burgers Shakes and Chips

A and I headed down to skipping girl take away (the title on the page is all in lower case, so I'm guessing that's how they like it written) in Abbotsford for lunch today.

It was likely named after the famous sign that was made for the famous Skipping Girl vinegar that used to be produced nearby. Unfortunately, the skipping rope used to light up and make it look like she was skipping, but it wasn't on today (and I'm not sure if it has been working, or maybe it's only on at night time).

If you look at the video on their website, I think heart attack is probably the first thing that springs to mind. Everything is fully loaded with fat, or sugar. But that wasn't even what caught my attention at this place. The part that made me excited was their giant shelf of hot sauces.

If you're getting take away, they provide little plastic containers for you to fill before you go, but if you're eating in, there are small glass cups to hold the sauce.

A and I decided to go with their regular beef burger (minus the cheese for me). Unfortunately, they have brioche buns, and I crossed the dairy line recently at Meat and Wine Co., but I didn't want to ruin the day, so I guess I'll live with the consequences for a little longer. At least the weather is a bit cooler now, so it's not as bad. To continue our search for the best potato cake, we also order a side of potato cakes, and A wanted to try their chicken nuggets.

The nuggets were nice, but they felt a bit more like a large piece of popcorn chicken than a chicken nugget. A had them with BBQ sauce, but I thought they were good on their own. The meat was really tender and juicy, and it was lightly seasoned with something.

Next up was the potato cake.

They make them in-house. The batter was nice, and it was nicely salted. I found the bits that were mostly batter a bit too oily for my liking, but when I got to a chunk that was filled with potato, oh my gosh. Unexpected heaven. The salty, crunchy batter, with the lovely fluffy potato. It was probably a lot nicer because it was surprisingly good compared to the rest of the potato cake. So far, Easey's has the best overall potato cake, but the fluffy part of the potato cake from skipping girl definitely win out. If only all of it could be that fluffy consistency, I'd rate it above Easey's. They're a bit smaller than your average potato cake, but you get 6 or 7 depending on the size of the ones that you get.

Oh, I should mention that because we arrived when they opened, 11:30am on Sunday, we were the only ones in the store, so we were able to ask them a lot of questions. We learned that their chips are triple cooked, and not frozen, and their home-made milkshake jars (because serving milkshakes in a cup is so old-school) are coated in chocolate and other lollies (which I didn't take a photo of, but it definitely looked like a sugar-fiend's dream).

Next up was the chips, but they were basically a vessel for the hot sauce / spices. The chips were lightly salted on their own, and had a slight taste of canola oil(?).

I was pretty hesitant about the spices. The last time I tried something spicy just for the challenge of it was Crazy Wings, and my sense of taste has never been the same since. I think I may have permanently killed off some taste buds, and since food is one of my favourite things in the world, it's like chopping off the fingers of a concert pianist.

First up was the "Slap ya mama" seasoning.

It had a slight bit of spice, but nothing powerful.

Then we tried the Old Bay Seasoning, which I don't think is meant to be for chips, and it tasted more herb-y to me than spicy.

The last of the seasonings we found was called Spontaneous Combustion.

A was a bit too liberal with this, and put on a lot more than he wanted.

This one definitely had a bit of a kick after a few seconds, but wasn't that high on the spice-meter. A did pretty well, he hadn't even broken out in a sweat yet.

We moved on to some of the sauces. A had already cracked open some of the Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce for the nuggets, and I tried some on the chips. It is definitely sweet!

I couldn't read what this bottle said "o-something-mi sauce", but we tried it. It seemed like the sauce they put on katsu. Not spicy at all.

On to the spicy sauces next! We tried Bone Doctors' Brazen Heat first, just because we both thought the picture on the bottle was hilarious.

Slightly spicy, but just barely. It tasted like the BBQ sauce you can get at McDonald's / Red Rooster.

A suggested we try different sauces from around the world, so next up was Australia, with the Byron Bay Chilli Co's Heavenly Habanero chilli sauce.

Extra hot seems like a mislabel, it wasn't hot - though at this point, it was the spiciest of the sauces we had so far (but less spicy than the spontaneous combustion seasoning).

Next stop was the Mexican La Costeña red jalapeño sauce.

