Why does this recipe call for so much yeast? Kindred’s milk bread is delicious. (Here's an alternate link in case that link doesn’t work for you.)

I’m curious though: the recipe calls for two tablespoons of yeast (for 5 cups of flour), more than I’ve ever put into a dough before. Why does it call for so much yeast?

Does an enriched dough always require more yeast? Or is it that this recipe kills most of the yeast by stirring it into hot liquid? Or is it probably just a typo, and 2 teaspoons would be fine?

Having that much yeast is doing two things for this recipe:

It will give it a nicely yeasty flavor
It will shorten the rise time.

Yeast requires water to be active. This recipe, as is often the case with enriched doughs, has very little water in it. There is water in the cream and the eggs but not much and the yeast will be competing for it with the sugar.
Because of this rich doughs often take a long time to rise.

This recipe was used by a restaurant that probably needs faster rises. The cost of the yeast is cheaper than the cost of the extra time to rise. The extra yeasty flavor is a bonus.


How to fold camembert in dough Every time I bake camembert in bread dough, I do a bad job of enveloping. Usually, I make a thin dough circle (like a pizza base) with diameter somewhat less than three times the camembert's diameter. I put the camembert in the middle and the herbs, nuts and spices evenly on top of the camembert. Then I gather the dough sides up and make a bundle. I roll the bundle between my hands until it is smooth. After a short time for a last rising, it goes into the oven.

What I don't like in the method above is that I end up with lots of doufgh atop the camembert. I'd like a uniformly thin(fnish) crust around the cheese. So for dinner today, I decided to improve.

I formed a camembert sized concave dough shell. I put the camembert into the shell, put the spices on top, then made a camembert sized dough circle and placed it on top. I pressed the seam to glue it shut, then gave it a smooth shape. Again some raising, and then I put it into the oven seam side up. Sadly, the seam must have opened in the oven, and most of the mildly expensive cheese has flown out. It is 11:40 pm and my dinner is ruined ;(

Does anybody know a practical way of enveloping the camembert so there is no risk of a seam opening, and the dough is evenly distributed?

Hey I know this is an old post but just in case anyone else is stuck with the same problem, I found this worked for me.

Roll out the dough so it's roughly 3x diameter, place the camembert in the middle. Fold two opposite sides over the top of the camembert. Then with the remaining unfolded sides, fold one on top and one underneath.

You're still left with a little more on top than underneath, but it worked well for me.


Cooking turkey breast I have a 5.5 turkey breast I'm marinating overnight do I judge the cooking time on the original weight of meat or on the weight of it after it comes out of the marinate?

You don't judge cooking time. You measure it with a thermometer and get it out when it is done, as indicated by internal temperature.

All estimates of cooking time based on weight are not precise and will frequently lead to over- or undercooked meat. If you insist on using such an estimate, it doesn't matter much if you use the weight before or after marinating, as your error will be larger than the variability caused by weight difference. Choose whichever weight you want to.


Are salamis/pepperonis in the USA truly fermented? I've been exploring making my own salami and have learned that it is a lot of work! Not only must you make sausage, but you must also ferment it and dry it for many days. The fermentation piece seems especially tricky due to the work involved with fermentation starters and the risk of illness (or even death) if done improperly. The fermentation and drying periods also require fairly precise humidity and temperature.

This is why I'm surprised to see so much salami and peperoni in grocery stores. You can find these everywhere for very cheap, which I find surprising given the amount of work involved. I suppose it isn't that expensive if done at an industrial scale with meat scraps, but still, I have doubts that all salamis in the USA are indeed fermented.

Salamis are by their definition a fermented product. Are all or most salamis sold in the USA indeed fermented?

The short answer is yes, salumi produced in the US is a fermented product.  The process is different from salumi produced in Europe, but it is still a fermented product.  In the US, producers rely on rapidly lowering the pH by using fast acting starter cultures and higher curing temperatures (as high as 104 F).  Whereas in Europe, a lower temperature, and drying serve to render salumi safe. The curing times are longer, and often salt and nitrites are the main additions to create a safe product.  On an industrial scale, the complexities that you have discovered are all accounted for.  It is not a difficult process.

