Baking bread - stainless steel or potless? I am an absolute newbie to baking bread. Just started baking veggies recently.
Before I buy any baking pot, I would like to ask a few questions about bread baking.
Is it always better to have a baking pot of cast iron (or the materials specific for baking)?
In the bakeries and all I see people baking without pots. So, why do we need baking pots?
Is anything made of stainless steel good for baking bread? If so, what should be it's thickness?
Thanks in advance!

In my mind, bread baking containers are divided into two categories:

1- Pans for shape

Many bread pans are used only to give bread shape. These can very from "normal" loaf pans for sandwich bread to baguette pans.

These pans need to just stay out of the way of the heat as much as possible. Baguette pans are even perforated for this reason. They are usually made out of very thin steel and don't need to be expensive at all.

2- Pots for heat and steam

Artisan style bread needs high initial temperatures to produce steam that opens up the bread and builds the crispy crust. It also needs to have a steamy oven during that initial crust-forming period. Consumer ovens don't usually retain heat very well and are not built with steam injectors either.

Putting the bread in a pot helps with both issues. By preheating the pot, the bread will be exposed to a large, pre-charged, thermal mass right at the beginning of baking. Then as steam escapes the loaf it will be held close to the bread and give you a crispy crust.

Pots to do this need to be able to hold a lot of heat so cast iron or ceramic vessels are used. A stainless steel pot with a lid probably wouldn't do very well because it wouldn't hold much heat and would shield the bread from the high heat.

Since you mentioned no-knead bread, I would think that you are planning to make artisan style bread rather than soft, sandwich bread. If that is true then I don't think a stainless steel pot would be the best choice. Use either cast iron with a lid, or forgo the pot idea and bake the bread on a pizza stone and spray some water in your oven for steam.


Is there a way to adjust hot spots in a horizontal smoker setup? I have a combo gas/charcoal grill:

I have an offset firebox that attaches to the right side that I use to convert the charcoal grill to an offset horizontal smoker.

However, when using the offset to smoke, I have noticed that there is about a 10 degree differential between the right side of the grill, and the center.  This is problematic with larger cuts of meat (boston butt, rib racks, etc.), and even with large trays (such as smoked almonds), as the side on the right cooks significantly faster.

Aside from rotating the food regularly, is there anything I can do to reduce the temperature differential created by the hot spot?

Basically, what you need to do is create a baffle that distributes the smoke further into the main chamber.

Checkout the mod #3 in this PDF for a CharGriller Smokin' Pro modification.

http://www.deejayssmokepit.net/Downloads_files/CharGrilleMods.pdf

You can do this same thing with tin foil if you're on the low budget plan.


Bean curd that is spiraled I'm looking for a particular type of bean curd which I used to get from a Chinese restaurant a few years ago before it closed and I haven't been able to find it anywhere (The servers there didn't know what it was called either, we just called it spiraled bean curd).

It looked like it was made from thin slices of bean curd that were rolled into spirals then deep fried (the thin strips would get flaky and it had a golden brown look to it, but that might have been the sauce they used). I haven't been able to find any pictures of it online and some of the stores I've gone to don't seem to carry it

So... Based on our comments, I'm answering. I think what you're looking for is literally deep fried tofu skin or bean curd sheets. Tofu is literally the result of heating soy milk (made from beans) and curdling it with a chemical (called nigari in Japanese) or an acid and then pressing excess liquid out of the curd. And if that sounds like making a fresh cheese like paneer or cheater ricotta, that's because it is.

"Bean curd" is another word for tofu, but seems to have come to refer to the skin that forms on top of the soy milk as its heating preferentially. But as in my comment, it can also be called tofu skin. That skin is thin, but strong and flexible, and really versatile. It can be moistened and used like an egg roll skin, or stir-fried, or added to soup, or served as a dish in its own right with a sauce like you had, or fried like a pork rind and eaten like chips. It's quite crispy when fried, but quickly becomes chewy again in my experience if paired with a sauce or filling (or hey, I could be doing it wrong).

As for the spiral aesthetic, it's not an inherent feature, but the sheets are very malleable when damp, and could easily be rolled up and fried like that. It would allow more sheets to fit in the fryer at once.

Your restaurant could have bought pre-shaped rolls, but I'm guessing it would be cheaper to buy big sheets and shape them in-house.

As for the sauce, I can't help you, but there are actually a lot of recipes out there. It seems like fried/sauced bean curd might be a popular side dish at a lot of dim sum restaurants.


What is "pork brisket?" I picked up a package of "pork brisket" at the supermarket today. I have never seen it before but it was inexpensive and fatty, and looked like a good option to throw in the slow cooker. When my wife saw it, she protested (having raised pigs as a kid): "Anyone who knows about livestock knows that brisket is part of a cow, not part of a pig!"

So, what cut is this, really? Should I treat it like a beef brisket?

Serious Eats describes pork brisket this way:

  Pork brisket is simply a substantial part of a boned-out picnic ham.

Although ham generally refers to a cured/cooked product, "picnic ham" here refers to the lower part of the pork shoulder:

  Guide to Pork Cuts

  ...

  Pork Picnic Shoulder This comes from the lower part of the pig's shoulder. It's usually made into smoked hams, but fresh picnic shoulder makes for very juicy barbecued pulled pork.

  Source: http://austinsfarm.com/GuidetoPork.cfm

Pork shoulder is a very fatty cut that should be cooked "low and slow" in order to render the fat and break down tough connective tissues. Since beef brisket is also a fatty cut with lots of connective tissue, cooking methods appropriate for beef brisket should also be great for pork brisket (e.g., roasting, smoking or braising).

The US health department recommends cooking both pork and beef roasts to the same internal temperature of 145 F (63 C) with 3 minutes of resting time. So apart from the differences in texture and flavor that you would expect between pork and beef, you can probably treat these cuts as equivalent.


How to minimize splatter using an immersion blender? When I use my immersion blender (for soups etc.), I always have a lot of splatter. Is there a way to minimize this splatter? Is it better to put the blender on and put it in the to-blend substance or the other way around? Are there other tricks?

First, use the highest-sided, smallest diameter container available. The food you're puréeing should have several inches from the top of the container. If the diameter is small enough, your blender will be able to get all the food moving at once -- you'll get a nice vortex right in the middle, and won't have to do any horizontal movement, just vertical. (Essentially the same thing as would happen in a counter-top blender's jar.)

The absolute best container is what's known as a "bain marie", a cylindrical metal pan that's much taller than it is wide:

You can get these fairly cheaply at restaurant supply stores. It's not absolutely essential, though, and if you don't want to buy one, use your pasta pot or stock pot.

Next, always turn the blender on and off while it's in the food, and keep the blade and its hood submerged. You should be able to move the business part of the blender near the surface, but keeping it a good inch or so underneath, and have the food at the top being sucked under and into the blade. Bringing the blade to the top, so that it's partially in the air, is all but guaranteed to splatter.

Start blending near the top of the container, then slowly and smoothly move your way down and back up. If your container requires you to move horizontally, do the top "layer" before moving downwards.

If you have speeds on your blender, go through all of the food on low, getting it uniformly chopped up before raising the speed. If you have especially chunky food, it will take a while on low before it's safe to raise the speed without splashing.

It will occasionally happen that the blade isn't making contact with the food, especially if you get too near the bottom or it's something especially thick that you're trying to purée. It may feel like the blender "grabs" the bottom of the container -- I guess there's some kind of vacuum forming, although that doesn't quite make sense to me. The motor will start going too fast and the vortex, if you had one, will fall apart. You can usually get it restarted just by tilting the mixer, but you may have to stop the blender, go back to the top, and begin again.


why does my sourdough bread have lumps of flour I've made sourdough bread numerous times, however, I sometimes find hard parts in the center of the loaf.

Whenever I cut into a baked bread (after rest) - there appears to be hard parts towards the centre of the load (seems like lumps of flour).

I'm wondering if anyone might know what this might be (and should I bake or proof the loaf for longer to eliminate this?)

This looks like an excessive amount of flour worked into the dough when shaping - the spots do absorb humidity from the surrounding dough, but remain dense and hard.

To prevent this, be mindful of how much flour you add to your bench and how you shape your loaf. Especially with rather wet doughs, the impulse to flour generously to prevent it from sticking is obviously there. And while you can and probably want to flour what’s going to be the outside of the loaf, you should be careful about not working the floury parts to the inside. There are a few different methods how to solve that, if you search for shaping especially wet dough, you will find various methods that can also be used for medium hydration doughs. For example, Foodgeek has a nice video where you can see the shaping of a boule completely without bench flour and a batard with minimal flouring.


How do you get a feel for the heat (direct heat)? On my stove, it appears that low heat is 1 - 3 on the nob, mid is 4 - 6 and high is 7 - 9. It works for me.

But, I'd like to know if there are indicators to determine the heat without the convenient numbers. Suppose I want to cook on a camp-fire...

What visual indicators are there. A smoking oil is too hot, anybody knows that. But I've no idea what to look for. Do you 'just' eyeball it?

There are a few factors that make it pretty easy to gauge heat:

Splash a few drops of cold water in a dry pan on an element.  If it bounces on the surface with a great fuss of noise, it's hot (medium-high).  Oil in a pan like this will smoke quickly, and is perfect for browning as adding ingredients will quickly drop the heat. Do not leave your hardware at this heat for long without adding anything to the pan.
Place your hand 3-4 inches over your grill or pan. If a few seconds become uncomfortable, it's above 400/450. If you can stand more seconds, it's 350ish.  And if it's comfortable it's probably not warm enough. I don't start grilling until my grill is closer to 600F (very obvious in a second or two).
If you have oil in a pan, look at the texture of the oil. If it's thick, it's still cool. You'll see it start to thin out and spread around (the oil will look very active); this is oil quickly warming.  As soon as the oil is at it's thinest it's hot.  When it starts to smoke, it's at the upper edge of it's heat range (add food quickly, or remove from heat). The texture of oil is quite neat to watch as it heats.
If you're deep frying, you'll see the texture change from #3.  As well, you can drop a tiny drop of water in the oil.  If it makes a fuss and starts to spit, the oil is above 350. The more fuss, the closer it 375 it is. Note that using too much water is dangerous, so you can alternatively try a small portion of the food you're frying. No bubbles means it's too cold.


