Tag

Vanilla

Browsing

What is Golden Gaytime Ice Cream?

Golden Gaytime is an iconic Australian ice cream treat that has been beloved by Australians since its introduction in the 1950s. This ice cream treat is made up of layers of creamy vanilla and toffee ice cream, covered in a crispy layer of chocolate and biscuit crumbs. The combination of flavors and textures makes it a unique and delicious treat that is enjoyed by people of all ages.

The popularity of Golden Gaytime ice cream has led to many variations over the years, including the introduction of other flavors such as honeycomb and chocolate, but the classic vanilla and toffee combination remains the most popular.

How to Make Golden Gaytime Ice Cream at Home

Making your own Golden Gaytime ice cream at home is easier than you might think. Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 2 liters of vanilla ice cream
  • 1 cup of toffee bits
  • 400g of dark chocolate
  • 2 cups of biscuit crumbs

To make the ice cream, soften the vanilla ice cream and add in the toffee bits. Mix well and pour into a 9×13-inch baking dish, smoothing the top. Freeze until firm.

To make the chocolate coating, melt the dark chocolate in a saucepan over low heat. Once melted, stir in the biscuit crumbs until well combined.

Remove the ice cream from the freezer and cut into squares. Dip each square into the chocolate mixture until completely coated, then place back in the baking dish. Freeze until the chocolate coating is firm.

Tips for Perfecting Your Golden Gaytime Ice Cream

To make sure your Golden Gaytime ice cream is perfect, there are a few tips to keep in mind. First, make sure your ice cream is softened before adding any mix-ins to ensure they are evenly distributed. Second, when making the chocolate coating, make sure to mix the biscuit crumbs in well to avoid any clumps. Finally, when dipping the ice cream squares in the chocolate mixture, work quickly to avoid melting the ice cream.

By following these tips, you’ll be able to recreate the delicious and iconic Golden Gaytime ice cream at home. Enjoy!

Lamington cake: An Australian classic

Lamington cake is a beloved Australian dessert that has been around since the early 1900s. It consists of a sponge cake that is coated in a layer of chocolate and then rolled in desiccated coconut. The cake is usually cut into small squares or rectangles, making it perfect for layering with other ingredients.

The origins of the lamington are somewhat disputed, but it is believed to have been named after Lord Lamington, who served as the Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901. It is said that his cook accidentally dropped a sponge cake into a bowl of chocolate and then coated it in coconut to hide the mistake. The resulting creation was a hit with Lord Lamington and his guests, and the rest is history.

Today, lamington cake is a staple in Australian bakeries and is enjoyed by people all over the world. Its unique combination of chocolate and coconut makes it a delicious and memorable dessert.

Vanilla ice cream: Cool and creamy layers

Vanilla ice cream is a classic dessert that pairs perfectly with lamington cake. Its cool and creamy texture provides a refreshing contrast to the rich chocolate and coconut flavors of the cake. When layering the cake with ice cream, it is important to let the ice cream soften slightly before spreading it over the cake. This will help to ensure that the layers are smooth and even.

To make the ice cream layer even more special, you can mix in some shredded coconut or chopped nuts. This will add some texture and flavor to the ice cream and make it even more delicious. Once the ice cream layer is in place, the cake can be placed in the freezer to set.

Raspberry sauce: The perfect complement

Raspberry sauce is a tart and tangy topping that perfectly complements the sweetness of the lamington cake and vanilla ice cream. To make the sauce, simply puree some fresh or frozen raspberries and add a bit of sugar to taste. The sauce can be drizzled over the top of the cake, or served on the side for individual portions.

In addition to its delicious flavor, raspberry sauce also adds a beautiful pop of color to the dessert. The vibrant red hue of the sauce makes the cake look even more tempting and appetizing. With its combination of rich chocolate, creamy vanilla ice cream, and tangy raspberry sauce, the lamington ice cream cake is a dessert that is sure to impress.

Vanilla is particularly popular in desserts. But hardly anyone knows what the spice is all about. We’ll tell you everything you need to know.

Cultivation and origin of vanilla

We all know the black vanilla beans that you can buy in the supermarket in a small glass tube. Only very few people know how and where vanilla grows.

