Molecular Root Beer Float

Lately I have been experimenting with new molecular recipes and this is one of the recipes I created. One of my best friends loves when I make caviar for molecular recipes and he kept urging me to make caviar with soda. I decided to tried it and it worked really well. This makes a beautiful small appetizer for formal parties and other events. The two food additives you will need for this recipe are agar agar and soy lecithin. I use agar flakes which can be purchased at whole foods and the soy lecithin that I use was purchased from amazon.com for about $8.00. You will aslso need an oil for this recipe. I prefer to use olive oil because it freezes fast but any kind will work. All of the oil will wash off so the quality of the oil doesn't matter. Enjoy!

Step 1: Ingredients

Ingredients:
Soy Lecithin
Agar Agar
Rootbeer
Vanilla Ice cream
Vanilla extract
Sugar
Olive Oil (any kind of oil will work but olive oil freezes faster) \

Materials:
Immersion Blender
Pan
Bowl
Jar
Syringe
Collander
Spoon or melon baller

Comments

[schumi23]

This looks delecious, I cn see myself making it soon, probably :)

[rrkrose]

Thanks!

[bettbee]

GREAT instructable!! I will be making various forms of caviar for sure.

Do you think you can reuse the oil? I'd hate to waste that much, especially as I try to only use organic and good quality oil in my kitchen.

Also: to make it truly vegetarian, you can use soy ice cream (I recommend the following: http://www.turtlemountain.com/products/soy-milk-ice-creams/creamy-vanilla ) and I'm certain soymilk would work well for the foam - Trader Joe's Unsweetened Soymilk (refrigerated) is the most milk-like of the soymilks.

I implore everyone to try to avoid Silk products as their company not only engaged in deceptive marketing practices when they switched from organic to conventional soybeans, but are owned by Dean Foods, who owns Hersheys milks, who refuses to eschew the use of chocolate that has been harvested by child slaves.
( http://www.xocoatl.org/harvest.htm )

[rrkrose]

Why wouldn't the ice cream be truly vegetarian? I am not vegan so I do eat dairy and egg products but if there is something in ice cream that isn't actually vegetarian please let me know. I am pretty sure that you could reuse the olive after this if you strained the pearls over a bowl. There might be little tiny pearls that would go through the strainer so your olive oil might end up having a few dots of whatever you turn into caviar in it.

[bettbee]

Hi there rrkrose,

I don't regard dairy and eggs as being 100% vegetarian, as they are animal products and cause animal suffering in their production.

I'll try keeping the oil. I can always strain it through a very fine strainer, or even a coffee filter if necessary.

One other question - did you measure the actual quantity of oil you used? I'm wondering why so much.

[im3733]

The actual amount of oil used is...however much you use...
Really, all you need is enough to make sure that your caviar can form into little balls and collect on the bottom. If you can use less, GREAT! If you use more, GREAT! It really doesn't matter or affect anything other than the time it takes for the oil to get cold, and I'm not sure that it will even make a huge impact there.

BTW, just curious, but since chickens lay eggs (some 2+/day) regardless of whether they are fertile, and regardless of what becomes of them, how is eating an infertile egg causing suffering to the chicken? All an infertile egg will do if you don't eat it is rot, which could actually do more harm than good. Same for dairy products, cows begin producing milk when they give birth, but, if they are milked regularly, they can keep producing milk for a long time, even after the calf is weened.

While I understand you idea, I think you may benefit from clarifying it, eating fertilized eggs, or dairy products from cows whose calves have not been weened, cause the animals to suffer.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, or start a flame war, I'm just attempting to make a point, and provide a point of clarification.

[rrkrose]

She doesn't mean that they suffer when they lay the eggs or get milked, she just means that the places were these animals are raised, such as factory farms, are places were the animals are treated cruelly.

[voodooactionfigure]

You know, besides Bettbee's suggestion about the soy ice cream (Which I don't really want to get into but I will point out that vegan and vegetarian are different things), there's the fact that there are certain commercial ice cream brands that use gelatin in their ice cream to improve the texture or as a stabilizer. I do believe the Breyer's you have pictured are one of the ones that don't, but it's always worth a check.

[rrkrose]

Thanks for the heads up with the ice cream but I am pretty sure breyer's is kosher so it can't have gelatin in it. I do think that vegan and vegetarian are 2 different things but the definition of a vegetarian is someone who doesn't eat meat and SOMETIMES other animal products so technically she could be right but I don't agree.

[rrkrose]

I have chickens and they don't suffer when they lay eggs. Would you consider that to be vegetarian? Just curious.

I am actually not sure why so much oil is used but that is how I learned to make these. I usually use 3/4 a cup of olive.

[sunshiine]

This instructable is totally awesome! Very pretty as well. Thnaks for sharing your hard work.
Sunshiine

[rrkrose]

Thank you!

[Pontay]

Why soy lecithin?
Does it aid in the foaming or keeping the foam from deflating?

[rrkrose]

Yes it helps with making the foam.

[OwlsAndCake]

Wow, this is amazing! I think I've got to try this! Great idea

[rrkrose]

Thank you!

[Chirpoff]

I clicked on this 'ible when I saw it in my IB email, thinking, "Huh, this is cool. I want to learn more." After clicking it (which I rarely do when I see the 'ibles in my email), I saw that you had made it! :D This is great concept! Thanks for making another awesome 'ible!!!

[rrkrose]

Lol! Thank you!

[reptedjess]

I'll just make regular rootbeer floats. It's easier and probably taste more like the real thing. Since it is

[leea9]

I am 50 years older than you and have always been a vegetarian. I had not heard of this before now and find it interesting. When I read caviar I was thinking fish eggs which are not vegetarian but I learned something. Sounds like fun but a lot of work.

[thematthatter]

This looks fun to try. Would root beer extract work better?

[rrkrose]

I was thinking that it would but the store I went to didn't have an root beer extract so I decided to try it with actual root beer. What part were you planning on using the root beer extract with? I think the foam would be better with root beer extract while the caviar would be better with actual root beer.

[BMinsker]

You'll probably have a better chance of finding root beer extract at a homebrewing supply store rather than a regular grocery or natural foods store.