Definitely had some heat, but not that strong. A was being a really good sport, trying out all the sauces even though he starts sweating when he orders the mild sauce at Nando's. I think he did well.

After that, it was Jamaica, with the Walkerswood Plenty Hot Jamaican Fire Stick Pepper Sauce.

I wasn't really sure what I was so worried about, none of these sauces came close to Crazy Wings.

We eventually tried what looked like some of their hotter sauces, going for Crowley's Hot Sauce Cajed Heat and Seeded Lava.

I actually liked the Cajed Heat sauce, it was a spicy version of the Brazen Heat one we had earlier. The Seeded Lava wasn't that strong.

I forgot to mention this, but at the Meat and Wine Co dinner, redbeanpork told us about how he ate a carolina reaper with Voltzy. A whole ghost pepper, raw. He said it was painful in his mouth for about 5 minutes, then he could feel it eating through the lining of his stomach, and that was the worst pain. Then there's the morning after....

Well, at skipping girl, they have another Crowley sauce behind the counter called the "Hallucinator".

One of the guys said he'd dip a toothpick in the jar and let me taste it. He dipped just the tip (about 3mm) in. For reference, the carolina reaper that redbeanpork ate currently holds the Guinness world record for the hottest chilli (though the dragon's breath chilli claims to have scored higher and is awaiting confirmation for whether it is decided to be the new hottest). The Trinidad scorpion, which features in the Hallucinator, was the chilli that the carolina reaper knocked off the leaderboard. So it's pretty high up there.

I put the toothpick in my mouth and thought, pfft, this is nothing. Then this huge ball of fire exploded in my mouth. A found a website listing a bunch of warnings for this sauce:

 !!! PLEASE READ BEFORE PURCHASING THIS PRODUCT !!!
This contains capsaicin and is an irritant. Use with caution.
Do not ingest this without adding it to another product.
It contains 20% extracts and these are listed as an irritant to the human body. 

If you do choose to consume this directly, be aware of the following reactions (not limited to):

• Increased heart rate
• Increased blood flow to extremities and around the body
• Possible blurred vision
• Possible numbness to extremities, face, arms, hands
• Possible pain within the ear canal / Eustachian tube
• Ringing in the ears
• Mucous membrane reaction resulting in uncontrollable salivation
• Uncontrollable and involuntary tear production
• A pain level that you may never have experienced before
• A feeling of a "natural high" that may come with the release of pain killing endorphins

Well..... I didn't know that before I tried it. I sat down and shoved a potato cake in my mouth to try and numb the burning. It didn't help. Even though I knew drinking water was a bad idea, I did it anyway, because the brief relief from having the water wash over my tongue was worth the pain of feeling like I was drinking lava. There were tears coming out of my eyes, my vision was starting to blur. Breathing was painful, because every breath of air was stoking the fire.

I think the guy took pity on me, because he said, "Nooo, don't drink water, it's the worst thing you can do! You're supposed to drink milk!" When I ordered and said I didn't want cheese on my burger, he asked if it was an allergy, and I said yes. I reminded him that milk wasn't really an option. He kindly poured me a glass of soy milk instead.

If I thought love was the feeling of seeing the cheung fun trolley at yum cha, I think true love is the feeling of seeing someone offer you a glass of soy milk while your mouth is on fire. I knew from the crazy wings experience that soy milk really doesn't help with the burning sensation, I think because it lacks the fat that regular cow's milk has. But I think another part of my brain was trying to suppress the logical side of my brain, in order to let the placebo effect take place. It must have worked, because drinking that milk felt amazing.

Then the stomach burn started, and now I have a better idea of why redbeanpork said that if he tried the carolina reaper again, he'd drink some milk beforehand to line his stomach.

I got so caught up in the memory of the chilli sauce that I nearly forgot to report on the burger.

To be honest, I thought the burger was the weakest part of today's lunch. I'm not a huge fan of rare / medium meat, but I didn't even notice that over the brioche bun. Don't get me wrong, the brioche was amazing, you could really taste the buttery goodness. But personally, I found it too overwhelming. I think the bun shouldn't detract from the overall flavour of the burger. I saw a box saying Phillippa's, which I'm guessing is where they get their buns from (which are branded with the skipping girl logo on top - something I thought was really cool). I don't doubt that they're an amazing bakery (though I've never been, but they're incredibly popular around Melbourne), but to me, brioche should be a light bread. This one felt very heavy, like there was far too much flour in the dough. Just my personal preference.