At home, it is a bit of work, but can easily be accomplished.  Work cleanly, follow accepted practices, keep an eye out for bad mold...otherwise, if you can create the right curing and drying conditions, you should be able to make your own without issue, though it will take a couple of attempts to get a feel for things.  A good starting point for those new to home cured meat products is whole muscle curing.  Try bacon, pancetta or bresola for starters.


Cold Brewing coffee - does it use more beans? Our Percolator is about to break down and we're in the midst of making a decision about our next coffee solution:

a universal percolator
a new percolator
a keurig (with our own coffee)
cold brew.

How coffee efficient is cold brew? I understand that one gets a concentrate from it and depending on the recipe it can vary greatly. However I want to know if we switch to cold brew and consume the same amount of coffee, will we be using more coffee (beans) as a result?

How feasible is it for a couple that consume 3 three cup servings+ each a day to have enough supply where we're making a brew once every say 5 days?

Obviously, this will depend on your personal preferences and how you brew the coffee.

The canonical measurement is about 2 tablespoons of coffee per 6 ounce cup, or about 2 3/4 cups of ground coffee per gallon of water.

Typical ratios for cold brew coffee, such as suggested Chow are 1.75 cups of coffee to 3 1/2 cups of water for the concentrate, which would then be diluted by a like amount of water for drinking.  That is a ratio of 1.75 cups of coffee to 7 cups of water, or about 3 3/4 cups of coffee per gallon of water (I am generously assuming the ratio is based on measuring cups, not "coffee" cups).

So the cold brewing method uses about 1.35 times more beans than the traditional methods.

You will have to decide if you prefer the flavor of the cold brewed coffee enough to justify the increased amount of beans required.

As to whether you can produce enough, that depends on what equipment you have, how much trouble you are willing to go to, and how much storage space you have.  There is nothing about cold brewed coffee that would prevent you from producing the concentrate in large quantities.  At the volume you specify (assuming you mean a 6 ounce "coffee" cup, and it is three cups between the two of you), you would need about 45 ounces of concentrate for a week, which is about 1.5 quarts (or liters).

See also:

Bottling and Storing Cold-Brewed Coffee?

Concentrate should easily last you throughout a week, if you have room to store it.


Do chillis impregnate a wooden chopping board? After chopping away at a chilli earlier today (well, 10 minutes ago) I then went through my normal ritual of scrubbing my hands to remove what traces the chiles leave on my fingers.

And it made me wonder - is whatever is difficult to get off my finger having any long-term effect on my wooden chopping board?

I clean/scrub the board regularly, and there is no visible staining, but we all know hidden problems exist..

Pretty much everything I've read (for example, this page) says not to use wood, because the oils from the peppers will penetrate the board and transfer, and hold there indefinitely, even after thorough washings.

This thread is full of people with personal experience transferring the heat to later meals.

That said, as with Jefromi, I've cut hot peppers on wood before and not noticed any transfer.  Specifically, home grown habaneros and jalapenos on maple boards.

Maybe I'm just acclimated to the heat and don't notice, but those recommendations are not in line with my personal experience.  I do thoroughly scrub my boards after use, but that probably isn't washing away any residual oils.

If you really want to be safe, for example if someone in your house is heat sensitive or you have small children helping in the kitchen, you can dedicate a board to cutting peppers, or just cut peppers on a small plastic board and wash thoroughly after each use.


High viscosity fermantation I recently tried an experiment with using strong dandelion flower & stem infusion and malt syrup. I was unable to obtain or culture a yeast starter in sufficient time so the wort sat for approx a week and started to spontaneously ferment in that time.  I assumed we'd end up with sour ale or something along those lines but unfortunately the brew became highly viscous - almost syrupy.  My best guess is something other than yeast got busy inside the carboy and maybe went to work on the proteins or whatever else came from the dandelion.

I tasted it and it was a bit sour - not unpleasant other than the fact that it's so thick makes it a bit disgusting.  Does anyone have any idea what organism, specifically, would cause such a change and turn liquid into a thick substance like this?

