Thanks jammy, but it’s not quite as bad as it looks 
! Although the whipped cream was a bit of an indulgence , the popovers were made in the mini popover pans and we will be doing penance for the next few days… or at least I won’t post!
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Chainbaker did a comparison of tangzhong vs yudane here, for those interested.
However, I take issue with his findings because his tangzhong is very clearly over-cooked. A tangzhong should be cooked to 65 C and at that temperature, it has just started to thicken. It should be looser when completely cool that his is when it’s still hot.
I find tangzhong easier to use because it can be cooled immediately (just mix it into the rest of the liquid ingredients), whereas yudane should be made hours ahead to fully cool and hydrate the flour.
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I made these Ovaltine cookies a few days ago. If you’re a fan of malt and prefer your cookies crunchy like I do, you will adore these cookies.
They couldn’t be easier to make and the blogger is correct; there is not need to give storage instructions because they are irresistible.
I keep British self-raising flour on hand even though I’m an American. Although British self-raising flour doesn’t include salt, I didn’t add any to the recipe because, to my taste, Ovaltine is salty.
I didn’t use a Thermomix. I’ve never seen one. I’d be interested to hear from those of you who have them how you like them. This is just out of curiosity, The cost is too high for me.
Those of you who prefer your sweets not too sweet will probably want to reduce the sugar as the cookies are pretty sweet.
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Wow, your burek! So impressively thin, and the result looks delicious!
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Thank you! I want to make a meat one next and experiment with the different toppings for “softening” before and during baking like soda water, yogurt, and eggs. There doesn’t seem to be much info as to why certain things are used, why some do it before, some after it’s been in the oven for some time, etc. so I think I’ll have to experiment.
I made this Hearts of Palm Quiche today. It’s wonderful. I asked my husband to try a bite when he got home to make sure he liked it. He isn’t the big fan of hearts of palm that I am and I didn’t know if he would like a cheese-less quiche. He ate a huge slice and pronounced it perfect. He ate two more huge slices at dinner.
I took liberties with the recipe.
I used Stella Parks Pie Crust for the crust. It’s the first pie crust recipe I’ve liked.
I used a whole onion instead of the half onion called for in the recipe. Who wants to store half an onion?
I used an entire can of hearts of palm (except for the piece my dog insisted that I give her) which was more than 200 grams. Who wants to store a few chunks of hearts of palm?
I laughed when I read that the blogger “even” liked it cold. I only eat quiche at room temperature or cold. I dislike it hot. I agree with her about disliking Crsico.
http://technicolorkitcheninenglish.blogspot.com/2007/04/hearts-of-palm-quiche.html?m=1
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This cake was cursed! I had a filling blow out despite the frosting dam. The bottom layer collapsed and had to be discarded. (eaten up as a tired cook’s treat ) I made 3 fillings that were thickened with starch and hated the texture and taste of all 3, I ultimately used only one of them and store bought jam instead. The new frosting recipe I tried was really difficult to pipe flowers with, it got soft too quickly. I somehow placed it off center on the cake stand despite 3 min of hovering, trying to get it right. Then I placed the few acceptable flowers and leaves off center as well! I decided not to fix the flowers, since a practice cake is for practicing not perfection.
My family enjoyed it and called it beautiful of course. It was vanilla cake with strawberry & blueberry fillings & lemon frosting.
I will use the frosting recipe again, it’s easy to make, very tasty and has a great mouth feel. It’s sugargeeks’ easy buttercream and uses pasturized egg whites. It doesn’t crust so I had to be careful not to touch anything I’d finished with and it was hard to pipe flowers with, though the shells were easy. I’ll probably use a different frosting for flowers in the future, but this one to cover cakes.
Here’s a link to the frosting
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They’re right, it’s gorgeous and I can’t see any of the issues you had.
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These loaves are both similar to recipes you might see in Joy of Cooking, a basic “rustic Italian loaf” kind of bread made with overnight sponge starters.