Is it possible to make homemade crème fraiche using clotted buttermilk? I started making crème fraiche and when adding the buttermilk, the buttermilk had started to clot.  I didn't know this before adding it to the cream.  Am I still able to make the crème fraiche with this buttermilk?

Chances are the "clots" are harmless. Give the buttermilk a sniff and a (small) taste. Does it seem OK? If so, the curdling probably just means that the cultures are still healthy and doing their job.

Whisk it in, and stay the course. Your crème fraiche should be fine.

Of course if the buttermilk smells or tastes spoiled, throw it out.

Buttermilk (and to a lesser degree, dairy in general) is kind of unique in the food safety world in that the sniff test is 99.9% accurate. If it smells OK and tastes OK, it almost certainly is OK.


Is it safe to let prosciutto and parmesan rise in bread dough overnight? I tried an excellent prosciutto parmesan Italian loaf from a local bakery in Boston and I'd like to try making it myself. I have a great bread recipe (flour, water, yeast, salt) that has to sit at room temperature for 24 hours before baking. It's a no-knead bread, so you just pop the dough in a Dutch oven once it's risen. My question is, would it be okay to add the chunks of prosciutto and parm to the mixture before letting it rise overnight? I'm afraid if I add it in right before baking, the dough will get overworked and the bread will end up tough.

Parmigiano and Prosciutto are made to be stored for long times. 24 hours out of the fridge are ok, and if you have any doubt, remember you're still cooking them in a very hot oven.

BTW cover them somehow in order to avoid any contamination from insects or similar.


Ingredient to counter ammonia aroma/taste I am a fan of surface ripened cheeses, and in particular Wisconsin-made Limburger. My favorite way to eat it is right at the use-by date on the label. At that point, the surface smells heavily of ammonia, so I cut it off, let the interior mellow for a day or so, then enjoy the creamy stinky goodness.

Out of a 6oz block of cheese, I lose about 2.5 oz this way. I don't like to discard the trimmings, but the ammonia flavor is completely overwhelming. I was thinking about trying to make a cheese spread with the leftovers. My first attempt just used water and sodium citrate along with the cheese. The consistency was good, and the water diluted the ammonia flavor a bit, but it was still too much.

Is there an ingredient I could add that would act to neutralize (or partially neutralize) the smell and taste of ammonia in the cheese spread?

Try citric acid instead. That should complex the ammonia and take its taste down. Don't use too much or it'll get sour on you.


How to prepare butter for baking when time is limited? From my experience, the best way to use butter when baking is to let it soften to room temperature. However, sometimes one is short on time and must use the microwave to soften the butter. I always felt that cookies are better when the butter is a little firmer. Why is that? Is there a better way? Should I simply defrost the butter in the microwave carefully? Perhaps put it in a closed bag and run it under warm water?

To get your butter up to room temperature faster, you can slice it into very small pieces or grate it with a cheese grater and then leave it out in a single layer. It will get where you want it in around 10 minutes that way.

You cookies taste better with room temperature butter because they have more air in them. When you mix the butter, sugar and eggs in your cookie recipe you're creating an emulsion of oil, proteins and air. Those little air pockets in the cookie dough then help the cookie puff up when it bakes. When the butter is melted all the way before you mix it in, this emulsion has much less air in it than it should, so your cookies' texture isn't as good.


Can evaporated milk be converted to "regular" milk? I've got a recipe that calls for 2 1/2 cups whole milk, but I don't drink whole milk all that often and if I buy any it'll just end up spoiling in the fridge before I can use it all.

Canned evaporated milk, on the other hand, lasts a lot longer and from what I understand its just regular milk with ~60% of the water taken out of it. With that in mind, would I be able to convert evaporated milk into "regular" milk for use in cooking just by adding an equal amount of water?

Yes, you could certainly reconstitute evaporated milk by adding water.

The outcome would give you similar but not identical results as fresh milk, due to the change in flavor the milk underwent while being cooked down to the evaporated state:  it will retain the slightly cooked, caramelized flavor.  This may or many not have a significant effect on a given recipe.

Milk also freezes, and still is suitable for most cooking purposes, should you choose to do so.

Finally, if you use milk very rarely, unless you are making a dairy dominated recipe like custard or cream soup, you may not have to use milk at all.  Water or another liquid might perform similarly or well enough—it depends on the specific application.


I have a French Coconut pie recipe that calls for 1/2 cup butter. Could I replace it with condensed milk instead? I have a coconut pie recipe that uses 1/2 cup butter and 3 eggs.  Could I replace some of the butter with condensed milk?  Any other substitutes besides margarine?

Butter is about 80% fat, maybe a bit lower if you're getting it direct from the farmer; condensed milk is about 10% fat, so you'd need to use a lot of condensed milk and you'd probably have too much excess water to compensate by reducing extra liquids.

The best substitute would be another fat which is solid at room temperature. There aren't many (at least, not if you restrict to vegetable fats), but one which does meet the criterion is coconut oil, and since you're making a coconut pie that seems like an excellent substitute.


What are the modern or recommended ways of cooking corn on the cob? Most recommendations for cooking corn on the cob suggest putting it in boiling water for 10 minutes. I find this very undesirable for a number of reasons:

it takes a long time to boil the required water
takes too much of the flavour out
the water is wasted
so much energy is wasted

So, I cut them in half, and place them upright in a tiny amount of water—about 1mm depth—in a covered saucepan for 10 mins, making sure the water at the bottom is gently simmering.
What is the result?

It takes little time to cook in total: 10 minutes for the corn, and 2 minutes for the water.
I can use the water to flavor.
I barely uses energy once the water is boiled and the saucepan is covered.
The corn is juicy and delicious retaining its maximum flavor.

Now, I seriously doubt I'm some sort of culinary genius that has invented a new way of cooking corn, but I've never come across this method, so maybe there are more modern methods.

Lately, I've been direct grilling them fully stripped of the husk, with a brush of olive oil first.  Its relatively quick, but requires a bit of attention as you'll need to turn the ears.  You don't want the heat too high and it can be difficult not to dry the corn out.

It produces a distinct favor but its absolutely wonderful, everybody raves.  The slight smokiness and carmelization of the sugar in the corn heightens its favor considerably.  It produces a much different result than grilled corn wrapped in foil (which is essentially steaming the corn) or boiled corn.  Grilling in the husk is another common way, but its a much different result and not too different from grilling it with foil.

It was brought up in the comments, but the most 'modern' correlation to boiling the corn like you said, would be to sous vide it.  It's definitely 'modern', but sous vide is not quick.  It does preserve and intensify flavour well though.


Sourdough bread crumb ripped in two I've been trying my hand at sourdough bread for a few months now and it is getting better and better, but this keeps happening, and I have no idea what might be the cause:

My impression is that during the rise, the crumb tears into two pieces in the middle.

This is probably relevant: The dough is 80% hydration white bread flour, around 3 hours autolysis, then lamination and three stretches and folds spaced out. Altogether around six hours of bulk fermentation, overnight in the fridge (5 °C), and baked in the morning on a pizza stone, with 250 °C with steam for 20 minutes and 220 °C for 20 minutes (the oven has the air convection turned on).

My problem is I have no idea which part of the recipe is to blame for the outcome, so I'm not even sure where I am deviating from the recipe I'm trying to copy (to be very exact, I'm trying to follow this one now: How To Make A Basic Open Crumb Sourdough Bread)

I'm not sure if this is important, but it also doesn't open up so well (but I don't have a proper lame, so I'm struggling with the scoring):

How much steam are you using? You might try baking the first 20 minutes in a french oven* (aka enameled dutch oven) and then take off the lid, but don't add extra steam. If you don't have a lame, use a razor blade or a really sharp boning knife (or a sharp paring knife can also do).

This kind of problem can also be caused by underproofing, but it sounds like you're doing a good job there. Just make sure the bread doesn't spend too long proofing between your last fold and the fridge.

Also, just based on the shape it looks like your dough maybe over-hydrated.

*pre-heat the french oven and lid, though some people omit this step, drop in your bread, cover, bake for 20 minutes, then uncover and bake for 25-30 minutes longer.


Can UHT milk be used to make yogurt? So I know you can't use UHT milk to make cheese, because of the way the proteins get denatured at that temperature.  But can you use it to make yogurt?

UHT (Ultra High Temperature) processing kills all the pathogens in the milk, so it can be conserved for a long time. However to make yogurt you add bacteria (lactobacillus), so if there aren't other microorganism it should be even better.


Bell peppers become either crunchy or soggy Why can't I ever cook bell peppers to the right consistency?

Particularly in Asian dishes, and I have cut them various ways-- I continue cooking if they seem hard, then they become soggy and/or bitter.

Is there carry-over cooking that happens with bell peppers as there is with eggs?

Do the restaurants have a trick to get them to the proper consistency?

Maybe par boil or blanching prior to stirfry?

There is a slight carry over with most things you cook. However I think the answer to most "Why is my stir fry not like the restaurant's?" questions, has to do with heat. Their stoves are much, much more powerful. You simply can't get that with a typical home stove.

So, the way to get closest at home is to preheat your wok (or your largest flat, not non stick skillet) till it is screaming hot, add a bit of oil and cook your food in batches; No more than 1 layer and nothing crowding one another. Chef Ming Tsai suggests if you have a stainless steel wok that can go in the oven, to preheat it in there.

It should sizzle and keep sizzling through your cooking. If it isn't, you are steaming it, which will cause your softer texture. The key to stir fry, is to cook it really quickly. With the smaller batches, it'll all cook pretty quickly that in the end it doesn't take that much longer.

Edit: You asked about blanching. You might blanch some harder vegetables, to cut down on stir fry time but I can't see that helping for peppers of any sort.


Counteract the negative effects of spicy ingedients with other ingredients I love spicy foods.  Anything with ghost pepper is going to be gobbled up instantly.  I however do not like the negative effects when it comes to getting rid of the waste.

