jedovaty

Hi there, thanks for the feedback. I did bake up a few more last night and left them on the counter overnight, they were slightly less oily this morning at an ambient temp of 65F - barely left any trace on my fingers. Since the food network link may not work outside US, see attached pdf, where I show my conversion to g and the coconut oil sub. Only other changes to recipe besides coconut oil: 50% each brown and white rice flours coconut sugar instead of brown sugar coconut oil was at room temp and soft (68-72F); creamed with the all the sugar and 20g water for about 5 minutes in stand mixer at high speed @teonzo may be on to something.. I did add about 20g water to make up half the missing water from butter, but I simply added it to the sugar while collecting the other ingredients, instead of adding it while mixing. Another possibility could be the sugars, because I am out of brown sugar and the brand I like to use has been out of stock. Even with the oily feel these are quite tasty. The next batch I might omit the extra ~20g water next time, or add it together with the other wet ingredients, and not cream the *censored* out of it. It's got to be one of these causing the problem. I think my original conversion notes may be in the ex-girlfriend box which I don't want to get into while in isolation, but if memory servers correct, only major change was a tweak to the sugar ratio and maybe a balance of baking powder and soda. The notes were an attempt to convert the Neimann Marcus recipe to GF (it's my favorite ccc) because it's very similar to AB's. Looking at the recipe, it also spends very little time creaming the butter with sugar. the chewy alton brown gf ccc recipe.pdf

Interesting, okay. Theoretically, then, if the ambient temperatures are in the low 60F range, the coconut oil based cookies should not have this oil, right? That would be easy to test. And conversely, if I had butter cookies out at 95-100F, they should appear oily like this? I have plenty of the coconut dough left over, and these cookies are tasty, no issues with more experimentation

You're right, it kind of looks like it does. The very first batch I baked yesterday morning that prompted the initial question had six cookies and all looked just fine without any spreading. Also, I've baked variations of this recipe about 1-2 years ago with no issues, and bake 1-3 loaves of bread at once on a regular basis. Bread comes out even, no issues. I'm wondering if I should try to make a new dough. That said, I'd still like to know what causes cookies to be oily on the outside. This isn't the first time it's happened to me.

Thanks for the response. There are recipes that use melted butter so I'm not sure that's going to be the culprit. Also, the cookies don't just have an oily feel, there's a visible sheen to then that transfers to the fingers, and you have to wipe them to keep from getting other things oily. It's almost as if the oil hadn't been absorbed - see attached photo. I'm wondering maybe I over did the creaming and/or beating? It's clear I have problems with this dough. I baked another batch last night and this morning from the same dough (straight from the freezer, and after 24 hours in fridge), one cookie in each was perfect (bottom right in #1, and bottom left in #2 which closeup is third picture on paper towel), the rest had varying degrees of spreading from a little to extreme.. wtf. I've not seen such variety in a single bake like this before?!

Hi: What are some reasons cookies end up very oily to the touch? I've searched the interwebs, but there's very little info on this, most issues deal with cookie spread, and that's not my problem. I used to have an excellent gluten free chocolate chip cookie recipe that I could make both dairy and egg free. It was loosely based on AB's "the chewy", but sadly I lost the piece of paper with my notes and changes. It's been a while since I've made them, and decided to try to make some last night for various reasons. Instead of using shortening or earth balance, in place of butter, I subbed the butter with coconut oil, using only 80% by weight (since the butter has 15-20% water). My cookies turned out very oily. This also happened with attempted ginger snap and sugar cookies a few weeks ago, and it happens to me almost always with Jaques Torres' recipe as written (no subs, except sometimes I replace chocolate with white chocolate and add macadamia nuts). Thanks for helping me understand various factors which could lead to oily cookies.

Over in @Kim Shook's thread from earlier this year, I offered a few videos for pasta making, including the one by a youtube home cook called Helen. I like to share her video with people new to making pasta, since some of her technique helped me make progress with my own noods. One of my work associates in northern California saw the flour she recommends for egg pasta on sale in a little italian market and sent me some. I followed her technique and recipe to satisfy my curiosity.. the dough was unusual and soft, since I'm used to working with very dry semolina pasta dough for my extruder. I was expecting mushy noods, and instead, the results were fantastic - maybe it's the isolation talking, these were better than any I've had in a restaurant or store bought. Just a quick simple toss with butter, garlic, and some veggies so the picture don't convey the chew and texture of the noods, an absolute success! Sometime in near future, I really want to try comparing it against otc all purpose flour to see whether the flour or the technique made the difference.

