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Nice donuts.
It is supposed to be cooler here tomorrow, I'm hoping I can get some baking done, probably some kind of rye bread as I've got some ham I want to bake.
I've used shortbread as the base for an apple galette, though I haven't made it in a long time. (These days I prefer the Irish Apple Cake.)
Shortbread isn't hard to make, have you tried making your own?
Guavas are rather tart, which is why they make great jams and jellies, lots of pectin.
One of my wife's sorority sisters married a guy whose father was a food chemist. He achieved some notoriety in the early 60's by publishing a list of Kentucky Fried Chicken's '13 secret herbs and spices'.
We made one batch of ketchup that had too much clove in it, but the next batch had no clove at all and just tasted wrong, so I'm pretty sure clove is one of the key spices in ketchup, but in moderation.
We've tried making ketchup a couple of times, it is never as good as Heinz, though. I could make some tomato relish, but I've still got several quarts of it from the batch I made 3 years ago (it lasts nearly forever in the fridge because it has a lot of vinegar in it.) Most of what's left is the batch that got over-cooked a bit, though.
Something I've never tried making is salsa for tacos, maybe I'll try that some time. (No cilantro, though, my wife has the gene that makes it taste like soap.)
I picked a small bowl of tomatoes yesterday, probably 2-3 pounds. I could probably pick another bowl about the same size today. In a week or two I should have enough to consider making sauce or something else with them.
The 'old dough' method was used primarily by people baking frequently, every day or two. I'm not sure what refrigerating old dough would do, I've had refrigerated dough become unusable after about a week.
I don't recall where I read it, but I have read that it takes quite a few iterations of using old dough before it produces a consistent product. In that respect, it is similar to the process of creating a sourdough starter.
My guess is the Poilâne recipes are aimed more at occasional bakers than ones who maintain a sourdough starter for years, like the Poilâne bakery does (theirs goes back to the 1930's, I believe.) I was disappointed and surprised that the book didn't offer alternate instructions for those who have a starter to work with.
I have the Poilâne book, I was disappointed to find that in her recipe for recreating their famous miche, she uses a combination of an overnight levain and commercial yeast, something I'm sure they don't do in their bakery.
Farmer's markets aren't the best venues for keeping bread in peak condition, a local artisan baker has told me that they don't bring all their breads to the farmer's market because some just don't travel well. (Personally I find their sourdough too sour, though.)
There was a post, on the BBGA forum, I think, recently lamenting that San Francisco sourdough has gone 'commercial' as most of the bakeries have been bought by corporations rather than passed from one artisan baker-owner to another. I think Chad Robertson is still one of those baker-owners, though.
But with the pandemic and the way airlines treat you, I don't know if I'll ever be back to San Francisco to check out the Tartine bakery. (And I've just about given up on my goal of doing a boulangerie crawl through Paris.)
Hoshizaki is primarily into commercial ice systems, I know a guy who does commercial refrigeration work (mostly restaurants and bars), he recommends it over Scotsman these days. They started making a home-sized unit a while back and I put it in on Nick's recommendation, it has been very reliable.
We currently have a Hoshizaki ice maker that makes 'top-hat' shaped clear cubes.
We've had 2 other types of icemakers in the last 23 years, both ones that make a clear sheet of ice then cut it into cubes using heated wires. two that were probably Kitchen-Aid that developed coolant leaks and one that failed due to some kind of processor board failure.
The big advantage of having a 15 inch wide ice maker is that it holds about 50 pounds of ice, more than enough to load a big cooler for a long trip or to fill a sink with ice water to cool down 10 quarts of stock quickly. Also, since the older ice at the bottom melts, you never get stinky ice.
If I had space (and an unlimited budget), I'd put in a blast chiller.
BTW, slow-melting ice cubes also mean you get slower cooling from the ice, because there's less surface area exposed to the liquid. Plusses and minuses.
Oreo filling always reminds me of American 'buttercream', it tastes mostly like shortening and sugar. I've never really understood those who like the double-stuf ones, I buy Oreo thins these days.
i always thought Hydrox had the better filling and Oreos had the better outer cookie. Hydrox are just a memory these days, along with too many other foods from our past.
When we're past the pandemic crisis (in 2-3 years?), it'll be interesting to look back and see how many products have bit the dust since March.
Len, have you considered getting a critter-cam? They are motion-activated and they're fairly inexpensive these days.
We have several outdoor security cameras and sometimes see a fox running through the yard, but I have to admit I'm tempted to get a critter cam that covers my vegetable garden.
Here's a shot of the interior. The crumb is fairly tight, maybe not quite as tight as the last one I made, but I can get thin slices from it.
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