Is there anything you can put in your spicy dishes that maintain the spiciness, but neutralize it during digestion?

There's nothing you can put into the food that will neutralize the spice after you eat it. The only way to avoid the infamous "ring of fire" is to add less spice to begin with. One way you can do this is by removing the seeds. Some of the heat from chilis comes from the seeds, however it doesn't all get extracted from the cooking. After you eat the chili the seeds keep producing capsaicin, meaning your insides get more spice than your mouth. If you de-seed the chilis you need to use more as you lose some of the heat, but you'll get the full force when you eat the food. You can also use chili powder for most of the heat, and then whole or chopped chilis for decoration and texture as the capsaicins from the powder will be more fully extracted by the cooking process.

Some people drink yogurt based drinks (mango lassis and such) to counteract chili. This can calm the heat in your mouth and some people get some relief from the internal symptoms as well, however it's different for everyone and YMMV.

Still, there's only so much you can do, if you like really spicy food you have to be willing to pay the piper.


How to clean and trim parsnips? I have some parsnips, and recipe for them which said to:

  Wash and scrape parsnips, and cut into 2 inch strips.  Place into 2 inches of boiling water, and cook for 10 minutes, covered.  Drain, add butter, salt and pepper as desired.

By "scrape", does the author want me to just clean of most of the dirt / color with a brush, or should I just peel the parsnips?  Also, should I retain the core of the parsnip?

My grandmother scraped both her parsnips and her carrots. Basically you hold your knife perpendicular to the vegetable and drag it down the length. It's the same action as using a peeler. In fact, I usually just peel mine with a peeler. But scraping leaves a tiny bit more of the vegetable.


Traveling with Cooked Chicken My family suggested the process of grilling chicken on a thursday, freezing, traveling 8 hours by car (with meat on ice) on Friday, then reheating to serve on Saturday. Is this safe to consume?

It depends. The chicken cannot be at above 40 degrees for more than 2 hours. If it is frozen, and kept on ice it might be fine. I would store it with a thermometer and periodically check that it is still an appropriate temperature. If it stays frozen or refrigerator temperature for at least 6 of those hours, then you're fine.


How safe is it to harvest wild sassafras? I am interested in trying to incorporate wild sassafras (roots, mostly) into my cooking.  I have established definitively that the plants are sassafras, and not something else, so I'm not worried about accidentally picking the wrong thing.  However, I was reading up on it, and Wikipedia seems to think that the plant can be poisonous.  How true is this?  Is there a way to ensure safety in my cooking (beyond scrapping the project altogether)?

I have been cooking with sassafras roots for years, all wild, as taught by my Indian Lore classes in scouting, and what I teach to current scouts.  I also have taught specific recipes with the leaves, but only as flavoring in steaming and such, never eating (not for harm or issues, but because of the bitter aftertaste of the leaves)

As far as your actual questions:

How true is this?
Is there a way to ensure safety in my cooking (beyond scrapping the project altogether)?

For 1, I would have to say that they are true, but also clinical, and I have not been able to discover any documentation that sassafras directly harms humans, only that some of the compounds found in sassafras are harmful at higher levels, and given that the plants are wild, the concentration levels are unknown.

For 2, I would say that one standard root (approx 6 inches in length of varying circumferences) is good for about a half of a gallon to a gallon of water, boiled 2 to three times.   If you want a concentrated flavor, boil the water down, and you will get a more potent mixin liquid.   (also used for making beers, and ales - ginger ale included, both alcoholic and non alcoholic)


How Should I Store Brown Sugar? How can I store brown sugar as it always gets hard before I can use it all. How do you store brown sugar? Does it need to be refrigerated?  Also, How can you make hard brown sugar soft again?

I always store brown sugar in an airtight, ziplock bag. That works pretty well for preventing it from getting hard. It does not need to be refrigerated.

However, if your brown sugar is already hard, there are a few techniques that people often recommend for resoftening it. These include: storing it in a closed container for a short period of time with apple slices (which will impart moisture); doing the same with a slice of bread (which will also impart some moisture); or, briefly microwaving it.

Here is a cooking blog which discusses some of these approaches:
https://www.thekitchn.com/4-ways-to-soften-brown-sugar-and-keep-it-that-way-195922


Use of traditional copper sauteuse pans I have been given a set of very thick and heavy tinned copper sauteuse pans, 5 in all, ranging from large down to small. I have no idea what they are used for. They don't come with lids but I have copper lids with gunmetal handles that came with a set of Leon Jaeggi saucepans that were a wedding present forty years ago.

If anyone has a definitive answer for their use in an old fashioned professional kitchen I would appreciate it.

A sauteuse pan is a very versatile pan. If you have no lid, it's a great pan for sautéing and browning. With a thin layer of oil you can cook vegetables, scallops, latkes, etc. If you have lids that fit you can braise in these. You can also use to cook pasta, stews, etc. Copper is good conductor, so these should heat evenly. I also sometimes use a pan like this for pâte à choux. They sound like really nice pans.


Skin on black bean soup Sometimes when I make black bean soup it forms a skin. Why is this?

Ingredients are: beans, olive oil, salt pepper, garlic, cayenne pepper, and cumin.

Whenever beans are cooked, they release a good bit of starch into the cooking liquid.

The longer you cook the beans, the more starch they release. Boiling, breaking or otherwise roughing up the beans will release more starch.

Also, canned beans release a good bit of their starch into the water in the can.

If you have more starch, you'll probably get more of a skin.

Puddings (also liquid + starch) form a skin the same way your soup does.


Added more flour than what the recipe calls for to make butter cookies In the process of baking some butter cookies using the following recipe, I mistakenly added 1/2 cup flour more than what the recipe calls for, and it is now mixed with other ingredients (in a food processor). This happened 3 days ago and I have the semi-batter in an airtight container on the counter since then. I'd like to know if there is any way to save the ingredients. I think I could double the recipe but not sure how it will turn out considering the 48+ hours that it lived in the kitchen.  Here's the recipe:

  100gr butter

  2/3 cup powdered sugar

  1/8 tsp vanilla powder

  3 egg yolks

  2 cups flour

If you added too much flour, you could increase the rest of the ingredients, so that the ratios are more or less equal than in the original recipe.

In your case, in theory, you have about 125% flour, so you would need 125 gram of butter, about 4/5 cup of powdered sugar,  3⁄20 of vanilla extract and 3.75 egg yolks.
However in practice, I think you would be fine if you would leave the other ingredients as is, or if the egg yolks are rather small, add a fourth one. A small increase of sugar would work though.

Nevertheless, as your batter was in the fridge for three days, I would throw it out because of the egg yolks.


Highest protein-dense, low fat, raw, plant-based ingredient? What ingredient that can be eaten raw has the highest protein content and lowest fat for its weight?

I'd say young green peas are a good bet. They belong to the broader bean family, which is in itself very high protein. However, many beans can't be eaten raw, be it because they can't be digested  or are even a bit toxic when raw. Young green peas on the other hand have a good amount of protein while they still can be eaten raw, about 2.5-6g per 100g, depending on the variety, according to (German) Wikipedia (English Wikipedia gives 5.42g). They are low fat, too, but a bit higher in carbohydrates.

However, this is still not that much protein compared to the recommended 45-55g you need each day. You'd have to eat at least 1kg of green peas to get your daily recommended dosage of protein. So I'm not sure if it fits your needs.

That said, not knowing why you want them raw, I guess you could also have ripe, dried green peas (even higher in protein: ~25g per 100g) ground into a flour and mix it with water to create a mash (this would work with other kinds of beans as well, although I'm not sure which ones can and which ones shouldn't be eaten raw.) This would certainly qualify as high-protein, low fat, raw, and plant-based, but I'm not sure it would be a culinary bomb.


Stock Pot vs. Dutch Oven / Sauce Pot I currently have this on order and plan on using it for stocks, broths, and boiling grains/vegetables.

My question is: what are the advantages of a dutch oven / sauce pot over this when it comes to most other types of cooking? Rather than the advantages of cast-iron vs. stainless steel I'm more interested in the general question of why a stock pot isn't ideal for braising, sauteing, or stew/chili, especially when the one I ordered has a clad bottom and is oven-safe. Does it just come down to the tall, narrow shape and clunky size?

If it really does make sense to also have a dutch oven / sauce pot on hand, would I be wiser to start with stainless steel or enameled cast iron?

The answer is that both can be used just fine for the same purposes, however stock pots tend to have much thinner walls than the bottom and thinner than those found on Dutch ovens. The thinner walls mean that they retain less heat and so are less efficient at cooking on the stove top (e.g. soups), and more likely to burn or stick around the walls if placed in the oven - because of the faster heat transfer on these thin surfaces.

Stainless steel is more prone to sticking for some items too (e.g. eggs, meats), and is relatively difficult to season (it's generally not done to stainless), whereas cast-iron can be seasoned very easily, it's more or less mandatory for this material and essentially makes it more or less non-stick.

Enameled/ceramic-coated cast-iron pots such as the Le-Creuset ones are generally non-stick from the shop and have the same benefits as cast-iron.

Having said that I use an oven-safe stock pot for making things like pasta-bake, where it is in the oven for relatively short periods of time (~40 min - 1h), and don't generally have any problems.


When should I ditch a pot with teflon? Possible Duplicate:
  How to know whether the teflon coated pan's life has reached end?

We have this set of teflon covered pots, how do I know when the teflon gets too worn out? Or does it ever?
Things we put in, does not come as easily of, as it did when the were new.

They are aprox. 6 years old.

Ehow has an article on the specific dangers non-stick coatings can cause to humans and pets including fumes from heating a pan to too high a temperature,  which I was unaware of.

Of course, if the coating is flaking or fuzzy-looking, actual coating material, which is a carcinogen, can leach into the food cooked in the pan.

