Lavender Lemon Hippocampus Cookies: aka Seahorses

For those of us who are less nerdy and who spend less time looking at brains, or who maybe don't bother memorizing the names of aquatic animals in Latin, hippocampus is 1) the latin term for seahorse, and 2) the name we give the structure of the brain that is deeply involved in learning, memory, and navigation. Given that these functions are involved in almost anything and everything we do, the hippocampus is also pretty frequently affected by diseases (ie Alzheimer's, temporal lobe epilepsy, etc).

It's also one of the most distinctively structured part of the brain, with a mass of well organized cells and layers as you can see below in probably one of the widely distributed pictures of a hippocampus ever where each adjacent neuron (the dots) is labeled a distinct color.

via J Litchman Lab 

The combined quirk of its name, its hugely important role in major functions, and its pretty structure all make the hippocampus the pet favorite of a lot of neuroscientists/neurologists/neurosurgeons/etc. For example, my former (tears) lab has a picture of a seahorse hanging out in our lab, and one of the neurosurgeons our lab works with has hippocampi/seahorses decorating a large portion of his wardrobe in addition to his entire office (supposedly). And here I am drinking in the hippocampus kool-aid, making seahorse shaped cookies for my lab as an adieu. Well rather, made, since I've officially left as of last week. Big life changes make leaving sad, but on the other hand, there are new exciting Californian things to look forward to as well.

Of course, there are probably a lot of neuroscientists who may think the hippocampus is overrated, because there are a lot of other interesting/weird brain structures also hugely important since in this day and age, we know that no singular area of the brain is solely responsible for a task/behavior, but rather dependent on a network of regions and how they communicate. That aside, other brain structures have weird names too. Take the amygdala, hugely important in emotions, decisions, and memory, named after the drought pariah almond. Then there's the zona incerta, which is literally called "the uncertain zone," because no one really knows what its role is.

Now that I've spent way too long talking about the brain, I'm sure the real questions for a food blog are 1) did they actually taste good? and 2) how did these decorations work? As you may notice, lavender and lemon are a pretty frequent combination I use, in part thanks to my lifetime supply of lavender that I will probably never finish. But also, lavender and lemon is just a great combination for other fairly boring sugar cookies. That said, I think the lavender and lemon flavors were a bit more muted this time, in part because I had a fear of feeding my lab people flowers, and in part due to the neutral/almond flavored icing on top.

With regard to point 2), these were decorated the standard way- creating an initial border with thick icing, then flooding with thinned icing. The designs on the inside were either made with thick icing lines after the inner flood icing dried, or by adding dots of thinned icing to the still wet flood icing and then running a toothpick through the circle to create the hearts/swirled effect. And the black dot? A food pen because I'm the type of person who owns a decorative, edible food pen.

Sugar Cookie Recipe via The Kitchn, modified to add 1-2 tsp of dried lavender buds, blended separately with the sugar in a food processor before adding.

Royal Icing Recipe via Bake at 350. I find that about 1/2 the batch is usually fine for 1 batch of the above sugar cookie recipe. Doubling is way too much.

Cinnamon Dulce De Leche Ice Cream: The ~Spice~ of Life

Day one of my longest vacation yet starts now. I had the inkling of an idea to be productive-get this blog post done, go for a run, make pizza dough, temporarily unpack my life, find books to check out from the library. But then I ended up on amazon prime instant video and the asoiaf reddit. And its now the afternoon, or early evening EST. If I were in lab as I were last week, this would be ridiculous.

Of course, how typical that as a fairly motivated person, I think that my vacation and free time are wasted unless I'm doing something interesting. Oh, I could go on and on about how the work-life balance of our generation and times has become a 24/7 work lifestyle, or how being busy is the new way we measure social value, or how we're now happiest when we're busy, but we've all seen this article/headline/podcast story plenty of times. We've all thought and nodded "YES THIS IS WHAT IS WRONG," maybe even have written a motivational sticky that says something like "take time," or "no decision you make is ever a mistake," (my personal sticky) and yet we're all still going to continue trying really hard regardless and occasionally reading and nodding to these articles.



So I'm not going to delve into that (or I'm going to try to not), because these kinds of commentaries about how we should live our life kind of remind me of both commencement speeches and horoscopes- nothing new is ever really said and if you make it vague it enough, it will always apply no matter what kind of life you're living (plus, I'm not getting paid to make a click bait article about 10 ways to improve your life here).

