TylerK

Every year around this time I candy a bunch of orange slices for use in Christmas treats, and afterwards I'm left with a bunch of very tasty orange syrup. Similarly, after making a bunch of cherry cordials with amarena cherries I'm left with a bunch of cherry syrup. Inevitably, a lot of it ends up getting tossed because there's just too much of it to use in other applications. This year I'd like to try my hand at turning it into some orange marmalade and cherry flavoured marshmallows, but it's hard to match it to a recipe when I'm unsure what the sugar concentration in my syrup is. My question is, do I need to buy a refractometer calculate the amount of sugar I have there or is there another way to approach this? Maybe estimating quantities by doing an initial cook down to soft ball stage and going by volume? Any suggestions?

Why not just skip the baking? If you prefer the texture before it bakes then toast some buttered breadcrumbs separately until nice and brown, put your mac-and-cheese in a baking dish with the toasted crumbs on top and serve. I dislike baking it anyway since the pasta just keeps soaking up the liquid and it's difficult to keep the pasta al-dente.

Thanks for the replies. I've found it difficult to get a good measurement on the internal temperature of something as small as a sausage so I haven't really bothered. As for smoker temperature though, I try to keep it between 200 and 250F. Probably a couple hours, or until they look cooked on the inside. Do you think steaming might re-hydrate the casing, or is it pretty much irreversible at that point?

I've tried smoking homemade sausages a few times now. They taste great, but when they come off the smoker the casing is always quite tough and leathery. They're natural hog casings that are just fine when the sausages are poached or grilled instead of smoked, so I don't think it's the quality of the casing, and I've tried it with several different recipes (garlic, chorizo, brats, jerk). Is this normal? Does anyone know how to prevent it, or fix it once it's done?

I put on a large annual BBQ for friends and family on the August long weekend. Some years I've done pretzel buns for the burgers and sausages, and other years I've done brioche buns, and every year I agonize just a little bit too much over the choice. Has anyone here tried doing a pretzel or a pretzel bun using a brioche dough, or does anyone have any thoughts on how well it might work? I'm thinking a higher gluten flour or maybe even adding some additional gluten would make the brioche dough a little more sturdy/stable, but I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts.

I do this with bone marrow, and it works really well. I imagine butter would be similar.

I don't know if this takes it out of the realm of iced tea and into the realm of cocktails, but iced jasmine green tea with St.Germain (Elderflower liqueur) and a splash of lemon is very refreshing on a hot day.

Is there any difference between the biga and the levain besides hydration? Does it have much affect of the final product other than the overall hydration of the dough? I've always been confused on the difference.

Is there something that makes for a good slash as opposed to a bad slash? Using a serrated knife may make things look a little more ragged when making the slash, but it all stretches out in the baking. Granted, I'm no expert, but I can't look at your bread and tell that the slashes were made with a knife and not a lame. It's a great looking loaf.

I made a sourdough brioche this weekend. This picture is half a year old, but I just wanted to say that this recipe makes fantastic hamburger buns (placed them a little to close on the pan):

Thanks Anna. The flavour is great too.

So many beautiful loaves on here. I thought I'd share a couple of my own that I baked recently. Sourdough pumpernickel baked in a pullman pan. Contains rye berries, chia seeds, flax seeds pumpkin seeds and caraway seeds. Not a traditional dense as a brick, baked for several hours German pumpernickel. It's fairly soft and spongy. Standard white sourdough. I'm not pleased with the way it looks, so I'll be making my slashes up top next time like I usually do. Still, it's nice and crusty, and I think it got some pretty great oven spring... ...and I'm fairly pleased with how the crumb turned out. Pleasantly sour, but I need to up the salt next time.

Agreed about the soy. Unless I'm making an asian flavoured jerky I leave it out. My favourite spice mix is below: Grind in spice grinder: 5 chipotles 2 ancho chillies. 1 tsp peppercorns 1 tsp allspice berries 1 tsp cumin seeds 1 inch cinnamon stick Add: 1tsp onion powder 1tsp garlic powder 1 tbsp smoked paprika 2 tbsp brown sugar I coat the meat in this and then add enough salt to make up about 1% of the weight of the meat and let it cure for a couple days before dehydrating..

will do.

Has anyone tried adding coconut oil to their chocolate truffle/ganache recipes? I'm wondering if it would create a meltaway-like experience with the truffle centre or if the butter/cream/water in the ganache recipe would spoil the effect.

Thanks caroled. They are definitely not full sized. Each one can hold about 2 cups of batter, so not single serving either unless you can eat a lot of fruitcake.

