[Sca-cooks] Hais Report

[K C Francis]

Yes, butter is better including taste wise.

Katira


>From: Tara Sersen Boroson <tara at kolaviv.com>
>Reply-To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
>To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
>Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Hais Report
>Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2005 09:55:08 -0500
>
>
>>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
>
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