jgarner53
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Posts posted by jgarner53
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Speaking of tea, iced tea that is, how about a cooling mint sugar in ice tea
Better yet, why not make a mint-flavored sugar syrup, since sugar doesn't dissolve so easily in cold iced tea? You could do a lemon one as well. Decant into a squeeze bottle, and away you go!
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But they're both heavenly!
Does anyone else remember the cartoon (I believe it was a Bugs Bunny one) where he feeds the bad guy (not Yosemite Sam, someone else, I'm thinking Bluebeard the pirate) a plate full of bombs, and bad guy says, "Mmmmm, popovers," and proceeds to gobble them up? A moment later BLAM!
I ALWAYS think of that whenever anyone mentions popovers.
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I noticed the first black mission figs at my produce market this afternoon. I've been champing at the bit on this one. Figs, raspberries, that can only mean one thing: Raspberry and fig crostata.
I probably won't make it until next weekend (the 26th), though, as I'll be in impossibly hot Sacramento this coming weekend, which is not an especially good place for rolling out finicky pastry dough.
Anyone with me?
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Well, like 182Much, my croissant experience was, shall we say, less than ideal.
Everything went fine until I got to the second turn of the dough. At that point, the dough did not want to roll out to the specified dimensions, and I started getting butter coming out at the edges. I got it out as large as I could and folded it. The third turn went the same way. I froze the dough for several hours (as by this time it was midnight) and put it in the fridge in the middle of the night to thaw. (I was worried about the dough rising).
When rolling out the croissants, I again couldn't get the dough to the specified dimensions, no doubt due in no small part to the inadequate rolling earlier. I did the best I could and soldiered on, cutting and forming the croissants. Here I also had trouble, as many of them began to delaminate as I stretched them (too much pressure?) or broke.
I froze half and finished half. They did not visibly leak any butter while rising, but they did during baking, and flattened somewhat during baking.
The end results tasted good (so my husband says), but I could see that they are way too dense inside and not the light airy things they're supposed to be.
My first thought is on incorporating the butter. When I make puff pastry, I roll out the detrempe into a diamond shape, with a center space about 10x10 inches, and the butter is laid in there. The four sides of the diamond are folded over, and there's no need to pound the butter into the dough because it's already flat. I think this method seals the butter into the dough more effectively.
As to the toughness of rolling out the dough, it might be that I didn't let it rest long enough between turns (2 hours each, but it was in my beer fridge, which was turned very low, to keep the beer more at cellar temp than ice cold).
I don't understand what went wrong with shaping the croissants (the stretching).
A frustrating exercise, to be sure, though it does make me want to make puff pastry - perhaps to prove to myself that I CAN make a successful, non-tough laminated dough.
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The wonders of the heartland. Bill's Toasty and demolition derbies (derbys?), and tastee freeze type joints that are only open for the season.
Living on the coast, one tends to forget (and usually not care) what the rest of the country is doing and eating.
Thanks for a great blog, adoxograph!
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Wow after watching that video of making croissantsI am amazed at how well written the baking with julia book is
I have the croissant episode saved on my Tivo, and have been running back and forth between it and my kitchen (where I, too, do not have a marble pastry board). I love how Esther MacManus talks about how to handle the dough (authoritatively, "you are the boss") in the episode.
And now, off to make the first turn!
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I say, go simple, either with a tapered rolling pin like this, or a straight pin like this, in either maple (lighter) or boxwood (heavier).
The tapered rolling pins are easier to turn when, say, rolling out pie crust, but you can't beat the straight, French rolling pin for something like beating butter into a puff pastry or croissant dough (and how therapeutic!)
The disadvantage I see to the cheap marble pin you linked to is the length. Ten inches isn't very wide. I suspect the major price difference may come from 1) where it's made and/or 2) Williams-Sonoma is known to be very pricey.
Just my $.02. I've never worked with a marble rolling pin, so I can't attest to how well they work, whether they stick more or less than a wooden pin, or whether the extra weight is worth it.
