this week, megan & art will be proud & excited to launch kitchengeek.co.nz
our mission? to bring cooler kitchen stuff to the masses. well, maybe just our friends and family at this stage, but at least at prices we can all afford.
if you do stick with us, we will try to *wow* you...
real chocolate icing. why have i never thought of you before? i will think of you again. because you are DELICIOUS.
100 grams chocolate*, melted & back at room temperature
*use a dark one, with 72% cocoa
100 grams butter, room temperature
1 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
with a hand mixer, beat the butter until smooth and creamy (about 1 minute). add the icing sugar and beat until it is light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). beat in the vanilla extract. add the chocolate and beat on low speed. increase the speed to medium-high (about 2 minutes).
say happy
birthday grannie patrick x
we are bigs fans of knowing what you eat and drink. once you get into the habit, and with the help of a few kitchen gadgets (wink, wink), it's surprisingly easy to avoid a lot of processed food and make it yourselves instead. that gives you full control over ingredients and skips all those nasty artificial flavourings, colourings and preservatives. you know, all those e-prefixed 3-digit numbers in the ingredients list.
we are also big fans of the food truck show, in which michael van der elsen has an all-natural go at various fast foods and other treats. his attempts at coming up with all natural soft drinks inspired us to do the same. even though coca-cola's official recipe is still a secret, most of the ingredients are pretty well known. most of the recipes on the internet rely on oils or essences, but it seemed better to go for something all natural.
below a recipe combined from various internet recipes and adapted to what's available in nz. give it a go, you'll be surprised how easy it is and how good it tastes. ready?
instructions
combine water, zests (lemon, orange, lime), cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, orange peel (if using) and gum arabic (if using), in a large saucepan. whisk together until dissolved. stir in the sugar and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved.
boil for about a minute
remove from heat and stir in juices (orange, lime, lemon), together with the gravy browning and the vanilla. let it cool and then strain.
the cola syrup you've now got will keep in the fridge for about 2 weeks.
drinking
mix 1 measure of syrup with 3-4 measures of soda water. enjoy!
brewing/bottling
alternatively you can brew your cola and create your own CO2 bubbles. for this you need to make a trip to your local homebrew shop (lhbs in brewer speak). get a sachet of champagne yeast (lalvin ec1118 is the one commonly available here, will cost $2-$3 for 7grams, enough for 25 litre). make sure you store the yeast in the fridge. also pick up a couple of plastic brewers bottles. pick the size (0.5l, 0.75l, 1.25l, 2l) that's most handy to you. you can use glass bottles as well, but you're building up quite a bit of pressure, so safer to use plastic if you haven't done this before.
simply add 4 litres of water to the 1 litre syrup made above and add about half a teaspoon of the yeast, stir and fill the bottles with a properly sanitized syphon. then store at room temperature for 2-3 days. you'll feel the plastic bottle harden up. the yeast will keep on going, so make sure to move your bottles to a fridge after 3 days to make it dormant. best if you keep it chilled for about a week. open the bottles very carefully, and in 4-5 turn-pssst-and-close routines over a sink, until it's safe to completely open the bottle. enjoy over ice or dare to mix.
improvements
our first attempt was claimed a great success by both ourselves and our friends that dared to be guinea pigs. and yes, it does taste surprisingly like a more natural coca cola. we could probably reduce the sugar and cinnamon levels a bit. go with coriander seeds and whole nutmeg rather than the ground powder cheats. we're on a quest to find a good quality strainer for a kitchengeek release, as the one we were using leaves a bit too much sediment in the drink. and finally find that elusive arabic gum and start replacing the sugar with honey.
now over to you
go on, give it a try, easy - and a world of homemade sodas will open up. do share your experiences below. and enjoy the real thing!
as much as we like kitchen stuff, there is more to life. to show kitchengeek.co.nz understands this, from time to time we’ll have an non-kitchen 'treat' for you.
this has been a little confusing to some of you fullas. so here we go, 'the rules': there are no rules, other than we like it and thought you might too.
so our first treat? the kindle.
nope, nada, nein. stop trying to find the link. there isn't one, a kindle4 has nothing to do with kitchen utensils. but, god damn, it is fine.
true, you can buy a kindle from one of those other stores (the one that rhymes with smick dith). BUT they're sold out until mid march, they cost more AND it wouldn't be buying from us.
so this is our treat, for all you kitchengeeks.
tis the season for new beginnings. or something like that. fascination with kitchen utensils and how most of the stuff in your second drawer is boring, non-functional and often stupid. and the cool stuff you might find at your luxury homeware store is way, way too expensive. that was the thinking around xmas.
so we set about to bring cooler kitchen stuff to the masses. well maybe just our friends and family, but at least at a price they can afford. and yes, we have tested everything ourselves. to make sure it works and looks good.
satisfy your inner kitchengeek and shop with us.
your kitchengeeks
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