The Spice Vanilla is an orchid plant that climbs trees and poles. This has green to yellowish flowers and seed pods. Vanilla originally comes from Mexico. The Aztecs already appreciated the spice, the Spaniards made it known in Europe.

Meanwhile, Madagascar is the largest growing area because the weather conditions are ideal. There, however, the plant is artificially pollinated, since it can only be pollinated by Central American bee and hummingbird species. Vanilla is grown in huge plantations. This is so complex that vanilla is considered the king of spices.

Vanilla: Processing into a spice

The taste is in the seed pods of the pods, but it takes a while before they are edible. They are ripe in August, but it is only through moonlighting that vanilla becomes the spice we know:
First, the seed pods are treated with hot water or steam.
The fermentation then takes place in airtight containers. This process, which can take up to four weeks, creates the flavor-giving vanillin in the pods.
To keep the vanilla flavor for a long time, it is sold in glass tubes. Incidentally, the real vanillin tastes more aromatic than the artificially produced one.

Downsides of vanilla cultivation

Ideally, vanilla farmers in Madagascar receive the equivalent of ten euros per kilogram of vanilla. Dealers keep pushing prices down. The spice is then sold on the world market for up to 600 euros per kilogram. The main buyers of vanilla are large corporations such as Nestlé and Unilever.

Farmers complain that the cultivation is hardly worthwhile for them because of the low wages. Many of them have to live on less than a dollar a day. In addition, natural disasters such as cyclones make work difficult. If the harvest fails, vanilla becomes even more expensive. But the farmers do not benefit from it.

Therefore, when buying, you should make sure that you choose Fair Trade vanilla. This is the only way you can be sure that the farmers can sell their vanilla at a fair price.

This is where vanilla comes into play

Pudding, cake, ice cream: In addition to desserts, vanilla is also used in salad dressings and fish dishes. Depending on the recipe, you can either use the whole pod or just the pulp. You can carefully scrape this out with the tip of a knife.

You can then use the pod to make vanilla sugar yourself. Since vanilla has come a long way before it ends up in our kitchen, it is better if you use the entire vanilla bean. Vanilla should also be an exception in your diet.

Vanillin is known to many people from baking with vanillin sugar. Here we explain the difference between vanillin and vanilla and between vanilla sugar and vanilla sugar.

Vanillin is a flavoring substance found in real vanilla beans. While vanillin is just one of many flavors found in vanilla, it accounts for the majority of the famous vanilla flavor. According to experts, however, it lacks the “bouquet”, the spectrum of different flavors of vanilla. Many people know from rum how multifaceted a bouquet can be. Here, too, connoisseurs speak of the bouquet.

Vanillin: Production of the vanilla alternative

through which he could artificially produce vanillin. With the help of the substance “Corniferins” from coniferous trees, the so-called “sugar splitting” gave it the tasteful vanilla-like aroma. Even today, conifers are an important source of vanillin.
In order to produce vanillin that does not come from real vanilla, “lignin” from spruce wood is usually used. Only rarely is vanillin based on eugenol in clove oil or guaiacol from guaiac trees.
100 kilograms of spruce wood provide about three kilograms of vanillin. Although the source of vanillin is natural, the extraction of vanillin is hardly more.
The necessary substance in spruce wood is obtained as a waste product during paper production by going through a so-called sulfite process. The flavoring produced here is also known as ethyl vanillin.

Flavoring substance vanillin: Many production possibilities

Obtaining it from clove oil is less problematic: the use of mold and bacteria produces the vanillin aroma from the ferulic acid in eugenol. However, this production is significantly more expensive and complex. Vanillin has also been extracted from cow dung and old newspaper.

In addition, vanillin can also be produced completely synthetically from petroleum or coal tar. Because of its carcinogenic properties, the EU severely restricted the use of coal tar.

The demand for real vanilla is too great to meet and vanilla production too difficult (more on this below). According to experts, we cannot avoid vanillin. Flavor expert Professor Ralf Berger advises that manufacturers should focus on biotechnologically produced vanillin (e.g. from clove oil) in the future. It can be produced with the help of living cells, bacteria and yeast fungi. For most foods, manufacturers isolate the basic ingredient vanillin anyway, according to the expert. It is therefore unnecessary to use “real” pods, as the flavoring is completely identical to the biotechnologically obtained substance.

