{"id":1268,"date":"2013-12-16T13:53:17","date_gmt":"2013-12-16T13:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ginnyang.com\/?p=1268"},"modified":"2014-06-13T10:24:46","modified_gmt":"2014-06-13T09:24:46","slug":"reverse-spherification-making-food-pearls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/?p=1268","title":{"rendered":"Reverse Spherification – Making Food Pearls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spherification in molecular gastronomy is the process of taking a liquid and turning it into a ball of jelly with the centre still in liquid form. \u00a0Spherification is achieved by one of two methods, “Spherification” and “Reverse Spherification”. \u00a0For this post I’ll be focusing on Reverse Spherification because it is the one I used to make the grapefruit and raspberry pearls for my tasting menu. \u00a0See the recipes here: Langoustine and Lobster Cannelloni with Grapefruit Pearls<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Chocolate Cremeux with Raspberry Pearls<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Basic spherification<\/strong> involves dropping a liquid mixed with sodium alginate into a calcium bath (generally calcium chloride). \u00a0This creates a gel from within the sphere so there is no real skin, it bursts easily in the mouth without a jelly like mouth feel. \u00a0But basic\u00a0spherification has two major limitations. \u00a0First, the jellification process doesn’t stop once the sphere is removed from the calcium bath. \u00a0This means the spheres must be made and served immediately or you will just end up with a ball of flavoured jelly. \u00a0Second, it is not suitable for all ingredients. \u00a0Highly acidic liquids or anything with a high alcohol content or containing calcium will not work. \u00a0You can add sodium citrate to correct the PH level but sodium citrate will alter the taste of your sphere.<\/p>\n

Reverse\u00a0spherification<\/strong> involves adding a calcium such as calcium gluconate (which is tasteless) to a liquid and then dropping the liquid into a sodium alginate bath. \u00a0The advantage of this method is the ability to use almost any liquid, high calcium liquids probably won’t need calcium gluconate and the acidity \/ alcohol content of the liquid won’t matter either. \u00a0So if you want cocktail spheres, reverse spherification is the way to go. \u00a0When you remove the spheres from the sodium alginate bath and rinse them in water they will stop jellifying. \u00a0Spheres made using reverse\u00a0spherification will keep for several days, can be made to the desired thickness and since the skin of the sphere is permeable it can be left in a flavoured liquid to marinate. \u00a0The downside is that the skin of the sphere will be thicker, so you while you will get the satisfying burst of liquid, you will feel the thin jelly skin.<\/p>\n

Using reverse spherification is slightly trickier than your basic spherification method. \u00a0The majority of the challenges come from using a sodium alginate bath… it thickens the water; too thick and your drops of liquid will end up as pancakes on the surface of the bath, too thin and the droplets will disperse before it forms a proper sphere. \u00a0The spheres will also stick to each other in the bath, so they must be kept apart – limiting the number you can do at one time. \u00a0You will also need to ensure proper dispersion of the sodium alginate into the water, that is usually done with an immersion blender. \u00a0It takes awhile to get the bath properly mixed and when you are done you will notice air bubbles trapped in the bath. \u00a0You will need to let the bath rest for at least 12 hours before you can use it, otherwise the air bubbles will damage or weaken your spheres.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Preparing your liquid:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Take your liquid that you are about to spherify and measure out 2% calcium gluconate or 1% calcium lactate by weight. \u00a0Do not<\/strong>, use calcium chloride as you would in basic \u00a0spherification, it is salty and bitter and will completely change the taste of your spheres. \u00a0Take your calcium and add it to about half of your liquid, mix it in with an immersion blender, then add the remaining half of the liquid and blend until completely dissolved. \u00a0If your liquid is already high in calcium (like milk) then it won’t need additional calcium gluconate added.<\/p>\n

Now check the thickness of your liquid. \u00a0It needs to be about the thickness of double cream, if it is too watery and thin it will just splash on the surface of the alginate bath. \u00a0If you need to thicken your liquid you should use xanthan gum. \u00a0How much xantham gum you add depends on how much thicker the liquid needs to be… 0.5% is probably a good start. \u00a0Hit it with the immersion blender and leave it to rest for about 20mins then check again. \u00a0Repeat until you reach the desired thickness. \u00a0If your liquid foams up, as it did with my grapefruit pearls, strain in through a sieve. \u00a0That will help remove the air bubbles and should get the foam back to a liquid like state.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Preparing the bath:<\/strong><\/p>\n

