It looks good, but I have to be honest that I’m kind of tired of the current trend to add flavorless oil to butter cakes in order to “improve” them to be more moist. I’ve been making purely butter-based cakes for years and I can’t complain about dryness for any of them. Oil might make them more moist, but it’s thoroughly unnecessary because they aren’t dry to begin with. And it seems like every single popular blogger/recipe developer now won’t make a butter cake without oil in it. Looking at Sugarologie and a lot of other blogs for their yellow cake recipes for example you see how convoluted the process is at times and you realize that ultimately they’re holding box cakes as the goal, where I just don’t.
I got Ruth Tam’s cookbook because I do love her blog and her ideas, but it was disappointing that almost no cakes seemed to be purely butter.
Looks wonderful! Something I need to study. I need a bigger freezer so I can put something bigger than a 1/2 pt container in it. However, if I get a bigger freezer, I’ll most likely fill it with bargain foods or left overs. Hence, the constant freezer purging.
Excellent point about having boxed cake as your reference point. Eff
that. I agree so hard with your statement about the weird obsession with moisture.
Making gluten free cookies to send to a friend for her birthday: I am pretty sure that someone here recommended the gluten-free chocolate chip cookies from NYT https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020871-gluten-free-chocolate-chip-cookies ( paywall). I had a lot of almond flour left over from Christmas, and it has a LOT of 5 start ratings, so I tried it. Very easy, and I taste tested one when they were done cooling. I was a bit skeptical, but the structure and taste are very classic CCC! Glad to know I now have a reliable gluten free cookie recipe…
I have bought dried apples from Nuts.com a few times, there are some in my cupboard now. So far so good, I think they’re fine, soft and tasty and apple-y.
I made a lovely rye loaf to go with our leek soup. The bread is a mix of rye and plain flour and some dried basil. It has a nice soft texture inside and a chewy crust. I can’t wait to polish off the rest today.
Considering Milk Bar Pie Bars from Tosi’s All About Cookies baking book. It is 50/50 at this point with my current motivation. If not tonight then tomorrow. I am intrigued that the proportions are reversed and there is more of the toasted oat crust compared to the gooey pie filling.
Aside from the shape being fairly unique (triangular when they’re spicy), the crust in Chilean baked empanadas is sort of bread-like. There’s no yeast, but it bakes up crisp and tender. To me it’s the most distinctive aspect of Chilean empanadas. Typically a hot water crust is used.
The filling is like a lot of South American empanadas in that onion forms the base (usually 2x onion to meat). Traditionally there is no garlic used, but I did use garlic here. A typical Chilean seasoning would be Merkén for spicy empanadas.
I made these with a quicker filling, but traditionally you see a longer-cooked filling very similar to Argentinian empanadas where the meat is essentially simmered (no browning) and liquid is even added for juiciness (though that’s what all the onions are for— they add juiciness) and thickener if desired.
I made this just now, super easy. Once before I’d tried making Milk Bread using tangzhong, but it didn’t turn out right. In this recipe from Woks of Life, you put everything at once into mixing bowl, no proofing of yeast first. Then, knead with the dough hook. You are supposed to add ingredients in order and I stupidly added the yeast (active dry) before the flours (you can use 4 cups all-purpose or 1/2 cup Cake Flour, 3.5 cups Bread Flour … I used the latter since I happened to have it). Anyway, messing up the order didn’t seem to affect it negatively.
On CH and here, I’ve been told that yeast lasts a long time in the freezer … this yeast has been there at least 3 years and it was fine!
House smells nice and yeasty … just tried a slice with butter … it’s nice and soft. Other than a bit of flour for the counter, I didn’t add extra, directions said to watch about adding extra flour.
I used egg wash but didn’t feel it was necessary to add final coating of sugar syrup.
That coconut cream pie looks so yummy! I want to make it for a birthday tomorrow but no copies of the cookbook at our library or any of the stores in town. Any chance you could paraphrase it?
