i experiment regularly

Ages ago, i learn how to make the Greek nut cake, known as Karidopida.
I was fascinated by it because the base was not flour, but egg.
I thought, i could do other things with this base and so my first attempt was corn bread, removing the flour and adding corn meal (either finely ground or course ground) with great success.

The base is very light (because  of whipped eggs) and so was the corn bread.

I began looking for other applications and was asked to bring a carrot cake to a dinner yesterday...
I always think of carrot cake as too sweet and too dense and not enough flavor.
I experimented.
it was a success!

Carrot Karidopida

A Greek twist on a classic

The cake ·       8 eggs, separated ·       1 cup brown sugar ·       1/4 teaspoon cinnamon ·       1/4 teaspoon allspice ·       1/4 teaspoon ground clove ·       1/8 teaspoon cream of tarter ·       2 teaspoons baking powder ·       1/8 teaspoon salt ·       1/2 cup raisins, rehydrated ·       1 cup unbleached flour ·       1 cup raw carrots, shredded ·       1/2 cup ground Walnuts

Frosting ·       2 cups powdered sugar ·       2 tablespoons soft butter ·       8 oz cream cheese, softened ·       1 teaspoon orange extract

Frosting

using the paddle attachment, mix butter and cream cheese

add powdered sugar in 4 part increments

add orange extract

Cake

Use a whisk attachment on a mixer first

beat egg whites with cream of tarter on high and set aside

beat egg yokes until thick and then add spices, sugar and salt and continue to mix

separately, mix baking powder with the flour

Change the paddle from the whisk to a beat bar and reduce the speed of the mixer

slowly add the flour mixture to the egg yoke mixture

When mixed remove from the mixer and fold in the egg whites

Fold in the carrots, nuts and raisins

Pour into a 9 x 12 greased cake pan

Cook at 350 F for 40 minutes

Remove from the oven and cool in the refrigerator for 10 minutes before topping

Serve cool 

Expirements

My background is chemistry and that means several things;
the first is i like to "play" with my food,
sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail and great messes are made in the kitchen.
And so you know, i clean up my own messes.
The second is that, although i was never a synthesis chemist, i know the rules and there is always an order to how things are added together.

there are times i forget those rules.
I make an excellent whip cream from scratch which has a little bit of sugar (so it is not like ready whip or cool whip) and has some great flavors (vanilla and cinnamon).
Then i go and want to do more with it and that is when i get into trouble.
I wanted to add fruit and had some frozen blackberries from a time they were on sale.
So why not add them to the whipped cream, so this is when things went "south" so to speak.
blackberries are acid and these were frozen.
I defrosted them in the microwave and add sugar to them AND THEN I PUT THEM IN THE MIXER FIRST!
What was i thinking?
The cream has to set first, adding an acid not only did not let the cream set, but curdled it!
Turning on the mixer let the mixture fly every where.
The next day i did it in the proper order, whip the cream with sugar and when it was set add the macerated blackberries slowly to the whipped cream.
This worked without a mess and the topping was great.

Next experiment went well, took leftover part skim ricotta cheese (from making spinach breakfast cups), mixed it with egg and sugar (1 cup ricotta, 2 eggs, i tablespoon of sugar) and put the mixture in a souffle baking cup.  25 minutes at 350 and everything was set.

Next, i make some fine cornbread, but it is time consuming and takes a lot of eggs, so i added beer instead of water to a premix cornbread.
I have done this before, but it really did nothing save add a nice flavor, but this time i covered the top with cheese.
2 boxes corn mix, 2 eggs, 2/3 cup beer and about 8 oz of yellow cheese on top.
What i did not think of is that the cheese melted and covered the top, trapping the carbonation of the beer (so you could use seltzer water as well) and the cornbread became light and fluffy and beautiful to behold.  It did require more time than the box said 30 minutes at 400 F, but oh how good!.
there you have my experiments for the evening!