Spherificator Brings Culinary Wizardry to Home Cooks

By Lorrie Baumann

This year at The Inspired Home Show, Cedarlane Culinary had intended to build on the buzz its Spherificator created at last year’s show, but those plans, as is the case with so many, were foiled by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Spherificator is a device for transforming drops of liquid into the trendy pearls that high-end chefs have taken to using as garnishes for all manner of dishes. Taking cues from molecular gastronomists, now home cooks can use the Spherificator to garnish sushi with ginger pearls, decorate chocolate mousse with coffee caviar or drop rum pearls onto eggnog. “Richard Blais does horseradish caviar, freezes it in liquid nitrogen and serves it on oysters so it comes out smoking from the nitrogen,” said Dustin Skeoch, co-Founder of Cedarlane Culinary. “I’ve seen other chefs that will make 10 to 15 different flavors of pearls and serve them all as a pearl salad.”

The Spherificator isn’t actually new – an industrial version of the device was developed in Montreal by an inventor who used it to make Kelp Caviar, a cheaper substitute for real roe. Cedarlane Culinary acquired the company in 2018 and then impressed crowds at last year’s International Home + Housewares Show. “The booth was packed the whole show. We had tons of international distributors that we’d never heard of, and we found some American independent retailers and larger chains who wanted to take it on as well,” Skeoch said. “It was easily the best housewares show we’ve ever done.”

The Spherificator retails for $99 and comes with the device plus enough of the sodium alginate and calcium chloride that make the gel membrane that encapsulates the liquid to make enough pearls for about 50 dinner parties. After the supplies that come in the box have been exhausted, more is available from Cedarlane in Canada or Modernist Pantry in the U.S. The Spherificator also comes with a recipe booklet of 18 chef-developed recipes.

For the retailer, it’s a device that demonstrates well in the shop. “Seeing it in person really helps,” Skeoch said. “You can use just about any food or liquid and turn it into perfectly consistent caviar pearls to take your plating and presentation up a few notches.”

To make the pearls, the user mixes liquid with sodium alginate, a natural seaweed extract in the form of a powder that’s blended into the liquid. It thickens the liquid just a little bit. “You put that in the top of the machine,” Skeoch said. “Then you push the button on the machine, and it comes out as perfect little droplets.”

Those droplets fall into a bath made with the calcium chloride, a natural salt that’s a close relative of table salt, and water. “Each little droplet, when it hits the water, the calcium reacts with the alginate to form a thin membrane around each drop,” Skeoch said. “You can do this the old-fashioned way with a syringe or squeeze bottle slowly dripping one drop at a time into the bath, but it takes forever, so people who have done it that way in the past absolutely love how quickly our new version pumps them out!”

When the pearls are bitten, the liquid inside gushes out in a burst of flavor, so they’re a functional ingredient in the dish, but their primary appeal is in elegant presentation – and, of course, as a way for a dinner party host to make a splash. “You get a hit of flavor with every bite, but it’s really all about the visuals,” Skeoch said. “It’s an easy way for a foodie to elevate the plating. You don’t see this kind of advanced plating at most dinner parties.”