muzlu ekmek (kek)

banana bread (cake)

Ancient Egyptian tablets talk about a simple type of baking soda called Natron, that was used for rising food when cooking.

In 1791 French chemist and surgeon Nicholas Leblanc found a method of producing baking soda from salt, sodium bicarbonate. Starting from the beginning of the 19th century baking soda was used for rising dough. When preparing the dough, acidic ingredients such as vinegar, lemon juice and tartare cream react very quickly with baking soda and create gaseous balloons. That's why in order to achieve proper rising it has to go into the oven as fast as possible.

British chemist Alfred Bird, in order to bake bread for his wife Elizabeth, who was allergic to eggs and yeast, found the modern baking powder in 1843.

The baking powder called Backin was found by German pharmacist Oetker in 1891, and is still being sold in Germany. Oetker, started mass production in 1898, got the patent in 1903, market it to housewives and made the product very popular. Because of baking powder's ability of creating gaseous balloons as the batter heats, control switched from dough to the baker.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s where households were getting poorer, housewives became creative and made use of close to rotting bananas in making banana breads using both baking soda and powder. Over the years this popular cake took its place in many different cuisines. I use Anamur bananas from southern Turkey that are very tasty and rather small in size, you can try my recipe sometimes.

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şeker hikayesi

sugar story

Posted on by Zehra

Oğlumla bir donut paylaşırken yaptığımız sohbet üzerine giriştiğim araştırmayı sizlerle paylaşmak istedim. 🙂

A white substance, which includes carbon, oxygen and hydrogen in it's formation, that melts in water, is capable of fermenting, mostly sweet and extracted from stems and roots of sugar cane, sugar beet, potato, carrot, corn, and wheat is generally called "Sugar" which is a Persian word.

8000 BC - Sugar cane that grows in tropical and subtropical climates, is originally domesticated by New Guineans and than spread throughout Asia, Southern China and India.

800 BC - The first written acknowledgement of sugar cane is found in ancient Chinese tablets

500 BC - Indian farmers made carrying possible by using special bowls for shaping cold sugar syrup. English word candy, comes from khanda which is the name of this specific creation in India.

300 BC - Alexander The Great's soldiers returning from India brought sugar, which they called "honey powder", to Europe, but it took over a 1000 years for this newcomer to be accepted.

100 AD - Europe imported sugar for medicinal purposes only.

400 - Indians preferred to use honey as sweetener even though they produced ample amounts of sugar. During the Gupta Empire of the 5th century, Indian sugar cane growers, with the help of a boiling method, found a way to refine sugar to produce crystals. After the application of this new method, mainly due to easy transportation sugar became the number one tradable good in India.

5 AD - Sugar was brought to China by Buddhist monks traveling to neighboring countries and by Indian sailors to countries beyond the Indian Ocean.

600 - China planted large sugar cane fields using techniques taken from India.

9th & 10th centuries - During the Arab Agricultural Revolution, Asian & Middle Eastern muslim countries which were growing canes by way of using the Indian techniques, introduced sugar to Europe. Southern Asia, Middle East and China started using ample amounts of sugar in main courses and desserts.

11th - 13th centuries - British and French soldiers of the Crusades took this new spice they called sweet salt back home. Venetian and Mediterranean commercial fleets flourished with sugar trading, and brought back home new technologies and tools which triggered The Renaissance and The Golden Age of Inventions.

1319 - Sugar known as white gold was selling for a price of USD 110 / KG in London, and was seen as a luxury item to be consumed only by the rich.

1330 - The first recipe of a dessert very similar to Baklava was found in a cook book of the Chinese Yuan Dynasty. Baklava as we know today was created in the kitchens of Topkapı Palace in İstanbul later on.

1493 - Christopher Columbus took sugar cane plant seedlings to the Caribbean Islands during his second trip to the new world, and the suitable climate helped forming the sugar cane industry.

16th century - Europeans used the locals at first and then the African slaves as labor in Central & Southern America and the Caribbeans. Millions of slaves lost their lives due to lack of medical care, inhumane working conditions and attempted escapes.

