[I have included a small glossary of terms at the bottom of this post for some of the words that we may have heard a 100 times but never really took the time to look up.]

I recently had the pleasure of reviewing the “Olive Oil Baking: Healthy Recipes That Increase Good Cholesterol and Reduce Saturated Fats” cookbook by Lisa A. Sheldon, who holds a Masters in Clinical Nutrition from UMass Amherst here in Massachusetts.

There is a relatively brief and to-the-point discussion at the front of the book on the various types of fats we eat, including trans fatty acids, saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated fats.

The book reminds us that monounsaturated fats are the good guys and that olive oil is chock full of monounsaturated fats. Not only does olive oil have predominantly monounsaturated fats, but it also is enriched in polyphenols, powerful antioxidants that may play a part in the heart protective qualities attributed to olive oil.

The book discusses some of the potential positive effects that olive oil has on:

• Heart Disease
• Serum Cholesterol composition and levels
• Blood vessel function
• Blood pressure
• Cancer risk (breast and colon)
• Arthritis
• Other inflammatory diseases
• Your skin
• Management of blood sugars
• Osteoporosis

Thus, in an effort to help more people take advantage of the health benefits of olive oil and to help people move away from using toxic fatty acids like margarine and hydrogenated lard products, Sheldon has provided a nice little treasure chest of recipes where butter and other fats have been replaced by olive oil.

I personally believe in butter (if sourced from a raw milk source), organic unprocessed animal lard, and minimally processed organic coconut oils. These and olive oil are only as good as you treat them so using them at as low a temperature as possible and as soon as possible minimizes the production of free radicals (the “bad” part of any of the bad fats).

The recipes in this book are an excellent alternative to the more traditional ones we have become accustomed to using.

The recipe chapters include:

• Cakes & Desserts
• Pancakes & Waffles
• Quick Breads
• Brownies & Bars
• Cookies & Biscotti
• Muffins
• Coffeecakes
• Savory Breads
• Other Tasty Treats

 

I tried one of the quick bread recipes because my homeschooling daughter and I are on a baking learning arc right now so quick bread fits in nicely.

This bread is delicious and perfect for this time of year! Because of the pumpkin, it is very moist and would do nicely as a cake as well. I actually forgot to put the streusel topping on it before baking so I toasted the topping mix separately and then added it on top before shooting the photo. I also added a sugar glaze (powdered sugar and milk).

Pumpkin Streusel Bread

Ingredients:

Topping:
2 T brown sugar
1 T all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 T olive oil

1 C all purpose flour
1/2 C whole heat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 C sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1C canned pumpkin
1/2 C olive oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 C milk or water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 chopped walnuts (we used none - we have bad nut allergies)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F and coat a 9X5 inch loaf pan with cooking spray or oil. We used a 9 inch cake pan! In a small bowl, combine all four topping ingredients and rub together in fingers until crumbly.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, salt, sugar, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and allspice.

In a separate bowl, mix the pumpkin, olive oil, eggs, milk, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and combine but do not over mix.

Pour into the prepared pan, sprinkle the topping evenly over the surface.

Bake some 50-60 minutes, until a toothpick into the center of the bread comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then remove to a cooling rack.

Book Details:

Olive Oil Baking: Healthy Recipes That Increase Good Cholesterol and Reduce Saturated Fats

Price: $13.57 USD, £7.78 UK

Hardcover: 144 pages
Publisher: Cumberland House Publishing (August 1, 2007)
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 1 inches

 

Pumpkin Streusel Bread without glaze   

Glossary of Terms:

Fatty Acids:
aliphatic monocarboxylic acids derived from or contained in esterified form in an animal or vegetable fat, oil or wax. Natural fatty acids commonly have a chain of 4 to 28 carbons (usually unbranched and even numbered), which may be saturated or unsaturated. By extension, the term is sometimes used to embrace all acyclic aliphatic carboxylic acids. (learn more)

Free radical:
In chemistry, radicals (often referred to as free radicals) are atomic or molecular species with unpaired electrons on an otherwise open shell configuration. These unpaired electrons are usually highly reactive, so radicals are likely to take part in chemical reactions. (learn more)

Hydrogenation:
Hydrogenation results in the conversion of liquid vegetable oils to solid or semi-solid fats, such as those present in margarine. Changing the degree of saturation of the fat changes some important physical properties such as the melting point, which is why liquid oils become semi-solid. Semi-solid fats are preferred for baking because the way the fat mixes with flour produces a more desirable texture in the baked product. Since partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are cheaper than animal source fats, are available in a wide range of consistencies, and have other desirable characteristics (e.g., increased oxidative stability (longer shelf life)), they are the predominant fats used in most commercial baked goods. Fat blends formulated for this purpose are called shortenings. (learn more)

