Lisa Shock

That depends on if you are going to be using some of the modernist ingredients, like xanthan gum, which need to be measured carefully and get used in small amounts.

You could make marzipan with paste. Some cakes are traditionally enrobed in marzipan: battenburg, English fruit cake, etc. and sometimes cake style petit fours have some on top to give crisp look to the fondant which is poured over. Bonbon centers are always an option, truffles should be fairly easy. You could also make cookies. This would be a great sandwich cookie with dark chocolate. Think of it like you would peanut butter. Looking around at other nut butter uses make give you some ideas.

Where do you live? There are many sources, but, they don't all ship worldwide. Also, do you want that exact shape? if so, what are the measurements?

Cool videos, I find it interesting that people took equipment from the humid mid-west and moved it to even more humid Florida. Hard candy is one thing we can make really well in the arid southwest...

HERE and HERE are videos showing mushroom fluting, you can see the grip on the knives very well. I linked to two videos because of the two different knives shown. Many chefs prefer the cheap knife, like the first shows, as the blade is more flexible than the more expensive knife. (also, many of us wind up using whatever our cheapskate boss provides for us, which more often than not turns out to be the 2 for $3 sort)

Agreed "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." -Inigo Montoya Blooming =/= Proving

With a small knife, we hold the blade balanced on its side in the thumb and the first two fingers with the handle resting on the pinkie and ring finger.

Take a look into oil cookies. Shortening will usually also give the same result, but, I cannot in good conscience recommend transfat. Generally, cookies make with butter will tend towards being crispy.

Extending the index finger out onto the knife blade when cutting is a guaranteed way to give oneself carpal tunnel syndrome. That's why we teach the modified fist grip in culinary school.

Years ago I took a sorbet class with the French Pastry School of Chicago that was almost entirely just mathematics. One important point about sorbets is that fruit has fiber in it and some types of fiber help with consistency. (some do not, like the fiber in apples or pears which needs to be either cooked or filtered out because when frozen it's like straw on the tongue) For some types of fruit, you could get away with a lower brix (using less sugar syrup PLUS the fruit itself did not need to have a great deal of fructose in it: it did not have to be phenomenally sweet specimens) and still have a lovely texture. You might want to add a little fiber, like Wheat Dextrin (unflavored Benefiber) or guar gum (unflavored store brand Benefiber knock-off). I know that guar gum is already common in commercial ice cream, I don't really have any experience in this, though. I only make simple ice creams and sorbets. There's also a small chance that aquafaba might help, if whipped.

There are thousands of types of yeasts. Wild yeast can be any of them. There are wild yeasts that are found to only live in particular regions, giving local brewers and bakers unique properties to their products. There's a commercially popular sake brewing yeast used by cheap sake brewers that gives off a lot of alcohol but almost no CO2, so a brewer can use smaller tanks, and therefore have a smaller building, as there is no bubbling and almost no increase in volume during yeast growth. Commercial yeasts are simply specific strains that are grown and sold for their consistency. Producers focus on the needs of end users when choosing the strain they will cultivate. They take great care to nurture the one strain while carefully setting up their systems to kill any unwanted yeasts or bacteria. A sourdough starter is a complex mix of the action of lactic acid bacteria, enzymatic action from the grain, and some yeast activity. In the beginning, it is composed of what was placed in the container: water (or other liquid), microorganisms from the water including wild yeast and bacteria, flour, wild yeast and other microorganisms found in the flour, plus anything else the maker feels like adding -although these extras, including commercial yeast, tend to be a pointless waste of ingredients. Over a period of a few weeks, as part is discarded and more wild-yeast-laden water and flour are added, it acclimates, and transforms into a culture of the local region's microscopic organisms. This why it's pointless to start one with commercial yeast and expect it to continue to be just that particular strain multiplying itself. All sour starters will pick up wild yeast and bacteria from the air, that's what the process is designed to do. Some yeasts actively kill off other yeasts in their environment, some just survive better than others in some micro-climates and take over a starter via simple survival of the fittest type, others live in symbiotic harmony. The only way to accurately test which yeast type(s) you are culturing in a starter is to check samples under a microscope -and keep checking as average room temperatures and other environmental factors in the home change. Bakeries try to maintain exacting standards, like maintaining starter in environments with very tightly controlled temperatures which are checked multiple times daily, to achieve consistent results.

The NYT article covers daily usage quite well. It's a common practice. After all, most bakeries make bread every day. But, then again, they also use scales.

