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cakewalk

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Posts posted by cakewalk

  1. 3 minutes ago, Lisa Shock said:

     

    I know there's a faction of home cooks out there who are proud to not use recipes or measuring tools for anything, but commercial bakers have been using scientific equipment to help them make consistent product for a very long time. 

    You seem to be blurring the distinction between home cooks and commercial bakers. I am not. I am talking about home bakers only. 

  2. 8 minutes ago, MelissaH said:

    I always spray both the pan and lid with nonstick spray. Never had a problem with anything sticking, or anything burning. But I also typically pull the lid off about 10 minutes before I expect the bread to be done.

    I also take the lid off at that point. It's not going to rise any more. I also put the whole loaf back into the oven after I've taken it out of the pan, just for a minute or two. I read this in a James Beard book years ago, it makes the crust just a bit crisper. I do it with all loaves, not just the Pullman. 

    • Like 4
  3. 7 minutes ago, helenjp said:

    I suffer from the small kitchen problem too. I have a very small wooden box with a slotted lid that I store potatoes in. That doubles as a step when needed, but mostly, I keep stuff in high cupboards in plastic bins with grab handles on front, small enough to contain only a moderate amount of stuff, so not too heavy to yank one off a high shelf.$1 store plastic file holders on their sides make good dividers for flat items, and can be slid forward very easily.

    Yes, I have some of those plastic bins with handles too, and they are very helpful. They're on the shelf that I can reach if I stand on my toes, so I can grab the handle and bring down the plastic bin. But for the shelf above that one there's no hope without the step stool. 

  4. 6 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

    One thing I've always wondered about when using a Pullman pan - why  doesn't the bread stick to the lid?  I bought a Pullman pan several years ago and gave been afraid to use it as i have visions of never getting the bread out of it.

    That often concerns me as well. For the cake above, I didn't use the lid. For breads, I know I've seen quite a few loaves sold commercially where the tops were burned. I'm sure the breads themselves were okay, but I have always been secretly horrified that they still sell something that looks like that. (I see it at the Union Square green market all the time.) Most Pullman pans are treated (I don't know with what, or how) and I usually don't grease the sides of my pan at all when I make bread. I do lightly grease the bottom. I guess the tops are treated as well, I've never greased the top and it has never stuck. I think the loaves with the burned tops happen because they do grease the tops, and it's the oil that burns. (A completely unprofessional observation, I don't really know why their tops burn but that's my guess.) Give it a try.

    • Like 2
  5. 2 minutes ago, KennethT said:

    @mgaretzIs it possible that kaklaten is Yiddish or some variant thereof?  My father and grandmother would use terms that looked and sounded just like that..

    I think it's a Yiddish plural form. My father always wrapped meats in butcher paper and wrote on them in English lettering. I'd find packages that were labeled "kaklets," which I always thought was amusing. But the "en" is a German and Yiddish plural ending. Mensch, menschen, etc. So kaklat, kaklaten. Could be. 

    • Like 2
  6. I love fresh cranberries and currently have 10 bags hogging up space in the freezer. I'll probably buy a few more, I like to have them all year long. So it is very possible, contrary to "the rules," that I will have fresh cranberries in almost every dish on Thanksgiving, from appetizer to dessert. So far I've made cranberry ketchup (I love it, make it every year, and it's great on turkey sandwiches) and cranberry chutney, which I've also been making for years, it is simple and wonderful. Links to the recipes are below, I think the chutney recipe is from someone who was an original eGulleter from way back when. That cranberry sauce with red wine sounds like it needs to be on my table with its sisters.

     

    https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/cranberry-ketchup-105755

     

    http://acookinglife.typepad.com/a_cooking_life/2008/12/cranberry-chutney.html

     

     

     

    • Like 2
  7. 10 hours ago, chromedome said:

    My diminutive GF was very excited the other day to see a photo of kitchen cabinetry with a slide-out shelf at about knee height, purpose-built to stand on when reaching things down out of the higher cupboards. That's now number one with a bullet on the list for the kitchen in our putative future dream home. 

    That does sound like a good idea, but at knee-height that seems like a very high step to take. (Even if your GF is short and her knees are lower!)

     

    I have a two-step stepladder that I bought many years ago in a previous apartment when a light bulb blew out and I couldn't reach it. So I bought the stepladder, schlepped it home - and still couldn't reach the ceiling to change the light bulb! I had to ask a neighbor to do it. But it is indispensable for reaching my shelves, and the steps also sub as extra counter space for me in my very space-challenged kitchen.

  8. 5 hours ago, Chris Hennes said:

    I’ve made both the spinach and the bechamel lasagnas from Cook’s Illustrated. I liked their treatment of the no-boil pasta, which I thought gave a final product that was much more like fresh pasta. But for a “war”? Go big or go home! Make your own pasta :). Roll it thin, and make all your layers of filling thin. Then you get a lot of layers, which makes for a gorgeous presentation because it will slice very cleanly. Bugiali alternates bechamel, bolognese, cheese layers. I think last time I made it I wound up with twelve layers, it was glorious.

