Returning from a three and a half month absence of food blogging because you’ve just relocated to Southeast Asia is, to be dead honest, painful. There’s too much that needs to be said and you feel powerless to do an adequate job. It will have to wait until I can process, break it down, and get my shit together. But there’s one thing I’m ready to say about Shenzhen in this moment:

It’s fucking hot.

So when I noticed the latest Foodie Fights competition was “Frozen Dessert” I jumped at the opportunity to re-enter the ring. Foodie Fights has undergone a metamorphosis since last season, and I’m excited to participate under the revised format.

So let’s get down to business. It’s too hot to dick around with extraneous words. First: why I shouldn’t win this battle.

Points Against

• The recipe is too simple. I know you looked at the picture and you’re saying, “Toothpick popsicles? What are you, five?” Sure, it’s three ingredients combined childishly. I don’t care.
• The pictures suck. They’re blurry, poorly lit, and lack color. I don’t care.
• You can’t make this recipe. Not that you don’t have the talent. The recipe is cake. All your problems come with that funny word in the title: Mangosteen. A detailed explanation to follow, but first…

Points For

• These taste good. Really good. But, again, you’ll probably never know. Here’s why.

Mangosteens

Three months ago if you asked me what a mangosteen was I’d have shrugged. I’d heard the word but I couldn’t have pointed one out of a lineup, nor told you it was a fruit, let alone told you it was heaven in a thick purple rind. Three days ago I still couldn’t have told you, despite having eating dozens of them. That falls in line with my general food policy while in China. I don’t care what it’s called or what it’s made of, just put it in front of me and I’ll make it disappear. Only then did I ask the name, shanzhuyu, which led me down the Google rabbit hole.

If you’re like me you know nothing about this fruit because we don’t have them in the states. Well, not unless you’re willing to shop around at some specialty markets in New York, LA. It only grows in tropical climates and until a few years ago the United States banned imports. If you’ve had them fresh, I bet you had them on vacation. You should be able to find cans of syrup and mangosteen in Asian markets. I have no idea if they can compare to fresh (instinct and internet reports say no), but it’s your best bet for a replacement as far as this recipe goes.

When you work out the math, the local Walmart sells mangosteen for about $2/lb (13.8 RMB/jin to be exact) and you can find it on sale for as little as $1/lb. If you read the Wikipedia page you’ll notice this fruit is mostly outer rind, so this only amplifies the expense. The six mangosteens I used cost me 22RMB ($3.25). Don’t let these numbers fool you. This is expensive by Chinese standards.

For comparison, if you live in the U.S. and can even find this fruit fresh, be ready to drop $20-30/lb. With the amount of sweet flesh you get, that puts mangosteen somewhere on the rich and famous shelf between black truffles and unicorn tenderloin. These six ice cube popsicles might set you back $40. Not counting the walnuts.

If you’re in a position where you’ve got fresh mangosteens, a pile of cash, and a penchant for turning gold into a kiddie snack, here’s what you do:

What I Used

• Mangosteen (Approximately one for each ice cube)
• Sweetened Condensed Milk
• Walnuts, shelled

What I Did

1. 
2. Remove the mangosteen flesh and place in a blender. Blend. If you didn’t notice the fibrous but soft seedlike thing in the middle that’s OK, because we’re just going to…
3. Strain.
4. 
5. Add one tablespoon sweetened condensed milk for every six mangosteens used.
6. 
7. Stab a piece of walnut through the end of a toothpick and place inside the ice trays.
8. 
9. Add the mangosteen mix and freeze until solid.

The sweetened condensed milk is added for two reasons. It takes a little bit of the tart edge off the mangosteen. Just enough to remove the punch on the tongue. Also, sweetened condensed milk is tough to freeze, since it doesn’t contain any water. I learned this the hard way in a number of mangled attempts at making the perfect Vietnamese iced coffee. All this means is we get a slushier treat in the end, as we aren’t adding enough to completely stop the mixture from freezing in a standard freezer.

Now I gotta go. It’s 2am here, I’m sweating, and I need one of these pops. I’ll be back soon enough with a more realistic dish. In the meantime, go vote for an ice cream or something.

“I don’t bake.”

You’ll hear folks say those three little words for a wide range of reasons. A few are turning their noses up, as if to say, “Bake? That’s for women and peasants!” as though the grill and sauté pan are the only viable means of introducing heat to raw ingredients. We’ll refer to this group as “Idiots.”

I hear many people explain their baking-free lives by saying, “I like the spontaneity of cooking that you don’t get with baking. The exact measurements and weights and science behind baking aren’t for me.” And boy do I understand the argument. You sure can’t pop open the oven, grab the cake and a spoon, give it a taste, and firmly chuck a handful of garlic at it before returning it to the hotbox. Which is why I have spouted this argument myself in the past.