As a vegetarian, I beg to differ about the cheese pizza. I agree that frozen pizza is horrid stuff, but, even a really cheapo brand with small slices has a pretty good protein amount. HERE is nutrition info on one cheap brand, it has 16g of protein per serving. Sure, if this were the only protein source for the family for all 3 meals in the day, the men would come up a little bit short (one glass of milk could fix that) but the women would have plenty. Besides, none of them will be just eating that all the time. Well, hopefully never, really. Since getting halal meats may be an issue, I'd like to suggest demonstrating some vegetarian meals for them. They will also save some money. On the topic of pizza, a small amount of soy flour acts as a dough conditioner and boosts protein and mineral content. You can replace up to about 3% of flour with the soy with almost no noticeable taste difference. Demonstrating various toppings, like onions, mushrooms, fresh tomato, peppers (mild and spicy), spinach, broccoli, etc. can also get people to eat more vegetables. Also, they don't need to make or buy sauce, many good pizzerias don't use a cooked sauce. It's just canned diced tomatoes, drained a little, with a few herbs mixed in -super easy any time of year. (and yes, when fresh is in season, they can use those) Fritattas are a good way to use up small amounts of leftovers and/or small amounts of fresh vegetables and herbs. Do they have freezers to store foods? I cook up a slow cooker filled with plain beans every couple of months then freeze the beans in portions about the size of cans. They taste better, are a lot cheaper, and take very little work. I often make hummus with sunflower seeds, they are cheaper than the cans of tahini. I store raw seeds in the fridge, then roast them when I make the hummus. Gives a fresh flavor that I find canned tahini lacks. I am also wary of eating a lot of sesame, due to the high oxalate content. I agree with @Deryn that most muslims will not eat kosher food unless there is some sort of dire situation. I have only done a little research on the topic, wrote one college paper on it, and am by no means an expert. (not going to debate precepts here) But, I have in the past run the suggestion of kosher meat past some fairly liberal muslims I knew who couldn't get halal meat and they were pretty horrified at the suggestion. Big mistake on my part. Everyone is different, but, if it were me, I would let the people themselves choose what meat to purchase.

I found several on Amazon UK, don't know if they are the correct size or anything.

The $45 price was from 2009, also, the company making the scales was in bankruptcy liquidation, so, stock was at fire sale prices. Still, I recommend searching around for deals, they can still happen. Dyson sells factory refurbished items on ebay for half price, or less, sometimes. So does Olympus. On the topic of the ice cream, one suggestion: for flavor contrast and to retain texture of a nut mix-in, if you were going to add some nuts for crunch, I'd roast nuts then make a pistachio 'bark' with a good dark chocolate. I'd chill the bark, then break it up and mix in at the end. This way, there is flavor contrast plus texture, nuts will remain crunchier. BTW, I don't have a great online source, but, pistachios are grown in Arizona. We get some really plump, large nuts at the supermarket here. An entrepreneur planted trees at the beginning of the Iranian embargo in the late 1970s. Of course, they are not in season at the moment.

Do you have a cool cellar and some large crockery? I raised red raspberries as a kid and had enough yield to run a roadside stand. (one summer I sold enough berries to buy plane tickets for me and my brother to Hawaii) Anyway, we always had raspberries, tons of them. One year, we made a 30qt crock of red raspberry wine; good times, good times...

About the scale, before I happened to find my current scale, I used two scales: a small pocket scale that went from 0.01g to 100g (cost under $10), and, a regular sized one that went from 0.1g to 3000g (cost about $12). So, it may be more cost efficient to have two scales. The small one is not very large. It also pays to search amazon and ebay multiple times, slightly altering the larger number, just to see what's out there. (1000, 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000, 3500, 4000, etc.) I see some 0.1g - 3000g scales for $25, while 0.1g - 5000g seem to average around $60. I also see some pocket scales measuring 0.01 -100g from $5 plus shipping. Honestly, for most of us, 3,000g is probably enough. If you are using more than that, you can just measure halves.

Every company's extract is different. I would add it last, while your mix is cooling, one drop at a time. I think 2-3 drops per quart should be sufficient, but, it's really hard to tell.

HERE is an article that may be of interest. (or at least explains it as well as I would, and I am too lazy to type that much right now) The enzymes are in the flour itself, amounts vary by type of flour, type of wheat, and what conditions it was harvested, milled, and aged under. It also shows why a mixture of just water and yeast sitting for long periods won't do much of anything (well, you can add sugar and start making alcohol, but, that's a different topic), but just water and flour together make magic. It's action of the water with flour, either in a preferment (which often contains no yeast), and/or over time during autolyse that does the trick. It's one of the main reasons why no-knead bread is constructed with all ingredients being mixed together at the beginning. (fairly good gluten development is also a result of the no knead method, but the CI N-K is enhanced by a short knead) The bacteria developed in sourdough starters and other long term storage type preferments also interact with starches, but have not been quite so extensively studied as yeast which was one of the first microscopic organisms studied when the microscope was invented. What is known is that nutrients are more bioavailable in traditionally made sourdough type breads. Micheal Pollan simplifies it when he states that a person can live pretty much indefinitely on soured breads, but would die after just a few months from eating just unsoured flour -like say in biscuits, tortillas, or modern yeast-only style bread (which is only a little over 100 years old), such as the original poster's recipe. HERE's an NYT article on starting out with starter. And, as much as the OP thinks of himself alone out on the cutting edge of a new frontier, I would assure him that while I am open to new information (I love the work the MC folks are doing! Aquafaba is cool!), my experience in breadmaking is not as much of a walled garden in his rear-view mirror as he imagines. (As a born foodie, I would never pooh-pooh one of the world's great cuisines. but then again, I was lucky enough to grow up with Julia on TV every week helping me out. I also checked every single cookbook out from the public library and cooked my way through them, as my mother hated to cook and left me to make dinner much of the time starting when I was 4 years old.) I have over 40 years' worth of experience in managing sours at home. I graduated with a degree in P&B from LCB, have 50+ certificates in master-level classes, taught in several B&P university-level programs including a program run by the CIA, I compete in professional competitions, I have been a judge in professional competitions, worked several jobs as a baker, been a BBGA member for over a decade, worked as a consultant to bakeries, worked as a consultant to the local high school district's culinary programs, run a catering company, done occasional pop-ups, baked bread for a local organic exchange, plus done a bunch of marginally related savory-side things. I have seen a lot of starters in my life. I have had to grade hundreds of students' starters daily for weeks on end, following their progress to ensure their understanding of what was happening every little step along the way. I have graded hundreds of preferments and the loaves that were produced by them. I have done many, many demonstrations of artisan bread production often including showing what happens if formulae or procedures were not followed precisely. -And I am by no means the most experienced baker on eGullet, not by a long shot. The knowledge and experience of the people who have replied to this thread is incredibly large and comprehensive. There's a chance that messing around with yeast might yield a small refinement in technique, but, as you seem intent on ignoring our advice, chances are, you'll just waste a lot of time retracing steps through known territory.