Link to the Ehow article:
http://www.ehow.com/list_6531918_dangers-using-teflon-cookware.html


Can I substitute buttermilk by curdling coconut milk with acid? I love to bake but can't justify buying buttermilk for the odd time a recipe calls for it.  Instead, I add vinegar to milk to replicate the buttermilk.(it works perfectly).  At the same time, I LOVE to bake with coconut milk, substituting it for milk in the recipe.  My question is, can I add vinegar to coconut milk and get the same results when substituting it for the buttermilk?

No, you cannot. Cow milk has proteins, which curdle when exposed to acid, thickening the whole thing. Coconut milk is simply a suspension of fat in water, with very few carbohydrates and practically no proteins. You cannot curdle it with acid.


Keeping the taste consistent in hummus after initial cooking I make hummus a lot and love the taste. My recipe is pretty refined now - it could probably go commercial.

There's one problem though: the taste degrades substantially after a night or so, and I'd like to see what I can do to tackle this. Especially the chick pea flavour "flips" to more darker tones, and the effect of the salt appears to be negated, requiring reseasoning (which feels really weird to me, no other dips that I make do this kind of thing). I've tried both dried and canned chick peas and I'm using the fresh salt from a mill to season.

Suggestions greatly appreciated.

Fresh-made hummus, without any preservatives added, will usually start to spoil after a couple of hours. This is actually perfectly normal behaviour, as the warm protein and fat rich environment is perfect for some microscopic friends to breed in.

This is actually why restaurant hummus is always so much better than supermarket hummus, which needs to be preserved to last.

The best thing you can do is to refrigerate the hummus immediately, to slow down the activity of the bacteria.
It may also help to add a bit more lemon juice to make the environment more acid.

Note that the maximum this will get you is 24-36 hours more. Don't expect it to last longer than that without serious preservatives.


Which type of flour would be better to use in this case? I have 450g whole wheat white flour and I would like to bake a bread which needs 500g. I have also different types of flour, corn and barley flour, Which one to use for that 50g shortage of flour? Note that the shops are closed now, that's why I need to use one of flour types I have at home.

As you will be using whole wheat flour as opposed to the flour called for in the recipe, you won't need to choose based on preserving the original texture. I would recommend the barley flour as being most compatible with wheat flour.


How do I properly freeze a frosted cake? I have a purchased frosted cake I would like to use closer to Christmas. I do not know if it would keep properly in the refrigerator without freezing.  How could I freeze it properly ?  (preferably without damaging the icing, as it is a very expensive cake)

You can generally freeze cakes, with our without icing, for a month without problems.  Beyond that, opinions vary...

How to wrap it depends on what type of cake and what type of icing.

For a cake covered in fondant:

wrap it in plastic wrap (multiple layers if you feel like it, by the time I make sure edges are overlapped I pretty much have two layers)
then wrap it in aluminum foil (I've never found a good explanation of why you need to do it, but it's what I learned to do...)

For buttercream:

freeze the iced cake first, then wrap carefully plastic wrap.
I've never managed to do this without messing up the icing at least a bit.  Work quickly, try not to touch the icing (heat from your hands will soften the icing), use lots of plastic wrap and let it be a bit looser.

In your case:  if "closer to Christmas" means "in a couple weeks" and if the icing is very nice, I wouldn't wrap it.  I'd get either a large enough container or a large plastic bowl that could be placed over the cake and sealed to the plate and just freeze it like that.


Can I bake a christmas cake in a cardboard box? So, usually christmas cake recipes call for  wrapping paper/cardboard around the cake to insulate it a bit. (See this question: Why should I wrap a cake tin in newspaper?)
I find myself lacking in newspaper but with a plethora of shipping boxes due to all the online purchases I've found myself doing recently. I happen to have a box that would be the perfect size (small enough to fit in the oven, but big enough for the cake). And also this seems like a great lazy person solution that appeals to me.
To be clear, I mean to put the Christmas cake mix in the baking tin, and then put that in the box.
Given the box is devoid of plastic (paper tape and cardboard only), and isn't touching the element (obviously), would this be a viable method? Anything I need to keep in mind? My plan is to close the box entirely top and bottom and interleave the flaps so that nothing comes open.
Particular concerns:

The box catching fire
The printing on the box releasing chemicals into my food
The oven convection being impeded

Any reasons why this is a bad idea?
(My cake is currently in the oven, I jumped ahead a bit and then thought maybe I should check anyway. It hasn't caught fire yet).
(Also, I did also see the reduce-by-15C-forgo-the-box-entirely method, but my oven only goes down to 140C, the next step down is 100.)

While there is some possibility it could work, I wouldn't even try it. There are things that can go wrong, and many proven solutions to the problem. Replacing a bad hack (newspaper) with a worse hack (cardboard box) is not something I would be keen to try.
A list of preferred solution includes:

use cake strips
bake the cake in a different pan (bundt or thick-walled ceramic pan)
go for a flatter and wider cake (bake it in a quiche pan or a large tawa)
make it a layered cake and bake the layers separately
reduce the temperature and bake for longer
partially bake in a waterbath, then continue without it

If you are absolutely sure that your cake needs a full enclosure (which is quite strange for me - it is actually one of the reasons why I would avoid the cardboard box) I would prefer putting the cake in a roasting dish (earthenware/ceramic or metal) rather than in a cardboard box.


Why won't my bread rise much during baking? I'm trying some bread making for the first time and am having a hard time getting my bread to rise during baking. Here is the recipe I'm following: http://www.food.com/recipe/5-minute-artisan-bread-325571

(FYI I'm at 5,200 ft above sea level)

I followed the recipe exactly, except for the following modifications or problems:

The steam part didn't work since I have a gas oven so all the steam just got exhausted out
I baked the bread at 440 rather than 450 to compensate for the higher altitude (I've heard people say that you should subtract one degree for every 500 feet)
I forgot to do the little decorative slashes on top

The dough rose really well right after I made it. And it rose a bit while resting 40 minutes prior to baking. But it hardly rose at all in the oven (sitting in a glass baking dish), and the finished loaf is barely two inches tall. Any idea what went wrong? It was still plenty tasty… just a bit flatter than desired!

]1

In order to understand what's going wrong you need to understand what's happening in the oven.

Bread rises in the oven because the yeast gets a boost from the heat before it is killed by it, and by the expansion of gases (O2, CO2, and water vapor) trapped in the dough. Well-developed gluten will trap air well, under-developed gluten will allow it to escape. Moist air keeps the skin from hardening, allowing pressure to expand the loaf and open the texture. The slashes on the top are not just decorative, they act like folds on a concertina, again allowing the dough to expand and open the texture. Look at the pictures at the top of your recipe and you'll see that a 1mm slash widens a lot during baking. When baking your bread first expands, then the skin hardens as the inside cooks solid, trapping the air in the structure.

There are many factors which could result in your bread not rising in the oven, or it could be a combination:

Bread dough too dry:  if there is not enough water in the dough then the yeast will not be able to function as well, your bread won't have as much water vapor to help expand it in the oven, and the crust will dry and harden faster in the oven. High altitude saps moisture quickly, so adding a bit more water makes sense to try. You don't need much, 10-20 ml can make the difference
Bread overproofed: bread dough proofs more quickly at high altitude. This may seem like a bonus, but it actually is bad for gluten development and flavor development. Yeast does not just create CO2, it also develops gluten and makes your dough stretchy, the more time it takes for this process the better it does. If it goes too quickly the dough could also collapse because the structure is underdeveloped. Try slowing down your yeast by reducing the yeast in the dough by half, and using cold water instead of warm water at the start. Proofing in the refrigerator is already called for in the recipe, but is a good idea for most bread making at altitude
Dough mis-handled: The recipe calls for stretching the dough, if this was done roughly then you could squash the air bubbles out. Less air in the dough is less air to expand
Oven temperature wrong: If your oven is too cool the air in the dough will be able to escape before the structure hardens to hold it in place, if it is too hot then it will solidify before the air can fully expand, and kill the yeast faster. Ovens cook by convection, less air means less heat transfer, so reducing the temperature would mean much less heat for your bread. I've never seen high altitude recipes call for a cooler oven, always the same or hotter. High altitude bread advice seems to call for the same temperatures at sea level, at least up to 6000ft above sea level, and if anything increasing rather than decreasing. Try keeping your oven at 450f next time.
Oven too dry: Water boils away very quickly at altitude, it's not your gas oven causing it, but physics. You need to have a deep pan of water in the oven, not a shallow tray, and supplement it with a spray bottle of water. You spray water in and close the door right away (make sure it's water in the bottle, once I mixed up my water bottle with surface cleaner and got a faceful of fumes - awful!). Even that may not be enough, which is why my advice would be to bake in a covered pot. The ideal thing to use would be a cloche, which is an ceramic pot used specifically for trapping in moisture when baking bread, however a covered dutch oven or large covered casserole works just fine - I use a large Le Creuset, never seen a cloche outside of pictures. You bake lid on for the first half of the cooking time, then remove the lid to allow the crust to harden and crisp. There's no need for a pan of water if you use a covered pot


What reasons are there for a stove's burner plug to burn out? My landlady says the burner plug on my stove burned because I had the stove on for too long at high temperatures.

What other reasons might there be for the burner plug on a stove to burn?

There is virtually nothing you could do to cause an electric element to fail.  The element is completely sealed and it plugs into a receptacle in the stove that is made to accept it.  When they do fail it is due to age and usage. They can wear out by using them.  Putting a pot on and off the burner over and over for YEARS can wear through the surface and cause a short at the burner.  YEARS LIKE 10 OR 20.  If you really meant to say "plug" then the wear and tear would happen when removing the burners to clean the drip pan. Again, over years.  You can't use a stove without this happening. Things wear out.


I want my potatoes to be baked within an hour, but I forgot to preheat the oven. Should I put them in while preheating or not? I forgot to preheat the oven while prepping my potatoes to be baked.  Dinnertime is one hour away.  I put them in anyway and turned on the oven.  My spouse says I should not put them in yet because the oven will preheat more slowly with the potatoes inside.  I think my spouse is right, but I still think the potatoes will be ready just as early (if not a bit earlier) the way I did it since they will start heating up with the oven.
Can anyone tell me for sure one way or another?

