There are sites I've been on where disallowing editing or drastically limiting it was necessary to prevent or control flame wars, but hopefully a baking/cooking site won't ever be that controversial. (In the history of USENET, one of the most prolonged and vicious flame wars was in a group for people who have aquariums, so I guess you never know.)
I've got some Heath bit chips that I suspect would work well for this. (I forget what I bought them for, probably something I've stopped making because it has too many carbs.)
I've used the 'password reset' feature on Zen's site at least once, but not recently.
I've had some people let me know they had difficulty getting in to MNK, but given that I've had a few spammers succeed at posting here and several dozen fail at it, I'm not planning to lessen the security I'm using, though I may change it at some point (use some other 'captcha' tool, possibly) just in case the spammer toolkits have added us to their list.
The fact that you have so many old BC member's recipes should encourage people to check in. (I mean" former" members.
We celebrated our Thanksgiving on Wednesday (some family had to work Thanksgiving at a restaurant) so my part was baking pies.I made an apple, pumpkin,and 2-coconut pies all turned out well.Also baked a sweet potato souffle with marshmallows put on at the end of baking just to puff up a little.Was pleased with everything and I enjoyed making it.I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving we are all so blessed!Forgot to add the turkey that was baked was baked upside down and it was so moist,the best turkey I’ve ever had.I had heard of that before but never tried,well it worked!
On Sunday I baked an Irish Chocolate Cake to take to a birthday party. I learned not to use black cocoa powder for the pan - it contrasts too much with a cake made with chocolae chips.
Then on Saturday, I started my baking for the bake sale with a batch of Butter Pecan biscotti (KAF) and substitute Butterfinger bits for the butterscotch chips. It does work.
I read an article recently (probably on either the Wall Street Journal or Washington Post website) that said that taking the time to develop nuances of flavor is what separates restaurant food from home food.
I'd say it's what separates GREAT restaurant food from home food, and I agree with Aaron that too many restaurants try and fail at it. It isn't necessarily that they use too many ingredients, it's that they don't do so skillfully. I've seen Rick Bayless's mole recipe, it uses something like 27 different ingredients and well over a dozen major steps. I've also had the duck with mole at the Frontera Grill in Chicago, and it was superb!
I made Vienna Bread, this time I cut 2 of the loaves in half before freezing them, since it seems like I only finish half a loaf before it goes bad.
I also made an apple pie for Thanksgiving:
I made it in the Norpro non-stick pie pan, it slid right out onto the plate. This is one non-stick pie pan that really works!
As noted in the Thanksgiving thread, my wife and I working together made some maple syrup pumpkin custard (pumpkin pie without a pie shell).
My 'go to' recipe for teaching someone how to bake is the Austrian Malt Bread recipe, it's easy to make, and no matter whether you use a mixer or hand knead, nearly foolproof. The only question is whether you've got the malted milk powder in the kitchen.
The Clonmel Kitchens Double Crusty recipe (posted originally by PaddyL), which has been the recipe I've made the most often in the last year, would be another good teaching recipe, though since it has egg in the dough it's not one I would recommend tasting raw dough on. (I still find tasting the dough a good teaching tool, though the official recommendation is not to eat any raw flour products these days.)
Remember the video of the French guy throwing the baguette dough down on the counter hundreds of times? That might be a good recipe to teach a younger baker, with all that youthful energy!
I've made dough that way twice, the baguettes were really good.
I looked (briefly) for that video on the Internet, haven't found it yet.
I agree with Aaron about overly complicated food. Rarely have I eaten something complex that is truly memorable. I don't own any of the items on the list--unless we count my electric krumkaake griddle (that I have yet to have time to try!) that could be used for a kind of ice cream cone. If I want to bake doughnuts, I have doughnut pans (regular size and mini) that take up a lot less room, and I don't have to worry about the electronics malfunctioning. I do regret buying the blender attachment for my Cuisinart 7-quart mixer. After reading about what happened to pmiker on the BC (his blender leaked blueberry smoothie into his Bosch mixer and ruined it), I've been afraid to try it, as it would be positioned directly over the motor.
