Frost A Cake

Cake with frosting. It's a part of western culture for most celebratory events, especially those in childhood. But, have you ever tried to frost a cake without lessons? It probably turned out as hideous as my first cake did. This cake was dome shaped, there were cake crumbs in the icing, lumpy patches, thin patches, and butter knife marks everywhere.


Here's how to frost a layer cake and get a smooth even coating of frosting that rivals the most professionally applied fondant.

The Basics:

Tools & Ingredients:

Buttercream icing (recipe below)

Cake Spatula (from most grocery or home goods stores)

Cardboard cut to the size of your cake

High quality paper smooth towel (Viva is smooth enough)

• Never frost a warm cake. Frosting is made mainly of fat, and fat melts. You don't want your icing sliding off the cake! 
• Use a buttercream icing for this method. It is the standard frosting used on most cakes and the easiest to work with.  You can add food coloring and flavor extracts if you like; this one is easy to work with and only uses 4 ingredients. (recipe here:  http://www.thelittledelightsinlife.com/2012/04/tutorial-tuesday-my-delicious.html)
• Use 2 or more cakes to make a layer cake. With a bread knife, whittle away a little of the tops if they are very rounded or un-level so they will sit flat atop one another. Hold the knife as level as you can as you cut off the raised bits.  Place the first cake flat side down on a cake base of some kind, like your cardboard circle. Then place the second cake round side *down* so your cake top is nice and flat; check for levelness and trim a bit from the round sides of the cake layers if they don't lay evenly. If you were careful in cutting your tops flat, you will have very little adjusting to do and you can unstack the layers and add icing to the bottom layer to "glue" them together; replace the top layer. Voila, you now have a perfect cake base. 

Layer one: Crumb coat

Put a large glob of icing on the top of the cake and spread it across the top using a zig-zag motion with the cake spatula, changing directions to get it to stick well. Once the top is very thinly coated, you can spread the excess down the sides of the cake being sure to smoosh the icing into the gap between cake layers. This layer will be messy looking and thin, but that's ok. It is supposed to glue down all of the loose crumbs, so your top layer is clean and tidy. When you're done, place the cake in the freezer for 30 minutes so it gets very cold, but not frozen solid. This will make that crumb coat nice and firm. Wash off your spatula and throw away any excess icing that has crumbs in it. 

Layer 2: Top coat

Once again, put a big glob of icing on the top of your cake and start spreading it evenly across the surface with your zig-zag motion. Be careful this time to get it more even, and don't leave any thin spots. Do the sides the same way, adding globs of icing to them as needed. Level out your spatula ridges as best you can.

Finishing:

Use a very smooth pliable sheet of paper towel (Viva, for example) not the cheap bumpy kind. Take the towel and drape it over the top of your frosted cake and gently smooth it with your hand. This will knock down all those spatula marks and give you a perfect even layer of frosting that looks just like fondant. Pick up the towel (it won't stick) and look to see if there are still any high spots and rub them down again. Then do this to the sides.

Video: How to frost a cake with a paper towel

Cook Fish

The Basics:

• Fresh fish tastes and smells less "fishy" than older fish. Get it as fresh out of the water as you can.
• If not fresh, flash frozen is your next best bet. It is frozen before it can "go fishy".
• Thaw frozen fish fully before cooking or it will cook very unevenly. 
• Oily fish smells and tastes stronger than white fish.
• If you hate "fishiness", aim for the milder species and get it skinless.

• Salmon, Tuna, Trout, Herring and Sardines are good examples of oily strongly flavored fish.
• Mackerel, Talapia, Catfish, Pollock, Snapper, and Flounder are moderately flavored fish.
• Halibut and Cod are the most mildly flavored fish.

