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Molecular Gastronomy-Spherification

post #1 of 7
4/2/12 at 11:52am
Thread Starter 

Hey guys, I am pretty sure most of you will already dislike this topic just because of the title, but bear with me please!

 

I have a client who wants something "fancy" like spherification included in one of his hors d'oeuvres. However he doesn't want to pay the cost to use the actual chemicals.

I remember one of my friends saying there was a way to "cheat" it using frozen (or very cold) oil and a gelatin or agar agar.

Any ideas, ratios, thoughts, or even something super "modern" and fancy we can try and talk him into to replace the spherification?


Thanks in advance, love this forum and all my fellow foodies!

:chef tux

"Mother Nature is the true artist, the Chef is merely the technician"

    -MPW

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post #2 of 7
4/2/12 at 1:49pm

You might have seen these before but you can make them all in your kitchen using agar agar (2 gr) or gelatin

 

http://youtu.be/s6FUuxcPoQw Balsamic pearls (very easy)

http://youtu.be/GfeCXJ9luRM Fruit caviar

http://youtu.be/c8gTXUFggJE Mango and compari sphere (gelatin)

http://youtu.be/ueIvEyVOOX0 Rose veil  (great with quail)

 

Petals.

 

I don't know if this helps ?

Petals
Réalisé avec un soupçon d'amour.

Baby Cake
(4 photos)
Fruitcake - decorated
(5 photos)
Victorian cupcakes
(10 photos)
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post #3 of 7
4/2/12 at 2:12pm

Might be something using tapioca or something, cooked in fruit/veg juice, etc. 

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post #4 of 7
4/2/12 at 9:57pm

1.5% agar. Drip into frozen oil, with the oil bowl resting in a ice bath. You gotta use a strongly flavored base, because agar has a poor flavor release, and you will lose some flavor when you rinse off the oil. You won't get a liquid center with this method.

 

Or, you could use sugar free pectin (aka low-methoxyl pectin). It needs calcium to gel. Calcium is pretty easy to get though.

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post #5 of 7
4/3/12 at 10:55am
Thread Starter 

@thetincook the low sugar pectin worked pretty well (we couldn't find agar agar at the market since I live in the middle of nowhere)

@petalsandcoco the link helped immensely

 

I've heard that a certain acid/sugar level needs to be maintained for this to work. Could I just a store bought pineapple juice or would I need to doctor it up in some way. Ideally it would be a pineapple lemon caviar with micro zest or strained juice.

 

Thanks again guys!

:chef tux

"Mother Nature is the true artist, the Chef is merely the technician"

    -MPW

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post #6 of 7
4/3/12 at 11:48am
Same thing they do with dippin' dots drop of substance in to liquid nitrogen and you get a sphere of what you want as long as what you want to sphere has a water or light-lightmedium nappe quite easy......except of corse obtaining the liquid nitrogen
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post #7 of 7
4/3/12 at 5:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by cheftux View Post

@thetincook the low sugar pectin worked pretty well (we couldn't find agar agar at the market since I live in the middle of nowhere)

@petalsandcoco the link helped immensely

 

I've heard that a certain acid/sugar level needs to be maintained for this to work. Could I just a store bought pineapple juice or would I need to doctor it up in some way. Ideally it would be a pineapple lemon caviar with micro zest or strained juice.

 

Thanks again guys!

 

Cool! I'm glad the pectin worked out. What % did you end up using?

 

You could run into problems with the lemon juice. Depending on the lemon, it's ph 2.0-2.5. The low end of lm pectin's ph range is 2.5 You should be ok with pineapple juice. google says its ph is 3..
 

 

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