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It seems almost churlish to criticise Albert Adria's Natura. It's filled with beautiful and breathtaking pictures, huge double spreads showing off the cutting edge of dessert design. Oodles of new techniques and old ones polished up to insane new levels (some of the things they do with gelatin here are just mind-boggling). Even though most of the book is beyond me, it's given me lots of new ideas already, and I've only had it two days.

There is, however, a slight annoyance. While the book is gorgeous, it comes at the expense of practicality. None of the desserts featured in the book have a recipe accompanying them on the page; instead there's a CD with a Flash application which contains the details (along with swoosh-y animations). You can print individual recipes out, but the program seems to use bitmapped fonts, resulting in a rather 1990s ink-jet feeling to the printout. Especially annoying when you're printing on a colour laser.

I can understand that the book is supposed to be a showcase of the desserts themselves and letting them stand alone, but the Alinea book is no less beautiful whilst still containing exhaustive directions alongside their photography. There's so little information in Natura itself (aside from a scant twenty pages in the back about a few techniques) that the book is almost secondary to the CD. Which is a little disappointing considering that it's one of the most expensive books I've ever bought.

Having said all that, it's not going anywhere. I just wish the physical side of it was more useful than the virtual one.

This weekend's FoodScience! entry has very little food science in it, I'm afraid. But before you grab the pitchforks, it's a deconstruction of a popular dish! Surely that can save me, right? Right?

So, I've been thinking for a while about how to put a twist on nachos. My first thought was to invert it somehow; a set of cheese and tomato crisps covered with a nacho purée, for example. But it seemed a bit too much effort for something that would end up tasting vastly inferior to real nachos. Eventually, I hit on the idea of changing the flavour aspect of nachos: switching them from savoury to sweet. A fruit salsa on top of tortilla chips, perhaps. But there was something lacking. The chips would still be too savoury for my tastes.

(I think it's fair to say I have a sweet tooth. I have appalled friends by how much sugar I can eat in a single setting)

Yesterday, I had a breakthrough; I got a copy of Elizabeth Falkner's Demolition Desserts in the post. After I managed to prise it from my sister's clutches (a somewhat difficult task, even though she only has the use of one hand. The love of chocolate is strong in her), I had a brief flick-through. It's got some spectacular recipes, but what caught my eye was "Suddenly Last Summer", which is constructed from peaches sautéed in wine and honey, served on a bed of olive oil filo crisps.

Aha!

I scampered off to Tesco in order to get some fruit. It was time for sweet nachos.

The olive oil filo crisps are actually a minimal version of baklava. Which means I did two recipes on my to-do list at the same time. Hurrah! Anyway, the ingredients:

Tortilla Crisps

• 8 sheets of filo pastry
• 1 pack of pistachio nuts (say around a cup or so)
• 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons demerara sugar

Oven to 180°C! Shell the pistachio nuts and grind them down. They deserve it. Stir the sugar, cinnamon, and salt intto the ground nuts, and give the mixture another pulse or two in the food processor. Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper and brush with olive oil. Put a sheet of filo pastry on top of the paper, brush that with more olive oil, and then sprinkle some of the nut mixture over the top (you'll need sixteen sprinkles, so divide accordingly!). Put another sheet of pastry on top and repeat the process. Then again. And one more time. So that's four sheets of filo pastry, and the top should have a sprinkling of the nut/sugar/cinnamon/salt mixture.

Place in the oven for 10 minutes. While that's cooking, repeat the process with another four layers of filo (if you want, you can make even more, but I think two sets is enough. Trust me). When they're done, take the sheet out and leave to cool for a bit.

Next! The fruit. Now, I may have missed a trick here; perhaps the syrup should have been red. I'll rectify that next time. Again, I borrowed from Demolition Desserts (I really wanted to make something from it, and as I'm not going to be around much this weekend, it would be my only chance for a week), making a black pepper-tarragon syrup.

Salsa

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup liquid glucose
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon tarragon
• Lots of fruit

Bring the water, sugar, and corn syrup to the boil. Simmer for a minute, then take off the boil and add the peppercorns and tarragon. Leave for ten minutes before straining the syrup out into a jug. Meanwhile, take your fruit (I used strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries), and sautée them for a minute or two in a pan with butter, sugar and a little Cointreau. Oh yes.

So, we have our salsa. And we have our tortilla crisps. Yes, crisps. But, the special thing about nachos, especially nachos bought at, say, sporting events, is the horrific orange cheese substance that is slathered over the top. Originally, I thought about a sweet mascarpone sauce, but Stacie pointed out that coloured white chocolate would also work. As I still had half a vial of orange food colouring and some white chocolate, it seemed the best way to go.

