Birthday Addendum February 24. 2007
So I thought I'd add a few things regarding the birthday raw stuff.
First of all, the Vanilla Creme is from the Raw Food Real World book... and while we may have changed the recipe slightly, it was spectacular. We overloaded the Vita-Mix (again) while making it, filling it to the top, literally. It was having a hard time chewing through 4" pieces of coconut, and overheated a couple of times. I tossed the base into the freezer for 20 minutes and then we resumed. The problem with the Vita Mix is that the motor is cooled by its own rotation, meaning that the temperature will rise if it is unable to spin as fast as I am asking it to. In the case of the Vanilla Creme I needed to run it slower because the bottom would become a pocket of well-mixed mixture at high speed. I also didn't want to boil (and cook) the stuff. Eventually we simply decided that the consistency was fine enough, so it came out a bit chunky, but I really like it.
We managed to pour the 60 ounces of the stuff into various containers, including an empty Loosa bottle... This works great if you think of the creme as a liquid - which it is, up until it goes into the fridge. Now I'm using a 15" slicing knife to retrieve chunks of creme from the bottom
Did I mention it was well worth the work?
First of all, the Vanilla Creme is from the Raw Food Real World book... and while we may have changed the recipe slightly, it was spectacular. We overloaded the Vita-Mix (again) while making it, filling it to the top, literally. It was having a hard time chewing through 4" pieces of coconut, and overheated a couple of times. I tossed the base into the freezer for 20 minutes and then we resumed. The problem with the Vita Mix is that the motor is cooled by its own rotation, meaning that the temperature will rise if it is unable to spin as fast as I am asking it to. In the case of the Vanilla Creme I needed to run it slower because the bottom would become a pocket of well-mixed mixture at high speed. I also didn't want to boil (and cook) the stuff. Eventually we simply decided that the consistency was fine enough, so it came out a bit chunky, but I really like it.
We managed to pour the 60 ounces of the stuff into various containers, including an empty Loosa bottle... This works great if you think of the creme as a liquid - which it is, up until it goes into the fridge. Now I'm using a 15" slicing knife to retrieve chunks of creme from the bottom
Did I mention it was well worth the work?
I can literally eat the stuff by itself. I find that components that do not taste good enough to eat alone very rarely combine into a dish with a balanced taste - at least I haven't succeeded here often. With the Pancakes we made, each ingredient can stand alone, and together they are just that much better.
As for the Vita-Mix, I added a digital thermometer to monitor its exhaust air temperature - and simply running idle at 5 it blows out 90F+ air at an ambient temperature of 70F. Perhaps if I keep an eye on that gauge I can prevent the blender from taking a 20 minute break every so often.
BTW: The cheesecake Taz mentioned earlier may have required the 8 hours of sitting around with good reason. I am not saying I know what the reason is, but when we were running it through the Vita-Mix, it overheated to the point of steaming - so it was probably cooked and sterilized. I am not sure if it was capable of whatever transformation it was intended to undergo.
As for the Vita-Mix, I added a digital thermometer to monitor its exhaust air temperature - and simply running idle at 5 it blows out 90F+ air at an ambient temperature of 70F. Perhaps if I keep an eye on that gauge I can prevent the blender from taking a 20 minute break every so often.
BTW: The cheesecake Taz mentioned earlier may have required the 8 hours of sitting around with good reason. I am not saying I know what the reason is, but when we were running it through the Vita-Mix, it overheated to the point of steaming - so it was probably cooked and sterilized. I am not sure if it was capable of whatever transformation it was intended to undergo.
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