Mono-unsaturated fats:
In nutrition, monounsaturated fats are fatty acids having a single double bond present in the fatty acid chain, with all of the carbons in the chain single-bonded carbons in contrast to polyunsaturated fatty acids which have more than one double bond. (learn more)

Polyphenol:
Polyphenols are a group of chemical substances found in plants, characterized by the presence of more than one phenol group per molecule. Polyphenols are generally further subdivided into hydrolyzable tannins, which are gallic acid esters of glucose and other sugars; and phenylpropanoids, such as lignins, flavonoids, and condensed tannins. (learn more)

Polyunsaturated fats:
n nutrition, polyunsaturated fat is an abbreviation of polyunsaturated fatty acid. That is a fatty acid in which more than one double bond exists within the representative molecule. That is, the molecule has two or more points on its structure capable of supporting hydrogen atoms not currently part of the structure. Polyunsaturated fatty acids can assume a cis or trans conformation depending on the geometry of the double bond. (learn more)

Saturated fats:
Saturated fat is fat that consists of triglycerides containing only saturated fatty acids. Saturated fatty acids have no double bonds between the carbon atoms of the fatty acid chain; hence, they are fully saturated with hydrogen atoms. (learn more)

Transfatty acids:
Most trans fats consumed today are industrially created by partially hydrogenating plant oils — a process developed in the early 1900s and first commercialized as Crisco in 1911. The goal of partial hydrogenation is to add hydrogen atoms to unsaturated fats, making them more saturated. These more saturated fats have a higher melting point making them attractive for baking, and extending their shelf-life. Another particular class of trans fats, vaccenic acid occurs in trace amounts in meat and dairy products from ruminants. (learn more)

Book review of Camilla V. Saulsbury’s Panna Cotta: Italy’s Elegant Custard Made Easy

I had never heard of panna cotta before I saw it made on Iron Chef a few years ago. I obviously do not frequent many Italian restaurants, mainly because I live in an Italian restaurant wasteland where white dinner rolls (you know, the kind that you buy at Stop and Shop ready to pop in the oven to “bake”) are served along with bologna antipastos (practically right out of the grocery store packaging). No, you can bet panna cotta will not be on any local menus.

Seeing it made on Iron Chef is a very different thing than making it yourself. I actually never had a hankering for it until I agreed to review “Panna Cotta: Italy’s Elegant Custard Made Easy” by Camilla V. Saulsbury and I am so glad that I decided to try a panna cotta on for size. I recommend this type of food and this cookbook in particular to both beginning cooks and the more experienced. You will not be disappointed.

First, let me tell you about the most fundamental lesson I learned from this book - panna cotta is extremely easy to make. You are essentially making a custard-like concoction without any eggs. You do this by replacing their eggy magic with powdered gelatin.

The cover is fantastic, a raspberry vibrancy that sets off a poppy seed panna cotta to excellent effect. If you are visually cued like I am, you will be drawn in by the cover, seduced into exploring the panna cotta.

In it’s mere 128 pages, this book packs in quite a lot of fantastic information about what panna cotta is (literally means cooked cream), the fundamentals of making a panna cotta, and a treasury of recipes that will definitely inspire you to try a few out.

Just inside the front cover, the book has several pages of color photographs that depict some of the recipes. These are not as beautiful as the cover but they serve to illustrate the variety of panna cotta forms and presentation possibilities.

The introduction provides an excellent grounding in panna cotta First Principles. Do not skip this chapter because it will give you the basic understanding of this eggless custard that you can then use to design you own creations.

The recipes are organized into six chapters:

• Top-10 Panna Cotta Favorites
• Chocolate, Caramel, & Spice
• Fruit Panna Cotta
• Spirited Panna Cotta
• Enlightened Panna Cotta
• Savory Panna Cotta

In the “Top-10″ chapter, you will find recipes like vanilla bean, PB&J, toasted coconut, cinnamon panna cotta and others.

Chapter Two has quite a few tempting recipes, such as mayan chocolate, pink peppercorn (sweet!), cannoli, chai, and five-spice & honey panna cotta. There will certainly be a dessert there for everyone in your family.

Chapter Three explores the use of fruits such as mango, hachiya persimmon, roasted pear, and even sweet pumpkin!