Other than the krumkaake griddle, I actually use all of my appliances frequently enough to justify having them. When I think of gadgets, I think of all those little devices. I do like my "waffle tongs," which have silicone tips and helps me remove waffles from my waffle maker.
I am going to need to get back to making some bread dough by hand, since my younger stepson has asked me to teach him how to bake bread.
Having the right type of flour can make a big difference. I find pie crust really needs a softer flour than AP. (And of course KAF AP flour is on the high end of AP flours.) I use KAF's white pastry flour for pie crusts, because the only pastry flours available locally are whole wheat flours, and I don't really care for the taste of pie crust made with whole wheat flour.
The apple pie I made on Wednesday was excellent (I'll post a picture when I get them downloaded from my camera), I used frozen apple pie filling that I had made a year ago using winesap apples I got at the farmer's market. That apple vendor didn't have any winesaps this fall (or at least none that I saw), but I still have enough pie filling in the freezer for another 3-4 pies. Winesap is still the best pie apple I've ever seen, but almost nobody grows it anymore.
We made a pumpkin custard last night (think pumpkin pie, but without a pie crust.)
My wife was originally looking at a recipe she found online that included maple syrup, but we decided it was going to be too sweet, so we went looking for a good base recipe to start with. Wound up using the one in Michel Suas's book, Advanced Bread and Pastry, as a starting point, then substituting maple syrup for brown sugar and adjusting the spices. (No clove, more cinnamon!!) The test batch was a little too sweet but showed promise, so we tinkered with the main batch a bit (more pumpkin and egg, plus a little more allspice and cinnamon.)
I took notes, of course. Haven't tasted the full run yet, but I think it'll be pretty good, and I'm not fond of pumpkin! There's enough pumpkin puree left over for a second batch, we'll use that one to test that I got the recipe written down and then I'll post it.
Before I went to Chocolate Boot Camp, I'd probably have made filled mini-tarts, using either a sable breton or a chocolate pate sucree dough, like the sable breton tarts shown at the bottom of the page. The sable breton dough is a much softer dough than pate sucree, which makes it a little more tricky to release from the molds.
My wife has a Nordicware Teacake Plaque that she makes small scones in, it should work for other small cakes. Her scones recipe is so buttery they never stick in the pan. I think shaped desserts are more attractive than drop cookies or bars that have to be cut.
These days I'd consider making a plate of chocolates, like the almond haystacks I made for a Halloween buffet. (I sent about 60 of them, they ate all but one.) For an even fancier dessert, I'd make filled molded chocolates. One of the chocolates we made in class was filled with a lemon white chocolate ganache, it's one I'm eager to try at home. We made them in egg molds that had been colored on the outside with yellow cocoa butter, but I think any shape or color exterior would work.
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This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by
Mike Nolan.
The problem is that heating elements aren't linear--if you increase the power to the heating element by 25% you don't necessarily get 25% more heat. The same thing can be true with the thermocouples used as temperature sensors.
Fully digital devices (like infrared thermometers) can be calibrated to adjust to non-linear scales, my stove (made in 1996) probably cannot. Whether a stove with digital controls has that sophisticated a calibration mechanism may vary from maker to maker. I'd guess most don't spend the money on it, since the hysteresis cycle is going to have a peak-to-valley range of 20-50 degrees anyway.
A professional convection oven has a peak-to-valley range of more like 10 degrees, but you pay for that kind of precision. I suspect home convection ovens have a peak-to-valley range of 20-25 degrees, but that's not something the manufacturers advertise.
Besides, you can lose 40-50 degrees just opening the oven door.
There are kitchen devices, like a circulation heater (for sous vide cooking) that can be adjusted to very precise temperatures, staying within a degree or two, I'm told. Laboratory equipment is even more precise.