I'm going to assume 'baked potatoes'[1] to be 'jacket potatoes' in the absence of any other evidence.
As already mentioned, putting them in a cold oven as it heats might win you five minutes, but not much more. It's very slightly more efficient overall than waiting for the oven to be hot then opening the door.
Two additional methods of speeding up jacket potatoes.

Put a metal skewer through the longest centre, then bake in the oven.

Alternatively: Split the task, half microwave, half oven. Prick the skins with a fork first, or they may explode in the microwave. 15 mins* at full power, then 15 mins in the oven is a 'fair guess' at how long it will take. This, of course will vary depending on size/weight of potatoes, power of microwave & temperature of oven.
*I think the last time I ever actually did this, I had an 850W microwave. Reduce time accordingly if you have a more powerful one.
Though the mic should manage to have heated the centres in around 15 mins, you can still use the skewer trick once they're ready to go in the oven. The skewers would still be useful to test the centres are cooked in the mic before you transfer.

The essence of the microwave method is to get the centres cooked before you transfer to the oven, to add back some flavour.
I'd weigh up which method to try based on how much time you have. Skewers will bring the time down by maybe a third, so that might be borderline for your hour from cold. Mic + oven & you're down to half an hour or so, but the result isn't quite as good.
I suppose you could still use the microwave as a starter, even if your result is to be 'roast potatoes' ie, peeled, chopped, done in hot fat. It will be a lot messier, but should still be feasible. I've never tested this, so timings & quality of result you'd have to find out for yourself;)
[1]Addendum
This may be cultural/linguistic, but to clarify from a UK perspective, these are baked (or jacket) potatoes…
Comments suggest the same descriptions are true for the US.

…and these are roast potatoes


How is long-lasting whipped cream made? Cakes made of whipped-cream by professionals last for a long time in a consistent, white state. However, from what I know, whipped cream tends to become yellow and return to a more liquid state in a few hours. I prepare whipped cream with just the cream and an electric mixer, so I assume there's some magic ingredient or process to keep the thing stable. Where's the trick ?

There are two levels to this question. If you are using modern whipping cream as a starting point, then the trick for a longer lasting whipped cream is stabilization. If this is some farm bought milk you are skimming the cream from, then you have the additional problem that your cream is not fatty enough. Modern creams are concentrated with a centrifuge.

To get good whipped cream, whip it cold until it doubles in volume and you get firm peaks. Stabilize the whipped cream by hanging it in a cheese cloth in the refrigerator or by adding gelatin.To use the gelatin, dissolve 2 teaspoons of unflavored gelatin into 2 tablespoons of cold water. Work out the lumps. After the gelatin expands, mix in a quarter cup of cream and heat the mixture to dissolve the gelatin.  Cool over ice and mix a bit. Complete 2 cups of cream and proceed as you would to finish your whipped cream.


Coconut milk substitutions? I am looking for a substitution for coconut milk. I am highly allergic to coconut, but often see recipes I would like to try that call for it.

You can use cow's milk with some grated coconut or coconut extract. Or because I just saw your allergy you can use equal parts of milk, sesame oil and molasses.


Why is a Gruyère sweet when it contains 0 carbohydrates? I have read on packaging that a Gruyère appears to be around 0 g, maybe 0.4 g carbohydrates per 100g. How come it tastes sweet?

Cheese is a complex variety of chemical compounds some of which can taste sweet. I don't know the exact make up of Gruyère but according to this article there are a couple of compounds that are known to lend a sweet flavor. Including: butyric acid, Alanine, glycine, serine, threonine, ethanol, etc.

Wikipedia says that Gruyère is a "sweet" cheese so I would assume these compounds mentioned above are in higher amounts than other cheeses.


Can I use rhubarb without tons of sugar? My yard is crawling with rhubarb, a hardy perennial that comes back every year in greater numbers. As far as I can tell, recipes usually involve a pie or jam with gratuitous amounts of sugar to wash away the bitter taste.  Can it be reliably used in ways without all that sugar?

I've been asking my friends a similar question all week.  The most interesting answer was by a friend whose mom used to parboil it and add it to stir fry with shrimp.  Perhaps add a bit of ginger and honey.


What's the difference between "baby lamb" and "lamb"? Fact #1: A lamb is a baby sheep.

Fact #2: I was watching a cooking show today, and one of the ingredients available was referred to as "baby lamb".

I'm a bit confused as to what "baby lamb" is. I don't think there are "degrees" of "baby-ness"; the sheep is either a baby (a lamb) or it's not. I considered another definition of "baby", as in "baby vegetables", where the item is just smaller than normal. But the pieces of lamb that were indicated didn't look especially small. They just looked like normal meat.

So... What differentiates normal lamb from "baby lamb"? I'm stumped.

According to Britannica:

  The meat of sheep 6 to 10 weeks old is usually sold as baby lamb, and
  spring lamb is from sheep of five to six months.


Chinese rice vermicelli tastes of chemicals We bought a large package of dry rice vermicelli recently at our local Thai market. We've cooked it a couple of times, and both times once it starts to boil it gives off a chemical odor, sort of like lye or chlorine (not really either, but that kind of thing). It doesn't rinse off, though rinsing helps a bit. Once rinsed, the chemical smell is not strong enough that it's a problem if you have any kind of sauce on the noodles, but eaten plain they definitely have a chemical funk.

I haven't cooked with this style of rice noodle a lot (we usually do cellophane noodles, which seem different), so maybe this is normal. Can anybody tell me if this is something we should expect with this kind of noodle?

The package was new, clean, and in perfect condition, so if there was some kind of contamination it happened in the factory.

I've made rice vermicelli many times, and I've never smelled anything like what you describe.  I suggest throwing out the ones you have, and buying a different brand (or maybe shopping at a different store).


Can I make this bread recipe gluten free? My fiance has celiac disease and so I have been trying to get better at baking gluten-free lately. I have made the following recipe many times and it is soooo delicious; I was wondering if someone more knowledgeable than myself can help me with the proper conversions to make the recipe gluten free? The recipe is found here, but I have also copied it below. My initial thoughts are trading the bread flour and whole wheat flour for a mixture of buckwheat and garfava flour with maybe 2 tsp of xantham gum. Thank you for any help!

Ingredients
Night Before:

* 1/3 cup bread flour
* 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
* 1/3 cup lukewarm water
* 1/8 teaspoon instant yeast

Soaker:

* 1/4 cup toasted cracked wheat
* 1/4 cup water

Day of:

* 2 cups bread flour
* 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
* 1 cup lukewarm water
* 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
* 1 cup roasted potatoes and onions

Method

The night before you want to make this bread add all the "night before" ingredients
together and mix till smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and leave on the counter for
12-16 hours. In a separate bowl combine the "soaker" ingredients together and cover
with plastic wrap and leave on the counter for 12-16 hours. In the morning chop a few
potatoes and place in a baking dish. Cut about a half a onion and mix with the
potatoes. Add a few tablespoons of olive oil and some thyme roast in the oven till
golden brown. Cool before using in the bread. Prep all the ingredients you will need
ahead. This will help to make things move faster. In a large bowl add the "night
before" mixture, the soaker, water, salt and instant yeast. Mix together. Add whole
wheat flour and have the bread flour. Mix till the batter is smooth and well blended.
Allow to sit uncovered for 15 minutes. Sprinkle some of the flour onto a flat surface
and pour out the dough. Top with some more flour and begin to knead slowly adding in
the rest of the flour. Add a little at a time till the dough is smooth and elastic.
Plus, a little on the sticky side. You will need to knead the dough for about 8 - 10
minutes. Take the dough and flatten it out a little. Add the roasted potatoes and
onions to the top of the dough. Now, knead in the potatoes into the dough. Knead till
the potatoes and onions are well incorporated. Add a little olive oil to a bowl and
place the dough into the bowl. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and allow to rest
till double in bulk. Pour out the dough onto a flat surface. Cut dough in half and
shape each piece into a ball. Sprinkle some cornmeal onto parchment paper. Place the
pieces of dough on top and dust with a little whole wheat flour. Cover with plastic
wrap and allow to rest for 1 hour. Remove the plastic wrap and score the top of the
bread with a sharp knife. Place into a preheated 440 degree oven with a baking stone
or on a cookie sheet. Create some steam by placing a cast iron pan on the bottom of
the oven the same time that you turn on the oven. Once you place the breads into the
oven pour about a cup of boiling water into the hot pan and close the door. Bake for
30 -35 minutes or till when tapped on the bottom of the loaf it sounds hollow.

Gluten free bread recipes are hard to get right, and maybe won't function with kneading per hand (there was a question about non-rising gluten free bread yesterday). You are much better off with an existing gluten-free bread recipe. Pick one which you know to be good, and prepare the dough as usual. Follow the recipe which is described here from the "Take the dough and flatten it out a little" sentence on, using your known good gluten-free dough instead of the one described here.

I don't know what would be the best substitute for the soaked wheat, experiment with soaked grains or myabe something else which gives a slight crunch (sunflower seeds, almond pieces - don't soak these).


Do acid and fat balance each other? How? I have heard many times that acid is added to a dish to "cut through" the richness, and conversely, that if one adds to much acid, this can be balanced out by the addition of a fat. Do acids and fats balance each other out like this and, if so, what is the mechanism or science behind it?

Fats have a bland taste and oily feel. Fatty foods can be made more tasteful by adding acids.

Acids stimulate taste, similarly as salt and, yes, they give the sensation of cutting through fat (Herbivoracious.com).

On the other hand, adding fats to acids (oil to vinegar in a salad) can decrease sharp acidic taste, but this happens only on a sensation level, not on a chemistry level, because fats do not absorb or chemically react with acids.

I'm not aware of any nutritional benefits of acid-fat mixtures. Acids also do not help significantly in fat digestion. Fats are relatively inert - they do not readily react with acids, alcohol...


Is it possible to make a jam-setting gelling agent at home? Many jam and marmalade recipes call for a gelling agent in order to solidify the fruit-sugar mixture. While some fruits (like apples) may contain enough of a gelling agent (pectin) to solidify themselves while cooked for a long time I wonder what I can do with other fruits if I don't have a gelling agent at hand (they are quite hard to get a hold of where I live).