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I realized last night that I have to amend my previous post to add black licorice. It's just not something I've ever grown accustomed to. Not sweet enough (to me) to be candy. Add to that anise flavored liqueurs: pastis, ouzo, etc.
Now, a little bit of anise IN something like a spice cake, or in a heady Vietnamese pho broth, fine. But licorice by itself? Never.
And tuna salad, pickles or no. Goes along with the whole canned tuna thing.
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I hate not knowing there is raisins in something
Exactly. What's worse than expecting chocolate chips and getting raisins? (assuming, for the sake of this argument, that you like chocolate and enjoy chocolate chip cookies)
Most of my top "icks" have been covered: gin, green peppers, brussels sprouts, organ meats, canned tuna, coffee. Additionally,
german chocolate cake - something about the coconut in the icing just makes me gag. I remember as a kid being excited (probably at a birthday party) because of the last two words: chocolate cake, and then being bitterly disappointed because not only was there gaggy coconut on top, but the chocolate cake wasn't very good either. Haven't been able to face it since.
I didn't used to like coconut, mostly because all I'd ever experienced was sweetened, dried flakes. Then I discovered coconut milk.
mustard - It's OK if it's in something, but as a sandwich spread, forget it. I don't know if it's the bitterness or heat or what, but I have to scrape it off it inadvertently gets on my sandwich (or toss that piece of bread and eat open-faced)
Campari -- too bitter
Artificial cherry flavor - ugh, cough medicine!
But pass the beer (microbrew, please), port, chocolate, cauliflower, beets. I'll eat what you don't.
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Have you tried the Montreal bagels in Alford and Duguid's HomeBaking?
I haven't, but I also don't have the book. Mine seemed to turn out just fine, not tough once they'd risen, been boiled and baked. I was mostly remarking on how stiff the dough was since I was working it before it had risen at all.
I was aghast to see the butter start oozing all over the parchment paper ... they baked up fine but again they oozed butter and it made some smoke from the butterI have heard that's a problem with this recipe, though I don't know why.
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ven if you only get to see 2 square feet of somebody's kitchen, I find these fascinating documents, a peek into another world, and I confess to be as interested in the kitchen, applicances, tools, notes stuck on fridges, and anything else that makes it into the frame at least as much as the food prep.
Oh, so I'm not the only kitchen voyeur out there!
I love seeing other people's pics, and if I thought about it more, I'd document my efforts better. I've spent the better part of the afternoon baking, fer cripes sake!
I'm making bagels, but from Baking Illustrated, not BWJ. I guess the next stop is making them from BWJ and comparing results. These do their entire rise in the fridge (after forming). Man, that high gluten flour is STIFF stuff!
I am still planning on doing the croissants this weekend, but would also be willing to do a group project if a consensus can be reached.
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I can't see the pic of the finished biscuits! Though based on the raw ones going onto the sheet, they look really yummy!
I just got my hands on a bag of White Lily flour (which, for those of you not in the know is low-protein flour from the South and, I'm told, critical for making really tender biscuits). There are biscuits calling my name from that bag. Maybe with lunch.
As for lunch, it depends on when I'm eating dinner. If I know it will be early, lunch will be in the middle of the day. Otherwise, I like it on the downward slope of the workday. Though when I was working 7:30-4:30, the downward slope was anything after 11:30.
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My spicy squid
looked a little different than before. It had been chunks of squid, as opposed to the scored pieces that now graced my plate.
The scored pieces tell me that it's not squid now, but cuttlefish. Not that it matters, really. But you don't have to score squid. And the less it's cooked, the better. More than a wave over a hot pan of water, and you have rubber bands and a good week's worth of chewing to do.
Pity that the food didn't taste as good as it looks. Good Thai food is a revelation.
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Oh my, those cinnamon rolls look divine! If you bring those into work, I can only imagine that they're busy building a shrine to you at this very moment, all the better for to worship you.
Cat as fuzzy puddle. I have one of those.
