A is for Amaretto

Amaretto di Saronno - an Italian liqueur flavored with almonds, apricot kernels and aromatic extracts.  Larousse p13.

They forgot to mention that Amaretto di Saronno also delicious.

I adore Amaretto, hence skipping ahead slightly  to this entry.  It brings a whole new dimension to baked goods and also makes a lovely addition to coffee.   This entry coincides with my friend M's belated birthday (their twenty-first birthday was late September when very few people were available to celebrate, hence it's being celebrated again, in style) which inspired me to make a batch of di Saronno and Almond Brownies, as an alternative to a belated birthday cake.

  One day I will work out how to do food photography.... In real life they looked less messy.

I have also been experimenting with sorbets and gelatos recently; the picture below is Strawberry and Amaretto Granita.

This is based on the recipe for Vegan Strawberry Ice cream by David Lebovitz, the only difference being I used 1 1/2 tablespoons of Amaretto as the in place of kirsch/vodka/Grand Marnier, and golden syrup in the place of honey (I was out of honey).  It was yummy.  However I would not personally consider this "ice cream" (which actually has a strict definition) - it is vegan (depending on whether you use honey) and is not "rich" in any way. I think it an ice cream maker was used, it would have the consistency of sorbet. Whereas I went with the "freeze and stir hourly" method, which resulted in a granita/sherbert consistency. Wonderful, nonetheless.


I have also had two attempts at ciabatta in the past two days. Both attempts were failures.  Looked like ciabatta on the outside, but on the inside the crumb was invariably dense and sticky. And a little too salty. Hoping that the next attempt will be more successful; I think the first couple were under-proved. Number 1 I mistimed; it would have been fully proven when I was in a lecture.  So I baked it early, hoping for some oven-spring. None happened.  It was a brick.   Attempt two was marginally better, but still peculiar.

Today, I learnt not to cook ciabatta before it's proved.  I also learnt that the amount of numbers between 0 and 1 is the same as the amount of numbers in the set of all real numbers.  And that if two groups are infinite, you can assume they contain the same amount of elements (even though infinity doesn't exist).  How long is a piece of string? Why, it's length l.