What irks me about that idea is how it comes across, at times, as equally condescending as the “Idiot’s” argument. Sometimes what I hear is, “Baking is just exact measurements. If you have the recipe, mix the ingredients accordingly and go, it’s done. What’s so hard about that that?”

The thing is, the improvisation so adored by non-bakers is just one thing that makes standard cooking so hard and baking difficult. I can overcook my pasta sauce by two minutes. I can add one too few cloves of garlic and twice as much basil and everything is more than just fine. It’s arguably original. The mistake here is assuming that because the instructions are written, plain as day on a piece of paper, they are as good as executed in the kitchen.

You can’t make that leap. And you can’t claim that’s it’s easy enough to do, if you simply chose to do it. Until you physically do something, you haven’t done it. Until you get exact, follow instructions to the letter, and stop leaning on the flexible cane of whimsical cooking, you will not bake. And if you have not baked, you cannot bake. You don’t hear folks claim they can swallow swords without ever having gulped down so much as a toothpick.

What’s more, the strict science behind baking doesn’t kill original recipe creation, it makes such originality admirably more difficult. You need to understand levening, proteins and fats, glutens, tempering, and so much more. Beats the hell out of something as mindless as switching orange for pineapple, or adding paprika. A baker is a true craftsman and good original recipes are admirable.

So, with all that laid out, I’d like to say, “I don’t bake. The patience and dedication required to so much as reproduce a recipe in this field escapes me, the lazy cook. I don’t bake, not because I find it trite, but because I come to it with the knowledge of a child. In short, I don’t bake because it scares me shitless.”

But it’s time I took baby steps.

What I Used

• Graham Crackers, pulverized into tiny bits
• Butter, melted
• Granny Smith Apple
• Ground Saigon Cinnamon
• Brown Sugar
• White Sugar
• Heavy Whipping Cream
• Fresh Vanilla Bean
• Water
• Ground Nutmeg

What I Did

• Follow the about.com instructions for a basic graham cracker pie crust. That is, combine 1.5 cups of graham cracker crumbs, 1/4 cup white sugar, and 6 tbsp of butter in a bowl with your hands.
• Press the crust evenly into a 10 inch pyrex dish. Yea, you should probably use a pie tin. But I made this at my folks’ place, and they don’t have one. Not that I have one at my own apartment…
• 
• Core and peel the apple. Using a mandolin slicer, make thin even lengthwise cuts.
• Arrange the apples on top of the crust. You could and should overlap the apple pieces in a circle and make it look pretty. I didn’t, because I wasn’t thinking. And I knew I’d just be covering it up with all the remaining steps.
• Dust a couple pinches of cinnamon over the apples. I’m sorry I don’t have an exact measurement for this part, but I’d guess I used 1/2 teaspoon in total. Just evenly and thinly coat.
• Evenly distribute 1/4 cup brown sugar over the apples.
• 
• Move this to a 375° oven for 15 minutes. I did it for 20 and the edges got a little too crispy and brown.
• Make Alice’s caramel sauce per her instructions. Except, warm the cream in a small saucepan. Take half a vanilla bean, split it open and scrape out the inside. Add the bean and scrapings into the cream and whisk vigorously while the cream warms. Remove the bean pod before incorporating with the syrup. Tada, vanilla caramel.
• 
• Chill a metal bowl, the inserts on your electric hand mixer, and a cup of cream. You can whisk by hand too, should you be looking for a bit of a workout.
• Add 1 tbsp of ground nutmeg to the cream and begin beating on low while moving the mixer around. When the cream starts to thicken, you can pick up the speed. Stop when the cream reaches soft peaks. Increasing the mixer speed early just makes for a mess, by the way.
• 
• Cut the apple tart into service size wedges, top with caramel, and a dollop of whipped cream. Declare victory over dessert.
• 

This was also my first dessert. I think the only reason I don’t make desserts is that I almost never eat them. I rarely order it at restaurants, almost never buy them at the store. I just don’t think about it. The people who ate my tart enjoyed it, so this might inspire me to give dessert a try more often. A certain member of the family ate the remainder of the caramel with a spoon, so once again bravo to Alice for giving us such an easy to follow recipe.

Ok, I know, graham cracker crust dessert, it’s barely if at all baking. But I got my toes wet. Next time I’ll get down to my ankles in the shallow end. I’m thinking pâte à choux? Maybe for some gougères? If you have any suggestions for relatively easy next steps, go ahead and leave a comment.