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Schweppes Manao (lime) soda from Thailand. I know of one market in LA's Thaitown that sells it, but have otherwise been unable to find it here.
ditto on the Limonata.
HFCS does indeed suck. Apparently there is still one bottling plant in TX that makes Dr. Pepper with sugar, and you can order cases from them.
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I finally got my oven spring! OK, it was with ciabatta and not French bread, but holy oven spring, Batman! I put a pan in the oven to preheat and poured in 2 cups of hot water when I put in the bread. I think that for my tiny oven 2C is probably too much water/steam because the crust softened some as it cooled. But bang! It was like someone had stuck a straw in the loaf and inflated it! It looked a lot like the pugliese above.
So back to the pate fermentee drawing board and next time I'll do the pan/water thing instead of spraying my loaves.
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I made the French apple tart this weekend (sorry, no pic), hoping to have friends over for dessert after going out, but they balked due to the hour. I wound up sending the whole thing off with DH to share with friends he was hanging out with yesterday, so I didn't get to taste any of it! I made a basic caramel sauce to go with it. He said it was gobbled up and one person asked for the recipe, so I must have done something right!
I made half a batch of the Flaky Pastry Dough to start with and for the first time in a long while, the dough was too wet. It was OK once I'd let it rest in the fridge and I rolled it out with flour (I usually use waxed paper). I found that it tore quite a bit when I transferred it to the tart pan, and I didn't quite understand the instructions for making the ledge. I must not have had enough beans in the pan, either, for the blind bake, as the bottom didn't get baked through, and some of the sides did shrink, also shrinking my pie pastry hubris a bit as well.
I must have bought the "never break down" variety of Granny Smiths because I found they took MUCH longer to cook than the recipe said. I eventually took them out of the oven after 30 minutes and put them in the microwave for another 6 minutes to finish cooking. Even then it took considerable muscle to break them down.
The apples on top didn't blacken on the edges either, in spite of an extra 10 minutes of baking time.
I know from earlier posts that most of you did not have the picture perfect results either. So is it a flawed recipe?
I plan to make croissants this weekend, as I've heard that you can freeze the croissants once they're shaped, before the final rise. That way I don't have a whole batch of them on hand.
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I swear that Central Market looks twice as big as any supermarket here. I'm jealous, and I have a wealth of great food at my fingertips: Whole Foods, Andronico's 99 Ranch (for asian specialties). I spent about a month in Dallas 5 years ago for work and really enjoyed myself. Of course, my company was paying for meals, so I ate pretty well, and made friends with one of the locals, who took me to some of his favorite places. I got addicted to Dickey's bbq and Sonic cherry limeade. The company sent a car to pick me up at the airport each weekend when I flew back in (I got to go home every weekend - and wanted to, mostly because I'd just moved into my first house and was still unpacking), and the same guy picked me up every week. After a couple of weeks, I asked him to drive me through Sonic just so I could get some of that cherry limeade.
Your spring/summer/fresh rolls look fantastic Nessa. I've only ever made them with pork and shrimp, Vietnamese style. I'm glad to know what the mushu sauce is - like you I've tried a bunch of different things and nothing's quite right. And we always run out of it before the container is gone. Why do Chinese restaurants only give you 4 pancakes and maybe 1 TBS. of sauce and a full container of mushu filling?
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There was a time when the Costco samples looked appetizing to me, and occasionally I'll still try something if it looks appealing, but when most of it is frozen crap that I wouldn't buy anyway, I can easily pass it by. Same goes for my supermarket. It seems that every time I go there, there's less real food and more processed, premade, pre-packaged junk.
Now if they were handing out samples of wine (like in those Canadian liquor stores), that would be a different story!
After hearing these horror stories, I don't think I'll be tasting anything any time soon (unless I'm at a place like Whole Foods, where they'll cut me a taste of a cheese I'm interested in).
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Oooh, that brisket looks mouth-wateringly good!
