keychris

I know, right. I definitely needed an excuse to make cakes!

I don't think the max temp of the excalibur is high enough to do the job. Happy to be proven wrong though, as I have one too

that is an interesting idea.

if my wife sees the mold, the whole jar goes in the compost. If she doesn't, the mold gets scooped out and we keep eating delicious jam

Bubbles are the bane of my existence :'(

There's three types that spring to my mind - one is not reheatable (ie. loses its setting ability when it's reheated after being set), one that is reheatable and one that sets with calcium concentration instead of acid / sugar. I forget what type they all are though!

The "Don't push that foot peddle for too long... THAT'S TOO LONG LET IT GO" Selmi?

I'm not sure - that's why I use 100% alcohol, it evaporates almost instantly leaving no beads when sprayed

Keep us posted with how you do, Barney. I really recommend getting a good book on bread if you're interested in at least trying out the sourdough route and having a good read. You wouldn't have a problem with an every day or every second day baking schedule with sourdough - but you do have to refresh your starter regularly, which basically means throwing flour into the compost - and I get the feeling this isn't something you'd be down with

if you mix your metallic with alcohol (I use a 100% alcohol but I've seen others use vodka) you can spray it. I wouldn't use the gun you use for CB though.

I think perhaps you're misunderstanding what the purpose of that process is. It's not to get the yeast into a state of multiplication, it's simply to rehydrate them and wake them up from dormancy.

Thank goodness for that If anyone compared any of my bread favourably to that abomination, I think I would slap them!

High levels of sugar will cause them to grow well, however the by-product of this is carbon dioxide and alcohol. When the alcohol level gets too high, it kills the yeast.

I included yeast in the list of things to throw in on day two because yeast will not grow very quickly in the refrigerator. I mentioned earlier that the growth cycle for one yeast cell to become two yeast cells is ~1.5-2hrs. In the fridge this is much longer. What you're doing in the fridge is allowing the enzymes the yeasts produce to break down the (relatively) very large molecules of starch into (relatively) small molecules of different sugars. How much extra flavour? You'd have to do a side by side test, I've never bothered

If I was in your position, but with my longer experience, I would make a sponge. Take the full amount of water and half the flour. Add maybe 1/2tsp of yeast, mix it together. Leave it at room temperature for a while, until it starts to show activity (starts to bubble - it will be very wet, so it probably won't rise) then put it in the fridge overnight. The next day, let it warm back up to room temp for an hour or so, then dump it, the rest of the flour, yeast, salt, whatever else is in the recipe into your machine and away you go. The idea of using preferments (what this is) is that the yeast starts acting on the starch in the flour, breaking them down and creating a bunch of extra flavour with the longer cold ferment in the fridge than you would get from the short ferment you have in the bread machine.

I don't want to harp on about it, but weighing all the ingredients is important - particularly if you're using things like brown sugar that compress easily and make reliable volume measures tricksy. If you want to get reliable results out, you need to put reliable numbers in Banana in actual bread sounds like an interesting experiment!

Gianduja has a zero water content and thus has a very long shelf life. It should be fine sitting in your cupboard so long as it's sealed airtight. If you're really worried it won't care if it's in the fridge IMHO.

You can't freeze *live* yeast. But most yeast you would buy from a supermarket will be manufactured to be stored for long periods of time, I imagine freeze-dried. This yeast should be stored frozen: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/yeast.html I think by "starter yeast" you may be referring to what would be called a poolish. You can use a variety of different methods - poolish, biga, sourdough starter, or commercial yeast. A quick google on those would probably answer more questions! The thing you do with water and sugar and yeast... it's called activation! It's to hydrate the yeast and get it woken up from the dormant state and ready to rumble. Half an hour isn't long enough for the yeast to produce more yeast cells - I think it's around 90 minutes or two hours, something like that. It's been a while since I looked at the theory of yeast To be honest, I never bother with activation. I just dump the dry weight of yeast I require in the dough and away it goes. Your initial rise phase would possibly be longer but I've never done a side-by-side test. The only times this might not work would be in doughs that contain a harsh environment for yeast, eg enriched doughs high in sugar. Where does your recipe come from? I've never used a bread-maker, I just do it by hand You're probably going to get someone soon tell you that you'll get better results if you weigh all your ingredients instead of using volume measures, too. Which is also true Head to the library if you can and get them to get you Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. It's an excellent starter. There's plenty of others (I own a lot of them!) but this is the one I like the best. As something else interesting, fats retard the gluten creation in your dough. So by introducing your fats at the start with everything else, you may have a different final product than if you let the dough mix without the fats and then added them later - but I'm not sure if you can do that with a bread machine. I would usually let my kenwood do the work for 5-6 minutes and then add in the butter - I feel it makes a difference. Try it and see if you get a different (better / worse) product

hahahaha, me too! It's important to understand what the tempering is actually doing, too - don't rely on temperatures to tell you your chocolate is in temper, rely on a test showing a shiny set chocolate with no streaks. As your working day progresses your "in temper" chocolate temperature will rise the longer it's sitting there.

This! I'm currently in the process of whittling back my mold collection to 4 different varieties. Also second everything else Kerry, gap & gfron say above. If it's in your budget, face to face classes are always going to teach you more than the internet, IMHO.

Here's a better shot of the marble effect I achieved. I'm not sure if I'll do it again, it stressed me out too much

I would be worried about the high water content of a gelatine based filling in terms of shelf life, but if your chocolate is set and cold you may be able to put warmer fillings into it as the shell itself will cool the filling below the temper point of the chocolate before it de-tempers?

that's a line of dark chocolate piped on, then spray red, then spray white, then cast in dark. You can see on a couple where the line chipped off a bit when I scraped the mould after I sprayed the red layer - half dark chocolate, half white.

Reflections of the big gum tree outside the window These are dark chocolate ganache with cherry coconut jam.

This is exactly what tempering is - lower the temperature to the point that the correct crystals form then agitate it to encourage the crystals to propagate.