I bought my latest supply of parchment paper from Costco. It is oven safe to 420*. Since I had to buy 2 boxes (205 sq ft each) I think I'm set for life. (as far as parchment paper goes,that is.)
Their parchment is pretty expensive. If you live near a restaurant supply store it is worth checking to see. It comes in whole sheets not half sheets but a box by me costs between $35-$40 and will last forever (or until your basement floods). I was on the same box for 12 years until the basement flooded and soaked it.
It comes out to about $0.08 a sheet or $0.04 a half sheet.
It's a new month, with weather cool enough for serious baking! Sunday morning I made a double batch of my wholegrain buttermilk waffles. Most of these were then wrapped and frozen for quick breakfasts. In the afternoon, I baked Semolina Rolls, a recipe that came from the KAF catalog years ago. I've not baked them in a long time, and I thought they would go well with the pot roast we were having for dinner. On Friday, I baked David Lee's Biscuits to go with leftover soup. After dinner, I mixed up a double recipe of my cheese-sourdough cracker dough and refrigerated it to bake next week. On Saturday, I baked three loaves of Grandma A's Ranch Hand Bread. I also made the KAF Ultra Thin Crust Pizza for dinner. Later, I baked Harvest Moons--large pumpkin-chocolate chip-oat cookies, from The Baking Sheet (Autumn 2004). Tomorrow each cookie will get a spice glaze, and I will add Autumn colored sprinkles. I first baked these in the early days of dating my now husband. I try to bake them every fall. I substituted in half white whole wheat flour this time.
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This topic was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by
BakerAunt.
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This topic was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by BakerAunt. Reason: added an item
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This topic was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by BakerAunt.
The offer goes through tomorrow (11-13-16). KAF has free shipping on selected parchment. I called them to find out if the parchment I buy is covered by this offer. It is. I use the half sheet, pre-cut parchment.
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This topic was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by
Italiancook.
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This topic was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by Italiancook.
I have used chicken stock in place of water in the rice cooker, and all was fine. I usually cook rice to have with something else, so I don't usually worry about flavor. However, there are various kinds of rice around (brown, red, black) that all give a great flavor. Sometimes I mix them.
Welcome to the world of rice cookers--what Roger Ehbert called "The Pot" in his book on the rice cooker. He used his for all kinds of cooking. I also like it for steaming broccoli.
You can try adding a little stock, even a little salt might help. I've been known to throw a pat of butter in the rice cooker, but I think it makes cleanup harder.
Some varieties or brands of rice seem extremely bland to me. I like jasmine rice, but my wife doesn't like the odor, so even though she seldom eats rice these days, I don't buy it.
You could also try adjusting the water-to-rice ratio slightly, overcooking rice a little (by having too much water in the rice cooker) can cause it to lose flavor. Undercooking it is more obvious, the rice is chewy if not crunchy.
Is your new cooker one of the 'one button' cookers or does it have multiple settings?
The 6, now 4, quart plastic bucket for ice cream is very commonplace in grocery stores here.
Real soda fountains buy ice cream in 2 1/2 gallon cardboard containers. I don't use enough ice cream for that to be practical, and these days I'm not sure where I'd get them. There used to be Goodrich Dairy Stores in Lincoln that would sell 2 1/2 gallon containers of ice cream, but I think the last of them recently closed.
Regional differences in food packaging are hard to fathom. Here in Nebraska we can buy soda (eg, Coca-Cola) in 24 can cases, but when I'm visiting my son in Pittsburgh I never see anything larger than 12 can cases. Some stores now carry 20 can cases (often for about the same price as other stores have the 24 can case, of course.)
Mike, your soda fountain background is evident. I don't think most of us got ice cream in 6 quart containers (except maybe when we raided the kitchen at boarding school ?) But a half gallon has become 12 ounces and they did change the package size.
I bought myself a Nutrimill for this Christmas past (mostly because I knew from tho old BC that you had one and seemed well pleased with it) so I was interested to read this blog post.
I am curious though, why you grind hard red wheat at the "low and course" setting. Because that produces, well, course flour. There may well be occasions when course flour is needed but most of my bread baking projects use a finer grind, closer to that from a commercial mill (although it never gets quite that fine).
Anyway, I would be interested to know what your thinking is.
Best regards,
Jock
Well, a gallon of milk is still a gallon of milk. And a pound of butter is still a pound of butter (but a lot more expensive). It helps if the quantity is identified with the product. Otherwise, the incredible shrinking act kicks in.
I hate when they do that. I remember when a yogurt cup was 8 ounces, now it's 6 or even less. What am I supposed to do with 6 ounces? I stopped buying them when that happened. Now I either buy the 32 ounce carton or the 7 ounce Greek style. I remember when a large jar of pasta sauce was a quart, 32 ounces, now it's 24 or less. Remember when the standard size of coffee was a pound? Now it's down to 11 or 12 ounces. I could go on and on (and I often do, lol). Just goes to show how old I am, lol.
Brioche would make more sense in a pain de mie (with lid), sizing the quantity of dough to the pan might take some experimenting, as I recall brioche is another bread that rises a lot.
I don't have a pain de mie pan, but as I understand it you can be off by a moderate amount, but if you overfill it by too much the dough can rise enough to warp the lid or pop it off completely. I think a few years back KAF posted an example of that in their annual April Fools blog post.
A pain de mie pan (also know as a Pullman loaf pan) usually has a lid on it, wouldn't that mess up the braiding?
I find the two-layer Challah make good sized sandwiches, but I was never one that had to have rectangular bread.
The two-layer celebration Challah I made for my wife's department chair a few weeks back (the one that I posted the gorgeous picture of) got rave reviews, Roch said he hadn't eaten that much bread in a week. They did freeze what was left over for the next time their kids are over for breakfast, for French toast.
He's got another dinner coming up in two weeks (this time for us, these dinners were auction item at the Agronomy club fundraiser earlier this year, we bought one of two dinner packages), and I assume I'll make another Challah for that one. It might be difficult to top that last one for appearance, though.
I also keep my opened yeast (regular active and the higher sugar one) in the freezer. I have that acrylic jar with the locking lid that KAF sells. It won't hold two pounds of yeast, but I can put the excess in Tupperware. I use it straight from the freezer with no problem. I always proof it, having had a bad experience when I first baked bread, even though I know that the prevailing wisdom is that it is not necessary. I enjoy seeing it bubble up before I add the rest of the ingredients.
For me, it works best not to freeze dough, since if I've got time to take it out, let it come to room temperature and rise, I might as well have baked it first. It's easier for me to pull out a frozen loaf or rolls and let them thaw overnight. I just have to watch my husband who has been known to attack a frozen loaf with a bread knife because he did not tell me we needed to thaw another loaf. I think that cutting it while frozen compromises the thawing, the taste, and the texture.
I have a baking steel (it was a gift - a very nice one I might add) and have only used it once. You put it in the top third of the oven for pizza. While it was heavy, it wasn't too hard for me to use. And we liked the crust.
If you go to baking steel.com they have a blog and recipes so you can see what people are doing - they have a Challah recipe for the pan de mine pan I plan on trying at some point.
