How to use gelatin on fruit pie?

Question

I feel very stupid for asking this, but I've never worked with gelatin. I know how to work with powder or sheets, if you put it in something like panna cotta. I also know there's an issue with gelatin and temperature.

But I want to put gelatin on top of my banana pie, like the professional ones. So I have the bottom, which is the dough, then the cream and then some slices bananas. I would like some gelatin on those bananas. Should I bake the pie first and afterwards, put some gelatin on it? Or put gelatin on it and bake then?

And does it make a difference here if I use powdered or sheet gelatin?

Asked by Mien

Answer

It makes no difference whether you use sheet or powdered. Just make sure to use the right amount. It should be given on the package, like "this sachet is enough for 500 ml liquid". You can try to use less than indicated for a softer texture, but if you don't use enough, it will stay liquid, so you may need to experiment until you get it right.

You can't bake gelatin. It is a protein and denaturates at 50°C. The proper way is to bake your pie or fruit cake as always, and after it is ready, pour the gelatin containing liquid over the fruits and wait for it to congeal. (I am assuming here that you just want a gelatin glaze over a complete pie. If you want a complete gelatinized filling, everything below applies. Bake a shell, put the fruit in it, then fill it with the liquid).

The liquid itself can be pure water, or water syrup, or, if you used canned fruit, you can catch the liquid from the can and strain it. Then use it, pure or diluted with water. Sugar of food coloring don't interfere with gelatin, use them as you see fit (I think it's popular to color the gelatin on strawberry cakes a light red).

The mixing is very similar to panna cotta. First, bloom your gelatin by putting it into a cup with some water (1-2 tbsp) and leaving it for awhile. It should soak up the water, use it while it still looks moist, before the granules stick to each other. It usually takes around 5 minutes. Meanwhile, warm your liquid on a very low setting. It is best to use a thermometer. Dump the gelatine into the liquid while still on the heat. Stir until dissolved completely, never let it get too warm. When dissolved, remove from the heat and pour immediately.

There aren't many things which interfere with gelatin, but some fruits (or the enzymes in them) do. These tend to be tropical fruits with at least moderate acidity, like papaya, mango, kiwi and pineapple. If you pour gelatine on them when they are raw, it will have trouble setting. Cooking them should help, but I don't know how long or what temperature. If they are canned, it should be OK. Bananas are not a problem, even when raw.

And because you said you want to make it "professional": If you are talking about a thin glaze, gelatin is not your only choice. You can use starch as a thickener, many professional bakeries do so. It eliminates the possibility of getting the right texture of the glaze (which will be rubbery with too much gelatine and half liquid if you don't use enough), and maybe you'll feel more comfortable with it.

Answered by rumtscho

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What animal parts can be included in head cheese?

Question

I know that head cheese is traditionally made with flesh from the head of a large animal but I have read that sometimes other scrap meats are included.

Are there any portions of an animal that are more or less suitable for making head cheese?

Can I make head cheese with chicken feet?

Answer

To address this, I think we should examine why head cheese is made from a head in the first place.

There are two main reasons, the character of the meat attached to the head: paucity, toughness, and (lack of) accessibility; and the large amount of gelatin that can be obtained.

The meat on a head is well-exercised, and, with the exception of cheeks and jowl, thin, full of connective tissue, and wrapped around an oddly-shaped skull. It's difficult and not exactly worth the effort to try to remove it raw; after a good deal of work, you would end up with small shreds of meat that would probably best be braised anyways. Much easier to braise the head in its entirety and pick off the meat once it's soft.

The potential for gelatin is abundant in a head, especially assuming that the skin is left on (which it is for pig's heads): the skull of course contains plenty of albumen, the ears and snout are made of cartilage, and there's tendons around the jaw and heading into the neck.

Considering this, to make a substitution for a head, we should look for other parts of the animal that have these characteristics. The most obvious choice is the lower legs: pig trotters are in fact often added to the pot when making head cheese. Shanks all the way down to the ankles, and clean hooves from other animals, if available, would be perfectly suitable. The chicken feet you mention have the characteristic of yielding a good amount of gelatin, so they are a candidate. Tails are also a fine source of gelatin, with skin and plenty of connective tissue. Skin on its own would also be useful. For the meat, any of the usual well-exercised cuts should be suitable; a jowl on its own, the shoulder, possibly a diaphragm (hanger) from a cow.

In fact, one could very well make a delicious head cheese-like terrine using commercially-prepared gelatin with a full homemade stock, and any flavorful cut of meat that was available.

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How do I squeeze gelatine?