To make this semi-relevant to cinnamon ice cream with dulce de leche, there are times when my life can be interesting and varied- like the dash or heaping of spices I like to add to different things. And then there are times when it can be dull-like a creamy white ice cream base that's just waiting for something extra. Which frankly, is what most ice cream is. It's milk, cream, sometimes eggs, infused with something partway through or swirled through at the end. Technique-wise, ice cream is pretty boring and standard, but the ability to mix and add almost anything keeps it an easy way to do interesting things. Maybe thats all I need in my free time, lazy ways to be interesting.

As a not-quite-real-adult, I don't really have a large spice assortment, particularly in the savory department. But cinnamon is that warm, Christmas-time, fuzzy feelings spice that is the Target of spices- ubiquitous enough for fake adults, but with the potential to be fancy when it wants to be. David Lebovitz likes to be fancy obviously, but again, being not a real adult, I don't have 3 types of cinnamon (surprise! there are different types of cinnamon!). So I went with the in-between fancy option of using normal cinnamon sticks to infuse the cream base and hand grated cinnamon rather than the powdered stuff every single other normal person uses. I did initially have a hard time tasting the cinnamon in the base, and consequently shaved about 75% of a cinnamon stick into the base for extra taste at the end, which definitely helped make the churned ice cream taste like cinnamon. I'd probably add more sticks or seep longer next time (in addition to buying fancy cinnamon).

Cinnamon aside, I had an extra can of sweetened condensed milk I never used, so I made dulce de leche out of it via the microwave method to mix in at the end. Within the realms of homemade dulce de leche, people online are seriously divided. I've only tried this microwave method so I can't really comment, but based on the 5-10 tabs I read, I'd say microwave is one of the safer methods, and adding a 1/2 tsp of water every couple of minutes seems to help with the problem of the dulce de leche becoming too brittle before it is done. I was trying to go for more of a swirled effect with the dulce de leche, but fairly thick toffee + cold = lumps rather than streaks. No complaints flavor or texture-wise though as the dulce de leche was still soft in the ice cream, albeit you got it in rather large quantities rather than interspersed.

Cinnamon Ice Cream via David Lebovitz
Dulce De Leche via Cooking for Engineers (multiple methods exist)

Avocado Pizza: Hodge Podge Goodness

I think I used a frozen vegetable mix called "Hodge Podge" for this, so the title is completely justified. Also, its moving season so my life and apartment are both 100% a hodge podge mess. Though maybe not as delicious as mixed frozen vegetables can be. And looking at this picture below, its pretty clear that the majority of this pizza is not frozen vegetables? Like hello avocados and mushrooms?

I thought about what I would talk about for this post, because I spend the majority of time on this blog talking about either my hate for finding natural lighting or some other random topic. Definitely not food, never! Have I ever actually described the taste or texture of an ice cream or pizza (wow my diet is so American) in a way that makes you go yum I want to eat? Probably not.

But I'll do what I do best, and make random comments and generalizations to the world of home cooking and dessert making. If its not obvious already, I started my kitchen adventures from the oven. From boxed cake mixes in high school to be specific. Baking has always been my favorite in part due to its lovely methodological ways. Which is funny since as a scientist, I follow a lot of protocols in lab, and then when I come home to relax, I follow more protocols essentially.

Cooking on the other hand initially terrified me (and kinda still does) for 2 simple facts 1) the ingredients lists seem way longer and detailed (like I have to buy A WHOLE JAR of oyster sauce for a "dash?") and 2) "to taste." Being a kitchen newbie and having to improvise ratios brought back awful memories of creative art projects in elementary school that looked akin to really sad clay volcanos. I've heard the other argument from people who started their adult lives cooking real food (unlike me) that cooking is easier in the sense that you can be messy and improvise ingredients without much backlash (like not including a dash of oyster sauce). It kinda speaks poorly to my ability to be creative that going off the grid makes me so nervous, so I'll have to work on that whole taking risks in life thing, starting first with pizza toppings.



Avocados are delicious in all forms, though I have to admit that warm is usually not my preferred route, but would still make it again.
Whole wheat honey pizza dough from Budget Bytes.