Cook all fish hot and fast:

• It cooks much faster than land animal meats, so be ready when you introduce it to the heat.
• Heat your oiled skillet or pan to medium-high: higher than you would use for steak or chicken.
• Breaded and fried fish pieces usually cook in under 1 minute, so don't walk away! 
• Pan cooked fish fillets are typically ready to flip over after 1-2 minutes, and will not stick if your heat is high enough to caramelize the proteins. If it doesn't release from the pan easily, turn the heat up a little and leave it alone; wait for the proteins to finish!
• If baking your fish, enclose it. Either make a packet with aluminum foil around the fish fillets, or bake in a covered dish. The hot oven will dry it out otherwise.
• BBQ methods also need to be very hot, and don't forget to oil the rack. Don't even think about trying to jam a spatula under the fillet until the fish lifts up easily, if will come up whole and gorgeous when it's ready! 

Flavors to add: 

Every culture has its own idea of what goes with fish, so don't let the old fashioned cook books limit your imagination. Here are a list of things that go well with fish that I have tried personally:
Garlic, onion, vinegar, citrus juice and slices, lemongrass, bell peppers, fresh hot peppers, smoked chiles, BBQ sauce, Tamarind sauce, soy sauce, green enchilada sauce, tomatillo, cumin, safron, basil, sage, rosemary, taragon, and of course salt and pepper.  Basically it's a list of whatever you have in the cupboard. Try to stick to one or two flavors at once if you're not confident about the mix.

Lose Fat

People continue to ask whether they can lose "x" pounds by some specific date, usually because of a big social event. They don't know how this stuff works, so it's reasonable to wonder whether those diet pill commercials are legitimate. Lets show how to figure out how much weight a person can actually lose in a week.

The Basics: 

To lose fat, you must either eat fewer calories than you are eating now, or you must exercise more.  You may notice I didn't say "eat less"... this is because a healthy diet containing mainly protein, plenty of healthy vegetables, some fruits, and whole grains can be a whole lot of food. It can be more food that you're used to eating, in fact.  More on that later.

So, you have to make a caloric deficit in order to burn off that extra fat, either from food or exercise.  How much of a deficit? 3500 calories per pound to be exact. 

This works out to 500 calories per day to lose 1 lb per week 

(3500 calories / 7 days = 500 calories each day)

If you're looking to lose 2 lbs per week, then the deficit becomes 1000 calories per day. Up to here, this is pretty easy and reasonable for most overweight people to manage.   What if you want to lose a lot more per week? 

Losing more than 1-2 lbs per week: 

This is where it gets tricky. To lose more than 2 lbs per week, every week you have to make some intense changes in both diet and exercise. Most people who are not in the morbidly obese category cannot keep up this rate for more than a few weeks, but they can sometimes lose 5-8 lbs in the first week of dietary changes.  Lets show Greg as an example.

Greg weighs 275 lbs. His doctor says he should aim for 175 to be healthy. Greg has 100 lbs to lose, which is a lot. 

To sustain Greg's current 275 pounds without any exercise, he requires 2600 calories per day (this is how many he has been eating). By reducing his calories to 1500/day (the minimum value for men), he has made an 1100 calorie deficit. That's a little over 2 lbs per week already.   
Now, if he adds in 30 minutes a day of brisk walking, he can expect to knock that deficit up to 1500/day. That's 3 lbs per week, which is a decent pace for someone at his weight.  Greg will take between 33 and 52 weeks to lose all of his extra 100.  Why up to a year? Because...

Weight loss slows the smaller you become:

Now imagine Adam, who is much lighter than Greg. Adam is only eating 1600 calories to maintain his weight because he's pretty careful not to gain, but still wants to lose some pudge. Going down to 1500 only nets Adam 100 calories deficit... and that 30 minutes of brisk heart pumping walking only manages to get Adam up to 400 calories in deficit. Adam can only expect to lose about 0.8 lbs per week on the same exact diet as Greg. 

The ligher you are, the fewer calories you require to maintain your bulk. This means you cannot rely on food-reduction to be as large a part of your weight loss adventure, and must either go more slowly than Greg, or increase exercise substantially to stay at the same pace.