Cheese Topping

• 150g white chocolate (use 300g if you want lots!)
• E102 food powder (makes children hyperactive, remember)

Melt the chocolate in either a double boiler or the microwave, and mix in the orange powder until it gets rather orange.

Then, it's quite simple! Break up the filo sheets into shards, place them on a plate, put fruit on top, pour on some of the syrup, cover it all with the orange chocolate, and serve!

Remember to book your diabetes test in the morning...

I'm easing back into the food experiments after a month or so off. First up, blackcurrant vodka, part of a continuing series where I stick things in vodka and hope for the best. However, I've tried this one before, and it doesn't work too badly. Get some blackcurrants, wash and de-stem them, and put them in an empty bottle (I used half of a box from Tesco). Fill the bottle up with vodka and shake it about a bit. Store in a cupboard for at least a week (but a month will probably be better), then mix with Sprite/7up for a refreshing summer drink. You'll probably want to strain out the blackcurrants first, mind you.

The 40 second cake comes from playing with fire via el Bulli. It's yet another use for the iSi whipper, which is beginning to be known as the "aero machine" in our house. At first, I attempted to make a chocolate ginger cake, but after I'd got the bars of Green & Blacks ginger chocolate home, I discovered that the ginger was actually part of the bars rather than just a flavouring. The whipper is apparently sensitive to things that aren't liquid, so I changed my mind and melted down a chocolate orange bar I had instead. After mixing, it was all poured into the whipper and given a shot of nitrous oxide (it should have been two shots, but I halved the recipe linked and mistakenly halved the canister count). Then, the magic began! Straight in the microwave at full power!

The result was not as spongy as other efforts I've seen around on the Internet, but I imagine not using enough canisters is the reason for that little disappointment. But it tasted surprisingly good; you could definitely taste the chocolate orange. Definitely something I'll be playing with again (and perfect for children's parties, I'd imagine!). Perhaps a little savoury next time - chipotle cake, anybody? No? Wasabi?

Benefits of a classical education.

Edible green dust, 600g of white chocolate, peppermint extract, and an iSi whipper:

MINT CHOCOLATE AERO.

So, 3 a.m. , Saturday morning, and it came to me; instead of putting cheese slices on your hamburger, why not put a slice of barbeque sauce on top instead?

I know.

In my defence, a bit of searching on Saturday morning showed me that at least one other person has thought of this before. So I'm not completely crazy. Or I have company in my insanity. Anyway, I had two choices: methocel or agar. Methocel would set as the sauce was heated and liquify as it cooled, so you'd have to make and use it straightaway. Agar would set hard, but it would melt if it was placed on something hot...just like a cheese slice! So agar it was. I stole the idea of the swiss holes from Playing With Fire And Water, and soon I had created bbq slices. FEAR ME!

After that, I decided I wanted to recreate Sam Mason's soft chocolate. It's a ganache that is set with gelling agents (either carrageen or agar & gelatin; I used the latter combination) and refrigerated. When it comes out of the fridge, it keeps its shape, yet tastes like, well, soft molten chocolate. It's pretty simple to make too: just make the ganache as usual, pour in a boiled sugar/corn syrup/agar mixture and a little gelatin, and finally put it in a mould and leave to set. The chocolate soil also worked out pretty well, though I think that I might add some nutella powder in next time too.

That was Saturday. Today?

Garam masala marshmallows. Pimm's and strawberry gummies. The marshmallows are based on the classic recipe for chocolate ones, but with garam masala switched for the cocoa powder. After whipping and leaving to set for nine hours, I coated the top of the mallow block with chocolate and cut into pieces with a pizza cutter coated with icing sugar. That was probably a mistake; I should have cut them into blocks first and then brushed chocolate onto the tops. The way I did it meant that the chocolate got coated with icing sugar while I was sealing the sides.

I made the gummies in two different ways because I wasn't sure how they'd turn out. I was surprised that the gelatin/agar combination was the least successful; for some reason the underside of the gelatin just wouldn't set (possibly interference from the Pimm's agar layer?). Next time, I'll try gelatin/gelatin. However, I made more of the gelatin solution than I needed, so I used the overflow to make sour gummy strips (dredging them in citric acid and granulated sugar). These are really good, and need to be made again in large quantities. Oh yes. The agar/agar batch set fine, but I forgot that the taste of agar gummies is a bit bizarre. Oh well.

Tomorrow? Absolutely nothing. I think I need a rest. Though I've just remembered the rice puree / egg white cracker idea from chadzilla…

Unfortunately, I only remembered the camera towards the end of today's sweet making. Sorry!