I gave the bundt pans a try, and they didn't turn out too bad. No sticking to the ridges of the pans, but the batter was a little thick, so I got a few small voids where nothing was in contact with the sides. The regular cylindrical cakes are gluten free ones I didn't want to take a chance with. I'll be working on my light fruitcakes tomorrow night.

Thanks andiesenji. This is one of the two things I was afraid would happen, the other being the disintegration of the fluted peaks after the alcohol and cheese cloth is applied. I was thinking along similar lines to what you had tried and reserving some of the cake batter to coat the inside of the pan before pouring in the rest of the batter mixed with the fruit. Maybe that, along with keeping the larger pieces of fruit aside and manually placing them away from the sides of the pan between layers of the batter mixed with the smaller fruit pieces. Something to try I guess. I can always do half the way I normally do it and experiment with the other half. On another note, I pulled out the two remaining cakes from last year and gave them a good dousing with amaretto tonight. A slice of that should put me in the Christmas baking mood this weekend.

I have a question about pans. Usually I bake my Christmas fruitcakes in mini round cake pans so I can give them out as gifts to friends who appreciate a good fruitcake. I was thinking of switching it up a bit this year and use some small bundt pans to increase the decorative factor. They have some fairly fine fluting in them though and I was wondering how well the grooves would hold up with larger pieces of fruit in the cake, and then through the ageing/muslin wrapping process. I generally make two different types of cake each year. One white fruitcake, filled with diced apricots, crystalized ginger and almonds. The second is a more standard dark fruitcake with dates, rasins, candied peel, candied pineapple, whole candied cherries, pecans, etc... Both cakes are fairly dense. Am I going to end up with a mess in the end? If not, does anyone have any advice on how I might maximize my chances of the fine fluting remaining intact?

Awesome. Thank-you!

Hi Kerry. That looks very interesting. Do you have a recipe for this, or a link to one? The LCBO doesn't carry Carpano antica, and I don't get down south often enough. I'd love to try it myself.

lol I thought it was quite tasty. The closest I could find on Kindred Cocktails is the Peralta. but that uses yellow chartreuse and has some grapefruit in it.

Apologies in advance. As I write this I'm half in the bag. This is simple enough that it must have a name already, and in my slightly inebriated opinion is quite tasty. 1 oz rye 1 oz cynar 1 oz green chartreuse enough lime to balance out the sweet and bitter Anyone know what it's called?

Liquid ingredients were 1/2 cup milk (+ 2tsp dry yeast) and 6 large eggs. Dry was probably around 4-5 cups of bread flour (I didn't exactly measure), 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 1/2 tsp salt 3 sticks of unsalted cultured butter.

Thanks again to everyone who posted advice. It's certainly more Thai inspired than Thai, but no one complained. My first time posting images on here, so hopefully it will work out. I apologize in advance... I'm a terrible photographer, and as will be apparent, I will never, ever have a career as a food stylist. New red skinned potatoes, diced celery, green onions, cilantro and chopped roasted peanuts. The dressing is red curry paste, coconut milk, rice vinegar and a little palm sugar. Not very pretty, but it was tasty. Smoked pork butt about half way through. Dry rub of sichuan peppercorns, anise seed, mustard seed, juniper, salt and sugar. Kind of random inspiration as I was pulling spices out of my cupboard, and not Thai at all, but it worked. All finished. 8lbs pork butt smoked with cherry wood to an internal temp of 195F (12 hrs). It pulled very easily. Lightly dressed with green curry, rice vinegar, and a little palm sugar. Tasty, but I think I'll return to my maple bourbon sauce for next year. Smoked beef burgers. Not any Thai influence at all. Half chuck, half flank, 5% bone marrow by weight, 0.75% salt and 0.5% black pepper, coarsely ground. Tasty, but I don't feel the need to try smoking them again... no need to mess with burger perfection. Pork burgers inspired by a recipe Elsie PMed me (thanks Elsie). Coarse ground pork shoulder, diced mango, diced fresh red chilies, kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass, galangal, onions, garlic and cilantro. These were incredibly tasty. Served with brioche burger buns, green curry mayo and a spicy mango ketchup. The David Thompson chicken satay referred to up-thread. Served with lots of chopped fresh red chilies in fish sauce, rice vinegar and palm sugar. The brioche buns I mentioned earlier. A little too close together in the pan, but they were awesome. Best burger buns I have ever had. They really were the star of the BBQ. I also made, but forgot to take pictures of, salad rolls and my aunt provided an Asian coleslaw.