[Mike Nolan]

I'm not sure where I read it, but one description of a hot water crust said it breaks all the rules but still works.

I suspect part of what the hot water does is similar to a tangzhong bread, the hot water starts the process of gelatinizing the starch in the flour.

Kenji Lopez-Alt has written a lot about pie crusts (he invented the vodka pie crust when he was working at Cook's Illustrated) and he says the trick to a good pie crust is to get the flour to coat the fat (the opposite of conventional wisdom), and melting the fat might encourage that. I wonder if he's ever looked into a hot water pie crust? The word 'pie' isn't even in the index for his book, "The Food Lab".

I use his trick of holding back a little of the flour (around 20%) until after the fat has been cut into a pie crust, I think it improves my all-butter crusts. In pastry school they initially had us cut the fat in with a chef's knife, it takes a long time but you get to watch what's happening. Most of the time we were allowed to use a mixer, and at home I've used my fingers, a knife, a pastry cutter, my KA mixer and a food processor, and I've pretty much settled on using the mixer.

[Mike Nolan]

The frosting for the Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake, which uses butter, buttermilk, cocoa, vanilla, pecans and powdered sugar, is better if you heat it to about 120 degrees after mixing in the sugar before pouring it on the still-warm cake. Comes out a lot like home-made fudge that way!

[Mike Nolan]

I took a BBGA course on mooncakes on Friday, and I've been gathering the ingredients to make a batch of them this week. I couldn't find lotus seed paste, but I did find shelled lotus seeds, so I'll try to make my own.

[Mike Nolan]

We had sliders (3 ounce burgers) on the grill.

[Mike Nolan]

I made semolina bread today, tinkering with the flour ratio a bit, normally it is 1 pound of semolina and 1 pound of AP or bread flour, I used 20 ounces of semolina and 12 ounces of AP. It looks pretty good, but is still a bit too hot to sample.

[Mike Nolan]

I've made my honey wheat bread hundreds of times, but each time it is a bit of a mystery as to whether it is going to have a tight crumb with not a lot of oven spring or blow up like a balloon in the oven. Not sure if it is moisture or something else, but it usually feels about the same during shaping.

[Mike Nolan]

We had leftovers.

[Mike Nolan]

I still need to make semolina bread, but I'm waiting until tomorrow. High today is supposed to be 93, high tomorrow is supposed to be 78. And I'm seeing some forecasted lows in the mid 40's as we head into fall, so it looks like the heat wave is over. Now, will we get any fall rains?

[Mike Nolan]

I keep my instant dry yeasts (regular and osmotolerant) in the freezer as well, and lately a package of IDY lasts me close to a year with no noticeable degradation in how well it works. The osmotolerant (SAF Gold) yeast I have is a good 3 years old and still seems to work fine, I don't make a lot of sweet doughs, so it lasts a lot longer

[Mike Nolan]

The parts for the dishwasher, refrigerator and freezer should all be installed on Thursday.

[Mike Nolan]

I don't see any reason it wouldn't work with whole wheat flour, I've made Susan Purdy's hot water crust a number of times, it makes a good crust for a large pot pie. The challenge for me is always figuring out how much crust to make, it seems to be heavier than a butter crust and a bit thicker, too.

You might have to use more water, whole wheat flour tends to absorb more water than AP flour. If you can't work it enough to roll it out, you may need to add more water. It always reminds me a bit of softened modeling clay, quite a bit stiffer than a regular pie crust. You need to work it while it is still warm.

[Mike Nolan]

We had takeout pizza and salad, plus Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake, nothing fancy but something we like and easy.

[Mike Nolan]

Congratulations, Joan!

We will have been married 49 years tomorrow (the 17th). I need to remember to get the 2nd Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake I made ahead of my birthday out of the freezer tonight so we can eat it tomorrow.

We're starting to think about what, if anything, we want to do to celebrate our 50th anniversary next year. Most of our friends who were there live in other states, it may be a virtual celebration.

[Mike Nolan]

Well, neither is fixed yet, parts are on order for both plus for the dishwasher, and I still need to go buy a new garbage disposal and have someone install it, but the freezer never stopped working completely, it just isn't getting as cold as it should because the defrost timer isn't working properly. (It is supposed to run for about 20 minutes every 8 hours, I believe.)

I'll have to offload the freezer again when the replacement comes in, not because of where that part goes but because he'll need to run the defrost cycle several times to get rid of the built-up ice in the back. So I'm using this as a time to review what was in the freezer and use or throw out a bunch of things.

[Mike Nolan]

I had to empty out the freezer for the service tech, and found some challah that I had sliced for French toast, so we had French toast for supper tonight.

The good news is that the freezer appears to need a defrost timer (it was replaced just 14 months ago, but replacement parts are only under warranty for 12) and the refrigerator needs a new thermostat. Total repair cost, including service calls, is around $750, better than I had feared.

I've got some of the stuff back in the freezer, but it isn't cooling down as fast as I had hoped, so most of what I'd planned to put back is still in a big styrofoam chest with some dry ice. Hopefully I can get more of it back in before tomorrow morning.

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