Anyway, what I was trying to do was recreate the York Peppermint Pattie, something that kept me going on many a TA office hours morning at UNC. Turns out they're fairly simple to make: you pour half a can of condensed milk into a stand mixer, add some peppermint extract and then beat in enough icing sugar to turn the mixture into a dough. And enough to cover the kitchen in a fine dust. Ahem.

The dough is then rolled out onto a cookie sheet (well, okay, I used a silicon mat instead) and placed into the freezer for about ten-fifteen minutes. While it's freezing, why not melt some dark chocolate? Doesn't have to be too fancy; I used 60% cocoa baking chocolate. Anyway, after the dough has been in the freezer for a while, pull it out (it should be quite stiff). Take a brush and paint a layer of chocolate onto the dough.

Put it back into the freezer for another fifteen minutes or so, then flip it over and paint the other side. Back in the freezer again, and then cut out the patties!

While I was making the first batch, I thought that I should probably do something with the rest of the condensed milk. I still had a huge amount of icing sugar left, so I could make another batch fairly easily, but I had the idea of replacing the peppermint with strawberry flavouring. So strawberry patties were made too!

Cincinnati Nazi Time. Spaghetti is obligatory (unless you doing one-way, in which case you might as well just make chili)...

Methylcellulose is an odd little chemical. You've most likely come across it in toothpaste or ice cream, where it's used as a bulking agent, but it's also used as a treatment for constipation, the main ingredient for gunge used in children's television shows (and the effects for Ghostbusters), and ahem, also used as a substitute in certain 'specialist' films.

It helps not to think of the last one when cooking with it.

A few weeks ago, Stacie and I tried to use Methylcellulose to make 'hot ice cream'. Our results were not entirely spectacular. But I knew there were other applications for it in the kitchen, so I thought I'd get a batch at home and experiment.

To add to the madness, Bonnie and I took leave of our senses and ordered a Kitchen Aid stand mixer this Wednesday.

It is glorious. And it also allowed me to consider making eggless meringues. It's fairly simple: methylcellulose is not soluble in hot water, but it is in cold. This has the odd effect of making a solution turn solid when heated. To make an ersatz meringue, all you should have to do is add methylcellulose, whip it into a mixture, and then bake it in the oven!

I thought about it. And thought about it some more. I decided that the best use of this knowledge would be to make a Pimm's and lemonade meringue. Well, you would really, wouldn't you?

I added a touch of xanthan gum to thicken up the drink before adding in the methylcellulose. This is where things went wrong. Because I used carbonated lemonadem the combination of MC and the gum caused the bubbles in the liquid to stay instead of it going flat. Plus it had the rather unfortunate side effect of turning the drink light yellow/brown.

Still, after being mixed in the Kitchen Aid for just over 15 minutes, it had risen quite impressively. The texture is a bit like Angel Delight but much frothier.

It was at this point that I forgot I was supposed to put it in the oven. I blame a trying day at work.

After losing a can of Dr. Pepper to the curse of the brown bubbles, I got out my handy carton of orange juice and made up a smaller batch using that. This time, I did remember to put it in the oven (150°C for 5-10 minutes).

This is an orange meringue. If I had a blow torch, it'd probably look a bit more done. But if I had a blow torch, my sister would have set me on fire by now, so it's good that I don't.

The trouble with the technique is that methylcellulose doesn't hold its shape for very long; as soon as the temperature dips below the setting point, it begins to turn back into a liquid. You have to eat it fast, I guess.

The same technique can also be used to make vegan-friendly marshmallows. To test that, I used Diet Coke. They looked pretty good, but the taste is pretty vile. Next time, I think I'll try a batch using raspberry puree or a liquid mixed in with a sugar syrup.

Yes, today's update comes from outside in 20˚C weather. It's quite nice.

(I expect to be slapped when I get home. Obviously)

As part of my shopping travels yesterday, I had to walk through UNC campus to get to the bus stop. Always an odd feeling. I know I made the right decision to come home again five years ago, and the only reason I met all my friends here is that I gave up doing the degree in the last three months of the semester, but whenever I walk through the throngs of students, I do always ponder what would have happened if I stayed.

But the thought went out of my head as I walked past the group playing in the Pit (to be filled with other, just as pointless thoughts, but they're not worth dwelling on either). It was time to go shopping! Now, normally, I'm reasonably sensible when it comes to this part of the trip (aside from getting it all in my suitcase at the end of the journey), but this time around Thursday would be the only day I could probably go shopping, because the buses wouldn't be running on Friday, Saturday Christa and I are planning for Europe, Sunday is Easter (and contrary to what you might think, America shuts down then even more so than the UK does) and Monday I'm flying home! So it was Thursday or nothing.