The unpleasantly too-dark color on the first one (which has 2 pics) is because I unwisely decided that if one egg wash was good, two egg washings might be better. Bad idea.
The final rise and initial 10 minutes baking was with a ~ 1-inch wide band of aluminum foil girdling the bottom to help shape it. When I pulled it out at 10 minutes to remove the foil band, I thought “Hey, I’ve got egg wash left, so…”.
Besides being too dark in appearance it lent a slight bitter flavor to the crust. And I wasn’t aggressive enough with my scoring/features.
But the overall flavor and texture were very nice, with a surprisingly tight crumb.
So the next week I got less chicken with the scoring (always afraid I’m going to deflate the whole thing). For this one did the final proofing in a basket, which I hadn’t used before and apparently over-floured. I tried dusting it off a bit with a brush but most just stuck to it, and I didn’t use an egg wash. This guy I just plopped into a 450°F Dutch oven after scoring it (I had it sitting on parchment). Turned out very good too, but unlike the prior week had a considerably more open crumb. Sorry I forgot to photo after cutting. We had folks over and it didn’t last the night.
I haven’t done much baking this month other than these 2, except that a daughter and I have made bagels most weekends if she comes home from college. But I only got a pic of the plain batch we made most recently. She takes 5 or 6 back with her to eat during the week. She says she doesn’t share with her roomates!
Edit - I meant to mention this is the recipe I use most often for bagels. I’m not from NYC so I can’t comment on how “authentic” they are, but it’s an easy recipe to follow and using the “same-day” (vs. overnight) version, start to finish is about 90 minutes.
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Papo Secos (Portuguese rolls) … sort of.
These are for tonight’s dinner. While I’ve never had the real version, these are pretty much what I conjured: soft, white, closed-crumb rolls with a slightly chewy, thin crust.
I had chosen two similar recipes from which to work, and where they differed, I kind of split things down the middle. Both recipes made the same volume for 10 or 12 rolls. I made a half-batch for 5 buns.
I didn’t make the traditional crease (we’ll be using these for sandwich rolls), and instead baked them in a giant bun pan. Thus, I suppose, they are not truly “Portuguese Rolls”.
I’m going to hang on to the recipe. If ever in need of a soft, white roll or bun, I would include these in my choices.
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I’m making falafel and I was going to make pita, but since I’ve made pita plenty of times I decided to mix things up and make somun/lepinje. This flatbread is often referred to as Balkan pita, but where pita has around 65% hydration (and some recipes for this flatbread have similar), the lepinje/somun that always attracted me had massive holes in the crumb— the result of a hydration more in the 80% range. These aren’t perfect, but I’m really happy nonetheless. The pockets will be great for holding the fillings.
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Not for me. She probably didn’t press her dough in evenly. It held its shape when I cut it and tasted like a crisp sugar cookie.
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I don’t know, but she’s a very accomplished baker and has made hundreds of pies and tarts, so she may just have had bad luck.
Yum. “Tasted like a crisp sugar cookie” describes exactly my taste in tart crusts.
Your bread looks delicious. I’d never heard of samoon bread until I made the acquaintance of Manny, the owner of Chee Falafel. During the lockdown he started selling freshly made falafel in a Middle Eastern market I frequent. They are the best falafels I’ve tasted.
When he came to the US he initially settled in Michigan. He grew tired of the anti-Muslim bigotry there so he moved to Los Angeles.
When he was in Michigan, he opened a bakery to make the samoon bread. In Los Angeles, he’s using pita as he can’t find a bakery that makes samoon. He tells me that when I try samoon, I will never go back to pita.
I was so impressed with his story that I wrote Eater LA. They wrote an article about him.
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It’s definitely tastier than pita imo. I like freshly made pita, but these are so crisp, nicely chewy, and fluffy, and I had a hard time staying away from them and saving them for the falafel!
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Just harvested my first ever rhubarb that I grew myself. It’s only 3 stalks, but I can’t wait to bake something with it 
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Congrats!
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Thank you! You have to skip the first season when you grow rhubarb (that is not harvest any) so this is a long time coming.
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