I read about adding orange, lemon or apple peel or cores as well as boiling down apples in order to extract the pectin but I'm curious if there are other, maybe more foolproof and accurate ways, to imitate a gelling agent (pectin or anything else which works for a jam).

The book Putting Food By (Hertzberg) has a recipe:10 lbs. apples yields 1 pint pectin. Seems jam & jelly specific.


Is there a bacteria that would eat gluten for cooking? Is there some yeast or bacteria that will eat gluten? I was hoping for some kind of yeast, but I can't find one. Where could I look?

"How do I make gluten-free bread?" is a question that's answerable simply by searching for "gluten-free bread recipes". The key to those recipes is that they start from a gluten-free flour, and take some steps to ensure that there's enough structure to hold the bread together despite the lack of gluten. There's a bit of variety in gluten-free flours; the good ones are a mix of starches that work better in baking applications than an arbitrary gluten-free flour might.

If in contrast you tried to make gluten-free bread by starting with normal bread and destroying the gluten, you wouldn't have edible bread anymore. You'd have to add other things to create the structure, in which case you might as well just have started with gluten-free flour.


Weird air pockets/bubbles on bottom of cake I've been baking this recipe for over a year now, flavour and texture are wonderful, the guests love it but half of the time I get these air pockets on the bottom of the cake.
The air pockets appear at the center of the bottom and also at the sides. Sometimes they're barely there, sometimes they're big enough that I'm unsure if i'll serve it to guests (for exemple when they're 3cm height).

Recipe is as follows:

150g cashew nuts (roasted, unsalted) chopped in a food processor
30g white flour
125g sugar
pinch of salt
4 egg whites, lightly beaten with a fork
150g butter, heated untill brown
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Everything at room temperature.
Preparation is staightfoward: mix dry ingredients, add egg whites, add butter and vanilla. Cooks at 160~180C for 45~50m untill golden brown. Lower temperatures do not make the bubbles disappear.
What causes these air pockets? Has anyone faced a similar issue before?

That happened to me as well. Luckily it doesn't change the taste, but it is annoying! It comes from air pockets which formed because you whisked/mixed your cake batter too intensely, and/or for too long, which creates air bubbles. So first, it is best to mix your ingredients delicately, try to avoid incorporating too much air (easier said than done), and stop whisking once your batter reached the desired homogeneous consistency (overwhisking is a common mistake). Then, when you pour your cake batter in the pan, it's better to avoid pouring it all at once in the center, it will also create air bubbles. It's better to pour it delicately from one corner and let it spread by itself in the dish. Finally, before putting in the oven, tap (delicately) the bottom of your pan on the counter to free the remaining air bubbles and let them reach the surface before cooking.
I hope that will help, let me know!


How would I susbtitute fresh spinach for frozen? I have many recipes that call for frozen spinach but only have fresh spinach on hand.

Suppose I have a recipe that calls for, say a 10 oz. package of frozen chopped spinach with the water squeezed out.  Short of blanching and freezing, how can I prepare the functional equivalent using fresh spinach?

I'd like to know the approximate equivalent weight of the fresh spinach, plus some procedure for removing the moisture such that I don't end up with a watery mess in the end product.

Frozen spinach has been boiled/blanched. You can do this if you really want it to be as much like frozen spinach as possible, but really, you can just cook it with the water left on the leaves from washing - effectively a bit more like steaming. There's no need to freeze it. This will result in something with fresher flavor and a bit more substantial texture than frozen spinach (not as eager to disintegrate). And you don't have to worry about moisture much - a lot of the water will cook off - but you can certainly drain it additionally if it's too much for you.

If you really want it exactly like frozen spinach, you could boil it, and maybe even freeze it to help mess up the texture, but I'm guessing you'd prefer cooked fresh spinach anyway. In this case, you'd have to squeeze and drain it just like with frozen spinach to get the water out. (If it's unclear how to do this, see What is the most efficient way to squeeze water out of cooked spinach?.)

Based on nutrition facts for raw spinach and frozen spinach, one 10 ounce package is approximately the amount you'll get from cooking a 340g (12 ounce) bunch of spinach - that weight is probably after removing the stems you're not actually going to cook, though. This fits with my experience cooking down spinach. Most things you'll use it in are really forgiving, so probably best to err on the larger side with your bunch of spinach!


Pasteurizing frozen milk I normally pasteurize my goats milk before I freeze it, however I also freeze some Raw milk. Can I pasteurize my goat milk after I have frozen it raw?

There should be no problem with this from a food safety point of view. Freezing will "pause the clock" on spoilage, because bacteria's metabolism needs liquid water to happen. When you unfreeze, the food is as safe (or unsafe) as when you froze it.

You should ensure that your thawing process is also safe. If you have the time, thaw overnight in the fridge. If you don't, do it quickly. For a liquid product like milk, stovetop heating will be probably best. Don't just leave it in the counter to thaw.

I don't know if there will be some texture problems (such as clumping) if you cook or pasteurize previosly frozen milk. Try it out and see if it is OK. If yes, you can keep doing it.


Fully baked cookies in a 90 F car I made some cookies about four days ago - a modification of a fairly standard chocolate chip cookie recipe augmented with cocoa powder in the dry ingredients, and marshmallows in the center. They are moist at the center and crisp at the outside. Baked at 350 F for about 15 minutes.

They were left in my car, at a temperature of probably about 90 F (outside temps were cooler, and I was parked in the shade, but it was very hot out), for about two hours later that day. They've been in my refrigerator since then.

Now, ordinarily I wouldn't hesitate to leave them out on the counter (at a normal 70 F or so) or in the fridge, and eat them until they were gone, or became too stale. I confess, I didn't think twice about eating one this evening, either, until I read about food safety on here and saw the special rules about 90 F and higher temperatures.

My question is: Are foods that are normally considered safe for some days/weeks at 70 F unsafe after a shorter time 90 F? If so, does the standard "one hour at 90 F" rule apply, or is it some longer period of time? Is the added risk significant enough to be determinable?

Edit: In appreciation of the thorough answers, just want to update everyone: after more than a day, no ill effects. I've continued to eat them. Believe me, they are amazing cookies. If anything else happens, I'll update again, but otherwise, thanks for the responses and it looks like no harm, no foul! (Naturally, this is only anecdotal, but at least it's a nice data point.)

Baked goods are generally considered to be a 'low risk' food when you're dealing with health codes.  That is to say, you don't typically need to worry if they've been kept in the 'food danger zone' for too long on a period.

In fact, I'd say that some of the best cookies I've had in the past decade were chocolate chip cookies that had spent an hour or two in a hot car shortly before eating.  (the chocolate was just to the point where it melted in your mouth as you ate it, without being so warm that it was melting all over your fingers).

So, is there increased risk?  Yes, especially if they had been contaminated with something before being put in the car.  But for breads and cookies, I wouldn't personally worry about a couple of hours at a warmer temperature.

I'd be more cautious with baked goods more hospitable to microbial growth -- wet pie fillings, meat pies, etc.  Although pepperoni rolls are generally okay, as the pepperoni itself is something that's shelf stable for multiple weeks.  (and they're really good when they're slightly warmed, like having been in a warm car)

If you wanted to be really paranoid about the whole situation, you could've put most of the cookies in the fridge, but have left out a couple at room temperature in a sealed container.  This would serve like a petri dish to attempt to determine if there is significant microbial contamination to worry about.  If they don't go all strange on you after a couple of days, the ones in the fridge should be fine to eat.


Buttery Chocolate chip cookies How do I make chocolate chip cookies taste more buttery? I do use real butter (I have tried both salted and unsalted). Should I try a particular brand? European butter?

The exhaustively researched Serious Eats article `The Science of the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies' has some relevant ideas.

In particular: browning the butter beforehand (as in a buerre-noisette) brings out its nutty flavours. Since this removes moisture, it might be necessary to compensate by adding a bit more egg or egg yolk. Melting the butter gives a denser cookie that should taste more buttery than the more `cakey' cookies from the creaming method.

European butter has slightly more butter fat than American butter (minimum 82% versus minimum 80%), giving a richer taste. I suggest experimenting with several different brands.


How to get quesadillas to stick closed without cheese Recently, I’ve tried making stove-cooked quesadillas without any cheese. I’ve used hummus in place  of alright, though the quesadillas often fall apart when flipped. Hummus doesn’t have the same ‘glue’ like quality that cheese has when it’s heated. So how do I get quesadillas to glue together, while not having cheese?

Quesadilla literally means "little cheese." A quesadilla without cheese isn't a quesadilla. It's a tortilla folded in half with stuff inside.
To get a folded-in-half tortilla to stick together without cheese, try eggs. Put the open tortilla in the pan, then pour a thin layer of beaten eggs on top. Cook slowly until the eggs start to solidify but are still wet on top. Then fold the tortilla in half. The raw layer of eggs should stick to itself when it finishes cooking.

Note: I haven't tried this myself, so I don't have exact quantities and timing figured out. This idea is based on a recipe for breakfast egg wraps where the eggs are poured into the pan first, then cooked until somewhat solid but still wet on top, then a tortilla is placed on top so it sticks to the raw eggs. Then the whole thing is flipped over, so the tortilla gets nice and crispy and the egg finishes cooking. That recipe used one egg per tortilla (but didn't specify what size of tortilla). The challenge with the modification I suggested above will be getting the eggs fully cooked without burning the tortilla. It's a bit like cooking an omelet, but with an omelet you can put on a lid and use steam to help cook the eggs, whereas you probably don't want to do that here because it will make the tortilla soggy. I think it should be possible with a low heat and a very thin layer of eggs. If you get it to work, please share what combination of timing, temperature and quantities worked best.


What mammals' milks are drunk by humans? I'd like to make an exhaustive list of the various animals whose milk humans drink. Here's the ones I can think of:

human
cow
goat
sheep
camel
yak
buffalo
donkey/ass

Any others? If so, where?

Add to this answer...  Who and where, what it tastes like, how it differs, how it's used in cooking...