I watched this video at least a dozen times before baking the cookies. The comments at both BA and food52 led me to believe the recipe was incomplete, and watching the video helped confirm that. My tweaks, for the most part, worked. The biggest take-away, get the right kind of buckwheat flour. The grocery store stuff like bob's red mill, uses whole grain including the hull. So one needs to use either japanese soba-ko, or grind your own from hulled seed (which is what I do since pre-covid I ended up with 25lbs of buckwheat groats, ask me no questions I'll tell you no lies). The other change was adjusting the amount of flour, sugar, and butter/fat/oil, due to the volume measurements.

Bien Cuit's salted chocolate buckwheat cookies. After reading the comments on two websites that share the recipe, it was clear it doesn't work as written, so I changed the recipe a bit based on what I've learned over the past couple years reading this forum (woohoo, you all rock!!!). It still needs a little more tweaking, but overall, very interesting "first" for me having buckwheat sweet instead of savory, as well as creaming coconut oil with sugar (say wat?!)

After experimenting with several batches, narrowed down to three possible culprits: either my star-san spray is too concentrated, using too much citrus juice, or my ice is somehow contaminated and creating issues (I pour the syrup concentrate over ice). Most likely it is the star-san, I'm not even sure it is necessary for ginger beer that's fermented over a few days? I shouldn't have changed three variables at once in the last batch! Oh, well, I'm happy, finally have my beverage

Duuuhhhh *face palm* I knew I was overthinking this. Thanks. I bet the cheap aluminum roasting pans would fit perfectly, have to get measurements.

You must give into the messiness for now, and as you get the techniques, process, and habits down, it'll clean up. The folks here suggested pouring and scraping over parchment/wax paper, rather than directly into the bowl. This helps catch the chocolate and makes it easier to re-use; you'll just have to heat it up and/or retemper, which is not too much a big deal if you are doing small quantities. That, or get a bigger bowl.

Hi there: Given the specifics of my situation below, how would you accomplish a final proof without damaging a delicate dough such as croissants, high hydration demi-baguettes, etc? I got my hands on a used, small wine fridge last year, which has worked well as a temperature controlled chamber for fermentation of anykind such as pickles, sauerkraut, sourdough, yeasted breads, etc. Depending on outside ambient temps, I use either the fridge on its own, or, a heating pad with an inkbird temp/humidity controller. This is fantastic for things easy to cover - the lacto-ferments are in jars, most breads are in bannetons which I can stick into a plastic bag. The covers prevent the product from drying out. Unfortunately, this doesn't work well with things like croissants or high hydration demi baguettes. If I put any plastic over these, it sticks to the dough and is a real pain to get it off. I have tried putting things like jars to raise plastic wrap, but this in itself is an exercise of frustrating futility that ultimately leads to at least a couple casualties - omg plastic wrap is arrrrrghhhhh and the jars start shifting around uuuggghhh! I found some sheet pans that come with covers - however, these are half-sheet size which don't fit into this fridge; maximum size appears to be jelly roll (16" max width and length), and jelly roll size pans don't come with covers that I could find. Therefore, I looked into controlling humidity. Based on some research, to prevent dough from drying out, you want RH inside the fridge to be around 80-85%. Anymore, and it condensates on the dough with fluctuations in temperature, any less, and dough can dry out. Controlling humidity has turned out to be rather difficult. The inkbird I have has an option to control humidity, so I purchased a small humidifier. It... didn't work as expected. Hard to describe, but either the doughs end up sogged or dried out. RH is incredibly complex - if temperature drops, the RH increases, and may precipitate out, and then the fridge's compressor sucks out the moisture. If temperature increases, RH drops unless you add moisture to the air. It turns into something like a PID balance nightmare. I've tried other options, such as rice/semolina flour and a tea towel. This is "okay" for the baguettes, but that won't work if I'm proofing with eggwash, or making neapolitan pizza dough (the rice flour and semolina burned at the high temps) Maybe the better questions are, a) can anyone help me figure out how to control humidity in a small chamber, and b) should I maybe consider a 3D printed cover instead? Figuring out how to control RH would actually be fantastic, because I can then potentially use the fridge to cure meats later on. I'm fairly certain I'm overthinking this somehow. There's got to be an easier way... Thanks for reading.

