[aaronatthedoublef]

Cool!

Thanks

[aaronatthedoublef]

Anyone use different meats? At the meat department people would order equal weights of ground beef or veal, pork, and lamb, I think. It was always late Saturday afternoons. The store used to actually sell a meatball mix of the three meats but stopped because of cross contamination concerns.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The recipe refers to Sardinian flat breads as "semolina flatbreads" and it looks more cracker-like. Don't know if this changes anything.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I remember you saying that before and I've tried both with previously frozen and non-frozen butter and noticed no difference. But that may be because my pie crust is not good to begin with and the butter does not make a difference.

But I've almost always used frozen/thawed butter for scones and biscuits to good results.

And my pastry chef friend made excellent pies using frozen dough.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks for the tips. Some I knew and some seem cool. As Cass says, I was always taught to separate chilled eggs then let them come to room temp. I may try the water bottle trick.

This weekend I made scones and tried grating the butter. A pastry chef friend told me about this years ago but it always seemed like more work. It was actually less work and required less prep since I usually keep my butter in the freezer and then thaw it as I need it. I grated it and tossed it and it was much more incorporate than it usually is. In the past I've had butter leak out a bit but none this time. I'll try it again in the future.

I wrapped the end of the butter in a paper towel where I held it to keep my the butter from warming up or my hand from cooling down.

[aaronatthedoublef]

There was a fascinating article which I can no longer find about bacon grease not just clogging up home drains but accumulating and clogging up town sewer lines. Cleaning crews were called in and pulled out mammoth plugs of hardened fats. I'll keep looking for it.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I wish I'd known my grandfather. He had a wholesale meat business so I might have been able to learn something from him.

I know it's not leaf lard but when cooking bacon is that considered rendering the fat out? My mom always saved bacon grease in a coffee can. I am not sure what she reused it for but the can was always on the side of the stove. Maybe it was just a way to store it and throw it away.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Has this thread been going on for over a year!?!The power of pizza!

I was re-reading some of the older posts. I've had Nancy's recently and they accidentally gave us a large instead of a small. You could barely tell we'd eaten any. My colleague ate two pieces despite my warnings.

Giordano's seems to have the best par-baked and shipped pizza.

I've made my own sausage. I've also made sausage for Whole Foods. All their sausages have some amount brown sugar. Breakfast sausages have more. Around Thanksgiving and Christmas they add sage to some of it and that is for turkey dressing. Hot Italian sausage has red pepper. I don't remember black pepper but I can check.

I like making it because I can vary the spice level. I can reduce the sugar and the salt without affecting the taste. It seems as if it needs to a day or two for the spices to really open up and add flavor.

[aaronatthedoublef]

ItalianCook, my family did not like the texture, I think.

I've tried two and three cheese mixes. The first pizzas I made was for the school bar in college and we used mozzarella, provolone, and parmesan (doubt it was Reggiano ;-)). I've tried that mix and just mozzarella and provolone. I am the only one who likes those mixed. I've tried fontina which was too strong. I've been meaning to try fontal which is soft and milder to see if they would like that.

I make the dough and grate the cheese. Sometimes I will cut up the vegetables but my wife usually does that - olives, some kind of pepper other than green which I do not like, and onions - usually red. I usually buy pre-sliced, criminy mushrooms and break the slices into smaller chunks as I put them on the pizza.

Meat is simple, usually sausage or pepperoni. I've experimented with a few different sausage types - Italian (pork or chicken), Turkish and Moroccan (lamb usually with different spices). I used to par-cook it before I put it on then I stopped that.

My wife is the creative one. Sometimes she likes a swiss chard-olive oil-goat cheese-and mozzarella pizza.

You can try a lower gluten flour. I use part cake flour. That would help lower the protein content.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks.

I use a lot of cake flour because I use it for pizza dough. My family's favorite cake also uses cake flour. Mine uses AP. Like chocomouse I use Bob's Red Mill. I switched when KAF started using corn starch and never switched back even when they stopped. Plus KAF comes in two pound boxes here and Bob's in three pound bags and it's less expensive. Probably why I didn't switch back.

I wish I could store 50 pounds of flour. It's so much less expensive - $15 for 50 and $4 for five pounds for bread or white whole wheat. But right now we don't have the storage space.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I let my dough do the first rise and then cut it up and freeze it. It doesn't seem to have much of a second rise thawing out.

I have pre-rolled the dough and then placed them on parchment and then they seem to have more of a second rise.

I have tried par-baking crusts in the past to reproduce a Chicago, tavern-style thin crust but my family did not like it.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I just checked their website. They don't have seem to have cake flour anymore. I did have access to a restaurant wholesaler here. I have to see if my access still works and what they have. Maybe I'll do that this weekend.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks for the lemon curd suggestion. I'll try it next time we make scones.

New York Bakers is where I found first clear flour. I actually bought another brand - Miller's. It makes good rye bread.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi,

There is a flour place out west - I think So Cal - that repackages KAF flours into five pound bags. I've purchased first clear flour from them as well as Queen Guinevere. I'll look to see who it is when I'm back home in my kitchen.

"Chopped" does make the microwave cakes look very simple and I can see how something would become rubber really quickly. But I have a five year old who likes to help me bake and who can use the microwave some (I don't let her take things out because they can be very hot) so if I can get this down she can help and be more involved in the process.

Thanks

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi,

Big baking week for me for the first time in a long time.

I made KAF baked fudgy doughnuts, pizza, pancakes, and scones.

Anyone ever made a microwave cake?

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.

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