Well, a bacterium, of course... But there are quite a few bacteria which will thicken the ferment (some of them benign and some harmful). Without in-depth testing it would be impossible to know which ones were in your sample. (If I had to guess I'd say acetobacter.)


Why do you have to rinse rice? I'm interested in learning to make my own sushi.

Every guide I have read has stressed that the rice has to be rinsed thoroughly.

The bags of rice I generally buy say not to rinse the rice in order to preserve the nutrients. What is the reason behind rinsing rice?

It removes excess starch, so your sushi rice doesn't turn into nasty glutinous slop. The texture of the rice is very important, so you'll need to rinse it several times before you steam it. Make sure the water is nice and clear after the last time you rinse it, and make sure you buy japonica or similar: if you use regular rice, you may not get good results.

I wouldn't worry overmuch about the nutritional content of white sushi rice (you can starve on a diet of it). It's what you put into your sushi that'll give it nutritional value.


can't find croissant dough; what can I substitute have recipe calling for croissant dough. can't find it at our groceries.  what can I substitute?

You want what is called puff pastry dough. It is usually found near pie crusts at the store. It is sold flat or folded, but isn't sold in a roll like crescent dough. As comments have already mentioned, that is a different style of dough for a different style of pastry.


What is the name of this Italian pastry? Italian pastry made at Christmas.

Ingredients:

Eggs
Flour
Whiskey
Sugar
Vanilla
Shortening

Then deep fried, and covered with powdered sugar are called "CRUSTELLIS" OR "CRUSTOLI".

Instead of powdered sugar they were also given a honey bath.  What is the name of the ones dipped in honey, is it "SCALEDEE"?

I think you mean Strufoli.
It is indeed Italian and typical for Christmas.


My commercial made chapati becomes brittle within 12hrs I manufacture commercial chapatis. It is packed in 25nos together in a butter paper and lastly in a polybag. These are marketed. However, the chapati becomes brittle and crumbles after 14 hours.
I am interested to know how to keep the chapatis soft, chewable and non brittle for more than 3 days.
Daniel

I found they last longer if made with boiling instead of room temperature water. Which is not surprising since you will get far less long-stranded gluten formation this way (and since it is not leavened with yeast, you don't need any either). It seems some (but not most of the) chapati/roti recipes found on the internet also specify boiling water.


Seasoning skillet: What am I doing wrong? Since two months I have a DeBuyer 28cm skillet from the Mineral B line. Upon buying it I followed the instructions they gave me in the store: Wash it, fry (without oil) a thick layer of salt and oil it up before putting it away. This gave me a light brownish seasoning.

In the weeks after buying it I used it a lot, mainly for sautéing vegetables. Every time I used the pan the seasoning became darker. But every time I washed the pan (no soap, just hot water and a plastic brush) part of the seasoning would fall off.

After about two months I decided that there must be something wrong with the first layer of seasoning. So I used soap and a steel brush to remove all the seasoning it had. Then I heated it slowly and with a paper towel I brushed in a small amount of oil in thin layers, until the pan started the color and smoke. I did this 3 times.

Today I fried two burgers in the pan, thinking this time I had seasoned it properly. I warmed the pan for a couple of minuted on medium heat and put the burgers in with a dash of sunflower oil. Unfortunately, the seasoning came off exactly at the places where the two burgers rested (see photo.). Though nothing came off while cleaning the pan.

What am I doing wrong?

It simply takes some time and experience to learn to do a seasoning well. Yours was too soft to work. The good part is that you can repeat it on the same pan until you got better results, the pan is not going to suffer from it.

First, there is the oil. Modern oils are engineered to be higher in unsaturated acids. This is done for health reasons, and some sources suggest them for seasoning specifically because they polymerise more easily, for example recommending flaxen oil for seasoning. In my experience, while it is much easier to create a good looking layer with them, this layer is way too sticky and soft for use. Personally, I prefer to use a sticky oil as the base layer, and put a few layers of lard on it.