Hello: I used to make ginger beer with a bug successfully, and I'm going to give it a go again this year, but before I do I'm hoping someone might be able to help identify trouble spots in my process since it has failed the last three years. Here's my process: Bug - 1T shredded organic ginger (with peel), a cup of water, and 1T sugar dissolved. Then every 24 hours add about 1t each shredded ginger and sugar, and after several days top up with a bit of water - measurements here are all estimated, I found measuring for the bug is a waste of time, this part of the process is very forgiving. After a week this would become super fizzy, smells wonderful. I continue anywhere between 1-5 days days, depending on time for the actual brew. For the brew, my syrup ratio is 10:1 water:sugar. I start with a ginger tea by bringing lots of ginger (I like the burn) and half my water amount to a light simmer then steep for 20-30 minutes, dissolve the sugar, then strain out the ginger over rest rest of water-weighted ice (e.g. 500g water, 500g ice, and 100g sugar). I usually squeeze 1-2 lemons or limes at this point, check to make sure temp is below 90F, then add 1/4-1/2c ginger bug. Pour this into flip-top jars (sanitized with star-san) and check for bubbles daily (more like 3-5 times daily hahaha are we there yet?). Used to take about 5 days when ambient temps were in the upper 70F range. My typical batch size is about 2L. The last 3 years it's been a failure each time.. I get the fizzy ginger bug, but after adding to the ginger syrup, it never starts up again. I also tried a "bulk" ferment by leaving the bug (tried the entire bug batch) and syrup in a big container one time, but it never "took". Anything I should change or tweak before I try the process again? This seems pretty standard so I've no idea what's going on but clearly I'm somehow killing the bug.

That doesn't work as well for me as blanching in baking-soda water, you get much much cleaner results, although, it takes forever. I know ultimately it doesn't make much of a difference, but I like all the skin removed. All the skin off. Must remove every last bit. All off. *crazy eyes*

Gesundheit? That is one long name for a dessert. How did you peel the almonds? I've only tried once when I made some marzipan, I remember it was even more difficult than hazelnuts. Those I blanch about a pound with some baking soda then take about 20 minutes to "pop" individual nuts. Very tedious.

Thanks for the help here, all Inside joke a success!

I.. I shouldn't be surprised this exists.

I'm at 50% success rate: last year, the apple pie stuck, it was in a large diameter glass pie plate. This year the blueberry pie stuck, it was in the smaller W&S branded usa pan silicon non stick. I ended up scratching the non-stick plate in several places from the blueberry pie trying to get at it That's the reason I want to use the parchment or foil, since this is going to be a super tiny itsy bitsy smol pie - 2" diameter. That's a great idea! Calling them pretties hahaha yes! But as far as focusing on their taste I dunno.. the two I had a couple weeks earlier were bitter and tart, like one of my ex gfs 🙊 The internet told me to keep the plants from flowering their first year, so I did, but missed a few. I do regret listening to the all-knowing internet sometimes.

Hi! I harvested a massive bumper crop of four blueberries. As an inside joke, I'd like to make pie with them. I have left over pie dough and a small ceramic dish used for salt or oil. I think I can bake in it. I've got almost no pie making experience having baked a whopping total of 4 pies my entire life (apple and cherry last year which were mediocre, and cherry and blueberry (from costco) this year which were pretty good). Should I line the dish with foil/parchment to make it easier to remove/eat the pie-lette? Would it be best to bake the base separate from the filling or can I bake them together? Better off with a lower temp like 350F, or go to something more customary, ~400F? Thank you for your help in sustaining this inside joke 😁

Now that's a fascinating idea. Please share if you do it. I'm curious whether it'd be necessary to make a "starter" like they do for mochi donuts (basically you take small portion of the rice flour and gelatinize it with the liquid by nuking in microwave or just heating it on the stove, and mix that into the dough, similar to tang zhong for bread).

I call shenanigans, I didn't get any 😑

Haven't heard of them, assuming it's a seafood vendor?

Hmm.. I'll give those a cautious try. I'm a bit spoiled with fresh seafood having a Santa Monica Seafood outlet nearby, and also there's a grocery store near my work that carries some amazing fresh scallops sometimes (6-8 per pound they are HUGE!). 😛

I made these last year.. and after reading a bunch of recipes, and trying twice, these techniques made scallion pancakes to my tastes: - use hot water - do make the oil roux (it's not really a paste/roux like with water as you found out) - knead, knead, knead (I started in food processor, switched to hand), and make sure to knead some more - roll at least the first time as thin as you can; I don't know your KA roller setting, but a 4 on my marcato machine is thick. I rolled by hand, to nearly transparent, but not quite filo dough thinness. I think I used either central milling 00 flour or KABF, I don't recall. I also did a "bou-gie" thing and added flaked salt into the last roll up at the end.

I bought frozen farmed salmon filets from my costco last month and.. they are... surprisingly good. Individually vacuum sealed, too.