TylerK

Last year due to some friends and family going gluten free I made some changes to my Christmas baking list. Most of it was a success, with the notable exception of my Christmas cake. It was a fairly standard recipe for a dark, dense fruitcake, but when I substituted in GF flour and xanthan gum for the all-purpose wheat flour I ended up with a grainy, crumbly mess which fell apart when I tried to cut it. It was tasty and moist due to a healthy soaking in scotch, but it was necessary to eat it with a spoon. The grainy consistency, I'm hoping to get rid of just by removing the rice flour from my mix (rice flour, sorgum, millet, tapioca). What I really need help with though is to get it to properly stick together. I'm including the ingredient list below. Putting it together was pretty standard - creaming butter, eggs and sugar, soaking the dried fruit in the liquid ingredients and then combining them in parts with the dry. It was cooked at 300F until done. Ingredient list: 1 cup dried apricots, chopped 1 cup candied pineapple, chopped 1 cup chopped dates 1 cup cup pecan halves 1 cup dried cherries 1 cup candied cherries 1 cup raisins 3 1/4 cups GF flour 2 tsp baking powder 1 tbsp xanthan gum 1 1/2 cup butter, room temperature 1 1/2 cup brown sugar 3/4 cup molasses 1 tsp salt 6 eggs 2 tbsp grated orange zest 2 tbsp grated lemon zest small can of crushed pineapple (with juice) 1/2 (plus more for soaking) cup scotch Does anyone have any inside, or outside the box suggestions on how I might make the texture a little more like a non-GF fruitcake? Thanks

Wow...reading that just gave me a flashback to my childhood in my grandmother's kitchen, watching her pour some hot wax into a jar of homemade Saskatoon berry jam. I've seen her make preserves since without the wax, so she must have stopped doing it at some point. Thanks for the information. It is very much appreciated.

Thanks for the reply andiesenji. It's definitely a relief to know I'm not poisoning anyone. Can I also assume that if by any chance some organism survives the boilings that they will be killed off when the sugar concentration gets high enough? Tyler

As usual, it would seem like I completely overlooked the simplest solution. I did not pull the entire pork butt after cooking. I just removed what was required at the time so that the inside did not get mixed in with the rest. It may have also been the case that a lot of the bark didn't actually make it to the table... I may get shot down beaten for even suggesting this, but has anyone tried the injection technique using (diluted) liquid smoke in order to get some smoke flavour to the whole shoulder? Not the fake stuff, but the stuff with real hickory smoke particles suspended in water. I have tried making it part of the cure for my corned beef when I haven't had access to a smoker or a bbq and it seemed to turn out pretty good. Pretty sure that wasn't me. I live in a condo downtown Toronto, so I don't have space for something like that. I don't even have access to the building's gas grills long enough to smoke something, and had to travel out to my parents' place in order to smoke this butt. Tyler

I didn't smoke mine for quite as long as you, and it sounds like our setups are a little different. I don't have a real smoker and I had to make do with a gas grill. Indirect heat for the meat with a pan of wet wood chips over the fire. I got a good constant amount of smoke for about 10 hours. Temperature around the 12 lb butt was kept at 250F and internal meat temperature was brought up to 190F. My rub was applied the night before and contained garlic, rosemary, maple sugar, pepper and salt. The BBQ sauce I served it with was cider vinegar, bourbon, maple syrup, tomato paste (just a little), and some spices. The sauce tasted great, but I thought it overpowered the taste of the meat - hence my desire to get more flavour out of the meat itself. Tyler

This being the tail end of cherry season up here I am now in the process of candying cherries for my annual Christmas baking. Having read some of the threads recently on food safety, botulism and dangerous temperature zones, I have some questions about the safety of the candying method. I'm using the standard candying method that I've read on here and other websites where over a period of a couple weeks the concentration of a sugar syrup containing the fruit is gradually increased until the product is shelf stable. Every two days I pour off the syrup, add more sugar, bring to a boil and then pour back over the fruit. Is this boiling every two days enough to make sure it remains safe, or are there other safety measures I should be looking into? Is the natural acidity of the fruit enough to ward off any botulism? Tyler

