Franci

For those who read about this in the what's cooking sous vide today thread...no water in the jars and my bonet tastes really great. I'm loving it!

I need your opinion. I have an old chamber stove. It never occurred to me to bake pizza in there because it doesn't have a broiler. But it keeps the heat VERY well and this is the oven floor. A very, very heavy cast iron sheet. I guess my only way to find out is to try to bake directly onto it. But meanwhile any other tip is welcome.

Sorry, I'm not help in making the bottarga. But I like eating it...and I had quite a few Sardinian friends. The bottarga is not supposed to be rock hard. When I buy it, I pick it depending on the use I have for it. The lighter the color means that is fresher and softer and that one I use cut with a mandolin for salads (like artichokes and bottarga), the darker the color the firmer it gets, it's more suitable for grating. Sometimes if I buy a bottarga that is too fresh, so I leave it for weeks before using it for grating. Good luck with your experiments.

Hi guys, I need help. I'm experimenting with SV puddings. Tried a chocolate one yesterday night. The water bath got a little tinged, maybe the lids got a little dirty in the process or some liquid escaped in the water. What to do in these cases? Also, I thought the jars would go under vacuum, at least with my previous batch, didn't happened.

Cannot really call it zabaglione because the zabaglione is whipped. Let's say it's a cream with moscato d'asti (and cream), cooked SV. it's to die for!

Photo doesn't make it justice. So good. Spaghetti vongole and bottarga. One of my favorite dishes

RRO I'm so glad you are back posting! We missed you. I made cornetti (Italian croissants) for breakfast

Today I had a hit of nostalgia, missing home and was so long that I didn't make orecchiette, so I made some. Fresh taste a million time better than the dry stuff

Survival dinners here. Tonight a grilled branzino, scallops and salad.

Talking about noodles in desserts, this is from Emilia-Romagna: torta di tagliatelle

I don't see why to leave any meat to cook for 12 hours. I see the point for large beef bones but not the meat. I would always take the meat off the bone and add later for a richer and cleaner flavor.

Ah, ah, that's what my husband says. Linda, I honesty don't have a very sweet tooth myself and irony of it, of course it that in cooking school pastry was dread station Shelby, you are really such a nice person! Huge thank you, to you and Anna! You helped me so much.

Made "streghe", witches, that how these crackers are known in the bakeries in Bologna. They were used to test the oven temperature

Thank you, Frogprincesse and Smithy it is very rewarding but sometimes I also feel overwhelmed. Now, I have 12 cakes for tomorrow plus my little one is turning 5 and having her birthday party on Sunday and need to start making things for her as well.

I started 9:30 am and finished at 8pm, including a short break for lunch. I picked up the kids from school, made a simple dinner for them and yelled at them to get ready to go to sleep. When the kids where not at home I was more productive but I try to keep it as clean as I can as I go and try to keep the process more efficient as possible. I bought a cadco, half sheet size, convection where I can bake at most 8 cakes at a time and I still use my ancient Chamber stove oven! 12 cakes yesterday came from there. Plus I have a good size working table with all my work stuff stored there. Only 1 KA 8Qt., maybe I'll need another one, especially now that I found another person from my cooking school helping me, maybe from next week. I have a web site, that you find at my signature but I'm not selling on internet. Only in 5 locations in Brooklyn at the moment. Thanks Rotuts! BTW, I gained 6kgs since starting this business, definitely not good for the line.

As some of you on Egullet know , I've started a home business...which might become soon too big for my home. Today I baked 55 cakes. 21 of which are my limoncello cake (aka caprese bianca)

Thank you, both! I do not need a month, already a week time works for me.

Can I keep my egg yolks longer by pasteurizing them? They are chasing me. My family is eating way too much egg yolk pasta and still I don't always have the time to use them before I should. I normally put them in a zip lock bag, try to squeeze as much air out as possible and use within 2-3 days. Now I already have 18 yolk from 2 days ago and likely going to have more than 50 tomorrow. I tried the freezing adding a bit of sugar but didn't like the result. Any suggestion on how too keep them is welcome. I have tons of recipes...not always the time to execute them.

Sure, Ann! For the biga Fresh baker yeast 20gr (me 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast) Flour W320-340 150gr (so your high protein flour would be fine) Water 75gr (I use a little more) mix and let it proof until tripled For the dough: Flour W320-340 450gr Butter 250gr Water 70gr Sugar 100gr Egg yolk 150gr Salt 6gr Vanilla bean and/or lemon or orange zest Wet the sugar with the water. Mix the flour with the yolk and add the sugar syrup. I needed to add a little more liquid. Add the salt and the flavorings. When smooth and elastic add the biga in pieces. And after that has been incorporated, add the softened butter a bit at a time. I let the fermentation start and then moved the dough to the fridge overnight (actually for 2 days) and brought back to room temperature and let triple in bulk (it took a good 7-8 hours). Then shape as you want, proof again and bake. For the small swirl brioches I put the rolled dough in the fridge again for an hour for easier slicing.

I'll make it in "mondeghilli", it's like a crochette of roasted meat.

Lunch is going to be this roasted chicken plus a pan of potatoes/Korean sweet potatoes/celeriac cooked under the chicken

So with the rest of the brioche dough I've made this. Filling apricot jam and raisin for my boy and jam and chocolate chips for the girl

Made some brioche dough again, still in the fridge but I took out a small amount and baked 4 tiny brioches to see how they would come out. It's a dough very rich in yolks about 10-11 for a total weight of 1.2 kg of dough. Kids liked a lot

SLB, thanks, that is a very good list. I know KA flour very well, when it was still a tiny store. I lived for 1 year 5 minutes away from there. It was indeed an adjustment using their flour for my recipes. I routinely cut AP flour with starches to get down the gluten for baking European cakes. I guess I need to ask in the Kitchen Consumer for some flours. Thanks everybody for your replies.

In picking my flours, I confess, I just hope to guess right. This subject really frustrates me, it's like the lack of proper measurement (=use of scale for ingredients) in the North American world. A lot of my professional european recipe call for the W (strength) of the flour. More or less, I need to look at the protein % to guess the W. Weak less then 180 W (8-9% protein) Meadium betwen 180-280 W (10-11%) Strong Higher than 280 W up to 400 (more then 11%) A lot of flours don't really carry the protein content as I percentage, but I guess it's a simple calculation a serving size 30 g with a protein amount of 3g must be a 10% protein. Do you pay attention to this? Are there specific mills/flour brands that you like to use targeted to more professional approach to baking?