The pie doesn't look too bad either. I love morello cherries. I love raspberries. I love pie dough! (Try cutting the shortening in half at a time, or better yet, use half butter/half shortening. You will probably need more like 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 cups of flour)
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And, jgarner53, your bread already looks very nice! Great holes!
Thanks. I feel like once I get this oven spring thing figured out - what will work best in my particular oven - then I'll really be off to the races. There's so much good bread out there waiting to be baked!
And, for me, I really feel like bread baking is like some kind of magic, even knowing the science behind it. There's some kind of connection to thousands of years of people making this, there's a connection to the dough. I'm always amazed at the change from a shaggy mess to this smooth, elastic ball, watching it change under my hands as I knead. There's something really magical about it to me -- I'm not very eloquent at putting it into words, but since you're all bakers at some level or another, I figure you probably understand.
How many science experiments do you get to eat, after all?
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All this talk of rhubarb pie got me hankering for one. My stupid mega-lo-mart supermarket didn't have any!
But at my usual weekly visit to the nearby product market, they did . I bought close to 3 lbs. of it.I mostly followed the recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb pie in Baking Illustrated, but as I'm one of those who doesn't like cooked strawberries, I swapped out the 1 1/2 lbs. of strawberries and did all rhubarb instead and added a little more sugar to accommodate the tartness of the rhubarb. I probably should have added more arrowroot, too (another hard to find ingredient!) as it came out just a little bit runny. I also used lemon zest instead of orange zest (didn't have any oranges).
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What would you suggest is the best way to achieve maximum oven spring in a home (gas) oven? My artisan loaves generally taste good and have a good, well-developed crumb, but I'm really struggling with how to get a good spring out of them. Lately I 've been spraying them with water before putting them in the oven, and then every couple of minutes for the first 8 minutes or so of baking time (this is on a boule).
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haping is your problem. The gluten needs to taught-almost persuaded into shape gently.
Try rounding into a tighter ball when doing the final shaping. The loaf spread out because it was it's skin was too relaxed.
Hmm, OK. I'd thought it was pretty taut when I set it to final proof, but perhaps more stretching was in order. (For my technique, I fold a side over, rotate the dough, then continue that process until it's all folded in on itself. Then I flip the dough over and begin to pull it toward me on the counter, like I'm raking in poker chips, tucking in the dough and stretching the top. I tuck & turn (rotate) the dough until it seems taut and the top springy. There are usually blisters on top when I'm finished (which I understand are OK). Then I place the dough in my banneton, smooth side up (was taught this by a CCA instructor) -- it becomes the bottom of the loaf when baked.
Should I flip the loaf in the banneton instead, so my nice, taut top stays the top of the loaf?
Of course, the taut structure seems to relax while it's proofing, so when I turn out the dough onto my peel (aka cookie sheet with semolina on it), it spreads a bit.
I'm overloaded with loaves right now (4 boules in the freezer and one in the fridge), so it will be a few days before I can bake again. Two of us can only eat so much bread.
And I might get some more quarry tiles for the top rack of the oven, as suggested earlier. My oven doesn't have any source of top heat, though (being gas and old), so I'm not sure how much advantage it would be.
General Truffle Troubleshooting
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
My instinct tells me that the softer fillings (that is, soft at room temp) are the ones that get coated in chocolate. When you bite into a chocolate covered truffle, the filling is usually dense, but softish and fudgy in texture.
For them to be relatively solid at room temp, I imagine you'd need to cut back pretty far on the cream, so the ganache is stiffer. I assume you'll be coating them in cocoa powder?
I have a good friend who used to make loads of truffles for his fabulous parties. I'll try to get his recipe. They were always wonderful, though still on the softer side when room temp so you'd be licking your fingers (or someone else's!
) to get the remnants and cocoa powder off . So they weren't "melt in your mouth not in your hand" firm, to borrow a slogan, but they didn't pool into a sticky mass on the plate either.
I'm also not a chocolate expert, so feel free to ignore everything I've just said.