Festival of Creative Learning 2019 #FCL19

What a week it was this year! Raising eyebrows by running around campus with hand blenders and random kitchen stuff. I think I made almost 10 kg of ice cream in total!
But thankfully I had help with my endeavours! Namely the brilliant participants of my workshop "Cooking with Science: 50 shades of textures". This was all for Edinburgh University's Festival of Creative Learning, in February 2019.

The ice cream wasn't just for eating. The point was to understand a little more about its chemistry and what it takes to get a nice smooth texture. From fat concentration, to churning time and even thickening agents!

A new touch to this event was a fairly uncommon kitchen tool called a whipping siphon. Think of it as a reusable whipped cream canister that can make much more than whipped cream. It's perfect for examining the effect of pressure on food. We made a variety of foams, which admittedly sometimes tasted better than they looked!

It would've been a sad textures workshop, if we hadn't touched upon the fun world of gels. We made some gels that were fluid, and others that were bendable (literally!). All peculiar, no doubt. But used with finesse, they can take culinary sensations to a new level! We were impressed by how the same liquid ingredients would give a very different taste sensation, depending purely on texture.
In the spirit of the Creative Learning Festival, the participants got creative. Inspired by their new superpowers, they concocted new recipes. No doubt, you'll see them at gourmet restaurants soon.

Enjoy the short video with all the highlights!

Many thanks go to the University of Edinburgh Creative Learning Festival Team for supporting this event and to Mihaela for her amazing photos: © Mihaela Bodlovic 2019 Festival of Creative Learning #FCL19

Comments

Fluid gels: Jellous you haven't tried?

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Cooking with science

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