I have to say, the staff were amazingly friendly. They gave us an extra metal box thingy to make it easier for us to try the difference sauces and seasonings. They were really helpful in suggesting things. I really want to go back and try their wings, since the chicken nuggets were so delicious.

I'm also super sad that it wasn't until after the hallucinator that I noticed their salt shelf.

With what looks like a bunch of different salts for their chips. There's an Asian curry salt at the back, that I really want to try, and I love chicken salt. Even though the burgers weren't my cup of tea, I'd definitely go back for the chips and to try the wings. No more hallucinator though, I didn't even get the endorphin rush. I came home and had some lactose-free cookies and cream ice-cream, and I couldn't even taste it.

A ordered their Snickers milkshake (which wasn't on the menu, but it was suggested to him), and he said it was incredible. He's pretty keen to go back, too.

Un Petit Pain

Today I hit a milestone in my new team - 1 year since I joined! To celebrate, I made little pain au chocolat. The joke being that my team suffered through the pain of having me on their team. Yeah.... this is why puns are bad. I decided to make mini ones because Lenny seemed really reluctant to eat one, saying they're not very healthy, so I figured people wouldn't feel as bad if they were small.

I made enough to share with the whole team, though some didn't have egg wash because there are some no-egg vegetarians on my team. And some where plain croissants which I made out of the uneven bits of dough on the side. I have discovered that I find tiny pastries incredibly cute.

I left one on Emily's desk as she's amazing, and she asked if this was a continuation of the mo-cake. I didn't realise that the crescent-shaped croissants look like moustaches!

Speaking of moustaches, I had another awkward encounter with NiceMoustacheGuy again today. Ever since the compliment, all of our encounters have been incredibly awkward. Whenever we end up in the kitchen at the same time, I become incredibly engrossed in my mug (which was a gift from Commissioner Gordon, and has my name on it!), or make desperate conversation with whoever else is in the kitchen at the time. On the occasions where we have to talk to each other for work reasons, I take the first parachute out of the conversation that I can find. I complimented a friend's beard, and I think he must have thought I was talking to him because he turned around as well. Both men were looking at me wondering which one of them I was talking to, and they both have nice beards. I just mumbled something, took my empty mug and bailed. Urgh.

After I sent out the email about the pains au chocolat, and thanked everyone on the team for being so kind and welcoming, we had the following conversation:

NMG: Thanks for the croissant.
Me: You're welcome.

I must have given him a strange look, as I noticed he hadn't eaten any (not that I was watching him, only one person had taken one at that point, and it wasn't him), as he followed with:

NMG: I haven't had one yet. But I will. So thanks in advance.

I didn't really know what to say to that, so I just repeated, "You're welcome." Then we stared at each other awkwardly for a few moments, until I turned around and went back to debugging.

A part of me feels like the compliment was a mistake. I don't know whether or not the entire thing is just in my head, or maybe our conversations have always been this awkward and I just never thought about it, but I feel really nervous talking to him now. I needed his help recently for something I was working on, as he is the expert, and the whole thing felt normal, but I was on edge. It's just whenever we end up talking, and there isn't a specific goal to achieve, it feels like we're both trying to talk to each other, but neither of us can work out what to say. Which means my brain was running at full speed trying to come up with something to fill the silence.

There are too many other problems for me to solve at the moment, so this one is going on the back-burner. I just wish I wasn't so awkward with conversations. Now he probably thinks I like his moustache and his beard.

Yummy Yum Cha

The thing I like most about going to yum cha is cheung fun (rice noodle rolls).

In fact, I'm sure that for a long time, I confused the feeling of seeing the cart with the silver lids with the feeling of true love.

The second thing I like most about yum cha is that there isn't as much pressure to order something great, because you get to sample many dishes. For those who haven't had the pleasure, yum cha is normally around brunch / lunch (usually sessions are at 11 / 12:30 / 1:30), and you get to sit at a table while people wheel carts of food around for you to order from.