As you might have expected, the “Spirited Panna Cotta” Chapter (Four) delves into recipes that use alcohol, recipes such as late harvest reisling, mint julep, limoncello & mint, and even white chocolate amaretto panna cotta.

Chapter Five, “Enlightened Panna Cotta,” provides “lighter” versions with ingredients such as evaporated fat free milk and reduced fat sour cream in decadent sounding recipes like ricotta-honey, cafe brulot and linzer panna cotta.

In the final recipe chapter, “Savory Panna Cotta,” Saulsbury gives recipes for the panna cottas which I personally find the the most attractive. With recipes for butternut squash, porcini, asparagus, cauliflower and gorgonzola panna cotta, you will impress friends and family with flavorful and unexpected appetizers that can really set the scene for a memorable dinner.

Saulsbury is able to, in a very small number of pages, put you on track to making your own panna cottas and encourages you to strike out on new paths, exploring your own part of the pana cotta universe. I found her writing encouraging to the uninitiated, namely me, and I soon found myself innovating a new recipe on my first time out of the panna cotta gate.

I would recommend this book to any of my friends and family and I look forward to trying out more of these recipes.

What follows is my first panna cotta, inspired by Saulsbury’s Thyme Goat Cheese panna cotta. The family, from toddlers, pre-teens, to adults, all loved this savory appetizer.

(Copyright 2007 Nika Boyce)

Basil Ginger Goat Cheese Panna Cotta by Nika Boyce

(Inspired by Saulsbury’s own Thyme Goat Cheese Panna Cotta found on page 124)

Makes 12 or so mini panna cottas with some left over for the cook.

Instead of the many tempting sweet panna cottas featured in this book, I chose to make a savory one. Saulsbury has several very tempting recipes for savories such as summer corn panna cotta, asparagus panna cotta, avocado panna cotta and many more. I adapted her recipe for thyme goat cheese panna cotta because I didn’t have the exact same ingredients that she called for. Instead of heavy cream, I used half and half. Instead of thyme, I used basil. I also added ginger because I seem to want to add ginger to everything these days and I wanted to see how it would do in this setting. Ginger, for me, was a wonderful addition.

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons warm water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
• ginger, small 1/8 inch thick slice that is not minced but left whole
• several basil leaves, tear by hand into small pieces
• 8 oz goat cheese chevre, cut into small pieces
• 1 1/4 C half and half
• 1/2 C sour cream
• 2 slices hardwood smoked bacon, fried until crispy, allow to cool
• 1/2 red delicious apple
• 2 crimini mushrooms, medium size and sliced
• 2 large basil leaves for presentation
• sea salt

Directions:

Add the powdered gelatin to the 3 tablespoons of warm water and set aside to allow the water to be absorbed, at least 5 minutes.

In a heavy pot, bring the half and half, ginger slice, and basil leaves up to a simmer (over the lowest heat that will get you there), remove from the burner and add the gelatin. Mix until the gelatin is dissolved. Using a whisk, incorporate the goat cheese and then the sour cream.

I used a mini-muffin tin that I had coated with a good olive oil. I poured the panna cotta mix into this tin and then put it into the refrigerator overnight. Saulsbury suggests at least 4 hours.

I served this up two different ways. Not shown was how I had poured some of the excess mixture into a medium size baking cup. The next day I just stuck a spoon in to spread the panna cotta on matzos, very delicious and not fussy at all. The dry matzo and the rich panna cotta spread are a hit in this house now.

The photos show the second way I served this. I slowly fried some hardwood smoked bacon slices in a cast iron pan. I set those aside and sauted several apple slices and also diced apple and allowed them to drain and cool. I also lightly sauted some crimini slices. I assembled them, as show, with some basil leaves as the base, the panna cotta, a dribble of olive oil, a slice of apple (with the peel for color), a slice of mushroom, a bit of apple and bacon dice, and then long slices of the bacon for flair. The bacon, apple, and mushroom eaten with the panna cotta are a unctuous mix of savory, sweet, tart, and creaminess. Try to allow all garnishes to cool as hot items may just make your panna cotta melt.

(Copyright 2007 Nika Boyce)

Books of Interest:

• Panna Cotta: Italy’s Elegant Custard Made Easy by Camilla V. Saulsbury $11.53 US and £7.75 UK

Resources:

• Wilton Excelle Elite 12-Cup Mini Muffin Pan
• Chicago Metallic Gourmetware Non-Stick 12-Cup Popover Pan