[aaronatthedoublef]

Wow. Amazing article and especially coming from Megan McArdle who from her blogging and talking knows what she is doing in the kitchen and appears fearless.

CWC, I sympathize with having hot hands. My pastry-chef room mate came into the kitchen once to find me with my hands in bowls of ice to cool them while I decorated a cake. I've found that food safe gloves give a little insulation and help. I also cool my crusts more to try to make up for this.

My problem has not been making crusts that taste good it is making crusts that look nice. I suspect much of it is, like some of you here, taking time and practice. I don't make them often and I am usually rushed when I do.

It's the same with cakes. Time and practice

[aaronatthedoublef]

Was listening to a podcast that covered the Oreo v Hydrox battle and Hydrox was the original, while Oreo was the knock-off. At religious school and temple functions we always had Hydrox because up until the 90s Oreos used lard.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks. I found the article. Pretty interesting but this happens a lot across all industries. I've seen it in tech numerous times in my life. In his first book Lahey says that what he is doing is his spin on techniques he learned while studying sculpture in Italy.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.

[aaronatthedoublef]

For some reason I cannot see the link.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike, they look pretty good!

[aaronatthedoublef]

Interesting! I never thought about melting the sugar but that makes sense. These days I melt half the butter and cream half the butter with the sugar. I may try melting some of the sugar.

I've also started adding about a TBSP of freeze-dried coffee too. Supposedly brings out the chocolate.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I've tried KAF raisin bread twice. The first time I didn't let this rise enough and had no oven spring.

The second time I may have over-proofed it. Our kitchen was about 75 instead of about 67 and I forgot to put the dough in the refrigerator when we went out so it rose in the pan at room temp for about four hours. It had a nice high crown over the pan edge but not only did it not have any oven spring it actually fell back some in the oven.

CWC, I'm with BA. Some brownies really are better the second or even third day.

I looked at the recipe and it has you melt the chocolate and butter together. This makes it fudgier. It's denser because you're not beating air into the butter. If you cream the butter with the sugar and add the eggs, chocolate and oil, and cocoa and water, it should make them cakier.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Interesting. I have two sets of sheet pans bought at Costco about a year apart. The first batch was from Korea and the second from China. Even though they have the same listed dimensions on the bottom the Korean pans are slightly larger. Other than that they have been functionally the same.

My wife bought me a KitcheAid half sheet and quarter sheet set from Williams Sonoma that had to be pretty spendy. The quarter sheet is okay because of its small size I think. The half sheet buckles EVERY TIME even at 300 degrees.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Sorry. I am late to this. For what it's worth I have Costco but they only have half, quarter, and full and they usually come in packs.

But they were pretty cheap when I bought them 25 years ago and they do not bend or warp under high heat (I've taken them up to 750).

Mike and BA, thanks for the quick lessons in what to look for in better sheet pans.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Sugar often goes in with the fat instead of the dry ingredients. As BA say, cream it with the oil (or the butter).

BA thanks for the tip but I am not sure there is anything I can do to slow my boys down. Sam took out a block of cream cheese and all the crackers I made and just sat there spreading the cream cheese on the crackers and finished most of both of them. I started adding Everything Bagel topping to them and that has not helped! I am back to rolling by hand instead of with the pasta roller. I think it's easier.

I put together bread dough I just haven't had time to shape, rise and bake (mostly the rises).

I'll make more crackers tomorrow.

[aaronatthedoublef]

People have been 3D printing organs for a while. Not sure how successful it is has been for something more complex like a liver. It did work for things like heart valves. And people were cloning ears for a while but I don't think anyone has actually done that for ear replacement.

The FDA regulatory environment takes a long time to wade through. It is focused on safety not speed. But some of that is changing because sometimes, speed is better for safety.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I asked my brothers about this and they just responded "why?"

Mike - did you see the "Battle of the Joshes"?

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi. It's been a while! Been making lots of scones recently - made them for friends who looked after our house, for my wife's birthday, and then mother's day. Trying to figure our how to scale them beyond four dozen at one time. I've always made these completely by hand. The big change I made was I started grating the butter. I thought this would be more work then cutting it in but it really is easier. I grate it then toss it with a fork. I wonder if a food processor would work but if it would be any easier.

I made an Ina Garten coconut cake for my wife's birthday. The coconut made it really rich and I probably could cut back the butter. Also, it called for cream cheese frosting which my wife does not like so I just make an American butter cream and dumped in some coconut. Next time I'll toast the coconut in the frosting.

Been making BA's cracker because my kids won't eat store-bought crackers any more.

I need to get back on the bread track this week.

[aaronatthedoublef]

THANKS BA!

It does have sugar. Go figure.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Quaker had a really nice applesauce oatmeal muffin recipe that I lost and I've never found. Applesauce was the sweetener. It was pretty nice. It would be even better with cinnamon. Someday I'll try to recreate it.

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