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I am going to make chocolate chip oatmeal cookies later today using Callebaut semisweet callets. (I just got done roasting the bones for my beef stock, the oven needs to lose that meat smell first.)
After a few days with highs in the 70's, we're back to the 30's today and the rain is supposed to turn to snow soon. West and north of us there are blizzard conditions
So I'm making a big batch of beef stock today.
I had a case of shingles a few years ago, but it was fairly mild.
As soon as I could, I got the shingles vaccine.
I've probably got the same 5 roll hoagie pan, but I don't make hoagie rolls very often, I've been wondering about using it to make hot dog buns.
Trader Joe's 'pound plus' chocolate bars are pretty good, but I don't know how they compare with Callabaut on cocoa butter and I haven't compared the labels for other ingredients.
They don't have any stores in Indiana yet, though.
5.5 pounds bags of Callebaut callets are around $26 (plus shipping) at Stover. The 11 pound bars are under $45.
FWIW, Callebaut 823 milk chocolate (what we used in chocolate school for milk chocolate) is 33.6% (minimum) cocoa solids, 36% total fat and 20.8% (minimum) milk solids. It comes in callets (large chips) and 11 pound slabs.
This is a medium or standard consistency milk chocolate. Callebaut rates it as a 3 on a scale of 1-5 for firmness.
Personally, I like the Callebaut 811 semisweet chocolate better, but I've always been a fan of darker chocolates. My wife even likes it, and she's generally more of a milk chocolate person. The next time I make chocolate chip cookies, I'm going to try using these instead of the Nestles Tollhouse morsels. My suspicion is they'll melt a bit more, because they don't have the emulsifiers in them that consumer grade chocolate chips have.
For those of us not living in a major city (like Chicago), it may not be easy finding a local supplier for Callebaut products, most recently I got them from Stover & Co, a restaurant supply house in the Pittsburgh area. I'll probably try to get more when we're out there later this year.
When selecting a chocolate, you need to match what you're using to the task at hand.
If you're baking, you probably aren't concerned with properly tempering the chocolate.
I'm concerned first with taste, and the percentage of cacao solids and cocoa butter both enter into that. (However, unless you're buying commercial grade chocolate, you probably won't get the cocoa butter percentage at all, Hershey's considers that information a 'trade secret'.)
Then I'm concerned with texture, and the percentage of cocoa butter affects that a lot. The more cocoa butter, the more solid it is. (Cocoa butter is hard at room temperature.)
Then I'm concerned with appearance, and that's also largely dependent upon the cocoa butter.
You need to watch out for things like emulsifiers (which are present in most chocolate chips) and whether what you're dealing with is really chocolate at all.
I probably have 20-30 pounds of chocolate on the shelf, most of what I have on hand these days is a couverture grade chocolate, at several different cacao levels. I have a basic milk chocolate, a basic semi-sweet chocolate and a couple of specialty products. I also have pure cocoa butter available so I can tinker with the fat ratio, and a few types of cocoa powder. I don't have any 100% cocoa solid on hand, powdered cocoa comes close, though.
I avoid 'coating chocolates', they won't temper properly, look waxy and taste like, well, I won't use that word.
We used several different types of chocolates in chocolate school, and also a number of specialty products. Some of this was to give us some exposure to the range of products available, Cacao Barry is, after all, a company that markets hundreds of products to chocolatiers and chefs.
That having been said, the recipe cited above is probably a bit too fussy as to what it's specifying, did it come from a source that sells chocolates and wants to sell a lot of product? (King Arthur Flour is guilty of that type of recipe-building, too.)
I'm not sure what the secret is to having buns that don't fall apart when they get a little wet. I'll do some research on the issue.
I have my suspicion that the dough needs to be enriched somehow to give it more structure.
Semolina is made from durum wheat, which is a high protein strain, but it has a different ratio of glutenin and gliadin (the protein groups that make up gluten), one higher in gliadin, giving it more extensibility (which is good for extruding pasta) and less elasticity.
I'm not sure you'd notice that when making buns if you're only using 10-15% semolina, but it also adds a nuttiness flavor that I like, especially in pizza dough.
I'm making Vienna Bread today.
My favorite whisk is one that ATK gave one of the lowest ratings to.
Today we had left over pork roast. I made a simplified Sauce Robert (I used beef stock instead of demi-glace.) It didn't come out as thick as a Sauce Robert, nor did I expect it to, since it didn't have any starch to act as a thickener, but the taste was close enough to the classic version I made two weeks ago that it went very well with the pork.
Next time I roast a chicken, I'm going to try a classic hunter's sauce, or Sauce Chasseur (mushroom sauce), with the rest of the demi-glace concentrate.
I remember reading a story during the floods in Houston about a bakery owner who was packing up stuff she wanted to keep out of the floods, including several large bottles of vanilla.
A #8 scoop makes a pretty big meatball, probably bigger than what I make by hand.
I was thinking a #40 or even a #60. I like them large, too, but my wife wants them a lot smaller.
I bought a spaetzle cutter a couple of years ago for about $15, it works in seconds, and as long as you rinse it right away it is easy to clean. These days I probably make spaetzle more often than I make spaghetti.
A spiralizer is the sort of gadget I'd probably use once or twice, at most. (But I don't have a fryer, so I'm not sure I'd use it at all.)
I don't understand the fascination with the French tapered rolling pin, either.
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