When I was a student in the Sixties I went to a park in San Francisco where hippies were serving free bread coloured pink. You didn't need to take drugs. You were high on the excitement of the weirdness of it all.
Children are excited by colours. Everybody is excited by colours. That's why a school in England is trying to ban red clothes, only allowing tiny amounts of red for fear of overexciting the children.
Intu shopping centre in Watford emailed me a series of suggestions for activities to amuse children over the holidays. One of their suggestions was watching a video on how to make rainbow bagels.
I watched the video which had amusing pictures but I was disappointed to find that:
a) The rainbow in the dough was only food colouring - no flavouring.
b) Sugar sprinkles were adding calories and sugar to what is already a high calorie and not brilliantly healthy bagel. The sugar prevents you from adding anything other than cream cheese. I suppose that's better than nothing.
I previously wrote a blog post about attractive rainbow cakes which I discovered in Singapore. One of many other bloggers on the subject of rainbow cakes had surveyed several Singapore shops and delis and cafes to find the best looking and tasting rainbow cake. Other people had offered recipes, or tried making their own and reported on the results.
I was delighted to find websites which offered fruit colouring, not made with mere food colour from bottles, but using fruits and vegetables adding flavouring as well as nutrition, plus the excitement of the varied tastes matching the colours. Regrettably the verdict reached by most of them was that you could not get sufficiently intense flavour from the vegetable dyes from fresh fruit alone.
If you want really bright red desserts with delicious flavouring, try the English favourite summer pudding. You can make your own or buy it from supermarkets.
If you want to make your own, it's so easy that it's hard to get wrong. Use a bowl shape mould to make a lining of white bread. Fill it with red fruits such as strawberry, raspberry, blackcurrant and red currant. Seal the base with a circle of bread, pressing the edges together. Cook it. Serve hot or cold, with or without white yogurt or cream.
Decorate with red grapes. Or contrasting colours.
If you want to make more desserts, in separate colours, try a blue one with blueberries and / or prunes.
Make an orange one with mangoes, apricot, oranges, mandarins, and/or kumquats.
Make a yellow one with lemon curd or apricots or white peaches and custard. Make a green one with greengages and mint.
Any recipe for smoothies will give you suggestions.
Celebrations: Birthdays, Parties, Weddings, National Days
If you want a rainbow party, with everybody wearing rainbow clothes, rainbow bagels, rainbow cakes, rainbow cocktails, rainbow cheese. For rainbow cheese choose (orange cheese, blue cheeses, white cheeses, cheeses with red such as Wensleydale with Cranberry, or lakes of chutney.
If a rainbow is too complicated, pick three colours to match a flag, such as red white an blue (UK, USA, France), or orange or red white and green. This would be fun for a summer party, national holiday or wedding.
Where To Buy and Try
USA - New York, USA
UK - Brick Lane bakery, East End of London, England
UK supermarkets
See TripAdvisor for the latest reviews. You can also buy plain bagels and bagels with poppy seeds and sesame seeds in London supermarkets such as Tesco and Morrisons. And a retired restaurant owner tells me he thinks you can buy better and cheaper in bulk from Costco in North Watford. Another option is B and K sat beef bar which has branches in Edgware and Hatch End.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2016/feb/24/i-can-eat-a-rainbow-new-york-psychedelic-bagels-light-up-london
You tube video on rainbow bagels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H1wAtCKlIE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flags_by_color_combination
http://wikihandbook.info/how-to-make-rainbow-bagels.wiki
If you want to find the places in the USA, New York and elsewhere, which went viral with rainbow bagels, looks at internet sites.
http://www.eater.com/2016/3/8/11171396/rainbow-bagels-cronut-cruffin-milkshakes
http://www.bagelartist.com
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/rainbow-cake.html
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, author, public speaker.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
Children are excited by colours. Everybody is excited by colours. That's why a school in England is trying to ban red clothes, only allowing tiny amounts of red for fear of overexciting the children.
Intu shopping centre in Watford emailed me a series of suggestions for activities to amuse children over the holidays. One of their suggestions was watching a video on how to make rainbow bagels.
I watched the video which had amusing pictures but I was disappointed to find that:
a) The rainbow in the dough was only food colouring - no flavouring.
b) Sugar sprinkles were adding calories and sugar to what is already a high calorie and not brilliantly healthy bagel. The sugar prevents you from adding anything other than cream cheese. I suppose that's better than nothing.
Picture in public domain from Wikipedia.
I previously wrote a blog post about attractive rainbow cakes which I discovered in Singapore. One of many other bloggers on the subject of rainbow cakes had surveyed several Singapore shops and delis and cafes to find the best looking and tasting rainbow cake. Other people had offered recipes, or tried making their own and reported on the results.
I was delighted to find websites which offered fruit colouring, not made with mere food colour from bottles, but using fruits and vegetables adding flavouring as well as nutrition, plus the excitement of the varied tastes matching the colours. Regrettably the verdict reached by most of them was that you could not get sufficiently intense flavour from the vegetable dyes from fresh fruit alone.
If you want really bright red desserts with delicious flavouring, try the English favourite summer pudding. You can make your own or buy it from supermarkets.
If you want to make your own, it's so easy that it's hard to get wrong. Use a bowl shape mould to make a lining of white bread. Fill it with red fruits such as strawberry, raspberry, blackcurrant and red currant. Seal the base with a circle of bread, pressing the edges together. Cook it. Serve hot or cold, with or without white yogurt or cream.
Decorate with red grapes. Or contrasting colours.
If you want to make more desserts, in separate colours, try a blue one with blueberries and / or prunes.
Make an orange one with mangoes, apricot, oranges, mandarins, and/or kumquats.
Make a yellow one with lemon curd or apricots or white peaches and custard. Make a green one with greengages and mint.
Any recipe for smoothies will give you suggestions.
Celebrations: Birthdays, Parties, Weddings, National Days
If you want a rainbow party, with everybody wearing rainbow clothes, rainbow bagels, rainbow cakes, rainbow cocktails, rainbow cheese. For rainbow cheese choose (orange cheese, blue cheeses, white cheeses, cheeses with red such as Wensleydale with Cranberry, or lakes of chutney.
If a rainbow is too complicated, pick three colours to match a flag, such as red white an blue (UK, USA, France), or orange or red white and green. This would be fun for a summer party, national holiday or wedding.
Where To Buy and Try
USA - New York, USA
UK - Brick Lane bakery, East End of London, England
UK supermarkets
See TripAdvisor for the latest reviews. You can also buy plain bagels and bagels with poppy seeds and sesame seeds in London supermarkets such as Tesco and Morrisons. And a retired restaurant owner tells me he thinks you can buy better and cheaper in bulk from Costco in North Watford. Another option is B and K sat beef bar which has branches in Edgware and Hatch End.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2016/feb/24/i-can-eat-a-rainbow-new-york-psychedelic-bagels-light-up-london
You tube video on rainbow bagels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H1wAtCKlIE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flags_by_color_combination
http://wikihandbook.info/how-to-make-rainbow-bagels.wiki
If you want to find the places in the USA, New York and elsewhere, which went viral with rainbow bagels, looks at internet sites.
http://www.eater.com/2016/3/8/11171396/rainbow-bagels-cronut-cruffin-milkshakes
http://www.bagelartist.com
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/rainbow-cake.html
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, author, public speaker.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
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