Human

Where: Worldwide

Uses: Nursing

Cow

Where: Most common source of dairy worldwide

Uses: All dairy products (milk, cheese, yogurt, etc.)

Goat

Where: India, Bangladesh, Africa, France, common across Europe.

Uses: Milk, cheese

Sheep

Where: Across Europe

Uses: Primarily cheese

Camel

Where: Middle East

Uses: Milk

Note: Camel milk can be an important source of water in extremely arid climates or survival situations.  The milk can have a salty taste due to camels' high consumption of sodium.

Yak

Where: South East Asia, Mongolia, Northern China, Tibet, Nepal

Uses: Milk, Cheese, and butter; localized dairy products such as dahi, paneer

Water Buffalo

Where: India, Parts of the Middle East, Southeast Asia, China, South America, Europe (best known in Italy and throughout the Balkan states)

Uses: Milk, yogurt, cheese (mozzarella and others), candy

Note: Water Buffalos are the 2nd most common source of dairy in the world.

Horse

Where: Mongolia

Uses: Kumis (lightly alcoholic fermented drink)

Donkey / Ass

Where: Mediterranean countries

Uses: Milk, yogurt, cosmetic and medical use

Reindeer / Caribou

Where: Scandinavian countries, Mongolia

Uses: Cheese, Butter

Note: Reindeer milk is 22% butterfat and produces extremely rich cream cheese which Lapplanders sometimes use in coffee rather than regular cream.

Moose

Where: Russia and Sweden

Uses: Milk, limited cheese production


What is the best substitute for sherry vinegar? I want to make an Ajo Blanco soup and one of the ingredients is sherry vinegar, but where I live I didn't find it to buy it. The recipe calls for 2 tbsp. I have never tasted sherry vinegar, so I have no idea how I can replace it. Can someone help me?

Other than balsamic vinegar and Chingkiang vinegar, all vinegars are reasonably substitutable for each other. White wine vinegar in particular will substitute well for sherry vinegar. (So will malt vinegar or cider vinegar or whatever you have lying around.)


Shredded Coconut as a Substitute for...? I had a recipe that called for unsweetened shredded coconut and the only package I could find brought a TON of it. I ended up not caring for the recipe so now I have all this extra shredded coconut. Since it is unsweetened, it isn't what most dessert recipes call for. What, if anything, can I use this product as a substitute for? I have tried using it in place of bread crumbs but other ideas would be appreciated.

My wife loves it toasted.  Toast shredded coconut in a dry pan or oven and put on ice cream and other deserts.  It's really tasty.  Like toasting other nuts be careful as if you blink it may burn.


What sauce can I just to de-sweeten a cheesecake? Just made a cherry and raspberry cheesecake with a digestive biscuit base but it's too sweet and I need a sauce to go with it to take that sweetness away

Can anyone help?

I'd make a simple raspberry coulis by blending fresh raspberries with a little water in a blender, with perhaps a touch of sugar depending on their natural sweetness, then passing the results through a sieve to remove the pips. No need to get fancy, the cheesecake is the main event!


Macarons//egg whites with sugar are not sifting I am making macarons and I am mixing egg whites with the sugar and it is not creating soft peaks how do I fix it

Make sure that your bowl and wisk are grease-free before adding the egg-white. And make sure that not even een little bit of the yoke gets in the egg whites.

The fat prevents the egg whites from stiffening when mixing.


Does oil oxidation create trans fats? I am considering switching to beef tallow for my high heat cooking, as it has a high smoke point and is a saturated fat (which means, that it does not oxidize easily). Also recent randomized control trials suggest, that saturated fat on its own is not causally linked to heart disease problems.

From what I have learned, is that unsaturated fats, even those with high smoke points, oxidize easily, because of their chemical property of being unsaturated, which means, that they have "space" for other electrons and react easily. From the unsaturated fats, the polyunsaturated fats have twice as much potential for reaction and oxidization as the monounsaturated fats, because they have two "arms".

With beef tallow for example, it seems to be the other way around: It has a high smoke point, but even more important: It's a saturated fat and it doesn't make new bonds easily, because it has all its electrons.

Now, my question is, how are trans fats being created? Are they the product of oxidized polyunsaturated oils? Where do trans fats come from? Or are companies intentionally putting them in food for economic reasons?

I am aware, that trans fats are banned in the US, but they are not banned in EU yet.

First, a little chemistry primer on what unsaturated fatty acids look like (this is petroselinic acid):

By Yikrazuul (talk) - Own work, Public domain, Link

You can see the double bond near the "middle" of the molecule. The "rest" of the molecule is attached to the same side of the double bond axis on both ends, making this a "cis" fatty acid. Rotation around double bonds requires a relatively high amount of activation energy, so this "cis" configuration is stable, at least at low-ish temperatures.

An example of a "trans" fatty acid would be elaidic acid:

By Benjah-bmm27 - Own work, Public domain, Link

Here you can see that the molecule continues on opposite sides of the double bond axis ("trans"). At higher (e.g. frying pan) temperatures, unsaturated fatty acids more readily isomerize between cis and trans, and since trans is energetically favorable, more unsaturated fatty acids will be in their trans configuration after being heated to a high temperature.

So to answer the question(s):
No, trans fatty acids are not generated by oxidation, but the same conditions that favor oxidation (high temperature) also favor the generation of trans fats from cis fats.
Also, the bacteria in the digestive tracts of ruminants (cattle, sheep, but also deer etc.) produce a significant proportion of trans fatty acids.
In addition, the simplest (and cheapest) industrial processes to saturate ("harden") unsaturated fats produce a relatively high amount of trans fats. So yes, not adopting other processes can be economical, if this can be considered "intentional"...your call.

A more extensive explanation can also be found in the accepted answer to this question:
Does preparation of food change the nutritional content with respect to fat type?


Is it possible to make cookies without creaming the butter? I love to make some cookies but have limited kitchen appliances. I don't want to cream the butter and sugar by hand -- I did that before and it was not fun!

Is it possible to make good cookies without creaming the butter and sugar or should I just buy a hand-mixer?

The only way that the butter could be incorporated without creaming would be to melt it.  Melting butter, or allowing it to get too soft, even if just left at room temperature too long will result in what I call "pancake cookies"...those that just spread out and run all over the baking sheet.  This is also the reason that butter should NEVER be softened in the microwave.

Creaming butter and sugar aerates the butter with tiny little air pockets. The reason it becomes lighter in color is due to the air that has been incorporated.  The moisture inside the air pockets from the butter itself to  eggs, milk, etc. turns to steam and the steam (aided by any leavening that might be called for in the recipe) helps the cookies to "puff".

If you don't cream the butter and sugar you'll most likely have very poor results.  The expense of the wasted and ingredients and your time would be enough to pay for an inexpensive hand mixer.


Replacing whole milk with sweetened condensed milk for cheescake I am making a no bake cheesecake. It calls for milk but I just ran out. Can I substitute with sweetened condensed milk?

Sweetened condensed milk is approximately 40% sugar, so you would need not quite double the sweetened condensed milk, and you would have to deduct the additional sugar from the recipe.

You would need to multiply the amount of milk by about 1.7 to get the amount of sweetened condensed milk, and then deduct 40% of that (by weight) from the sugar in your recipe (you can assume that sugar is  7 ounces to the cup).

The thing is, sweetened condensed milk may have a cooked down taste, so you may not get the same pure creamy flavor that you would from fresh milk.

If you have additional cream or half and half in excess of what is called from in the recipe,while it may make the cake somewhat richer, you may have a better outcome using that in lieu of the milk.  You also will not have to adjust the sugar if you go that route.


Why does my bread rise unevenly or from the bottom in the oven? I recently started baking loafs from a sourdough starter for the first time. I fed and maintained the starter for 8 days before using it the first time.

On the first bake my loafs rose unevenly and didn't form a bottom crust, it just stayed moist like the crumb. The second time I got a weird rise from the bottom.

This album has additional pictures.

I baked these at 475 on a bread stone.
Any idea what is going on here? Thanks for any advice!

For the first bake, that didn't form a bottom crust - it sounds like the bread stone might not have been heated enough.  An oven with a baking stone needs a lot more preheating, since the reason the stone is useful is that retains heat; it's as slow to cool down as it is to heat up.  If the stone was still absorbing heat when you put the dough on, it would keep the bottom from baking properly, since the temperature would be cooler.  Try preheating your oven about a half hour more before baking, next time.

For the uneven rising, I'm not sure - it seems like your dough wasn't finished rising before the top of the loaf had already started setting, and it expanded wherever it could.  If the top surface of your loaf got a little dried out in your last rising before baking, that stiffness might encourage the rising dough to expand where the dough was softer and still moist.  You might brushing the dough lightly with oil during the last rise, or with water just before baking, to keep it flexible enough to rise evenly.

If your dough has a moist surface, the problem might be that it is under proofed (mentioned in the comments here), and needs to rise a little longer before being baked - It will rise in the oven a little bit anyway, but if it has extra rising potential because the yeast wasn't finished, it keeps trying to rise during the baking time, and once the top starts setting it will expand wherever it can.  There are ways to test the proofing, one I saw was to poke the bread, and if it springs back quickly it is under proofed, slowly and it is ready to bake, and if it doesn't spring back it's over proofed.


Why does my bread ferment in the middle? I had been making bread reliably for a few years until we moved (from Sweden to Austria) six months ago. Suddenly, any loaf I make rots within a few days in the bread bin. Specifically, it goes soft and moist in the centre (the crust stays fine) and it starts to smell like rotting grapes.

I have tried:

Swapping the flour. I have tried various kinds and qualities.
Swapping the yeast (I use instant yeast)
Baking longer (at 230°C)
Changing the bread bin for a large tupperware with the lid very loose. In Sweden I did not have a bread bin, so I kept bread in a plastic bag, but we never had rotten bread.
Making sure the bread is completely cool before placing in the bread bin.

Can anyone suggest where I might be going wrong?

I have marked George M's answer as the accepted answer, but I thought I would post a slightly expanded answer.

