Search Results for '("C'

[Mike Nolan]

We have a file drawer full of recipes on 3x5 cards, plus 6 shelves of cookbooks and recipes in binders or magazine holders in the kitchen, plus another bookcase just around the corner that has several shelves of cookbooks (plus other books) and several shelves of cookbooks in the basement, too.

And I can think of a dozen or more cookbooks I'd still like to have.

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

[Mike Nolan]

Today is my wife's birthday, so I made a 10x10 Texas Chocolate Sheet cake. (1/2 of the batter recipe but about 1 1/3 X the icing recipe, because it's better when the icing is thick.)

[BakerAunt]

Navylys--Once you are addicted to recipes, you cannot become unaddicted. The internet, as with many addictions, has only multiplied the problem. Here are my coping mechanisms:

I do not save quite as many when I make it a point to try an average of one or two new ones per week. Somehow that lets me know that I already have a lot. Now that I'm retired, I can make a dent in the pile.

I have become more selective. A recipe with a specialty ingredient that I will not use for anything else, or that requires expensive ingredients, gets left unclipped (whether digitally or manually). I do not bother with recipes that my husband is unlikely to eat, unless it is a soup or something I would make for just me. On the other hand, he has ended up liking foods he never thought that he would. He was convinced that the speculaas I recently made would be too spicy, but he has now eaten three and loves them.

Sometimes I look at the techniques and think: The recipe authors have got to be kidding. If it is too time-consuming, and I'm unsure of what the result would be, I do not save the recipe.

If the recipe will require a significant investment in new equipment that might not be used very much, that is a red flag, and I bypass the recipe.

I avoid most trendy recipes--which is all I see these days in the online Bon Appetit; it appears to be aimed at either brand new cooks or people who want to be making the latest food fad.

I still have a lot of recipes that I want to bake, but that is what makes it so exciting and purposeful whenever I go into the kitchen. Right now, I'm working on both my favorite Christmas recipes and trying some new ones. At the moment, Beatrice Ojakangas' Danish Sugar Pretzels (the original, not the KAF re-working) is calling me, and the notched rolling pin that arrived in the mail today is waiting for me to try Swedish Knakkebrod. I figure that it can be used for more than one recipe, and it beats repeatedly stabbing the dough with a fork.

Bake and Cook on, Fellow Recipe Addicts!

[navlys]

I confess to being a recipe junkie. I have at least 10 filled recipe boxes, a basket full of copied recipes, a book of repeat recipes, saved recipes on allrecipes, king Arthur(of course), bh&g, epicurious, fine cooking, taste of home, pinterest, yummly, Pillsbury, Betty
Crocker....HELP!!!!!! Oh and several cookbooks.

When I went online to see if there were any ideas on how to quit this addiction, I found more recipe sites!

[BakerAunt]

Hi, Skeptic. I'm in northern Indiana. Of course, there can be variations in snowfall, even with places that are somewhat close, particularly with lake effect snow coming down from Michigan. My husband had to go to the next county (we are close to the line), and he reported that they had not had the amount of snow that we had.

Our dog was particularly bad when we first got her at 14 months with chewing and eating non-food items--and ended up with a surgery in one case. She has matured over the past few years. She actually has not purloined the amount of food that our previous dog, a mini-schnauzer managed to nab.

[luvpyrpom]

This week was prepping all the cookie dough for the holiday cookie trays. I also wanted to make a birthday gift of sunburst lemon bars for a coworker. The recipe is from Barefeet in the Kitchen blog. It was pretty good after I upped the lemon (I really like tart stuff). I wanted to try the same recipe but with lime to make lime bars. I think I need to up the lime on that one, too, as I could barely taste the lime. So for the holiday cookies this year, I decided to try making the dough ahead of time and freeze them in either rolls (so I could slice and bake) or in tubs so I could just scoop and bake. It did make it easier for me to bake more in a timely manner - like today I baked a dozen of each flavor of cookie (total of 8 kinds). I made honey bars, christmas cookies - Fudge cookies, Andes Mint cookies, Snickerdoodles, Peanut Butter, Thin & Crispy Oatmeal, White Chocolate & Cranberry, Molasses, and Lemon-Coconut Snowballs. I also made People Puppy Chow or Chex Puppy Chow or Moose Munch - I guess the name varies by region. I wanted to bake some bread but am kind of tired from being in the kitchen all day.

Bakeraunt, I've been meaning to ask about the Maple Shortbread I saw you had shared on here. Will it hold imprint pretty good? I bought some cookie stamps and I still have my springerle molds and would love to use them with this recipe.

[BakerAunt]

Congratulations on the Butterhorns, Italian Cook!

This morning I baked Speculaas cookies from the dough I made last evening (see thread under dessert). This evening I baked two loaves of my Buttermilk Grape Nuts bread because we are out of bread, and my husband has been patient while I have done some other breads recently. I am continuing to experiment with the recipe I posted, this time by adding 1/4 cup barley flour. This bread always makes me think of Dachshundlady, who introduced us to it, and it makes me think of Rascals, who also enjoys baking it.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

Ah, yes. springerle. I only tried baking them once, and that was before I had a stand mixer. There is a lengthy period of beating the eggs, so it's not a great idea with a hand mixer. The cookies did not come out that well, and they were very hard, which may be what they are supposed to be. I think people dunk them in milk, coffee, tea. However, I'm not a dunker. I didn't use the baker's ammonia. If I ever try them again, then I will invest in it (and hope that I can air the house before my husband smells it!)