    I just want to second this idea of having many layers. Several years ago I was at (of all places) a bar mitzvah luncheon. It was a dairy buffet meal, and they had lasagne. The lasagne itself was nothing to write home about taste-wise, but it had about 12-15 layers and I still remember it for that reason. It was beautiful, truly eye-catching. I remember mentioning it (on the order of: "Look at this lasagne! I can't believe how many layers it has!"), but my comments got little by way of response. Not much of a foodie crowd. :raz: But all those layers were really striking. Myself, I always make a veggie lasagne with a bechamel, and I find that dried porcinis do a lion's share of work.

    • Like 2
  9. Add confectioner's sugar to the nut butter until you like the way it tastes. Granulated sugar won't dissolve. Then maybe add a little bit more before you add the nut butter to the cookies.

     

    When I make those "Magic in the Middles" cookies (it's a King Arthur recipe, you can find it on their website), they add confectioner's sugar to regular peanut butter for the filling. Regular peanut butter is plenty sweet as it is, but it doesn't seem overly sweet when I add more sugar before using it for this cookie.

    • Like 1
  10. And hi back atcha! We need listeners!!

     

    One of my pet peeves is the insistence on saying how many ingredients are in a recipe - and the lower the number, the better it's supposed to be. This trend seems to be relatively new, but it's everywhere. Only five ingredients!! Only three ingredients!!! I'm waiting for a recipe to blare: No Ingredients!! Yes, even you can make this mouth-watering dish using absolutely NO INGREDIENTS!!!!  

  11. Random musings: Is this going to boil down to semantics? If you add green apple schnapps and lemon juice to vodka, it's not a martini any more. Well, okay. Call it something else and there's no argument? Or are you basically against adding green apple schnapps and lemon juice to vodka, period. I suppose there are many people who would say that even using vodka rules out the martini, since martinis (real martinis, anyway) are made with gin, no?

     

    I instinctively cringe at the whole MC thing, and I'm not sure why. I don't have all the backup arguments you all seem to be using, I don't know the history of Neopolitan pizza, etc. I only know that my goal over the years has been to be able to make a loaf of good sourdough bread without referring to recipes and notes, never mind the minutiae of Modernist Cuisine. I want to be able to feed my starter, mix in some flour (sometimes this type of flour, sometimes that type of flour), some liquid, a bit of salt and know, by the way the resulting dough looks and feels and behaves, whether or not it's a good one. And to know, if it isn't so good, why. What could I do differently with the next loaf. I do not want the answer to involve .00001 gram of anything.

     

    I think the real success of MC will eventually depend on its accessibility. These boys have a nice playground to work in. They have the money for admission. Most people do not. Don't underestimate the part this will play in the whole thing. I already refuse to pay the amounts of money the "artisanal" bakeries are asking for a loaf of bread. Bread is not an elitist food item. I think Les Miserables is a brilliant piece of work, but I'm not ready to watch us all become Jean Valjean!!

     

     

  12. 4 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

    It's the round loaves that I adored (as well as the pullman of course). I found ganged pan of 4 round loaves about 30 years ago and made my interpretation of the National Bakery's onion breads and cheese breads in them a number of times. First time I didn't know to weigh out the dough - took a bit of soaking to get those loaves out.

     

    Like these.

    I've never seen anything like those, that's really something. I've seen recipes for brown bread that are baked in a coffee can, I guess they're trying to imitate those loaves. I've never tried it, partly because I can't imagine trying to get a loaf of bread out of a coffee can!

  13. 19 minutes ago, MelissaH said:

    We have dug into the loaf, and are quite happy with it. I didn't realize at the time that my teenage infatuation with Pepperidge Farm sandwich bread was really a pullman pan infatuation. I'll be making this one again!

    Yes, Pepperidge Farm and Arnold Bread, both of them always caught my eye. And yes, it was the shape. Took many years, but I also finally realized they were Pullman loaves. I make Angel Food cakes in my Pullman as well, they come out great. Enjoy the bread!

    • Like 2
  14. There's something about the coloring of @MelissaH's loaf that really caught my eye. I just took mine out of the oven, so I won't slice into it until tomorrow morning and then I'll put it to the taste test. I used bread flour, white whole wheat and regular whole wheat. I also hate flax seeds, and poppy seeds don't rate much higher, so this has pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds. I used buttermilk, since that's what I had. I didn't use any starter, just instant yeast. Your loaf seems to have filled out the contours of the pan more fully than mine did, perhaps I could have let it rise a bit more before putting it into the oven. In any case, thanks very much. Have you eaten any of your bread yet? Are you pleased with the flavor? I'm dreaming about breakfast. 

    Pullman1.jpg

    • Like 5
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