Matcha financiers.
This last batch of financiers has sort of convinced me that I prefer my financiers without any baking powder, which makes them puff up too much and then sink back down.
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In the spirit of using ingredients on hand, a blueberry coffee cake – I had everything I needed to make it.
This is a New York Times recipe I like - not quite as rich or as sweet as a Boy Bait. For today’s version, I used 25% white whole wheat, buttermilk for the dairy, and used abut 1/4 c. of my own streusal topping from the freezer.
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Today I wanted to try to make a more airy or fluffier bread. I had read about putting baking powder and baking soda in the mixture, along with the yeast. I added a 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda to my standard bread formula. I was worried about there not being enough acid to activate the baking soda, so I added a tablespoon of Apple Cider Vinegar to help the baking soda. The bread was better, but I think I’m going to add an egg yolk next time. I saw that in this thread and want to try and see what difference an egg yolk makes. For now, Sunshine & I enjoyed an afternoon snack of hot bread and butter.
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Using leftover puff pastry from last weekend I made Palmiers. They really puffed up a lot and are so buttery.
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Those look beautiful @Stef_bakes!
Joanne Chang’s ANZAC cookies which I believe @sallyt recommended. They are great. I can’t get golden raisins here, so I used black ones. I can get cranberries and might try them next time. I really like the texture of these. The activated baking soda makes the texture light and airy while the cookies still retain chew from the coconut and oats. I used only 100 grams of raisins and I would cut them down a little more still as I felt there were a lot of them when I was rolling the dough into balls. I do also wonder about cutting out a little of the sugar. They’re a touch sweet with the full amount.
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I love this cookies! Can’t believe you remember that I recommended them
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I cured and smoked a ham and I remembered this pie from Dan Lepard that I love. It’s ham, potato, and egg and the crust contains cheddar cheese. In my notes was that the crust is fantastic. There’s baking soda in it which I always end up liking in pie crusts for a biscuit-like lightness. One thing I like about Dan’s recipes is how relaxed they are. He never stresses over things like super cold ingredients, and he’s often very brief in his instructions, but the recipes generally are very good.
The pie still needed another 5 minutes here. I preheated to 400 with the intention of turning down to 350 as called for, but forgot and the pie baked on my steel for 50 minutes. No blind baking for this recipe, just fill and bake.
And from yesterday an oatmeal sandwich loaf.
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GOCHUJANG CARAMEL COOKIES, NYTimes
I made these out of, well, sort of morbid curiosity and because people were raving about them in the NYTimes comments. They are a pretty basic snickerdoodle-style cookie, but with a ribbon of sweetened gochujang swirled through. I made them a bit smaller than called for (and they are still plenty large!) and followed the advice of some commenters to swirl in the gochujang before refrigerating the dough (to let it set up a bit before scooping), both of which I would do again. I’m not sure I will actually make these again - the spice and touch of umami in with the sweetness is a little strange - but I definitely like them better today than I did yesterday (the day they were baked). Not sure if they are improving or if they are just growing on me, but all in all, I’m not sorry to have tried them.
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My partner printed out and handed me this recipe this morning and said “Muffins, please?”
And I wasn’t doing anything else, so… Sure! She doesn’t care for nuts, and we had some choc. chips lying around, so no nuts, and plus 1/2 cup Ghirardelli 60% chips.
The ones one the right, I just placed a single choc. chip on top right when I took them out of the oven, just to see if they’d stick. They did, and it looks adorable. The recipe made 15, but the Missus stole one before I took the picture.
My partner declared “oh! cookies, but muffins” which is a fair enough description.
I mixed everything by hand, as I was trying to make sure I didn’t overbeat things, but they’re still have a little too much chew. Some things I think could help:
I’m using unbleached AP flour. Maybe it’s time to actually get cake flour and start mixing it in?
Make SURE the egg is room temp. I lightly melted the butter, since I didn’t want it to gel the flour, but I think the cold egg might have solidified bits of butter.
I let the batter sit a little longer than I’d have liked, as I didn’t have the right scoop ready for dishing out into the muffin cups.
Anyone with tips or advice, please feel free!
Still, the first new thing of the year. Yay!
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I use this one, subbing vanilla for lemon extract. One of my partner’s coworkers loves it so much he traded me his 50" Sony Bravia for two of them when he upgraded to 4K.
No leavener. Beating the hell out of it puts enough air in it where it’s tender and there’s so little liquid in it that gluten never gets a chance to form and toughen things up.
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I made some Lemon Crinkle Cookies (this afternoon) using a John Kanell recipe from his “Preppy Kitchen” youtube channel. His cookies look better than mine, but mine still taste good. I did add some yellow food coloring, as my batter didn’t look “yellow” enough.
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Mr Flash is the baker here, due to the ability to follow recipes to the letter. At our house we’ve had banana bread x2, a variety of outstanding cookies for Christmas (technically last year but they just finally got finished a couple of days ago). Our Mexican lime trees were very prolific this year and the limes have been outstanding in flavor, so he decided to make a key lime pie from some of them- OMG what a flavor blast that was. Powerful waves of beautiful tart and sweet, I don’t think I ever tasted anything that was that good. It’s definitely in the top five tastes of my life. I sure hope he makes another one.
I made a couple of loaves of French bread in the bread machine, if that counts.
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just had a visceral reaction to your description of that key lime pie. if you want to ship some limes, LMK 
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The current crop is in the freezer- maybe next year if the lime gods are as generous as they were this year!
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NY style cheesecake. This time CI’s. It’s a half recipe in a 6-inch pan.
And I was feeling like making Flo Braker’s peanut crunch cake again because it’s been a while since I made one. Never get tired of this cake with its perfectly fluffy, buttery, tender buttermilk cake and that peanut butter and white chocolate ganache. I need to remember to use that ganache in another cake sometime. It’s one of the best cake fillings for me.
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That NY style cheesecake is absolute perfection! And the peanut crunch cake sounds amazing.
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Thank you!
I have committed to making a cheesecake for a cheesecake-obsessed friend. Good thing I’ve never made one! Is the CI recipe one you’d recommend?
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This is XXX food porn 
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