Tardis Tea Ice Cream: Better Astronaut Ice Cream

Remember those super trendy freeze-dried packets of "astronaut ice cream" that every science museum, art museum, or store that considered itself cool sold? While freeze dried foods are a fascinating novelty, do they actually taste that good? Not really. I mean, the freeze dried ice cream was actually pretty good given that ice cream is a delightful mixture of cream and sugar at its core. So even sucking the moisture out of it can't really do that much damage.



But here, I present an ice cream all astronauts, real and fictional alien ones, would probably enjoy. A bit of caffeine, some fruit, and some leaves- all part of a balanced space traveling diet. Though I get the impression that Doctor 12 is maybe not an ice cream type of person, or am I just grumpy old person stereotyping? He could very well be the exact opposite and be that crazy old man that subsists on ice cream. Related to that, ice cream for breakfast, while helpful with the whole natural lighting photography thing (which I still need to seriously work on), does not keep you full until lunch.

So what exactly is Tardis tea? It's this awesome early grey tea blend with blueberry and vanilla notes created in honor of Doctor Who! The blueberry is clearly meant to be associated with Tardis blue, and earl grey I suppose embodies the BBC. The tea leaves from this smell straight up amazing and as close to fantasy and exploration as a scent could possibly come close to. While the tea brews slightly on the bitter side when drinking it, the cream and sugar in the ice cream base more than help balance out the bitterness. For extra measure, I also added in a swirl of blueberry sauce, which gave it a nice pretty streak of purple/blue too.



Of course, Tardis tea ice cream isn't exactly a common Tazo or Twinnings or Celestial Seasonings tea, but normal earl grey works perfectly in this recipe. Heck, the recipe I adapted this from is an earl grey ice cream recipe. I've been pretty successful with my attempts at tea-based ice creams in the past making green tea and chai tea and now this Tardis tea ice cream. That just about covers the bases of my favorite teas. I usually hate drinking fruity teas, but now I'm thinking they might have a redeeming place in tea-infused ice creams now. Even if you're an anti-tea person, tea ice cream might just be the type of tea you've been waiting to be offered your whole life!

Sidenote-isn't it kinda awesome that freeze drying food was invented thanks to NASA and the amazing energy and funding that we poured into scientific exploration back in the day? Take that Ted Cruz! Not to mention like the gazillion other maybe slightly more useful things in our lives aside from freeze dried foods.

Tardis Tea from Adagio Teas
Earl Grey cream recipe via Gimme Some Oven
Blueberry sauce via My Baking Addiction

Biscoff Stuffed Snickerdoodles: Jane Bennet Cookies

So maybe in the original Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice cookies were not central plot points or character defining objects, but in the modern Youtube adaptation, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, the word snickerdoodles would probably make every character simultaneous awww and weep because of their pivotal role in highlighting the emotional downs, then ups, that was the temporary separation and then reunion of Jane Bennet and Bingley (or Bing Lee in the modern case). ~spoilers~ though, you can't really expect to avoid spoilers about a 100+ year of story? Plus, there's a psychology study that found having plot points spoiled doesn't detract from a reader's enjoyment of the novel (also, hi to my new future home!). But more importantly, a thousand apologies to spoiling a certain Game of Throne's death to my friend's friend (which can never be forgiven no matter how many psych studies are done).

Anyways, like the impression I have of Jane Bennet, snickerdoodles are one of those classic, beautiful cookies that are perfect for all occasions- birthdays, celebrations, sadness all are complemented by sugar and spice (specifically, cinnamon). Add in Biscoff cookie butter for added sugar and spice? Definitely go-to cookies for everyone. Like seriously, if your day doesn't improve with some of these cookies, you must have really really interesting taste preferences (and let me know so I can adjust accordingly).

These snickerdoodles are probably a little on the flat and crispier side for my liking. There's an interesting debate floating around the interwebs about what makes a true snickerdoodle- flat and mildly crispy, or super puffy and soft? I think my ideal snickerdoodle would achieve both flatness and softness. While these didn't quite hit the mark on the softness, I think I can forgive them for that thanks to the cookie butter center. Make these as any other cookies (or as the recipe indicates), but add chilled Biscoff spread to the center of two rounded halves instead of forming one ball immediately.
Snickerdoodles recipe via All Recipes

Roasted Garlic Rosemary Bread: Artisan Phases

Remember how in my last post about whole wheat bread I referenced that other loaf of bread that I technically baked first? Well, here it is. And as usual, I tend to attempt giant leaps forward before backtracking into baby steps.

