Pronouncing it mac-a-rawn (rhymes with fawn as opposed to rhyming with moon) seems to be a fairly recent French influence, last 20 years or so. Among older bakers, the word 'macaron' and 'macaroon' are used somewhat interchangeably for both types of baked treats and both rhyme with moon. (I love them both, but since my wife can't stand coconut I seldom buy the coconut ones and I've never made them.)
CWC - sorry to hear about your arm and hand. Hope you mend quickly!
Duff's book is great. He spends time not just on baking but a couple of pages on unicorns and lots of other things to make it fun for kids. Duff is a big kid himself (or at least that is his public persona) and it makes it fun. Violet has read through several times. It's also going to give Violet a leg up when she begins to learn fractions in school because she has already started to learn them for baking. We're starting on metric weights (Duff has all weights in grams) so that will likely be helpful some point in the future too.
As for American buttercream most of my older baking books call it easy or quick or even faux buttercream as opposed to "buttercream: which is the traditional cooked, frosting. Now I see French, Italian meringue, American... It's interesting to see how things change. I have three French baking books I've had for over 15 years (the newest is from our honeymoon so that means I picked it up 19 years ago in December). These are from people like Jacques Torres and Pierre Hermes and what are now called "macarons" were called "macaroons". I've seen food history books but has anyone seen a food etymology?
The second batch of empanadas is better than the first one, I added more caramel to the filling and used more sugar on the outside.
My goal was to come up with something close to the caramel apple empanadas that Taco Bell used to sell. They discontinued them a year or so ago, and I haven't been to a Taco Bell since, and have no desire to ever eat there again. (There are plenty of places I can get a better taco or burrito within a few blocks of us.)
Anyway, the filling is pretty close, the crust isn't quite right. I may try the butter pie crust I normally use but maybe with a bit more sugar in the dough. (The one I used for this test has egg in it and it isn't very flaky.)
We will be having delicious leftovers as well. (Hurrah for leftovers!)
I am making broth today using the meaty bones from our New Year's Day turkey and the frozen ones from our Thanksgiving turkey.
Welcome to 2021. Not sure what we're doing for supper tonight (we've still got leftovers to use up), but we've got a veritable forest growing in the Aerogarden, so we'll almost certainly be having salads tonight.
I bought a set of the EVO oil sprayers (the smaller ones) a few years ago, I use one for vegetable oil and the other for water. They've both worked better than any other sprayers I've bought.
Over the last several years I've gone from using pure canola oil to using corn oil to using a blend of canola and safflower oil.
New Year's eve I made more bread. I am working on a boule. I think I need to knead/stretch/fold it some more before it holds it's shape. I baked it in a skillet instead of a Dutch oven but it was too soft for me to score the top before baking.
I made more pizza dough Thursday as well so we'll have pizza for Sunday dinner.
Then at 2:00 after everything was cleaned up and put away Kate and Violet told me Violet and I were making dessert for New Year's Eve dinner. First Violet wanted Buche de Noel but we didn't have time and I've never made that. I said we would make it next Christmas. So she decided she wanted cookies and cream cupcakes from her new Duff Goldman Kid's baking book (it is really well done). Of course we had no Oreos and I said I wasn't going to get any as I had to go to the hardware store but then, of course, on the way back from the store I picked some up. Violet was SO excited she was literally dancing around the kitchen. I wanted to knock these out fast but still give Violet tasks so I had her taking my melted butter our of the microwave and then crushing the cookies by hand instead of using the food processor. Saved some cleanup, gave her a job (which she enjoyed), and then she could handle the crushed cookies without sticking her hand in the food processor.
I also had Violet put the cupcakes in the oven by herself. She was a little nervous but I was right there. I need to get some kids baking mitts for her.
The cupcakes have a crushed cookie bottom, chocolate cupcake, and then American buttercream (when did this become "American" buttercream?) with more crushed cookies on top. The interesting thing about Duff's buttercream is that tells you to start on low and then mix it on medium for a couple minutes. It beats a lot of air into it and makes it very light and very white. It also increases the volume so it goes farther. I will definitely use this again.
Violet finished the cupcakes by piping the buttercream onto them then sprinkling the remaining cookie crumbs on top. Have to admit they were pretty tasty and she was thrilled.
We had leftover frosting, cookie crumbs, and batter so I made a six inch cake layer out of the crumbs and batter and then put the frosting and cake in the freezer for my emergency cake.