Thanks for the replies. I've never tried injecting before and I'm a little curious. Does this have a significantly different effect on the meat than a brine would? Obviously the Coke or grape soda would be significantly sweeter than most brines, but does it give the same textural changes to the meat that a brine would or is it simply about adding flavour? qrn - what do you mean by 'strong rub'? It sounds like you're almost doing a dry cure like I would do when making corned beef, but in a lot less time (it takes my corned beef about a week for the cure to reach all the way through). Is two days enough for your dry rub to flavour the whole piece of meat? Tyler

I did a smoked pulled pork for the first time a couple weeks ago. It turned out great, with a nice bark, and tender juicy meat that easily fell apart when pulled off the BBQ. One thing I was a little disappointed with was the flavour of the meat closer to the bone. The smoke hadn't penetrated all the way, and the meat itself was a little bland compared to the stronger flavours closer to the surface. Would it be appropriate to brine the meat to get some seasoning throughout? Brining tends to change the texture of the meat and I don't want to end up with something that resembles ham. Does anyone have any tips or trick they can offer? Thanks, Tyler

Lisa - Thanks for the link to the cookbook. Very interesting to see recipes from that far back. andiesenji - What role does the additional gelatin/agar agar/guar gum/gum arabic play in your turkish delight recipe? The other recipes I have seen for this contain only corn starch. When I was young (13ish) my family lived in France for a while and my dad would regularly travel to Greece for work. Every time he returned he'd bring back a pan of freshly made moussaka and a large box of turkish delight, so I have some very fond memories of this candy. It seems from the cook book link and from reading through the recipe for gomme syrup that a much higher ratio of gum arabic is required compared to other gelling agents. Is this correct? If so, I'm tempted to either try the turkish delight recipe or stick to the gomme syrup. Thanks again for all the input and advice.

Is it necessary to crush the mustard seeds at all? I'm picturing a black mustard that almost resembles caviar in texture.

Thanks for all the replies. It is much appreciated, and I will definitely read through those threads. It was mentioned by Lisa in the first reply that it can be used for candies. Do you have any more information around that?

I recently and accidentally bought a small jar of gum arabic when I was trying to pick up some citric acid powder. I'm not sure if this is the right place to post my question, but since I do desserts and confections more than anything else I figured I'd post it here. What can I do with the stuff? Is it a reliable substitute for other gelling agents like gelatin, pectin or agar? If so, is there a conversion ratio between them? There seems to be very little information on the web. If anyone could point me to a recipe, it would be greatly appreciated.

Do you know if there is a similar difference between the black/brown/yellow seeds? Would one type of seed be better for a hotter mustard and a different one better for a sweet mustard?

Thanks Kerry. Do you have to alter the cooking time or temperature to accommodate the extra liquid you're adding at the end? Tyler

Hi all, This is my first post here, and I hope I'm not being rude by interjecting my own question into this discussion. For the past 8 years or so I have been sending out bags of cookies/cakes to all my friends and family around Christmas. Originally it included the cakes and cookies that I grew up with around that time of year. Over the past couple years though someone who has a severe gluten intolerance has made it onto the list so I have been experimenting with truffles, filled chocolates and candied fruits. This year I would like to include a selection of pate de fruit. My first attempt last week with a Strawberry pate de fruit was an unmitigated disaster. From perusing the forums, it seems like the pasty jam-like consistency is a result of the wrong type of pectin. I have already put in an order for some apple pectin and some 'G' pectin for my next experiments. More worrying though was the taste. I had the opportunity to live in France for a couple years when I was growing up, and by my recollection they tasted almost like the fresh fruit they came from. What I made hardly even resembled strawberry by the time it was done cooking. How do you preserve that fresh fruit flavour? Thanks, Tyler