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McGee explains the science behind this.
Shortening refers to using a large amount of fat (relative to the flour) to saturate and thus shorten the gluten chains, as opposed to kneaded breads which develop long gluten chains into a network. The absence of long gluten chains makes the baked product more crumbly.
Traditionally, the fats used for shortening are any animal or vegetable fat that is solid at room temperature, though liquid oil-based products also exhibit the shortening of gluten chains by fat saturation, but a liquid fat is more likely to be absorbed by the starch, so it is trickier to work with.
Solid vegetable shortening was developed early in the 20th century as a shelf-stable replacement for animal fats.
My mother's oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe also uses shortening instead of butter. (I don't remember her ever doing anything with lard.) So the 40's and 50's post-war era seems likely.
We had creamed tuna on biscuits.
It's a cold winter night, so of course we had tacos.
We wound up having waffles tonight.
I think most of them were closer to 3/8 of an inch rather than a half inch. I'm about to take them out of the water bath, we'll see how many of them seal.
I wound up with 5 half-pints and 2 pints of apple butter, which I'm canning using the hot water method, because having a big pot of boiling water in the kitchen on a day when the high is 5 below just sounds good.
I tried something I read somewhere, since apple butter tends to be a little thick, I had a small amount of warm apple cider that I used to make sure the jars were full to the half-inch mark on the head-space stick, usually adding less than a teaspoon.
I'm finishing the batch of apple butter I started yesterday, cooking it down a bit to thicken it after adding the vanilla.
Might have some on some toast, a spoonful of it tasted pretty good, though.
Here's a recipe for pickle brine:
https://www.southernliving.com/recipes/pickle-brine
Adding some dill might make it better for rye bread, and maybe some mustard seed.
My mother always put a lump of alum in a jar of dill pickles, but if you're not actually making pickles that's probably not necessary.
Winesaps are what I made the first batch of apple butter from two months ago, I think they're a great cooking apple. The wine professor at UNL also taught fruits, and he says Cortland is even better, and is an all-purpose apple. Finding them in the stores is another matter, though.
I had about 20 winesap apples left and they were getting a little soft for pies, so I'm making another batch of apple butter. It just filled the slow cooker.
Happy birthday, I hope you can reschedule your celebration. A friend of ours had his birthday in December but was working double shifts at the railroad repair shop at the time, so they just had it last night.
I don't think I've ever tried to braid a rye dough, but when I do the marbled rye bread I shape several rectangles, stack them in alternating colors and roll it up, and that seems to work well.
The Swiss steak was very good, and we had it with mashed potatoes.
A couple of years ago I made my wife's mother's Swiss steak recipe, today I'm doing my own take on that recipe from my notes, more onions, adding some beef stock, carrots and celery. I did the browning and sauteeing on the stove top but I'm doing the slow cooking in the oven in my dutch oven.
The cold weather is here, a high of about 7 today with sub-zero lows and a few sub-zero highs for most of the next 4 days. Snow expected to stop in the next few hours, but we've probably gotten 6 inches since yesterday afternoon.
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