I actually prefer a lower gluten flour for pizza, but we prefer thin-crust pizza. The ones I was making on the grill this summer were pretty good, I may try that King Arthur recipe indoors over the winter, possibly in a cast iron skillet.
My former next door neighbor (he runs the Sysco office here) used to say that high gluten flour they sold was used mainly for pizza and bagels.
I made over 60 small molded chocolates today, the plan is to put them in an Advent calendar for our granddaughter.
I also made 40 chocolate batons for making chocolate croissants (Jimmy Griffin calls them chocolatines). They're similar in size to the larger ones that Callabaut sells, about 4 inches long.
Hadn't heard of toasted powdered milk before this. I can see how caramelizing the sugar in powdered milk might have an impact on flavor.
The Washington Post has a story today on Julie Powell and how she was one of the persons who revolutionized food writing.
Nearly all food bloggers, including me, are in many ways following in her footsteps, though preferably without the f-bombs.
Although the cause of death was listed as cardiac failure, she appears to have been a long Covid casualty.
Here's a link to the story:
https://wapo.st/3zJre5H
In other words, we're all at the mercy of the seed companies to make sure their seeds are what they say they are.
But did they cross-pollinate?
I have made the Katharine Hepburn brownies a few times, they're almost flourless and really rich, you want them thin and cut into small pieces.
I suspect gluten-free flour could be used with little change in their taste or structure.
Butter has gone up in price, too, the sale price used to be $2.99/pound, now it's $3.99/pound and a limit of 1 or 2.
I wonder if the dairy farmers are seeing any of that increase? Kinda doubt it.
The WSJ has run stories talking about butter shortages, though I haven't seen signs of that here. But I don't buy restaurant/bakery quantities of butter.
Her original blog posts during the year she was cooking from the book are still up the last time I looked, they've been reorganized a little. Warning, the blog posts have a lot of F-bombs. (I think she cleaned it up a lot for the book.)
My older son's house has in-floor hot water heating in the basement, and he recently replaced his water heater/boiler with a tankless system, which is more efficient, but more expensive too. (I don't know if it is gas or electric, though.)
We seem to get 8-10 years out of a gas water heater here. Getting the right type of anode seems to have helped our last longer, but it was a 3 ring circus finding out that the anode was the wrong type based on changes in the city water supply.
I'm tempted to try making both Portugese rolls (not the sweet ones) and the Pao Frances recipe I posted last week and see if they're as similar as they seem. But that's a lot of bread!
We had McDonalds last night, but apparently we weren't the only ones with that idea, my wife was in the drive through lanes for close to an hour! I think they were short-staffed, something most fast food outlets are experiencing.
We had somewhere around 35 trick-or-treaters last night, that's on the low side for us.
My feeling on the how to get a shiny top on brownies question is that there are multiple methods that work, possibly for different reasons. And the explanation given might not be the right one. Science is full of things where everybody assumed X was the cause until someone discovered Y.
King Arthur's suggestion to use chocolate chips seems to be one of those "it works but we can't say why" things. Chocolate chips are complex things, you can't just substitute them for baking chocolate in a recipe.
I'm not sure what the value would be in toasting powdered milk. Is this something you've seen recommended somewhere?
