[Sca-cooks] Hais Report

[Tara Sersen Boroson]

>The product that I ended up with is an oily crumb mixture that barely, and 
>only with great pressure and a mold, stuck together. It is kind of heavy, and 
>the product tasted rather interesting, with a chewy datey texture and a barely 
>sweet flavor-mostly from the powdered sugar. 
>
>Was that what I am looking for?
>  
>

I've had great success making hais, and in fact it was a favorite snack 
food 'round these parts until I... uh... burned out my food processor on 
the dates during one batch.  Still have to return that thing to 
Cuisinart for service...

Anyway, I found that it wound up much more oily and less manageable if I 
used sesame oil, and firmer if I used butter.  I also found that dates 
could vary greatly in their moisture content, and that can make a 
difference - it helped to use a bit more dry ingredients (nuts, bread 
crumbs) if the dates were stickier than average.  If they were too 
moist, the balls would be really sticky, but they held together just 
fine.  The only disadvantage to that was, they became a weapon of mass 
messiness in the hands of a three year old.

Hm... I wonder if maybe your dates aren't moist enough?  While mine were 
oily with the sesame oil, they did hold together.  The balls were soft 
and too squish-able and smear-able to use as kiddie finger food, but it 
wasn't crumbly.  If that's the case, perhaps you need to shop for dates 
that are more squishy?

I often rolled them in unsweetened coconut instead of sugar, since my 
intention was to make a healthful snack for a certain three year old.  
I've made them with the sugar, and honestly, I didn't miss it.  I found 
the dates to be plenty sweet.

Whenever I get my Cuisinart fixed (*sound of head banging on table*) I 
intend to experiment with it more as a modern healthful type snack.  My 
Dad and a good friend both have Celiac disease, and blood tests show me 
to have a gluten sensitivity, so I'm going to play with using gluten 
free breadcrumbs, or more ground nuts instead of bread.  I'm also going 
to try using coconut oil instead of butter to see if I can get the 
firmer texture while making it casien free for certain other friends.

Has anybody noticed that Lara bars are basically Hais without the 
breadcrumbs?  Someone I know was experiementing with making knockoffs of 
those.  She was mixing the dates and nuts and spreading it out, then 
dehydrating it for a while to get it firmer, and finally cutting it into 
bars.

-Magdalena vander Brugghe

-- 
Tara Sersen Boroson

'Normal' is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car you are still paying for, in order to get to the job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car, and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it. -Ellen Goodman

[T]o admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. -Virginia Woolf