Halloween Food!

[Telarus]

In an effort to lurk in here (& post) more, I'd like to share some interesting treat that a friend of mine made for the holiday:

Edible Petri Dishes

Halloween treat: edible petri dishes! Apple cider and coconut smears and pomegranate cranberry coconut smears. I think they look a lot like Klebsiella pneumoniae. Yum! (Vegan!) Whee!

[Don Coyote]

In an effort to lurk in here (& post) more, I'd like to share some interesting treat that a friend of mine made for the holiday:

Edible Petri Dishes

Halloween treat: edible petri dishes! Apple cider and coconut smears and pomegranate cranberry coconut smears. I think they look a lot like Klebsiella pneumoniae. Yum! (Vegan!) Whee!

oh my.

Looks delicious.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Those are cool! Great idea.

[Bruno]

What did they use to make the gel?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What did they use to make the gel?

My guess is pectin.

[Bruno]

What did they use to make the gel?

My guess is pectin.

That would probably be the best choice.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What did they use to make the gel?

My guess is pectin.

That would probably be the best choice.

I'd have used gelatin, but he said it was vegan, so that doesn't leave a lot of options.

[Bruno]

I've never really used pectin, so I'm not sure how it would taste. I don't much care for the texture of gelatin or agar, though.

I imagine something pectin based would be similar to fruit jelly.

If I were going to go through this much trouble, I think I would just go ahead and make them jello shots unless it was for a kids party or something.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I've never really used pectin, so I'm not sure how it would taste. I don't much care for the texture of gelatin or agar, though.

I imagine something pectin based would be similar to fruit jelly.

If I were going to go through this much trouble, I think I would just go ahead and make them jello shots unless it was for a kids party or something.

Well yeah, pectin is what is used to make fruit jelly.

[Triple Zero]

What did they use to make the gel?

My guess is pectin.

That would probably be the best choice.

I'd have used gelatin, but he said it was vegan, so that doesn't leave a lot of options.

I'd really guess it would be Agar Agar, which is a vegan gelatin substitute (made from seaweed) which is also used a lot for growing microbial critters in petri-dishes.

It makes a weird sort of "crunchy" gel, which is not very suitable to make vodka-jelly shots, in case anyone was wondering.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What did they use to make the gel?

My guess is pectin.

That would probably be the best choice.

I'd have used gelatin, but he said it was vegan, so that doesn't leave a lot of options.

I'd really guess it would be Agar Agar, which is a vegan gelatin substitute (made from seaweed) which is also used a lot for growing microbial critters in petri-dishes.

It makes a weird sort of "crunchy" gel, which is not very suitable to make vodka-jelly shots, in case anyone was wondering.

Totally could be, but pectin is more readily available in the US and the bases are acidic fruit juices, which react well with pectin. Totally could be agar or even guar gum, but you can't buy either in most US grocery stores, while pectin is about a dollar and easily found in any grocery store.

[Triple Zero]

Yes except it's in a petri dish, so it's Agar.

My brother's nephew's hairdresser confirmed this.

But you can go ahead and guess, I got all the facts I need.

[Bruno]

I use agar all the time, but I've never eaten any. They sell it in little cups (like Jell-O cups) at the asian store nearby.

I bought a pound of the powdered lab grade stuff 10 years ago, and still have about half of it left. Next time I'm playing with it, I should cook up a batch to eat.

I hear it's kind of dry compared to gelatin. Maybe that's what you meant by "crunchy"?

[Triple Zero]

Yeah. It's hard to describe. It's like if you bite off a piece of gelatin, like pudding, you smoothly chomp off that piece. But with Agar, it sort of shatters, no not quite ... it's brittle, yeah that's the word

Which is kind of odd, it's a gel, but it's also brittle. So when you bite off a chunk, it kind of crunches a tiny bit, if you can imagine.

Also, gelatin melts at body temperature, which gives it the nice fatty-but-not-fat mouth-feel.

Agar exhibits hysteresis, meaning it melts at 85C (185F), but solidifies at 35C (95F) -- which is interesting of its own, and makes it more useful in the lab, but kind of strange for food. .. though you could probably pull some interesting trick with that, you couldn't do with gelatin.