ISOMALT-a-go-go

Always searching for new MG (molecular gastronomy) recipes, and so I googled upon this one: http://herbivoracious.com/2008/01/fun-with-isomal.html

Now that I have a goal, first to get some isomalt.  Didn't find any locally, so I used amazon.com.  (if anyone knows of somewhere in Phoenix to get some isomalt, let me know.)  What is isomalt?  It is a sugar-substitute that won't cause tooth decay (there are some other features, but that's the one I remembered.)

Followed the recipe, and it went pretty well.  Lessons learned:  My ginormous commercial stove always cooks things too quickly, so I probably over-cooked my isomalt by a little bit.  Don't think it affected flavor, but it gave it a light brown tinge.

The recipe called for a coffee grinder to take the cooled isomalt and make it back into a powder, but my little food processor did just fine, though it was violently loud and scared the pupster.  (My neurotic dog who does not like any noise.)

It made a lovely white powder, and I used a ring mold to try to make a lovely circle on the silpat.  That was wishful thinking, because unless I layered the isomalt perfectly evenly, it is not going to form a perfect circle in the oven.

I didn't have the snappy assortment of spices shown in the original recipe, so I did two combos:  mustard seed+chili powder+pepper, and mushroom salt+sesame seeds.

The recipe says to wait a few seconds before peeling them off the silpat -- unless you are in a freezer, that is not long enough -- you will see them start to harden around the edges, took a few minutes for me -- that's when you can peel them off.

Texture-wise, they are kind of like a thin peanut brittle.  Thinner layer of isomat powder on the silpat  works best for the best texture.  Tastewise -- just a hint of sweetness, and I liked the salt+sesame combo best, but I am crazy for salt, so possibly not the best judge.

So what would I do with this to actually make it part of a meal?  Possibly an interesting stand-alone appetizer, or perhaps on top of a salad, who knows.

The Alinea cookbook has a lot of recipes with isomalt, and there are also many videos on YouTube that show fun things to do with isomalt.