My scale is only about 8" square and about 1.5" high. Should be pretty easy to hide in a rarely used stockpot or in a pile of rectangular baking pans... And, yeah, good scales that measure accurately to 0.1 or even 0.01g aren't that hard to find or that expensive. I paid $45 for my 0.01g - 4500g scale on ebay, it came directly from the manufacturer in Thailand.

Hops are the key. Old recipes for non-fermented yeasts always use hops because it prevents development of the bacteria you don't want. Generally, pure yeast-making was tied to commercial beer brewing back a few centuries. Before refrigeration, individuals brewed beer, and made bread from sourdough starters. Cake yeast needs to be kept fairly cool and has always been a product of a larger brewery/bakery complex -like one might find in/near a medieval village around a castle. Use of pate fermentee is pretty common in all sorts of traditional breadmaking, including your romanticized vision of Bedouin life. Students in reputable culinary schools learn about it in the first week of bread class long before they make their first sourdough starter from yeast in the air. That said, it doesn't stay alive enough to leaven for very long, and gives a distinct sour flavor. It is very commonly used in the sourest of sourdoughs. But, all of that said, traditional peasant breads were all very sour, and made from rougher ground grains. And, they did not always have access to butter or oils -certainly not refined sugar, which wasn't cheap until the 1820s. If you take a look at Pollan's Cooked, you will see examples of people making breads in traditional ways and they are all fermented. This business of having bread just leavened with yeast, without fermentation, is a modern phenomenon -Pollan discusses the implications of this situation.

Infuse in vodka and make cocktails, infuse in grain alcohol and make extract. Sorbet is always good, and it you have freezer space to keep it, you can wait and eat some in the winter when you will really appreciate it. I second puree, as so much can be made from it -from fruit mousse to savory pan sauces. Speaking of mousse, I would. however, splurge and make a raspberry entremet dessert with raspberry mousse and a raspberry mirror glaze.

Honestly, this recipe is really a brioche pastry, not an everyday bread. I agree with Deryn, you can reduce the amount of yeast by increasing time. If you do that, you will have plenty of yeast for several years from your one purchase. That said, the longer times will also lead to some fermentation and development of bacteria, and the sourdough flavor you unfortunately dislike. You will always be trying to balance the yeast growth against flavor, you best bet is to just make the bread straight and use the full amount of yeast. It doesn't cost that much, Sur LaTable stores sell bags of the instant for about $6. (and they have Texas stores) You don't ever need to have such long bloom times. The bloom is usually 5 minutes, just until activity is seen in the water. The point of blooming is simply to hydrate the large granules of activated yeast. But, if you bought instant, that step is no longer needed you just add that along with the flour. The yeast is growing and multiplying in the dough. Sourdough gets the sour tang from bacterial fermentation, which is separate from yeast activity. This fermentation makes the bread more nutritious. There's a good explanation in the the new Netflix series 'Cooked' presented by Michael Pollan. If all of this obsession is over saving money, obviously the incredibly large amount of butter in the recipe costs far more than the yeast involved. You could use a couple tablespoons less and never really notice much of a difference and save twice as much as the yeast costs. Again, I am curious as to what book you got this whole idea of 'yeast starter' from. This whole quest is going to take up hours of your time, and generally give you results you won't like. This is time that probably could be spent doing other things, things more productive than trying to save ¾ of a cent on yeast.

I should note that when I said I had made yeast, I mean I actually made fresh cakes of wet yeast, like what used to be common at the supermarket, and is still sold to bakeries in 1lb blocks that resemble butter. I found the recipe in one of those old pharmacy receipt books form the 1800s. I wound up with a full sheet pan, 1" high, of the stuff and couldn't use it fast enough.

What book are you referencing about the 'starter yeast'?