Wholemeal Crank

First attempt was very tasty, but came out quite hard, not ready for sharing yet. I think I misunderstood the note about 34% fat content: that should be 34% of the weight of (fat + water), or 34% of the weight of the water alone? For my 70% Sharffenberger, there are 23 grams of fat per 55 grams of chocolate. So 23 grams is 34% of 68 (23/0.34=68). Do I need to add 45 (=68-23) or the whole 68 grams of water per 55 grams of chocolate?

I think you need a bigger glass for tonic after all that work!

Yes, exactly: the air temp in the oven still drops when you open the door, but when you close it again, the stones are still plenty hot to start the baking from below, and help the air return to temp faster too with the stored heat. Just for kicks, and because it was a heck of a cold day today, this morning I preheated my oven with in as usual to 550 (the hottest setting). When the oven beeped 'preheat done', the bricks were about 200 degrees, and the oven floor was about 550 with the infrared temp gun. I let them sit in there another 30 minutes, and they hit about 500-530 degrees (sorry, didn't take notes). Then I put on the broiler ('Vari-broiler' to high setting), and waited another 12 minutes, and they got a little hotter--about 620 degrees for the top one and 570 or so for the bottom one. At that point, the experiment had to be called off due to near asphyxiation of the experimentalist--had to open lots of windows and put the fan on high and had long since taken down the smoke detector. The result of the experiment seems to be that my oven can heat my bricks above 550 with the broiler, after the burner gets them going, but the design of my oven controls doesn't let me put both on at once. And that was without putting the bricks on the bottom above the burner, which I didn't do because I was lazy. I can probably get them quite a bit hotter with the bricks on the bottom of the oven, but dare not try that until the weather is warmer so I don't end up freezing me & mine again with the necessary opening of windows.

Don't have the book yet so this lazy cook has to ask: why firm up and then grate the cheese, instead of using it directly as the yummy smooth melty stuff without firming up afterwards?

More excellent points. I am intrigued by this recipe mostly because it doesn't have anything in it besides the chocolate, and I rarely make chocolate desserts because I'd rather eat my 70% Scharffenberger without dilution. I've been enjoying playing with chocolate flavor combinations through hot chocolate, and this seems like a good way to extend those ideas to something spoon-friendly. As for the whisking, I think I have a kitchenaid blender that can take that attachment, and have been reading elsewhere about how useful it can be, so will try to get one (mine is the KH100, not the KH300 that now comes packaged with the whisk, but it otherwise looks to be the same thing). But perhaps for my first time, because it will be a test batch for one, I will start small, skip the kitchenaid, and use the push whisk, and report back with photos.

Today, started with Honyama sencha from Yuuki-cha, then some Old Plantation Qing Xin from Norbu, and now almost the last of my spring 2010 Jin Xuan green tea from Norbu (fortunately I have more of the winter harvest for when this runs out). A good tea day, but one to leave me craving puerh tomorrow, fit for a gray rainy stormy day.

I just ordered mine two days ago, and my estimated delivery date is March 14-17 with free super saver shipping.

We need inside-the-pressure-canner videos, including some from inside on of the jars, for the next edition, please!

Thank you for your very insightful comments. I will keep them with the original recipe. This sounds a lot easier than the ice water bath, and with the chill my kitchen is going to reach this weekend, it should keep pretty well chilled when removed from the fridge for whipping. Any thoughts on use of the mixer vs hand whipping, aside from the usual caution about how fast a good kitchenaid can take it from almost done to overwhipped?

The point of the discussion as I've understood it is that the metal plate, *when fully up to temperature, after a long preheat*, can transfer sufficient heat to a thin piece of dough directly in contact with it over 2 minutes to result in a nicely baked pizza. The time it takes to preheat the metal plate itself--being heated by the air in the oven, and thus verys low--is irrelevant to the rapid heat transfer from the hot plate to the pizza. And both the broiler and the bottom element are relevant because being able to keep them on together may permit the oven to get hotter than top element alone. What's so complicated about that? I have been feeling a little wary about ordering the book, because so much of my cooking is not in line with what I've come to understand about molecular gastronomy--I have no interest in trying to make a spherical gel of olive-ness, I'd rather just eat an olive--but stuff like this, the discussion of heat transfer and cooking properties of the oven, taking things a LONG step past 'stones store heat and thus the oven temp doesn't drop as much when you open the door to put the pizza in', is what may make it worth it for me.

