Wholemeal Crank

I'm a subscriber so can get behind the paywall, sort of.....they want me to pay even more for access to their back recipes. But I can see the recipe above, and it's about altering a bit of the batter, which is another way to approach the issue: I could take the base cake batter and mix a portion of it with pomegranate molasses and swirl that in, which would get a lot of the same flavor elements, but not the curd texture I'm dreaming about.

I remember making bundt cakes with 'baked-in' filling, and now I wonder: would a basic fruit curd stand up to being baked in the middle of a bundt cake without horrible texture fail? Could something like this basic curd work, chilled enough to allow it to be applied with a pastry bag over the half-filled bundt cake batter, and topped with more batter? Dreaming now of a pistachio cake with pomegranate filling, but thinking about other combinaions as well--what are the key characteristics required in a 'bake-in' filling? 2/3 cup sugar 2 T cornstarch 1 cup pomegranate juice 1/4 cup lemon juice 5 egg yolks, whisked together 1/3 cup butter, cut into chunks Stirred the sugar, cornstarch and juices together until there were no lumps, then brought it to about 160 degrees. Gradually added it to the whisked eggs, returned to heat, brought to near boil so the cornstarch thickened, then strained it into a bowl, whisked in the butter, and poured into serving dishes to chill.

About the same time as I wrote here, I wrote to ModernistBread at Modernistcuisine.com with the same original question, and have not heard a peep from them. I did find this page (Home Canned Cake from HealthyCanning.com) full of useful information, basically coming down on the side of, 'don't do it', because bread is such a great vehicle for botulism. And they mentioned a couple of recipes which were reportedly promoted around or after WWII and formulated to have a safe pH when the recipes were followed precisely, which fits with the article I found traces of but haven't gotten my hands on yet. Another reference is a PDF of a Food Fact Safety Sheet from Utah State University Extension that also unequivocally recommends against canning bread. I'm still curious about preparing bread in the pressure cooker, because I love the pressure cooker, but until I know more, I certainly won't be attempting to keep the result long-term at room temperature.

So air tight, rather than true vacuum? I'd really like to see them address this in the book or on their blog, because they've got the equipment to test it. I've found articles about military standards for canned bread from the 50s that include pH requirements for the finished products, and an reference to an article from Journal of Food Science where this was tested by adding Clostridium to bread being canned or after canning but the limited information in the reference doesn't confirm how it was tested and whether spores survived and grew. I won't have a chance to get to the library to get my hands on the article for some weeks yet, unfortunately.

Before I go too far down the rabbit hole of canned bread.....wondering about the safety of it. I've read the sections in volume 3 about pressure cooking loaves, and the section about canned breads, both baked in canning jars and pressure canned in the jars, but there is only one or two sentences about the safety of doing so, which describes how the anaerobic environment in the jar, if it properly vacuum seals during the process, keeps molds from growing. But: what about botulism? Thinking here about the meticulous care required when working with low-acid foods and canning safety--things cut to the exactly the right dimensions, not substituting things that might be denser/have different heat capacities, to make sure every bit of what is in the jar gets to 240 or 250 degrees to kill the botulism spores. Bread is normally baked to much lower internal temperatures, and often with inclusions like fruit and nuts that would be verboten to just add to a recipe for soup or stew to be canned. Is any yeasted dough effectively acid enough to be protective? What about nuts? I will start as close to one of their recipes as I can stand, of course, milling the flour to match their recommended flours as best I can, but will be very cautious with the inclusions to start.

And....wahoo! I picked the right volumes when I put in my hold for MB at the library--for odd reasons I could only reserve 3 at once via a telephone hold. I stopped by the central library to try to grab the other volumes, but the librarian and I couldn't find them even though they were listed as 'on the shelf'. So.....I only have 3, and volume 3, techniques and equipment, has the section on pressure canning bread. What to make, what to make, what to make....all those wide-mouth little canning jars would love to be filled with cheese rolls, or dried fruit sweet rolls, apple-pepper-cheddar bread, heh heh heh.

And they are in at the LAPL! No one else go get them until I've got one for me!

Have 22qt pressure canner, freezer always too full, and love bread. This I MUST TRY!

Since my library doesn't yet have a copy, and my local bookstores are unlikely to get it in either.....how much attention does he give to whole grain breads? Is it 95% white flour recipes and 5% whole grain, or 50:50, or....?

Those were incredible. Wow. Such sharp detail. I'd love to know the scale of the cathedrals.

Better when with precooked rice. Still need to cook it a bit softer next time--it really doesn't soften at all after milk is added. But I've now got a reliable recipe to add to my repetoire, thanks all!

And: the milk/egg portion of the pudding was very smooth and rich, not too sweet, and the dried sour cherries I soaked separately and added at the end did well with the flavoring of cardamom, vanilla and mahleb. But the rice was undercooked: edible, but not the soft texture I want. I was using Lundberg, brown basmati, which I knew would give the nutty background that I wanted, but it will take some precooking. It will be a while before I try this again but I'm going to stick a page of notes in the cookbook to remind me of the next steps after this go-round.