Italian Cook--I substitute 1/2 cup of oil for the butter. Be sure to mix all the wet ingredients at the start, along with the sugar. In a smaller bowl, combine the flour and other dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and gently stir. I start with a cake whisk which resembles a flat paddle but has crisscrossing metal rows to make large squares. I finish gently with a spatula before putting into the pan.
If you don't have a cake whisk (most people do not, and I have not seen any for sale in ages), be gentle with a spatula.
My husband roasted a turkey. I made the Pepperidge Farm Blue Bag dressing. Our meal also includes microwaved frozen vegetables, homemade applesauce, and cranberry-cardamom relish for me. We had slices of Pumpkin Rye bread (with Land o' Lakes canola-butter spread), and dessert is a cherry pie with streusel top.
I wasn't sure if I should put this entry in baking or cooking, but as it was the main course, I'll put it with the dinner discussions.
I made “Spaghetti Squash and Parmesan Cheese Quiche,” a recipe from Ken Haedrich’s The Harvest Baker (p. 189), for dinner on New Year’s Eve, because I needed to use up a small spaghetti squash. I had tried this recipe several years ago and the 9 ½-inch tart pan was not large enough, and I had overflow. Part of that may have been too much spaghetti squash. This time, I used an Emile Henry 14x6-inch rectangular tart dish that is two inches deep. I decided to do a ¾ recipe of my oil crust, replacing the whole wheat pastry flour portion with white rye that I need to use. When I was putting the egg mixture in, I realized that I should have made a full recipe of crust, so I reserved the rest of the filling, and I’ll scramble it for lunch tomorrow. Had I done the full recipe of crust, it would have fit. My husband often looks askance at quiche, but he ate and liked it. I substituted 1% milk and a bit of leftover evaporated milk for the half and half and heavy cream, and the quiche turned out fine. I used some low-fat mozzarella sprinkled on top.
We had it with some microwaved frozen peas and some of the leftover herbed cheese pretzel buns.
We have leftover potato-leek soup, vegetable beef soup and chicken noodle soup (the latter two from the freezer), so it'll be a soup supper here, possibly with some salad. (We picked the 3rd set of salads from our Aerogarden last night, so it'll be a few days before it is ready for another harvest, but there's still lettuce in the fridge.)
A few months ago, Indiana introduced metrics whereby counties are color coded in terms of prevalence of Covid-19. I tended to ignore it and focus instead on number of cases. It seemed odd to me that with high numbers our county was consistently orange, the next to lowest tier--the one that allows gatherings of up to 50 masked people inside. (I think that is far too high.) It turns out that someone made a mistake calculating the data, and our county--and about half the counties in Indiana--should have been in the red zone, which is the next to highest tier. That one only allows masked indoor gatherings of 25 (still too high in my opinion).
I'd probably go with a streusel topping, you might be able to put on a fairly continuous layer of oil crust but it probably won't hold together enough to transfer.
I wonder what would happen if you rolled it out, froze it long enough for it to firm up and then tried to transfer it?
I didn't do a lattice crust on the last cherry pie I made, at my wife's request. (It was for her birthday.)
On Tuesday, I baked my oil-based version of my eggnog cake (also subbing in 1 cup barley flour). I put the batter into two Nordic Ware 4-well nutcracker pans, which is just the right amount. I used the last of the frozen organic low-fat eggnog frozen from last year, when I was amazed to find it in the grocery in the larger town northeast of us
My husband has requested a cherry pie for New Year's dessert. I checked the pantry, and I have three jars of Morello cherries (not from Trader Joe's but from Aldi's), so I have the ingredients. When I baked the pie in the past, I used the Baking Illustrated recipe (pp. 194-195), and it is delicious.
What I'm not sure about is how to proceed with my oil crust. For fruit pies, I always blind bake the crust for 15 minutes initially, so that it won't be soggy, and I heat up the filling--apple or blueberries--and add it the blind baked crust after first sprinkling a little bit of panko on the bottom to absorb excess juice. Those pies have a streusel topping.
I have never tried to do an oil pastry top crust, because the pastry is fragile if it is refrigerated and cannot be manipulated after coming out. If I do a top crust, I would probably need to make it right before I needed to top the pie.
So, has anyone tried an oil top crust for pie? I could use a streusel topping, and I have a cherry pie recipe that uses one. Any suggestions are appreciated!