1600 beg. - French Expert on agriculture Olivier de Serres found the process of crystalizing sugar beets.

1700 - In developed countries annual sugar consumption per person was 1 kilogram 800 grams for that time period.

1747 - Sugar beet that can be planted in temperate climates was named as the main source of sugar and pulled the prices down.

18th century - Because of the large labor force of the African slaves working for North and Middle American sugar cane plantations, sugar transformed from an expensive commodity to a popular food item.

1800 - In developed countries annual sugar consumption per person was 8 kilograms for that time period.

1801 - Because of the first European sugar beet plant created by Franz Karl Achard in Germany sugar became even more popular and reachable. Today one fifth of the world sugar production is from sugar beets.

1843 - Township of Dacice, located in today's Czech Republic, was where a manager of a sugar plant, Jakub Krystof Rad found a way to make sugar cubes, got a 5 year patent and started production.

19th century - Sugar was no more just a popular item, but it became a necessity. The booming slave market started diminishing after the American Civil war

1900 - in developed countries annual sugar consumption per person was 45 kilograms and still increasing with a fast rate.

1926 - First Turkish sugar plant was established in Kırklareli as Alpullu Şeker Fabrikası.

1957 - High fructose corn syrup, developed by Richard O.Marshall and Earl P.Kool, is being used in all sorts of food products and specially in soft and carbonated drinks.

20th century - Sugar became an ingredient used by everybody on a regular basis.

2000s - in developed countries annual sugar consumption per person was 45 kilograms We reach this high amount of 125 grams per day, with sugar consumed from food and drinks within our knowledge and plus the sugar and high fructose corn syrup consumed in all processed food without knowing.

2015 – British authorities say our daily sugar consumption should not exceed 25 grams (95 kcal), where the American authorities think 50 grams (190 kcal) is acceptable. In other words what they say is that our daily sugar consumption should stay in a range of 5-10% of our total daily usage of calories.

I try to minimize the usage of processed goods as much as I can in my kitchen, in order to keep our daily sugar consumption within acceptable limits.

 

 

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brokoli çorbası

broccoli soup

Broccoli has been one of Italy's nutritious foods since the time of the Roman Empire, it is domesticated during the 6th century BC in northern Italy. Broccoli of the cabbage family, spread throughout the world and got to be known in 1900s.lahanagiller

If we eat 150 grams of steamed or roasted broccoli per day we meet our daily requirements of vitamins C and K by far, and we get a lot of fibers, potassium, folate and lutein.

As in this recipe, I prefer to use potatoes to thicken the soup and enhance the taste of the vegetables.

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süt

milk

Posted on by Zehra

We think that boiling raw milk at high heat and cooling it on the work bench is pasteurizing it. But when we go through this process, we do not only kill the harmful bacteria but also the useful bacteria, that leaves us with milk that is very low on nutritive values.

Warm the milk to 72°C and cook for a minute or to 63°C and cook for 30 minutes. Take it from the stove and put into an ice filled large cup. Cool the milk to your usage need or whatever is good for the fridge in a speedy manner. The milk pasteurized as such lives a week in the fridge. You can consume raw milk without pasteurizing and use it for cheese making. What is really important, is that you have to find natural milk from animals who are fed with natural feed, kept in places with necessary hygiene conditions and are subject to regular health check ups. If you buy your milk, off the streets or at market places, not subject to a cold chain treatment of some sort, and all year and all day round staying at medium temperatures, without any knowledge of raising and feeding conditions of the animals, and again without the knowledge of the type of medicinal applications on weak animals, you can boil your milk for a long time at high heat it still would be threatening your health.

"Pasteurization" is applied by the French scientist Louis Pasteur for the first time in 1860s and is named after him, where the process is based on killing the microorganisms with heat.

Industrial milk, heated for a longer duration at low heat (63°C – 65°C for 30 minutes) or for a shorter duration at high heat (71°C -74°C 40-45 seconds) is cooled immediately after taking off heat and pasteurized. Because this process does not kill all the microorganisms but just the ones harmful to human health, it has a brief shelf life and is transported in a cold chain and kept in fridges. Pasteurization decreases the soluble calcium and phosphate by 5%, thiamine and vitamin B by 10% and vitamin C by 20% .