I started at 10. Christa found me outside Whole Foods a short time after five clutching a barrage of bags and about to head off to the ABC store to buy all the alcohol for tomorrow night's party. So I didn't have to walk a mile and a half back to Collin's with five glass bottles and a bunch of other shopping (including about 2lbs of sweets). Hurrah!

We also had foodscience! plans for last night. Specifically, hot ice cream. It involves a chemical called methylcellulose, which thickens as its heated. The idea is to add a bunch of the chemical to a liquid (in our case, a recipe that involved a blend of cream cheese, yogurt, agave nectar and vanilla) and then immerse scoops of the liquid in boiling water, which should make it set.

Should. Needless to say, perhaps because our measuring was off, or perhaps because we were doing it wrong, we couldn't get the liquid to set properly, except for a little bit at the edges. We need more experimentation there, I think.

On the other hand, frying oreos, cookie dough, brownie bits, cheddar, and cream cheese in 7up/Bisquick batter worked pretty well. Even if everybody else has a bad stomach this morning...

We all remember agar, yes? Using it in petri dishes for growing bacteria? What you may not know is that you can use agar for other things. Edible things. It turns out that it can take the place of gelatin in many recipes, especially jellies. Which is quite handy if you're a vegetarian, unless you like marshmallows, as it doesn't quite work in the same manner. Today's FOODSCIENCE! is all about agar!

The first experiment of the day was to try and recreate the chocolate jelly seen oh-so-briefly on Masterchef a few weeks ago. Nothing special here: melt 100g of chocolate with 300ml of water, mix in some agar and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and pour into a mould. Leave in the fridge for two hours, and you get this:

It looks much better than it tastes, sadly. I'm guessing that it might have turned out more like it looked on television if I used dark chocolate and a little more agar to make it firmer.

That was just the prelude, though. The real reason that I got the agar was spaghetti. Yes, spaghetti.

It's quite simple. You first make an agar solution in the normal way (I used orange juice and strawberries in two separate batches) and pour it into a squeezy bottle. Then you squeeze the mixture into a series of coiled PVC tubes, placing each one in a bowl of iced water to help the solution set faster.

Now comes the magic! The trusty iSi whipper comes in handy yet again. Charge up the whipper with a canister as usual, and place the tube on the nozzle. Press down, CAREFULLY!, and a noodle of spaghetti will shoot right out. Repeat with the other tubes, then fill them up again for another set of noodles!

I learnt a few things. Firstly, when they say CAREFULLY, they really mean it. Press down too hard on the whipper and you'll send the noodle shooting across the kitchen. Secondly, fruit purees are far too thick to be inserted into the tubes. After two unsuccessful attempts, I watered down the strawberry puree with orange juice and managed to get a couple of noodles from the remaining mixture. I'm thinking that the best idea is to use the gelatine filtration method to produce a consommé first, and then mix the agar into that. If I have time, I may try that before I go to America (the process takes a few days to work).

Still, they do look pretty, don't they?

Spherification is a trick discovered by the El Bulli restaurant a few years back. It involves taking a liquid (drink, puree, whatever, really) and using two chemicals to create a thin shell around the liquid. This shell/sphere can be heated, picked up, covered in chocolate - whatever takes your fancy!

My plan was to try and recreate the Junebug cocktail from Lantern, presenting it in a spherical form rather than the old-hat idea of pouring it into a glass. Pshaw. I call it the Doodlebug. I'm sorry.

I actually went wrong from the start. Although Lantern say they use a 'ginger and lemon soda', I have a feeling that lemonade is probably the better substitute than my choice of ginger ale. Anyway, I added xanthum gum to the cocktail to thicken it up a little, and a tiny amount of calcium gluconate for the chemical reaction which would make the shell. After that, I poured the mixture into half a jelly egg mold to make the sphere shape. These were then put into the freezer to solidify.

The other part of the spherification process is a solution of sodium alginate and water. I did this on Friday night, simply mixing the chemical into the water (which took a lot longer than expected) and leaving it for twelve hours as recommended by El Bulli.

Once you've got all that, all that's left to do is to make the spheres! Simply push them out of the mold and drop one into the solution like this:

Then after about two minutes or so, take it out and put it into the water bath. This will prevent the spheres from sticking to each other.

And that's it! One sphere!