You will need 0.5% sodium alginate to distilled water by weight. \u00a0It is important that you do not use tap water, it will contain calcium which will react with the sodium alginate and the whole thing will become a gel. \u00a0I don’t recommend mineral water for the same reasons. \u00a0Cold, distilled water is required, either make it yourself or buy it from a hardware \/ car parts store.<\/p>\n

Sodium alginate is actually quite hard to disperse and hydrate. \u00a0You can mix a small amount of sugar with the alginate powder to help dispersion. \u00a0Mix the alginate and sugar into half of the distilled water with an immersion blender, until it has completely dissolved. \u00a0Even with an immersion blender, it will take a good few minutes to completely dissolve the alginate. \u00a0Add the rest of the water and mix for another few minutes before allowing the bath to rest for about 12 hours. \u00a0You can speed up the process by straining it through a fine sieve or chinois.<\/p>\n

\"GnY_RaspberryPearls\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Forming the spheres:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now comes the tricky part, making your spheres. \u00a0You should setup a system of bowls or trays. \u00a0One with the liquid, another with the alginate bath, another bowl with just tap water and finally a plate to serve or a bowl filled with juice or other flavouring to store the spheres. \u00a0It is important that you do not transfer any alginate into the calcium prepared liquid. \u00a0If you do then it is likely that the entire liquid will end up as a jelly; so keep your utensils completely separate! \u00a0There are two ways to get the right shape. \u00a0The easy way is to freeze your liquid in small balls using a special freezer tray, that will produce perfect results every time. \u00a0The other, more common way is to lower the liquid in with a spoon. \u00a0It is best to use a rounded spoon, like a small measuring spoon. \u00a0Take a spoonful of liquid and keep it just above the alginate bath – too high and the liquid will spread but you don’t want to put the spoon in the bath. Carefully but quickly, pour the liquid into the bath, do a couple at a time. \u00a0I recommend a flat-bottomed tray or dish for the alginate bath, if the spheres sink they need to be kept apart, a curved bottom will have them all bunch together. \u00a0You don’t want the spheres sitting at the bottom anyway, one side will end up flat and with a thinner skin that the rest, so give them a stir. \u00a0If the spheres float, you need to stir the bath to ensure that the spheres are “cooked” on all sides equally, splashing the spheres with alginate water also helps.<\/p>\n

If a few spheres burst or tiny drops split off and form little spheres then you will need to clean out the bath. \u00a0You can remove larger bits with a slotted spoon but if there is a build up of gunk just strain the bath with a sieve and carry on.<\/p>\n

Depending on how thick and stable you want your spheres you will need to let them cook in the bath for about two and half minutes. \u00a0Then remove them from the bath with a slotted spoon and let them rest in a bowl of clean water for about 30 seconds (try not to let them stick together) before serving or reserving in a tub of juice or other flavouring. \u00a0I do not recommend leaving them in a tub of water, as the sphere is permeable it will become tasteless. \u00a0The easiest thing to do is keep the pearls in a tub of their own juice – they will store like this for a few days so they can be made in advance.<\/p>\n

Another, easier option for forming the spheres is to freeze the liquid first. \u00a0You need something like a mould to freeze them in small ball shapes but that way you don’t need to worry about thickening the ingredient. \u00a0Just drop the frozen balls in and allow the skin to form. \u00a0If you have any questions on spherification just let me know in the comments below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spherification in molecular gastronomy is the process of taking a liquid and turning it into a ball of jelly with the centre still in liquid form. \u00a0Spherification is achieved by one of two methods, “Spherification” and “Reverse Spherification”. \u00a0For this post I’ll be focusing on Reverse Spherification because it is the one I used to make the grapefruit and raspberry pearls for my tasting menu. \u00a0See the recipes here: Langoustine and Lobster Cannelloni with Grapefruit[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Reverse Spherification - How to make Food Pearls. http:\/\/wp.me\/p1PTCG-ks #food","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5,50,32],"tags":[88,87],"class_list":["post-1268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recipes","category-side","category-tips-and-tools","tag-molecular-gastronomy","tag-pearls"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/GnY_RaspPearls.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1PTCG-ks","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1268"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1381,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions\/1381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}