[Mike Nolan]

Well, I tried the snickerdoodles recipe my wife brought home, and they didn't come out anything like the sample she brought home, which was very flat and crisp.

I think I put in too much flour (it was specified by cups rather than by weight.)

A second problem was the baking temperature, 400. The sugar/cinnamon on the outside tasted and smelled burnt to me, so I lowered the temperature to 350 and increased the baking time.

I also started tinkering with the recipe, adding another egg, more oil and more sugar. At least now they're coming out crisp, but still not flattening much when they bake, but I think the extra egg was a mistake.

I stuck most of the dough in the refrigerator, I may try baking some more tomorrow, or I may write this batch off as a failure and see if my wife can get any advice from the person who gave her the recipe.

[Mike Nolan]

I've done this a few times, myself. What I do is to make a yeast slurry, then work it into the dough, adding a little flour if needed to get the dough to firm up again. But usually you want to avoid a lot of additional kneading.

[Mike Nolan]

Well, my experimental bread was good, but did not really pair well with last night's supper, beef stroganoff. Might be good toasted and spread with peanut butter or apple butter, though.

At first I didn't have enough water in it, but then I had too much and wound up adding some more flour, so I'm not sure of the exact proportions. Probably somewhere around 65-70% hydration. I used some barley malt syrup, I think maybe next time I'll leave that out, or replace it with honey.

Anyway, I wanted to try something new, so I did. It's good, but I think it could be better.

[Mike Nolan]

I haven't done a lot of baking in the last year, either.

[Mike Nolan]

Yes, it's a bread recipe, and it just went in the oven, so it'll be ready for tasting in about an hour.

I"ve made sprouted wheat pancakes from Peter Reinhart's recipe, and a couple of sprouted wheat bread recipes, one we liked and one not so much.

[Mike Nolan]

Today I'm working on developing a new recipe using bread flour, sprouted wheat flour and semolina.

[Mike Nolan]

I got started making gluten-free stuff because our daughter-in-law thought she has a gluten problem, but not celiac. (There appear to be at least five different types of gluten sensitivity.)

In the process, we've discovered several things (like cornbread) that we like better as a gluten-free product. There are several gluten-free cookies on that list, too.

[Mike Nolan]

My wife brought home a recipe for a gluten-free snickerdoodle, so that's on my list for the next few days. Once I've tested it, I'll post it.

[Mike Nolan]

It's a lovely day here today, temperature around 70, so earlier we took a nice walk around the neighborhood and now I've got a chicken on the outdoor rotisserie. I'm basting it with barbecue sauce every few minutes.

[Mike Nolan]

Canned tomatoes always taste a little bitter or sour to me, sometimes they add a little citric acid to increase the acidity and help it can better.

I've made tomato soup from scratch during tomato season a couple of times, the variety of tomato used makes a huge difference in the flavor.

[Mike Nolan]

They must have totally underestimated the demand for the replacement blades. Even though I seldom use my food processor, I'm glad mine wasn't one of the affected models.

I'm kind of amazed that the media hasn't picked up on this. I guess people who actually cook are just a fringe group compared to cell phone owners.

[Mike Nolan]

One of the things I've been doing since I retired is working on my French, primarily using the duolingo.com site. According to that site I'm 42% fluent in French now, though I'd say that's on the high side.

This afternoon, I've been doing some research online trying to figure out why references to the cookie are 'langues de chat' and not 'langues du chat' or 'langues des chat'. So far I haven't found the definitive explanation, except for perhaps 'That's just how it's done in French'. 🙂

I've misplaced the recipe I have used several times for langues de chat, but as I recall I made it with superfine baker's sugar, not powdered sugar. (Powdered sugar adds a 'cornstarch' flavor to foods.)

I'll keep looking for that recipe, it's a good one for me to do 'piping practice' with, and I haven't done much piping since Chocolate School.

[Mike Nolan]

Chef Russ seemed to think boiling cream produced an inferior ganache, he would heat it, but not to boiling.

I think most ganaches are too soft for Milano-like cookies, which is why I'd like to experiment with tempered chocolate. I should buy a package of Milanos and dissect them. (Yeah, that's my story for why I'm buying them.)

[Mike Nolan]

Chef Russ at chocolate school said it takes making about 100 of them for it to become effortless. (He would have them made and filled about as fast as he could talk about it.)

I spent two evenings practicing making parchment bags, enough to get the mechanics down but not enough to develop consistency or speed. I've made about a dozen of them since then, I probably need to practice some more. (I"m hoping to take Chocolate 2.0 some time in late 2017 or 2018, but I need to build up my skills and stamina first, losing some weight would help the latter.)

A trick I've seen online is to make a small tear through the layers at the top to 'lock' the shape of the bag. Folding the top down after it has been filled works well, too, and helps to keep things clean. (One thing Chef

We would store filled bags in a chocolate warmer so that they stayed tempered and didn't set.

We had large plastic piping bags available for things like piping large amounts of ganache into molds (since we were making about 16 dozen of everything), but when working with chocolate you often want smaller bags of a different type of chocolate or colored cocoa butter available for decoration or embellishments, and we had to make those ourselves, though they did have pre-cut triangles for us to use.

[Mike Nolan]

I recommend you look for 'langues de chat' recipes. (Yes, that means "cat's tongue".) That's basically what the cookie part of a Milano cookie is. I haven't found the right filling recipe yet, though. Next time I'm just going to try some tempered milk chocolate. (Or maybe a mix of milk and dark chocolate.)

When you say 'cut off a corner', it sounds like you were using a ziplock bag. I find it difficult to make precise shapes that way, the bag is clumsy to hold compared to a standard pastry bag. I went to the restaurant supply store and bought a roll of disposable pastry bags in two different sizes. I just looked online, a roll of a hundred Ateco 12" pastry bags is about $10, or a dime each.

Or you can do what I've been practicing since I went to chocolate school, make pastry bags out of parchment for less than a penny. It took me about a dozen tries to get the basics worked out, and I probably need to do a few dozen more to make it nearly effortless.

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