[aaronatthedoublef]

Like Mike's pastry instructor my pastry chefs that I worked for did not use the European butters.They referred to the European brands as "finish" butter. They liked it for sauces and such but less so for baking. We did not make any laminated pastry when I was there so they might have liked it for that.

The place with the lowest cost and highest quality combination here is actually Whole Foods. Amazon is supposed to be lowering prices on some staples so we'll see how that goes. I buy and freeze LoL when it is 2-4-1. If I'm making pies I'll buy fresh. And if I ever get to making croissants I'll buy fresh for that.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Very cool. VERY, very cool! The east coast is supposed to have another eclipse in 7 years so this gives me something to shoot for and time to practice.

[aaronatthedoublef]

One of my favorite scientists was Robert Ballard. Dr. Ballard made it his mission (besides oceanography) to engage kids. I heard him talk and he said when he was a kid scientists were cool, not nerds, and reminded everyone that Indiana Jones was a scientist.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Funny, I was just reading about pre-shaping on KAF. No one has ever told me about that before but, thinking back to shaping dough in the bakery we did just that. It's just no one ever called it that.

I'm going to try that with my rye bread. I'm also going to try baking it on the stone instead of a sheet pan and adding some steam. I want to get a little thicker crust and a little more oven spring.

Thanks!

[aaronatthedoublef]

Krispy Kreme has announced they will be selling chocolate glazed doughnuts for the first time ever next Monday - Eclipse doughnuts!

[aaronatthedoublef]

I've seen a few articles on this recently - letting the flour and water sit for as little as half an hour, before adding yeast or adding a sponge or poolish. It is supposed to add lots of flavor. Haven't tried it myself but, as Mike says, this has been around forever.

And if you read Pretty Good Number One which is far from ancient but about five years old, the author devotes a chapter to the beauties of fermentation and not just for bread.

It is a fun read as is his first book Hungry Monkey.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I am debating whether or not to show this to my kids as they will want their bagels cut this way and I think I might lose a finger doing it!

[aaronatthedoublef]

Don't many British recipes also use self-rising flour? We have a Welsh friend who kept using all purpose flour and not having her recipes workout. I gave her bag of self-rising and it changed her life.

A pastry chef offered me a job based on three criteria:

1) I would pass the drug screen
2) I showed up to where I was supposed to be when I was supposed to be there (see item 1)
3) I can do fractions in my head

Not very demanding requirements to work for a high end chef in a fine-dining restaurant.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Has anyone tried recipes from the GBBO? How often do they use ingredients we do not have here? How hard are they to translate?

I'm surprised at the continued success of Hell's Kitchen. It wore me out after a few seasons.

[aaronatthedoublef]

http://www.finecooking.com/article/heavy-cream-vs-whipping-cream is the link I originally intended to post. It's interesting except for the one snarky comment at the end.

In our town rents and taxes are so high the only stores that can survive seem to be national chains, except for restaurants. We seem to have and endless number of them and very few go out of business. We now have three new ice cream shops in town that charge a minimum of $6.50 a pop.

Two are Thai ice cream places (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybb57frsdKk) and one makes ice cream to-order using liquid nitrogen.

I've started to refer to our town as Connecticut's food court. People have asked where they can buy a t-shirt so I may have a new, second line of business!

[aaronatthedoublef]

Clotted cream is good on scones and berries. For example, when they mention strawberries and cream at Wimbledon it's clotted cream.

The web says: Clotted cream (sometimes called scalded, clouted, Devonshire or Cornish cream) is a thick cream made by indirectly heating full-cream cow's milk using steam or a water bath and then leaving it in shallow pans to cool slowly.

Sorry about the bad link. I'll try to fix it.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi BA. Just looking at the sides of the cartons heavy whipping cream appears to have more fat. I found this article online. You can search and see. According to this whipping cream is 30-36% while heavy cream is higher - the article says one dairy came in am 39%.

They say more fat makes it more stable.

I've always used heavy cream regardless of whether the recipe called for whipping cream or heavy cream or, sometime, water in my pie crust.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I'm back to rye bread with a fresh load of first clear flour. I still need work on shaping but the taste is good. I also made pizza this week. Usually I use some flax meal but I was out so I just put white whole wheat and cake flour in the crust. It was noticeably lighter. I may try this again.

[aaronatthedoublef]

We are big fans of Bread and Jam for Frances. And I can also see it backfiring. There is also one about bedtime... Bedtime for Frances maybe but it is not as popular. That maybe because at the end her dad says go to bed or I will spank you and then put you in bed... or words to that effect.

I've started telling the older boys to make their own dinner if they do not want what I make but it's hard to do that with a 4 year old.

KAF has some interesting recipes including one for hummus bread. I'll let you all know what I try.

Thanks

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. We're trying to figure out a way to trick a four year old into eating more than pasta and yogurt (occasionally together :-)).

Roux might work on pasta. I'll check out Bob's Red Mill for some recipes as well as KAF.

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