Solidifying rhubarb juice.

Chris:

OK, I have the juice from the rhubarb. Sous vide with a little turbinado sugar imparted a pleasant taste. Should be a nice contrast to a coating of dark chocolate. What I know nothing about is what does it take to turn the juice into a stick strong enough to hold the coating? How do I estimate / calculate and what do I use?

Tom - clear

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Johan_Edstrom_5586

https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/fluid-gels/landing

tshewman

I would also consider freezing in hemispheric molds and dipping in melted chocolate.

Pepijn_31744

@Todd_Shewman that sounds amazing. I'm going to steal that

tshewman

@Pepijn, thanks but simply put, I'm lazy. I've done it with a few juices. Raspberry juice mixed with a small amount of maple syrup and vanilla and that has to be my favorite. My largest (among my many) faults is I often don't write things down (I'm working on that but tough when I have a job that I have to commit to). The brioche was a lesson in frustration (well.....funny frustration) and recipe building (only to find out someone already did it). I'm sure the chickens were cursing me with the amount of eggs I went through. As for stealing, it's not likely from me anyway. The more I do this, the more I find out 2 big things:1, someone has usually done it before, 2-how much I really do not know. :-)

Tom_Champion_14732

@Sherman, that's great idea.

@Edstrom, I do need to take the class. I was trying for something they could pick up with their hands eat before it turns to liquid again.

Appreciate the suggestions. Still stumbling over the "how" of the Forum.

Tom

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Then making like a cherry liqueur like @Todd suggested sounds great. Small frozen spheres you can coat in choclit.

Tightening it up a little with Xhantan might be a good idea so it isn't as light as water.

marcyboy1

*that was the wrong post* sorry

Tom_Champion_14732

Thanks, Johan.

To start I juiced one stalk of rhubarb added a teaspoon of turbinado sugar, about 2.5% of volume agar agar. Brought to a boil, simmered for 2.5 minutes. Placed the contents in a crudely made mold. In the freezer for 1/2 hour and it was set.

Second time I simmered the juice concentrating it by half the volume. Repeated the boiling, simmering, and placing in the freezer. It turned out tasting great; but it had a weak structure. It couldn't support itself beyond an inch in length. For me, the amatuer cook, I learned a lot.

It seems the obvious way to go is the spheres or add stick like a lollipop? Does Xhantan strengthen the structure?

Tom

tshewman

What was the ratio of sugar? If I am understanding this correctly, the second trial essentially doubled the sugar relative to the juice volume? Sugar affects agar quite a bit, so would consider reducing it. The other item I am uncertain of is what you want to do with the iced juice?
If dipped in melted cocoa butter, it will be buffered by that layer and then you can apply a second layer of.....many different choices if desired.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Just off the top of my head I don't think it'll be that easy to make a "solid" that actually is

appetizing - i.e a 1 inch or so cube sounds pretty good, Xhantan is a stabilizer and thickener, think

italian dressing in the US. I think both Todd and I was thinking more liquidy and then poured into

a choclit, add another choclit half - and you have a bonbon.

Or if it is more Jelly like, dunk that in ganache / choclit or something?

This one describes the textures pretty darn well -

http://www.cookingissues.com/primers/hydrocolloids-primer/

tshewman

The other option would be to blend in some ultra-tex 3 then freeze the juice. I've done this without liquid nitrogen and the juice becomes an ice-chewy (think CS chewy candies, but REAL cold). The texture then becomes more of a cold nut butter and is quite interesting. The LN would help prevent any ice crystal formation. If I recall UT3 is supposed to inhibit them, but obviously by shocking it in LN first (in the mold-like a ball made of plastic wrap) this would turbo charge things.

Matt__34377

I've done an agar-gelatine combo to obtain a semi flexible stick - they would contort but they couldn't be tied or anything. The mouthfeel is great as well ; not grainy like set agar. I recall seeing a recipe in MC for take on Wylie dufresnes "knot foie" that involved Konjac gum which was actually tied into a knot. Haha. I've neither worked with nor read anything about the product but it may be something to check out?

If you're going to freeze the product, I really liked the results of using low acyl gellan to heat stabilize ice cream. It has no textural similarity to ice cream at all and is very much has a fluid gel mouthfeel. Perhaps you could work something like that into your experiments?

Good luck!