Of course, there's always a hitch. In my case, I'm not sure what exactly went wrong; I think perhaps the freezing may not have been the best idea, because every single sphere sprang a leak as it was defrosting. Which was rather disappointing.

Not wishing to give up just yet, I made a small mixture of orange juice, a shot of vodka, and some xanthum gum. This time, I used a squeezy bottle to shoot the thickened juice into the sodium alginate solution. This worked a lot better:

By this time, the alginate solution was pretty much spent, so I had to call a halt to proceedings (I also had to make real food after all!) So although I didn't so well with the Doodlebugs, I think I've made some progress for the ultimate aim: an edible snow globe!

I did have a grand plan for this week, but unfortunately, I've been ill all week and I didn't feel up to the task of messing with lots of chemicals. That'll be next week. Instead, I decided to revisit the homemade aero experiment from last time.

It's actually fairly easy, if you have the right equipment. And the right equipment is an iSi whipper (I have a Profi model, but if you're looking to buy one, I'd go for the Thermo version, as it offers the most flexibility). This is a device that was originally designed for making whipped cream very quickly, but has been adapted by the magicians at El Bulli and The Fat Duck for a variety of uses. To whit, homemade aero.

Firstly, get a lot of chocolate. Last week, I tried using Cadbury's Dairy Milk. That didn't work, but I think it was more down to me than the chocolate (I'll be trying it again soon). This time, I used 400g of 70% cocoa chocolate, melted using the traditional double boiler method (pan of water on the stove, glass bowl sitting in the lid of the pan - the chocolate melts inside the bowl. Or you could melt it in the microwave if you'd like).

While the chocolate is melting, get a hairdryer. Yes.

The idea is to warm up the steel of the whipper so the chocolate doesn't seize up when you pour it inside. Plus, it makes a fun conversational piece afterwards. You could possibly put it in a pot of warmed water and get the same effect, but it's not as much fun.

Eventually, the chocolate will all melt. Hurrah! Pour it into the whipper (you'll probably need a tea towel, because - surprise! It's now really hot), and assemble the top. Now, the recipe that I followed last week and in North Carolina only required one charge of NO₂ gas to be shot into the chocolate, but this time I wasn't taking any chances and used two. One good shake later, and this was the result:

You'll know instantly if it has worked or not; if the mixture of chocolate expands as it goes into the mold, hurrah! Otherwise, something has gone wrong. Anyway, providing it has gone fine, place in the fridge to set.

some time later...

Success! I intend to try milk chocolate again, obviously, and also white chocolate, but that's the basic idea behind making aero chocolate at home.

Next time: I use syringes. Oh yes.

This is tapioca maltodextrin.

It's a starch that bonds really well to fatty foods. In the fancy-free world of molecular gastronomy, it has been used for weird and wonderful things like making peanut butter powder; I just had to have a go.

On the left we have 40g of nutella, whereas on the right there's 26g of maltodextrin. You put them in a food processor, blend until mixed, and then sift them out into a contain. BEHOLD, LOOK WHAT I HAVE CREATED!

It's a rather odd sensation; the powder recombines in your mouth and tastes exactly like nutella, albeit somewhat less strong than if you just have it straight. For those of you wondering just what use this is, erm...I'll come up with something eventually.

That is olive oil powder. I'm still struggling to think of any use for this, but think! You can carry olive oil on a plane now! (okay, so maybe security might wonder what the mysterious unmarked powder is, but I'll sure they'll be understanding...)

For my next trick, I mixed chocolate with space dust (or pop rocks, as they're known in the US). My theory was that the dust reacts with water, but as there's no water in chocolate, it would set until it was eaten. I was partially right; some of the rocks starting popping as I poured the bag into the melted chocolate, but enough of them stayed dormant to make the finished sweets rather interesting (the flavour of the rocks seems to get washed away in the process, but the popping still works wonderfully!). Just wait until I conquer tempering.

My repeat of the aero experiment from North Carolina failed miserably. I'm not quite sure why. At the moment, I'm thinking that I didn't shake the whipper enough (one recipe says to do it for a minute, whereas the iSI instructions say only 3-4 times). That and maybe plain chocolate works better, so I'll try it again next weekend!

The final experiment for this weekend was Salmiakki Koskenkorva. It's the drink that I had on New Year's Eve at Christa's (remember?), a mixture of Finnish liquorice and vodka. You can see why it appeals to me.

The most difficult part was obtaining the sweets (I eventually tracked them down via eBay). After that, it was simply a matter of pouring the broken liquorice into a bottle of vodka, giving it a vigourous shake, and leaving it all to dissolve. Hurrah!

Next week: the next attempt at aero chocolate, and SPHERES!