Cooling now in the refrigerator.....I got to it about 25 minutes into the 2nd heating session and it was just on the edge of curdling. Some vigorous stirring and that stopped. This time I used whole milk with 25% heavy cream. Based on a check of the rice at the 20 minute mark, I think I will let it set overnight because the rice could use a little longer to soften.

My next attempt will be with whole milk plus some cream; it's a good excuse to have cream around for other purposes.

Damn. Another try, with fresh milk, and presoaked brown rice, and another curdling--but this time, I got through to the last stages of heating through the mixture after returning the eggs/milk/sugar/seasoning to the cooker, and the rice was still just a little bit chewy after the 30 minutes, and I put it on for another 15 minutes, and whammo, curdled. That last step is very hard to get right with the cooker. Maybe finishing in the oven would be better to prevent the overheating at the end?

Excellent advice, thank you! It sounds like I created a setup for trouble by using milk on the edge of spoiling, not adding the sugar, and not presoaking the rice. I'll try again and report back.

That makes sense, thank you!

I had just over half of a gallon of skim milk that was just barely starting to go off--I drank a glass of it and realized it would be undrinkable by the next day. I thought about what I could do with it that would halt the spoilage, and decided to try rice pudding from my rice cooker cookbook. The recipe called for white rice, and I used brown rice, figuring it would just take longer to cook. First step was to take just the milk and rice, and add it to the cooker on a porridge cycle. Then I was supposed to take out a bit of hot milk (it would not be fully absorbed at that point), add it to a mixture of sugar and egg, pour that back into the rice, and continue it on the warm cycle (low heat setting), and stir it from time to time until it thickened up appropriately. Thinking I'd give the brown rice a head start, I set it on a timer so it would soak for 2 hours before starting to cook. And the end result of that porridge cycle was brown rice, still a bit hard, with curdled milk bits including some large conglomerations of curdled milk bits with rice embedded in it. So the question: what made the milk curdle? Starting with skim instead of whole milk? Starting with brown rice? Starting with milk on the edge of spoilage? Every now and then I do have a craving for rice pudding, and I'd like to do it with brown rice on general principles, and I'd like it to not end in a sad mix of curdled bits of milk and badly cooked rice. I previously worked on a recipe that starts with cooked rice, so that there is less of an issue with the brown rice--the different water requirement and cooking time are already be accounted for. But, I wanted to use up milk this time, and starting with dry rice seemed like the way to go.

Sponge, barbecue mop--great ideas. The barbecue mop looks like there is little to react with the lye. Thanks, all! I will report back but it will be a week or more before I have a chance to do some tests.

I wouldn't trust one from a garden center to be food-safe: when putting lye solution in it, I want to be as sure as I can that it's not got something unpleasant sitting on the surface and waiting for lye to dissolve it. But I've never paid attention to that when buying misters for spraying water on my loaves, and it hasn't killed me yet....

I'd like to avoid spray bottles because I don't want to inhale the stuff....but no better solution comes along, I may try that. What brand of spray bottle do you use? Interesting. I'll have to try this out with some plain water first and see how practical it is.

I am a pretzel-holic, and a baker. I've recently been trying the dilute lye solution per Rose Levy Berenbaum's instructions for Pretzle Bread with my own crackers, with good success overall, but am frustated by trying to apply the solution uniformly to a sheet of dough that can't be dipped whole. I've been using a silicone basting brush to apply it, but that's not sufficient for a smooth application. I worry about the lye interacting with my natural bristle brushes, especially the glues used to hold them together, and their handles. I'm seeking a better way to apply the solution uniformly & lightly to a sheet of dough (at this point of the cracker preparations) without eating glue or breathing aerosolized lye. Suggestions?

I've been living on semi-iced Taiwanese oolong this summer, a not-too-pricey 'Zhangshu Lake Oolong' from Wing Hop Fung. I take a small quantity of leaf, cover with boiling water, usually in a small porcelain gaiwan (it must be easy to pour brew and leaf out), wait 5-10 minutes, and pour the brew and leaf together into a large chawan or water bottle, fill the container with cold water, and ideally give it another 20-60 minutes before drinking. So the leaves get a hot 'wake up', and I only have to heat a small amount of water, and drink cool lovely tea. Depending on how long the leaves stand before I drink it all, I sometimes try for a second brewing, especially to drink in the evening before bed.

I keep a group of ingredients for herbal teas on hand for when I don't want C sinensis. I read labels when I enjoy an herbal tea blend, and try to add the ingredients to my collection, and when I want some herbal tea, I mix and match from what I have on hand. The ingredient list you share is full of good things that are not hard to find, and work well in varying proportions. I think cdh is spot on when suggesting not trying to exactly duplicate the commercial blend, but having fun with that combination as your starting point.

Curious about green tea with butter: are you starting with a roasted or steamed green tea? And how do you add the butter? I know the traditional Tibetan-style tea has origins in the compressed tea bricks that gave rise to puerh, which when young have a bit of green character to them, but after long travel/storage would be more earthy and dark.