Question

Every recipe I've seen which uses gelatine says to soak and squeeze it, but none of them say how to squeeze it. I've only cooked once with gelatine, and I just squeezed it in my hand, but I was worried about losing it all through my fingers and I'm not sure I actually squeezed any water out of it.

Is squeezing it in the fist the correct way? If not, what equipment should I be looking out for?

Answer

I've always done it with my hands. Just don't let it soak too long, it will still be in one piece and will be generally easy to handle.

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Can I substitute agar-agar for gelatin in pudding?

Question

Can china grass (agar-agar) be substituted in place of gelatin when making pudding? Or is there any other ingredient i could use as a substitute that could give me better results?

Answer

Agar is not a good choice for pudding because it makes a brittle gel and it won't melt in your mouth at body temperature. What you want for pudding is a starch based thickener. What we call pudding in the US at least is typically thickened with cornstarch. Modified starches like Ultra-Tex 3 can also work well. Are you thinking of something more along the lines of panna cotta, which does normally have gelatin in it? If so, you might try carageenan instead of agar. Here's a recipe that looks promising: http://irishherault.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/vegetarian-panna-cotta/

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Is gelatin vegetarian?

Question

I understand that vegetarians are against meat, and gelatin is derived from meat and bones. So the obvious answer is "no."

But I'm not entirely sure. What constitutes an ingredient as "vegetarian" or "vegan?"

Answer

Without further qualification, if someone refers to themselves as vegetarian (in America), the general assumption is that they are lacto-ovo vegetarian. That means they don't eat animal products that require killing the animal, but eggs and dairy are fine. Gelatin comes from a dead animal (unless they start harvesting it with arthroscopic probes :), so it is not a vegetarian ingredient. There are many other hydrocolloids, such as agar, that can be used to produce similar textures if needed.

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Cooling jelly without a refrigerator

Question

I have a pint of fruit juice, and some Gelatin. I want to make a fruit jelly for after dinner, which will be in 8 hours.

Living in the city with a vegetable shop around the corner, I do not have a refrigerator. It is however cold and rainy, and from experience, 6-7 hours on the windowsill will cause it to gel almost perfectly.

Are there any additional, simple tricks I can use to lower the temperature in the bowl by a few degrees more? I will be using a relatively flat bowl.

Answer

I'd place a tray in my sink a slowly run water through it, then sit the jelly on top of the tray, such that the bottom half of the jelly mould is under water. The constant, gentle, flow of cold water will cool the jelly quickly.

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How does gelatin interact with grease (fat)?

Question

I made an escalivada (eggplant, red pepper and onion in the oven, peel, cool) yesterday, and today I've added gelatin to make a nice presentation.

I used about 5gr of gelatin for 150ml heated 'escalivada juice (lots of olive oil)'.

The result was all right, but the top layer stayed liquid. The rest stayed together.

Any idea as to why the top layer stayed liquid? Does the olive oil affect the gelatin?

Answer

Gelatin works by creating a very fine mesh of proteins, between which the (hidrophilic) liquid gets trapped.

A mixture of fat and water isn't a liquid. It can be either a rough two-phase mixture, with visible fat droplets swimming around in the water, or it can be an emulsion, with invisibly small fat droplets dispersed through the water. Emulsions appear smooth, e.g. milk.

When you try to use gelatine on the mixture, two things can happen. In an emulsion, the fat droplets can be smaller than the protein mesh. Then they get trapped as well as the water, and the result is gelled emulsion, just like you'd expect.

But if you have big globules of fat, they can't be trapped between the proteins. So it looks like they got squeezed out of the mesh and bubbled up to the surface, if it hadn't been there all along. On the surface, gelatine molecules couldn't find each other between globules of fat to crosslink, or maybe the motion of the globules broke any nascent links in the small amount of water between them, so it couldn't gel. So the conclusion is: you can't set soup/stew with gelatine. (I know that concentrated stock hardens from its own gelatine, but it has the fat filtered out first).

On the practical side, if you want to have thick stew juice, you have to use something else than gelatine. It is probably simplest to create an olive oil based roux with the stew juice. Or you can gel with xanthan. Both will result in a "juice" which is creamy, instead of solid wobbly blocks of juice, with xanthan retaining the authentic taste and a roux-based sauce being a novel variation.

If it is real jelly you are after, you'll have to emulsify first and use gelatine after that. Xanthan itself should emulsify well, or you can probably use lecithine. AFAIK, there is no problem to use lecithine and gelatine together, but somebody with more experience in gelling agents should confirm that. In any case, emulsifying will lead to your liquid getting quite opaque. This is inavoidable, as it has to do with the way the collection of individual micro fat droplets break and reflect light rays.

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