jimb0

this is also what I do when I do chocolate work (which, for the moment, is still pretty rare, but I hope to change that).

it worked really well! Originally was going with lime, to cut through the richness (these are the ideas in food doughnuts, so a batch has two pounds of butter and eight eggs), but forgot to buy citrus at the store. So I thought about how acidic hibiscus is and powdered five grams of the dried before mixing it with 40 grams of water. In another bowl I mixed 280g of sugar (powdered in a blender), 40 grams of whole milk, and one to two grams of salt. I didn’t want to accidentally curdle the milk. I poured the infusion into the glaze; all but the biggest unground pieces went in (as you can see from the picture). Really pleased with the result! Faintly fruity, in one of those fun, mysterious ways (since how often do you taste hibiscus with this much sugar). Definitely going to add this to the rotation. Kind of want to do a hibiscus curd, now. Or maybe a hibiscus ganache for truffles?

In my experience, this is the key. I think copper pots for something like caramel is an unnecessary expense. As long as the heating is pretty even you're good.

i can literally taste those potatoes

Speaking of canada some of the chocolate they regularly carry is honestly extremely good for being a bulk store. I'm always surprised. Also (in Canada), it might be slumming it for some of you, but I've had excellent results with the PC brand chips carried in those stores.

I make half batches in a five or six-quart pan; it can handle a full batch but it's too close to boil over. That makes about 100 caramels of the size I posted in the daily sweets thread today (I made caramels today, appropriately enough). Honestly, if you're keeping up on stirring I find any heavy-bottomed pot to be suitable.

And the last bit of cooking for today: salted brown sugar cream caramels. Now to assemble some quarantine snack packs for the neighbours.

Yes, please. I’ve eaten a disgusting amount. Finished with hibiscus glaze:

Sourdough doughnuts, pre-glaze:

Cinnamon rolls, part I:

Looking forward to hearing more about them; I stumbled across the brand a few weeks ago.

thanks, friend. I think I’ve finally cracked bagels. gonna make another batch this weekend, as most of these are going into quarantine care packages for neighbours / coworkers of my significant other. not quite traditional in either the New York or Montreal sense, and I didn’t have any malt or malt syrup to add. instead I went with sourdough and a long ferment to provide some of the enzymatic digestion, and added a bit of molasses both to the dough and in place of the malt syrup / honey in the water. perhaps I can start calling them London (ON)-style bagels?

Sourdough sesame bagels.

Classic kentucky apple stack cake.

Thanks much! I'll check them both out.

Honestly I don't care for the modernist style cheese sauce for pasta sauces (it's great as a queso replacement, say). If it cools at all you can get a really unpleasant texture. When I do something like mac and cheese or similar, I inevitably add starch to the sauce, which seems to prevent the almost plastic-like texture it can sometimes get when it cools.

That's just it, though, I can taste salt in porridge. I don't think anyone can really taste that much lemon in a full batch of more than two dozen cookies, and I agree with Anna. I don't see a big problem with the baking temperature, especially since they're having you bake them for a minimum of 20 minutes. It's probably pretty forgiving, if nothing else, which may or may not be the point.

Anyone have a favourite hookup for whole wheat grains? I know there are some Ontario growers out there, but they're hard to find. Failing Ontario grown, I'd be up for elsewhere in Canada (the shipping is what kills it). I'm especially looking for einkorn berries, but also khorasan, red fife, and rye. I found that 1847 has some, but $100/20 kilos makes for some expensive grain. Maybe I'm just being unreasonable? I've been milling flour for a few years now and I'd love to use this shut-in time as an excuse to do some more explorations of it. Cheers.

I don't think I've ever eaten one of these. After looking at a bunch of pictures, though, they look like a basic egg-heavy yellow cake with various toppings. I'm betting you could scratch your itch by starting there.

I’d psyched myself up to purchase one, but shipping is an additional $80USD. I get that they’re heavy but I wasn’t quite expecting that. That would push it well above $500CAD. That’s disappointing; I wish there was some canadian stockers. The refiners used to be available on Amazon.ca, but the shipping wasn’t quite as high. I think I might unfortunately have to wait until the border reopens. Definitely a topic to discuss with my partner.

I agree; even then brown sugar is generally acidic enough to react with baking soda. Sometimes some of these additions are a result of changing supplies over time and may or may not continue to be required (but nobody wants to make the change). Would be interesting to do side-by-sides. I always like to add oats to chocolate chip cookies, but I haven't tried cinnamon before. Seems a good idea.

Yeah they list them in the chocolate category but Premier makes a series of their grinders specifically designed for chocolate refining, with better venting and theoretically other upgraded components (and premier supports running them for hours on end). These aren't them. The chocolate refiners have a badge that says chocolate refiner on it. I think this is a website that's trying to capitalize on the recent popularity and selling standard wet grinders. Here's the rub: can you use them for chocolate refining? I mean, yeah, at the end of the day they're the same basic machines and the recent explosion in American craft chocolate has been driven by the wet grinders. Especially if you're willing to put in some DIY modifications. But they aren't supported and may more easily overheat, especially on the timescales that it takes to use one of these for refining (i.e., minimum 24 hours of constant running, likely). Add in the reviews issue (I also noticed this the other day) and I'd avoid the website. I'm not sure if Amazon.co.uk ships to Finland, but they are listed on that site (note the red bases): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ss-Premier-Chocolate-Refiner-Melanger/dp/B07B9Z7VH2

It's erroring out for me right now, but if I recall correctly the last time I checked that site they didn't stock any of the chocolate specific models, I don't think, just the standard wet grinders. In that vein is Melangers.com the standard for Canadian people? I tried messaging Premier on Amazon.ca because the chocolate-specific models used to be available on there, but they misunderstood my question and didn't really answer.

Yes. What is popularly called modernist cheese / sauce is really making your own velveeta.

I think people may be getting caught up my calling a roux sauce grainy. When I say that, I mean it’s a fundamental property of those cheese sauces. They’re all grainy in comparison to something made using other emulsifiers. Even the best roux-based cheese sauce isn’t that smooth. Most of the time, like in baked pasta dish, it’s totally fine. I just don’t care for them outside of that specific use. The texture doesn’t seem to bother me in something like a creme pat.