Vanillin as an alternative to vanilla?

The vanilla plant itself (Vanilla planifolia) is a delicate orchid that is very susceptible to crop failures and tropical storms. This circumstance and the high crime rate are also the reason why small farmers in the main cultivation area (the island state of Madagascar) often have to fear for their livelihood. Since the plant is native to South America and lacks the hummingbirds and long-nosed insects that live there, farmers have to pollinate the flowers (40,000 for a kilo of vanilla) by hand. This work, the round-the-clock protection and the fermentation of the pods usually take whole months. A kilo of vanilla beans fetched around 600 euros in 2017. Because vanilla is so sensitive to natural conditions, it is a rarity. The peasants can demand large sums of money and still face the fear of theft and sometimes even murder.

Vanilla and vanillin: Help in the jungle of ingredients

What exactly is the difference between vanillin sugar and vanilla sugar? For real vanilla sugar, you need real vanilla beans. Vanillin sugar, on the other hand, is artificially produced. This is just sugar with an added vanillin flavor, which is mainly produced synthetically.

Vanilla: Vanilla is not a flavor, it is the spice with a “bouquet” of different flavors. If only vanilla is on the ingredient list – without any additional markers – then it’s real vanilla.
Bourbon vanilla: This label indicates particularly high-quality vanilla that comes exclusively from the Bourbon Islands (e.g. in La Réunion or Madagascar). Since these are the main growing areas for vanilla, most of the real vanilla comes from there.
Vanilla extract: Here the aroma is extracted with the help of ethanol and sugar and must be obtained 100 percent from the real vanilla pod. It contains a similar range of flavors as real vanilla.
Natural Vanilla Flavor: At least 95 percent must come from real vanilla, with the rest allowed to come from other sources for standardization.
Natural aroma: Although this is a natural source of the aroma, it is not the vanilla itself. For example, the aromas biotechnologically obtained from clove oil are meant.
Vanilla Flavor: If you only see the word “flavor” on product packaging, it’s a man-made substance from a non-natural source. What is meant are flavors from sulfite waste, petroleum or coal tar.
Many think that the black dots scraped out of the pod in pudding or ice cream indicate real vanilla. Unfortunately, these are often ground vanilla beans that have already been scraped out. These no longer contain a special vanilla flavor and are sold cheaply. So always check the list of ingredients for hidden flavors.

Coffee has been reviving Europeans since the 16th century. The simple filter coffee is still very popular, but has faced stiff competition in recent years. We now know that coffee has other advantages in addition to its invigorating effect: It is a luxury food that can be used to conjure up all sorts of things. With a little culinary imagination, the “coffee” quickly becomes a real treat.
A few years ago, hardly anyone knew what a barista does. Today it is known that the coffee bar is a specialist who conjures up real works of art from ever-changing coffee ideas. But what are the latest coffee creations at the coffee bar?

Clearly, the main trend in recent years has been with the classics: espresso, latte macchiato and cappuccino. That won’t change any time soon either. But the popular trio can still be varied individually and expanded into other interesting specialties.

A Mocca Macchiato is based on creamy chocolate. This is followed by hot milk and strong espresso. Milk froth sits enthroned on top – a sweet and hot pleasure with a special taste. The white variant – “Chocolat Blanc” – is based on the addition of white chocolate, which is first melted in a water bath and then mixed with the coffee. White chocolate shavings come on top as decoration.

The vanilla latte is becoming increasingly popular. Frothed milk is poured over a cup of espresso and a dash of vanilla syrup is added.

The Latte Macchiato Frio is ideal for hot summer days. A cup of cold espresso is poured into a tall glass together with chilled milk, crushed ice and a good dash of aromatic maple syrup. Another espresso is added on top – this ensures a more intense taste and optical pleasure thanks to the great layering.

Simple cappuccino gets a very special touch through the addition of spices. Cinnamon and cinnamon syrup give a fine aroma, ginger and cardamom also provide a touch of fragrant exoticism.