I bought a ridiculously small quantity of that from Essence of Tea--something like 5 grams or less. Wonderful stuff, brewed in my usual rather dilute fashion. But to fill the pot 1/2 full by volume with the remainder of my sample, I'd need one this big! Today, so far, started with some Dragon Well, then on to Hankook Hwang Cha Korean 'oolong' tea, then on to some more of the Autumn TGY from Jing tea shop. Maybe some puerh tonight as I do some work at home.

Green on grains by Bert Greene taught me a lot about cooking different grains, and I always make my quinoa by his technique. It got pushed off the shelf because his recipes, though always delicious, tended to be very rich and heavy, and once I had a good handle on what I was doing with the different grains, I preferred to use them in lighter recipes. It remains an excellent introduction, however, if you want to know what to do with the quinoa or teff you've just brought home. I still keep the Versatile grain and the elegant bean on my shelf. It's outlasted a couple of others that wore out their welcomes.

Mom just checked in with the info on Dad's Sharp convection/microwave--it was the R-9H76, a discontinued model, but the key point is that it is a 1.5 cu ft model, interior 16 x 16 x 9, and that size was practical for a lot of baking that just doesn't work well in the slightly smaller one that I have. This appears to be the current version of the 1.5 cu ft model. Aside from the size issue, which limits how often I actually bake in mine, it has worked great for a decade, and my Dad's is now 15 years old and got heavy use with microwave and convection.

I was planning to try this with my Kitchenaid and the water bath around the bowl, so I should be able to whip it pretty completely. And at the moment, my heat is off, and the house is about 55 degrees at night, so it might be worth a try at 'room temp' overnight, at least as a small-scale experiment.

I just read about this recipe recently, and am very interested to try it, but the version I found here mentions that it can be made a few hours ahead, and I'd like to know if it can be held overnight, for serving at a work event the next day. Anyone ever tried that? Since there's nothing in it but water and chocolate (at least, not in the most basic version), it shouldn't spoil, but would it get crunchy and crumbly held overnight in the refrigerator?

I have a Sharp convection-microwave that does bake, but it is small enough that loaves of bread nearly always are burn on top because there just is not enough room between loaf and top element. My father had a larger version of the same thing, and his worked beautifully for breads & pies, but was still on the small size for things like cookies and crackers where large surface area and ability to bake two layers at once are key for getting through the stuff quickly enough. I just checked their site, and I can't be sure without checking at home which is which. I just know that the one is perfectly useful, and the other is not so much, and will report back when I can check their sizes.

Either the super-fresh panfried trout caught an hour before, & cooked & eaten while backpacking with the best possible backdrop of spectacular mountains at 12000 feet in the Sierras (note: try to take anglers along on your backpack trips, well worth the effort to cultivate some among your acquaintance); or a dinner at Cowboy Sammy's in Oregon, the first restaurant meal I'd ever had where I was relaxed enough to trust them and eat everything on every plate they served me, even things I'd normally eschew, and rewarded so richly for doing so.

Started the day with some Yunnan silver needles from Norbu, a break from several days in a row of sencha, and then moved on to his Black Ruby tea from Taiwan, a really nice black tea that holds well in the thermos (first time I think I've tried it that way). Then on to a rather unsatisfying session with a 'commercial' grade Dan Cong that tastes nice enough immediately after infusion, but does not hold well for even a few minutes in my cup while drinking gongfu cha. It's a bit of a prima donna, this one, and that's annoying especially because I bought it with more relaxed brewing in mind vs the 'single bush' fancier versions.

I spent a lot of time in the past 2 years in biology labs with centrifuges, vacuum centrifuges, lots of water bath incubators (aka sous vide setups), rotor-stator homegenizers, and when hungry waiting for a good lunch or dinner break, I'd often fantasize about using them for cooking. Too bad they were being used for lots of not-food-safe stuff! Now that my lab days are behind me, I spend even less time in the kitchen, and depend on meals that tolerate cooking ahead, freezing or refrigerating, and reheating in a microwave for eating away from home. I know that some (or many or most?) gels are quite sensitive to things like freeze-thaw cycles, and have eaten more than my share of excellently flavored but sad-textured vegetable soups for lunch at work. Is there much discussion of preserving the best flavors and textures for this sort of every-day cook-ahead eating in Modernist Cuisine?