Extra carbs make you hold onto extra water:

What about that first week when it's not uncommon to lose 5-8 lbs? Why can't we keep that up? 

This is because changing your diet strictly away from junk and starchy foods immediately causes your body to shed water.  For every gram of carbohydrates your body contains, it must store 4 grams of water to support it.   For every 100 grams of carbs you eat and store, you're storing nearly a full pound of water.  100 grams of carbs is 3 ounces - that's roughly:

• 3 slices of bread
• 1.5 cups of rice or pasta
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 sugar sweetened soda

You can imagine how quickly that water gets flushed out once you replace those carb calories with more protein, veggies, and healthy fats. But, after about a week, your new water level evens out and your body equalizes. 

Why Can't Fad Diets Work For Me?

Fad diets like the "Cabbage Soup Diet" or the "Green Tea Diet" are simply gimmicks to help people shed a few pounds for a very short amount of time. They work by restricting you to one or two foods, always something very low in both calories and sodium, high in water, and usually high in caffeine.  By eating practically no calories, no salt, more caffeine, and lots of water, you are essentially causing your body to dry up. Any diet under 1200 calories, containing little or no sodium and lots of water will make anyone lighter, but only from dehydration.  By reducing your calories far below the medical minimum and purging all of your body water you end up dehydrated with headaches, droopy skin, dry mouth and eyes, dizzy, and shaky from the lack of calories.  Once you begin eating real food again, even at the medical minimum amount, you *will* gain weight back even if it's just all that water you lost.  

Summary:

Be reasonable when it comes to how quickly you expect to lose weight. When you fail to lose 5 or 10 lbs in a week, don't get upset and think you've failed at being healthy -- because you haven't! It takes times to lose real fat, and it can take a really long time if you're already near your goal. 

Aiming for 1-2 lbs per week for the average dieter is a great goal, supported by doctors because it truly is sustainable. If you're aiming for 20 lbs of fat loss, then it could easily take you 10-20 weeks of healthy eating and daily exercise.  Don't be discouraged by this -- be empowered. Use it as proof to yourself that fad diets physically, medically, cannot work like you want them to, and that eating healthy is something you really must to do for your whole life if you want to be lighter.  Don't think of it as a diet. Think of it as living the life of a less fat, more healthy person, and eventually your body will catch up to your actions, no matter how long it takes.

Boil an Egg

It seems like a simple thing, but it's amazing how badly these little gems can turn out if you don't understand how to cook them. 

The Basics:

• Fresher eggs will have centered yolks when boiled, and older eggs will be off-center. If you're making deviled eggs, use fresh ones.
• Start with the raw eggs in the pan of cold water, and let the heat warm the eggs along with the water. 
• If you dump cold eggs into boiling water, they will crack.
• Boiling for too long creates green yolks and an "off smell" of sulfur. 
• If you let the eggs sit in hot water, off the heat source, they will continue to cook. This is useful! 

Hard Boiled (Firm yolks with no green color):

Method

1. Put your fresh eggs in a pan and fill to cover the eggs plus an inch or two of extra water.
2. Place the pan on high heat and allow it to boil.
3. Once it starts boiling (rolling boil, not tiny bubbles), wait 1 minute, cover the pan,  then turn off the heat source.
4. Allow the eggs to sit in the hot water for 12 minutes. You can let them sit a little longer without much worry, but after 15 minutes you risk turning the yolks green. 
5. Remove the eggs from the hot water and place them into a bowl of very cold tap water to halt the cooking process.  If the water gets warm, dump it out and refill with more cold water. 

Soft boiled (runny yolks):

Method

1. Place the eggs in the smallest pan available and only add enough cold water to cover them. Put the lid on the pan and place over the highest heat possible.
2. When the water comes to the boil, remove the pan from the heat and wait for 6 minutes. Leave the pan lid on.
3. After the time has elapsed, remove the lid and carefully remove each egg. Cut the top of each egg before serving in egg cups.

*Soft boiled method courtesy of Heston Blumenthal, chef and food scientist.