I can confirm that the following ideas that  were raised in the comments did not work:

Hotter oven
Cooking longer
Cooling completely

What has worked is to wrap the bread completely in a tea towel or two until completely cool. Then, the bread stays really fresh for at least a day.

I also found that bread thus cooled can be placed in the bread bin still wrapped in the tea towel, and it doesn't rot.


How to cleanly cover the dough while it rise? When I leave dough pieces (for pizza) to rise, I put a wet towel on top of them, and leave them for a few hours.

The problem is that when the process is finished, the dough sticks very strongly to the towel, and it's quite hard to scrap the dough from it for washing.

I've tried to top the pieces with plenty of flour, which improves the situation, but it doesn't work fully.

I've also tried with a food tent cover covered with a wet towel, but the dough gets drier, so I don't think this is an option.

Is there any clever way to cover the dough, in a way that it's also easy to clean?

Spray the dough with oil, dust with a little flour, and either cover loosely with plastic wrap, or if the dough is on a tray, slide the whole thing into a food safe plastic bag.


How do I recognize if a dish cannot be cooked in a gas oven? I have moved to a house that has a gas oven. I am new to gas ovens. What dishes can we cook in a gas oven? Cake? Are cookies possible to bake in a gas oven?

You can cook anything in a gas oven that you can cook in an electric oven.  There might be a little extra moisture (due to the products of combustion), but some people consider that to be an advantage when baking bread and cooking roasts.


Are there reasons to use olive oil when roasting food at high temperatures? I see many times chefs choosing olive oil as the fat for cooking recipes that undergo heats of 400f+ (very much above the smoking point of refined olive oil) for 30 minutes, and its virgin olive oil many of the times! But isn't olive oil supposed to smoke at those temperatures? Does cooking past the smoke point not cause smoking and undesirable flavors or other issues? Does any flavor benefit from the oil actually remain?

Just because the oven is reaching high heat does not mean the olive oil that is on the surface of what is being cooked will reach the oven temperature (or get past the smoke point, even). In a deep fryer, heat is transferred almost directly from the heating element to the oil. In a pan, heat is transferred from the heat source to a pan, then directly to the oil. Both those represent very efficient heat transfers, and can bring an oil to past its smoke point. The oven transfers heat from source to food via the air, which is a very inefficient form of heat transfer. The temperature of the oil you apply to your food will be vastly more affected by the mass of the food than by the air in the oven environment.


How to get a good fragrance from burnt rosemary? There's a particular cocktail I'm trying to produce which has a garnish of burnt fresh rosemary. Properly done, the rosemary is burnt with a torch to release some very fragrant, herbal smoke.

However when trying to do this at home, I get smoke that smells like...just smoke. Very little rosemary fragrance.

What's the trick to getting the rosemary aroma to come through?

You need fresh rosemary and give it a quick char and not allow it to burn. That's sort of the same technique of using a blowtorch for crème brulée and the same "doneness" of charred vegetables - caramelized but not burnt

If you're smelling smoke, it is already too burnt to use.


Can I use this Ikea glassware on stove top? In particular, this VARDAGEN Glass Bowl.

It's almost a quarter inch thick, feels heavy and solid, wonder if anyone has tried.  Nothing fancy, just boil and soup kind of thing.  I figure it's healthier than stainless steel.  Thought?

No, you can't.

You should always assume glass is not safe to use on the stovetop. Essentially none of it is, and while there are a very few exceptions, they'll say so explicitly. (For example this set says stovetop-safe in the description.)

That bowl is nothing special, definitely not stovetop-safe - it'd shatter under the thermal stress. If you look carefully on the packaging, you might even find a warning that's not for use on the stovetop.


Milk temperature for white sauce Should I introduce the milk hot or cold when making white (béchamel) sauce?

Searching around I found multiple opposite opnions, like on this answer (see the comments).

Also different advice from famous chefs:

"heat the milk in a separate pan until just about to boil" - Mario Batali
"a great tip is to make sure your milk is really cold, this will stop your sauce from going lumpy" - Gordon Ramsay
"if you have a hot rue, you have cold liquid; if you have a hot liquid, you have a cold rue" - Marco Pierre

As you see from the variety of advise from reputable sources, many combinations of hot/cold roux and liquid will work.

From a convenience point of view, you want at least one of them hot in order to speed the integration.  If you started both of them cold, it would probably work but take a while to warm up to melt the butter in the roux, and free the flour particles to integrate and create the sauce@mdash;and it will won't fully thicken until the mixture is at a boil, so this is inefficient.  You would probably also have to mash and stir more frequently to prevent local burning.

If you start with both hot, it will also work, although you might have to whisk relatively quickly—but who has both a hot base and a hot roux sitting around?  Usually, at least one was prepared in advance, even if only by a few minutes.  Batali is recommending this method, but note that in the professional kitchen, where he lives, time is the most constrained resource, so this is his method of choice.  His line cooks probably have hot roux ready at all times.

A hot roux is easier to scoop and measure.

A hot liquid will quickly melt and dissolve the roux.

But in any case, if the roux is properly made, the starch granules are surrounded by fat, and so are not going to cause lumping in any case, despite Ramsay's advise.  As soon as the mixture is warm enough to melt the butter, the particles are going to move away from one another, and won't be able to clump together before they are hydrated.

So I would not worry about this in the slightest.


What is the function of oil in baking/roasting? Oil is almost always used when cooking vegetables or meat at high temperatures in the oven, but I'm not sure what it actually does - it obviously provides flavour, but there seem to be other purposes.

Surface water prevents the maillard reaction from occurring because the temperature cannot exceed 100C. I presume that oil does not have this same property? How does oil aid in crisping the surface? Does it do anything else? Does it affect the form or speed of heat transfer?

(Liquid) water cannot exceed 100°C because that it's boiling point, and any additional heat applied goes toward the latent heat of evaporation needed to turn it into a gas (steam, which can then be higher than 100°C).

Oils have a boiling point much higher than water, and a point lower than that (but still much higher than water's boiling point) called the smoke point which you do not want to reach (as it causes dangerous break downs of the oil).

Oils aid in crisping by facilitating heat transfer. They are liquid so they have good coverage, and they sort of "stick" to the surface of the pan and the food. Excess drips off, but there's still a layer.

This layer has good coverage so it provides more contact between the food and pan, facilitating heat transfer.


How do I prevent opened canned tuna from going stale? I want to start buying those big tuna cans to save on costs, but I know that after one day at the fridge opened tuna becomes stale. It loses its tangy flavor and gets a rubbery texture. Is there a way to prevent that?

At the very least, transfer to a food storage container (smallest possible) and cover...for more than a day or two, Ziploc bag, with as much air removed as possible (use water displacement method)...or vacuum seal.


Why didn't my turkey stock gelatinize? We made turkey stock of out our Thanksgiving scraps.  We simmered the turkey bones (unroasted) and all the vegetable trimmings for about 7 hours, and then chilled everything and stashed it in the refrigerator overnight.

But the chilled stock doesn't have any jelly-like thickness to it.  It's pretty much a tan-colored liquid.

Without the gelatin-induced thickness, is this a failed stock?  Can we use this "pseudo-stock" when a recipe calls for stock?

My best guess is that your stock is very weak.  Two gallons of water to just the bones from one turkey will not be a strong stock.

It may well well have gelatin in it, but very thin.

I make stock for a single turkey with the wing tips (not the 'drumstick' part), the back, the neck--everything but the breast and leg/thighs in with about 1 gallon of water to start, which reduces to several quarts over the course of three-four hours.

This produces a very shaky jelly--much thinner than the one in a jar of Smuckers for example.


Puff pastry for cream horns I am making cream horns and I bake the puff pastry on the molds, let them cool and fill with cream. I freeze some empty for later, but they are not crispy. How to improve on that?

You can freeze them after baking and then refresh them by letting them defrost all the way and then re-baking them for a few minutes. This gets back some of the crispiness but it won't be as good as freshly baked.


Is there such thing as white wheat berries? I have been told that you cannot home grind white flour for white bread. Is this true, or is it just harder to find white wheat berries to grind?

Sorry, my answer was incorrect (it used to say that there is no white wheat). The only defense I have is that such newfangled things like white wheat have not yet reached my part of the world (is Europe really that old-fashioned?). Big thank you to Jefromi for correcting me and teaching me something new.

"Normal" white flour is, as I described in the old answer, made from the inner part of the wheat berry, discarding the yellow-brownish hull. You can't make this at home. But it turns out that there is such a thing as white wheat. When it is used to produce whole flour, the result is a flour which is white in color (but behaves more like whole flour when baked, and has nutritional properties like whole flour). So if your definition for white bread is just based on color, it is probably possible to make white flour from white wheat. They say that the taste is milder than "yellow" whole flour, too, closer to the refined white flour. But from what I read, you probably won't be able to produce a fluffy soft baguette with it, just because it bakes differently.

If you want to make flour which is equivalent to the common white flour in the supermarket, you are still out of luck. The machines for removing the bran are too complicated, you can't do it in a grinder (look here for a patent for a bran removing device). But if "white whole wheat flour" is good enough for your purposes, I don't see a reason why you can't grind albino wheat at home.


Why doesn't my caramel sauce thicken? The actual measurement of the caramel sauce is 50g sugar : 20g water. I divided it to 17g of sugar to 7g of water, but after following the necessary procedures the mixture doesn't boil, and nor does it thicken. Why is it so?
I boiled for almost 30 minutes in medium heat though.
Also, caramel sauce is supposed to be thickened by concentration right?

(This is the link to the procedure that I had used to make caramel sauce.)

Sugar "boils" at a temperature much higher than water. The water is there just to get things started, so you don't burn the non-melted sugar directly in contact with the pan at. Within a few minute the water will have evaporated, and all you have left is liquid sugar

Use a candy thermometer and slowly raise the temperature until you get the sugar colour and flavour you want

When it cools it will thicken, or become solid, depending on how high you heated it. It is not just a time thing, it is the maximum temperature your reached

Caramelisation with happen around 170°C (340°F) depending on what type of sugar you use. Caramel sauce usually requires the addition of a fat like cream