Barbie doughnuts

and modern gems

Food news of the week:

Anju hype below, pink neapolitan-style doughnuts in honour of Barbie season, and I still am not over the posho breakfast at Fiamma, during my family staycation a few weekends back.

Science of the week:

The mechanism of the effect of highly palatable food on feeding is still not well understood. Apparently, highly palatable food has the potential to trigger a behavioral response even in well-fed mice, just like that of addictive drugs. This occurs via dopamine neurons that modulate neurons in the nucleus accumbens (a part of the brain associated with motivation and reward), due to mRNA alterations.

Insight of the week:

A lawyer told me that he was disappointed in the ending of Barbie because it didn’t end in his version of female empowerment (getting a seat on the board or starting a campaign against Hollywood patriarchy/sexual harrassment), but I thought the whole point was that she did not need or have to have started anything. The essence of female empowerment, in the end, was about embracing your identity in your own way, whatever that may look like. What do you guys think?

Recipe of the week:

And in the name of barbie, I have pink baked doughnuts. A subtle burst of strawberry tang. Gooey bursts of warm chocolate dispersed throughout the batter, plump, light-as-air cakey batter to encase everything. Two bowls, whisk, an oven, done.

Strawberry Chocolate Vanilla Bean (neapolitan) Baked Doughnuts (makes 16)

Ingredients

For the doughnuts:

265g (slightly less than 2 cups) all-purpose flour

170g (3/4 cup) white castor sugar

1 vanilla bean

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

60g melted, unsalted butter

180ml (3/4 cup) buttermilk, or take a tablespoonful of white vinegar and place it in the bottom of your measuring cup before filling it up to the 180ml-mark with whole milk

70g chopped dark chocolate

2 eggs

170g (1 cup) finely chopped strawberries

For the glaze:

60g (1/3 cup) strawberries, washed and finely chopped

230g icing sugar

pinch salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 180C (350F) and butter doughnut pans with melted butter. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, chopped chocolate and salt. In a separate, slightly smaller bowl, pour in your sugar. Take a sharp knife and run it firmly down the middle of the vanilla bean, then scrape out the insides. Dump the clumps of black into the sugar. With your fingertips, rub the vanilla bean into the sugar, so most of it is evenly incorporated into the white mass. Tip the vanilla and sugar mix into the bowl with the rest of the dry ingredients and whisk everything together well, for at least 30 seconds or so.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk (or milk and vinegar mix) and melted butter. Pour the wet mix into the dry mix and mix everything together slowly with a wooden spoon until just combined. The batter should be a little lumpy and slightly thick. Not in the least bit liquidy. Pat your chopped strawberries with a dry paper towel just to remove excess moisture, then stir them into the mix. Using 2 tablespoons, dollop the doughnut batter into the greased doughnut pan(s) (I only have one so I did this in batches). Bake in the preheated oven for 15-16 minutes.

While they are baking, make the glaze- no electrical beaters needed!

Purée the chopped strawberries in a blender, or you could microwave them and then mash with a fork. Put the strawberries into a large bowl, then using a tablespoon, remove any extra liquid that seeped out. It won’t be much, and you need not remove all of the extra juice. Add half of the icing sugar first and the salt, and mix together with the same tablespoon until you get a wet, dark pink mixture. Add the rest of the icing sugar and continue to mix until you achieve a thick, spreadable consistency.

Once the doughnuts are baked, leave to cool in the pan on a cooling rack for at least 15 minutes before turning them out. Once fully cool (around another 15 minutes later), dip the tops of the doughnuts into the strawberry glaze, then let them rest on the cooling rack again. Store uneaten doughnuts in the fridge.

Pink kinda pleasure.

Restaurant of the week:

a wide variety of soju at your fingertips

Anju was welcome respite from the barrage of dim sum, prata and omakase adventures in Singapore. Home to contemporary Korean food, this is an interesting difference from your korean bbq haunt.