Each of the dishes (dim sum - not to be confused with dim sim!) are quite small, roughly dumpling-sized (and many of the dishes are dumplings), and the idea is that you order many dishes and share them. If you have a large enough table, you will usually get a lazy susan (the round spinny thing in the middle), to make it easier to pass dishes around. As you order, the staff keep track by circling a sheet of paper, with each dish being in a certain category depending on how much it costs.

At the end, they add up all the circles and you get your bill. Quite cleverly, they don't list how much each dish costs, so you don't really think about how much you're really spending. Also, as is tradition when dining out with family, there's usually a fight to be the one who gets to pay the bill. Sometimes this happens with friends, but in my experience, the trend is just to split the bill evenly (with people paying for their own drinks).

Speaking of drinks, as yum cha literally means "drink tea", you usually get tea, and there will be a flat charge per person for the tea, which gets refilled by the waiters. To indicate that your teapot needs refilling, you normally turn the lid of the teapot on its side or upside down. If there are lots of teapots, there will usually be one teapot that just has hot water in it, so you can water down the tea if you think it's too strong.

The tables are round, with the person / people who will be ordering food seated closest to where the carts are going to be. Though I have noticed more and more English-speaking staff, as a general rule, most of the waiters will speak broken English at best, usually being fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin. There are waiters who don't push carts around, and instead carry trays to collect empty dishes. They will also usually take special orders to the kitchen, in case you missed out on something, or there is something you want that is less popular, so they don't bother bringing it out on the carts and only make it to-order.

I've never had it myself, but one of the things that you can get at yum cha that you normally can't get anywhere else is chicken feet (top left - sorry for the grainy photo, it accidentally got deleted, and this was the recovered version).

There isn't that much meat, as you would expect, as chicken feet aren't all that meaty, and there are a lot of bones. But some people seem to love it. It's a pretty divisive thing - and there's almost always one left, with the table split between those who have eaten one egging on those who haven't had one to try it, and those who haven't had one trying there best to convince those who do like them to eat the last one.

I still haven't worked out what the ideal group size for yum cha is. Most of the dishes come with three serves, but some are only two. So you would think six is best, but in my experience, not everyone tends to eat everything, so you always end up with a dish that has one thing left, going around and around and around, until someone takes pity on it and eats it. Two people definitely isn't enough, as you end up filling up too early and not getting the variety of dishes that makes yum cha fun.

Speaking of filling up, another yum cha tradition is not to eat breakfast beforehand, something else which is divisive. Some people are in the "if you don't eat breakfast, your stomach will shrink" camp, and some people are in the "if you don't eat breakfast, you save space for more food" camp. Personally, I'm in the latter, but I love my breakfast, so I usually eat breakfast before yum cha.

And on the topic of filling up, they usually serve bao (buns), and I've noticed (and this is going to be racist) that when I eat with Asian people, they tend to avoid bao, as it takes up more space. When I eat with non-Asian people, they love going for bao. Here's the racist part, I'm trying to figure out why, and a simple explanation is that they know they can get it elsewhere, so they prefer to eat the things that are yum cha-only things (like chicken feet). The racist explanation is that it's worse value for money. If the bill is split evenly amongst everyone, and eating a bao takes the space of three other foods, then you're getting less food per dollar. And Asians are supposedly notorious for being stingy.

Except, as I mentioned earlier, there's usually a fight to pay the bill - so how can you want to pay the bill, and be stingy at the same time? Well, part of the mentality of wanting to pay the bill is that you want to show that you are doing well in your life, but you also want to take care of your own. It's MrFodder who explained this to me: the stingy Chinese stereotype has a lot of basis in the fact that there's a strong in-group / out-group mindset in China. Since there's a huge problem with overpopulation, and limited resources, people will fight for what they can get, and will usually do whatever they can to get stuff for themselves, their family and their friends. This can look like selfishness, as they will take far more than they need, but that's because they plan to distribute it to others. And they'd rather the stuff went to their family and friends, and not some stranger's family and friends.

It's probably a hard mindset to break out if, even when you're in a country like Australia where it's not as much of an issue. In general, I don't think Chinese people purposely go out of their way to be stingy or rude, some of it is just a cultural misunderstanding. Though there are always exceptions...

Anyway, yum cha is great.