Got lucky, and found something very similar on sale at Macy's, and can now confidently confirm that the solid, heavy fork of this set, despite relatively short tines, is quite useful for stirring grated butter into biscuit dough, and quickly beating the eggs and water together before adding them to the dry ingredients. Heh!

Yesterday and today, some more of the young sheng puerhs from the present OTTI, pushing the limits of the Manmai; also started the day with Yuuki-Cha Honyama sencha both days; and trying to get through a bunch of paperwork with the help of some Den's Houjicha tonight. Green, puerh, and....well....what shall we call Houjicha?

I've been doing individual brewings of these teas, thinking I knew the answer in advance--that the Man Mai would be easy, the Man Sai a little trickier, and the Bang Wai would be for the more advanced brewer. The solo infusions of the Bang Wai were as I expected--tricky, when I pushed it with higher leaf-to-water ratios it was aggressive and required very careful handling--flash infusions and quick slurping drinking--to avoid strong bitterness. But last night's infusions with the Man Mai, the least bitter and 'easy' one, infused at strong concentrations in a little yixing pot, needed to be poured as fast as the pot would empty to avoid bitterness also. It was quite delicious, as long as I was quick enough, and by the time I got to a few more infusions this afternoon, it was quite mellow, and tolerant of longer times. So....I think all of them are delicious and easy for me to enjoy when I brew them dilutely and with very quick rinses, so I get the sweet and spicy and resinous herby notes without notable astringency or bitterness. But even the mellowest of them is not perfectly simple. I think I would not recommend any of them as a first tea to send home with someone new to puerh, someone who did not have a gaiwan and experience using it, or a pot with a built-in strainer and a quick pour. I think they would be very frustrating for someone used to bagged teas or mellow forgiving oolongs. But if they could be introduced to the tea by sharing a brewing, shown how lovely they could be with the flash infusions to release their goodness: if it were shown that the same tea could be brilliant (flash infusions) or bitingly bitter (long infusions), and understood clearly what it took to make them great, then I could recommend them without hesitation even to a puerh newbie. I still would probably recommend the Bang Wai for the more experienced drinker of sheng. And now that I've worked with these three teas twice (sampled for two different tastings), I just wish I'd added a beeng of the Man Mai to my first order from Essence of Tea late last year.

Three major trouble points in mine.....the cat who has no respect for my rules about where she does or does not belong; the guinea pig, but really he and his messes stay on the floor, where they're regularly cleaned up; and the cabinet used for live food cultures for my aquarium fish--with the grindal worms, walter worms, vinegar eels, and sometimes confused flour beetles....

Enjoying the long, lingering sweet ending to some Haiwan Purple Bud sheng puerh from Norbu today. Just two little pieces of beeng have so far done a nice job with 2 liters of tea--twice filled my thermos. It is a smoky-earthy-sweet, rather assertive young sheng, and I needed this after a few days of mostly green and greener oolong teas. I keep forgetting to bring my TT&D puerhs to work with me so haven't had a chance to get back to those, but this helped satisfy that deep craving for puerh, so perfect on a rainy gray day. Mmmm, nice tea.

Today's teas were on the lighter side of things, with a wonderful brewing of some of the autumn TGY from Jingteashop: I overdid it, though, and some leaves hydrated their way out of the brewing vessel as they unfolded--at least, they towered a half inch or so above the rim! It was a fantastic infusion, and I tried to work with the overfilled container by dribbling bits of water over all of the leaves in turn. Then some Silver dragon white tea from Wing Hop Fung, and ending with a tea bag of a remarkable 'oolong' from Hankook--one of a couple of packets I received when I first went to their shop. This was a special award-winning Hwang cha that ended up in tea bags (eeep!), very similar to but not exactly the same harvest/processing as the canister of Hwang Cha I purchased at the same time. I think it's a bit sweeter, although also bittersweet because it looked like the store had closed at the time I was in the neighborhood last weekend. Anyone else enjoy some tea today, yesterday, or will enjoy some tomorrow?