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

The cocoa butter in chocolate has six different crystal states, referred to as alpha-1 through alpha-6. Alpha-6 only forms after a long time, but alpha-1 through alpha-5 will form any time chocolate is heated and cooled. Properly tempered chocolate should mostly or only contain alpha-5 crystals. (Alpha-1 through alpha-4 have lower melting points than alpha-5.)

Streaks in a good chocolate is called 'blooming', which is when some of the cocoa butter loses the desired alpha-5 crystal state and produces a lighter color chocolate. (Cocoa butter itself is white.) This usually happens if the chocolate gets too warm or is not properly tempered. You can leave a chocolate bar in the sun and it'll get warm enough for the alpha-5 crystals to break down, resulting in a white layer on the outside.

A cheaper chocolate may have other things in it that can separate out.

Usually melting and properly tempering the chocolate again will get rid of the streaks. As long as you don't scorch chocolate, you can reheat it over and over.

The issue of whether almond bark should be randomly shaped pieces or more evenly shaped ones is largely a matter of personal preference. Scoring the chocolate as it cools is the best way to get it to break into more even pieces.

[BakerAunt]

Thanks, S. Wirth. I hope that Laura will look in again. (She was here recently to comment on Kasha.)
I am sad that her thread was lost. 🙁

House on the Hill used to sell springerle molds, but they no longer sell them directly. Molds must be ordered from third party sellers. However, I think that House on the Hill still has their recipes.

Fancy Flours carries a nice selection of molds, and most of mine come from there.

[S_Wirth]

Many long years ago, bettina (later 4paws2go) of the BakingCircle did the most gorgeous speculas I have ever seen. She had a recipe she relied upon and did a little picture presentation of the gorgeous designs she made. She used, I'm almost certain, baker's ammonia, to make them a success.

She dried them for a period of time. She and a lady from CA both so enjoyed doing/talking about these beauties in long, long threads.

I looked here to see if bettina's recipes for them got moved and cannot find them. I'm hoping Laura (bettina) will peek in and see this thread and hopefully she can place the recipe and tips here.

Baker's ammonia can be purchased from http://www.lorannoils.com where I buy most of my flavoring oils.

There is a place famous for the molds that I will look for and I think it has a recipe that is reliable.

[BakerAunt]

My guess (I've not made bark before) is that if you want even-sized pieces, you should at least score it while it is warm rather than trying to cut it through completely.

[BakerAunt]

Today I baked speculaas. I used a recipe that came from McCall's Holiday Baking and Entertaining (probably about 25 or more years ago) that I have baked before using ceramic cookie molds, but this time I wanted to use some of my vast collection of springerle molds. I also looked at the KAF recipe which was in a recent catalogue and is posted on their site:

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/speculaas-spiced-springerle-recipe

The two recipes are close, except that mine is set up to make twice as many (double the flour and butter) and uses brown sugar as well as 1/8 tsp. baking powder instead of 1/4 tsp. baking soda. Mine also uses just one egg. I was intrigued by the KAF addition of almond flour, but I decided to use just 1/2 cup (in addition to the regular flour) rather than doubling it to a whole cup for my recipe. I made the dough last night, rolled it 1/4-inch thick then refrigerated each half on cookie sheets, covered in saran.

Next time, I will not refrigerate the dough for so long. I had to wait a while for it to warm up so that I could imprint it, using a springerle mold (the hearth one KAF sold in a previous year), which I dusted each time with powdered sugar. I really had to bang down on the mold to get the design imprinted, so softer dough next time, and maybe I won't hurt the sides of my hands banging down on the mold. The designs were good, but when I baked them (350 for 20 minutes, as my recipe states), too much of the nice detail was lost. The later sheet did better than the first one, but I still would like the sharp detail.

I note that the KAF recipe calls for baking at 300F for 25-30 minutes, after freezing for 30 minutes, but some reviewers still complained in the comments that the designs did not come out well, so the slower bake may not be the answer. One of the KAF bakers responded by suggesting letting the imprinted cookies sit overnight before baking. That might dry them out a bit.

Any suggestions? Perhaps I should use a whole cup of almond flour? I really want the designs from the springerle molds to show up crisply.

The flavor is good but I will likely add 1/2 tsp. of nutmeg to the 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 1 tsp. ginger, and 1 tsp. cloves. The KAF recipe uses their speculaas spice (no surprise there) but they do give directions online (not in the catalogue!) about what spices to substitute. I note that theirs is mostly cinnamon.

Here is the recipe as I baked it this time:
3 cups unbleached flour
1/2 cup almond flour
1/8 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. ginger

1 cup salted butter (original does not specify; older recipes tend to use salted (deleted 1/8 tsp. salt)
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
1 egg
(I deleted 1/2 cup sliced, blanched almonds, as they interfere with the design)

Any suggestions will be cheerfully considered! Thanks!

[BakerAunt]

Italian Cook: I had a similar issue with a butterhorn kind of recipe from The Great Scandinavian Cookbook. After the same thing happened with another recipe (which Cass thoughtfully balanced for me), I now know to hold back some of the water until I know that the dough can take it. It may be that the author measured her flour differently or used a different kind.

[navlys]

Ok, I made the "Gettysburg" chicken salad, stuffed in a pita half and served it with thai pumpkin soup.( recipe from the Food and Wine web site). I liked the chicken salad, my husband wasn't crazy about the banana in it. The thai soup which called for 3T of red curry paste was Hot, Hot Hot!!! I should have known to hold back on the curry paste. My bad.