My family has this vague history (if you can count 2 parents and 3 children who are barely in their teens and twenties as "history") of becoming obsessively fixated on hobbies or interests. This is pretty convenient for someone going into academia, but can kinda make you look crazy when it comes to hobbies. Like one summer, I went to hot yoga every single day at 6 AM. I'm still trying to figure out how I did that. Oh, and of course the one time my mom decided to go on a food network inspired cooking phase of multi-course dinners, it ended a few short weeks before I was home for Thanksgiving. And don't get me started on my cross-stitching phase of 2 months thats slowly dwindling, or my mother's recent gardening revival.

In this case, I would say bread baking is in its infancy as an obsession. For me, I think my obsessions tend to either 1) wax and wane fairly very quickly (i.e. cross-stitching), or 2) wax very slowly until I become the type of person who spends their weekend nursing an oven. Bread might be in category 1 at the moment, but it way has the potential to become 2. Especially if I actually do go through with buying a bread mixing stick, a giant bucket, and this fancy artisan bread book (which is where this Roasted Garlic Rosemary Bread recipe originally comes from).

I'm a huge sucker for garlic in general, but especially roasted garlic. It's the sign that I've truly fallen in deep with the "food snobs," "foodie culture," or you know, whatever label. As usual, the rise of this loaf was less than optimal- at only ~2-3 inches max. This is this thing I hate about food photos on blogs. At certain angles, you would totally not notice the lack of rise in a bread photo, and just think "omg, delicious, must try myself." But if you stare at it long enough, its totally obvious that the bread is not particularly tall. And then doesn't that just make you feel cheated?

Regardless of my high yeast/rise standards, the bread itself tasted great, albeit a little dense due to the rise problem. It was great as a tiny sandwich, or just by itself lightly toasted. Aside from the rise thing, the recipe is very easy to make (no endless kneading!). I think my rise problem was due to letting the dough initially rise for too long in a slightly heated oven. Since the bread is also left to sit overnight in the fridge, I think allowing the dough reach its rise peak resulted it in having massive deflation while in the fridge. Well, this is all untested conjecturing, so you know, don't listen to me.

Recipe via The Noble Pig

Whole Wheat Bread: Rewrite v2

The problem with being "busy" (read getting stuck in airports) is that I get halfway through writing blog posts, but don't get far enough to publish or queue it, and then when I do get back to it, I'm left with a half written post that isn't even relevant anymore. For example, the last time I worked on this post was last Sunday, when I was partway through revisit trips for future MD/PhD programs. So a lot of this post was about feeling fit, how you're supposed to pick out the things that make you happy for 8 years etc. And this was all supposed to tie to bread. Probably some reference to comfort or simplicity because sandwich bread is the thing that ties lunches through some ridiculous metaphor.

But honestly, similar to my mood when I probably made this back in March (geez how time flies), bread is boring, and I just wanted to test my yeast-skills again. This is actually the 2nd of two breads I've made so far in 2015, but again "busy" (read: lazy) made me totally forget about that other loaf till now, so you'll get a peak of that later. The idea of making sandwich bread is mildly amusing to me (and to my roommate). It's such a simple, ubiquitous product that machines and extra fancy bread slicers do a far better job at doing than myself. And don't even dare suggest that homemade bread has fewer chemicals and is thus more natural and wholesome or I will ban you. Anyways, while I generally prefer my sandwich bread a bit larger, and studded with more grains and chewy textured bits, the combination of honey and molasses I used for this bread added some nice flavors that the bread I buy doesn't always have. At its worst, bread is just a vehicle for other things. At its best, bread is something I would happily eat alone for all my meals if I could. This was probably 75% best bread- I definitely ate slices of this on its own for breakfast, but it also made great sandwiches.

I was pretty happy with the rise I got from this bread (success!). Aside from my pizza crusts, I've never been happy with my past n=~3 experiences making bread. For reasons that I think may be related to letting bread dough rise too much, my other breads have been short. Delicious because carbs, but short. This time, the bread happily puffed up to a reasonably height. The loaf pan I used was a bit on the smaller side, which I think helped with the rise, but made for some pretty tiny lunchtime sandwiches for that week. Sigh, I just can't win with yeast, but I think I'm getting closer.

Recipe from King Arthur's Flour