Thermal applications exceeding 101 degrees celsius or higher, also need pressure, and is called sterilization. This process makes all vegetative cells, spores and enzymes fully inactive. Long life milk (UHT Sterilized) reaching around 135°C-150°C, are sterilized under pressure from 2 to 5 seconds. Various research show that UHT process destroys close to all of the soluble vitamins and all of vitamin B12. Absorption and obtainability of calcium practically disappears. This milk also decreases the functionality of probiotics in our systems and harms them. Therefore the UHT milk we drink for health reasons does more harm than good. You can not even make yogurt with this milk.

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limon kremalı kek

lemon curd cake

sprinklerainbowThe rumor goes the the English word (cake) kelimesinin vikinglerin kullandığı eski Norveç dilindeki kaka kelimesinden geldiği rivayet ediliyor. 🙂

The sprinkles I added to the dough colored the slices and made the cake more fun.

In order to lighten this cake from butter cake family, I use strained yogurt for half of the given butter amount.

 

limon kreması

lemon curd,

At the beginning of 1800s lemon curd was made in a totally different manner than today, by curdling cream with lemon juice and then filtering. It was consumed at famous five o'clock teas by spreading on yeasted cookies.

Today it's used in products like cakes, tarts, mousse and ice cream.

A fully stocked pantry feeds your creativity and facilitates your kitchen life. With that in mind I am sharing the recipe for this rich taste that is ever present in my fridge of one citrus or another.

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biberiye

rosemary

Posted on by Zehra

This is a Mediterranean plant, it grows in temperate climates and at low altitudes, it does however not like the seashore! It is an evergreen perennial plant with dense and needle-like leaves reminiscent of pine leaves. It is a member of the mint family.

It has been used for medicinal purposes since antique times to our day. According to a popular belief, rosemary bloosoms were white until the Virgin Mary covered them with her blue mantle. It was grown in monastery gardens during the Middle Ages.

It has a name similar to Ros marinum, Latin for “the dew of the sea”, in many European countries.

Unlike many plant leaves, rosemary can withstand lengthy cooking. The fresh leaves have a purer aroma than the dry ones and should be chosen whenever available. Do not however forget that as rosemary dries, it becomes much richer in iron, calcium and vitamin B6.

Its lavender-blue or white blossoms attract bees which thus produce the very tasty rosemary honey.

Rosemary has always been believed to improve the memory. Even today it is used in Europe at marriage and funeral ceremonies as a symbol of remembrance. It is added to the bride’s bouquet or strewn on her path. At funerals, it is placed on the coffin or thrown into the grave.

Fresh rosemary branches can be used as skewers. You can cook meat over a charcoal fire, especially lamb, chicken or vegetables by stringing them on a rosemary stalk.

Put a few rosemary leaves in the milk you boil to prepare a dessert, set aside for 15 minutes. Remove the leaves. You will soon realize that your desserts have a very different taste.

limonata

lemonade

when_life_gives_you_lemons_make_lemonade_postcard-rf29170018e394dd08a36932e27cc1653_vgbaq_8byvr_324Lemonade, started it's journey close to the end of the 14th century, as a cold drink of lemon juice & honey in Egypt. Lemonade as we know originated from the Jewish kitchen of the middle ages. Today it is practically impossible to find the ancient and original recipe of the middle ages, where lemonade is made only with lemon, sugar and water.

My traditional recipe that is not affected by industrial products can also be found in my All Sports Cafe’den Sevgiyle book.

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lokumlu un kurabiyesi

cookies with Turkish delight

It is said that the history of cookies start in 7th century Persia. When we look at the Ottoman Empire map, we hear words like qurabiye, kurabie, kourabiethes and kurabii, and even though the word kurabiye sounds very much like Arabic, it is still assumed to have its roots in Turkish.

We run into different applications of flour cookies, with a name like polvoron in Spain, and as wedding cookies in Mexico.

Bu tarif de benden bir uyarlama. 🙂

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