Second, there is thickness. If a layer was too thick, it will peel off. A good seasoning is built up from many layers, each as thin as possible, and hardened separately, with full cooling down in between. If you can see thickness in your layer (the thickness of a standard office paper sheet), it's already dangerously thick. Wipe each layer before hardening, you don't want to see it pooling.

Third, there is temperature control. If this is your first iron pan, you might not have learned it yet. A new seasoning tends to be more damageable than an old, baked-on one. If the first few foods stick, they may "take off" some seasoning with them. I guess that, if you're good at frying precisely, you can start doing more adventurous stuff in the pan right away. But if you are not, better start with the kind of food which you know how to fry without it sticking. For example, this picture looks like you put lean burgers at too low a temperature and they cooked onto the seasoning instead of crusting right after hitting the pan. If you have a food you know you can crust well, use it (I do new pans best with crepes and scrambled eggs, but it needs the correct recipe, Ruhlman's crepes work). If not, start with greasy types of food with sufficient protein content and work from there. Introduce watery foods later, when the seasoning is doing well. Also leave starchy foods for later - although they work well enough if there is enough protein and some fat in them, see the crepes point above.

In the beginning, you might also want to not wash the pan. Simply wipe off excess fat with paper without introducing water. Of course, this is somewhat dependent on the success of the last point - if you have pieces of food stuck to the pan, it becomes harder to deal with them (a salt scrub can work better than water though). In the ideal case, the food peels off your seasoning without leaving anything to clean.

I also failed my first tries to get a pan well seasoned. But I also noticed that, the closer you get to a good seasoned state, the easier it gets, simply because each of the points is easier to follow through when you have less sticking. The beginning may be hard, but once you get in the positive feedback part of the process, it's worth it.


What is the ratio of baking soda to water for lentils? I am soaking lentils and need to know how much baking soda to add per cup of lentils.

Previously, I had to cook lentils for about 2 and 1/2 hours to get the desired softness of the lentils. It was suggested to add baking soda to the water while soaking lentils. How much baking soda should I use?

None. I have recently discovered that lentils do not require to be soaked prior cooking - and nor baking soda. I have already detailed this in an answer but I am not sure how to find it and link to it. I try and I will edit this.

Another point is that the producers recipes were all clear about this : they recommend a minimal amount of salt in the cooking water, the rest to be added /adjusted afterwards. If there is an unwanted effect related to sodium, it might apply to baking soda as well.


How do I adapt to grilling without a lid? If a recipe explicitly asks to grill with the lid on (for example this jerk chicken), but I'll be grilling on a grill without a lid on one of those ubiquitous rectangular park grills, how should I adapt?

I know I'll need more turning to get more even heat, but is there anything else I should do?

While if you have the opportunity to improvise a lid I recommend you do so as per the other answers, however it isn't always possible. I have unexpectedly been thrust into the "grill master" role when I've shown up to parties and the charcoal is hot, food expensive, and nobody but me knows how. In situations like this you have to do the best you can with what you have, and sometimes you won't have a lid or anything you can use as one.

The reasons you want a lid are that it evens the heat out, and reduces the oxygen supply to the fire which cools things down a bit and reduces flare-ups. Without a lid you will get a hotter temperature at the base of the grill and much cooler temperatures above, with fat having a much greater tendency to flare. You can still get good results through making good choices of what to cook, and good technique. Bad technique will lead to food that is burnt to a crisp on the outside and raw in the middle.

There are some foods that you don't need a lid for, in fact you shouldn't use one, like thin to medium cut steaks. Other foods like burgers you can use a lid or not and still get a good result. So part of your success will come from choosing the right things to cook. Thinner is better, as is picking foods that don't necessarily have to be cooked through.

Some food you just can't grill without a lid. Avoid anything that requires long, indirect heat like legs of lamb or roasting joints.

Some food is best cooked with a lid, but you can get good results without one, like chicken and sausages. Your main problem is heat control, and flaring. Chicken and sausages need longer cooking temperatures, so the goal is to cook them through without burning the outside, you can do this by keeping them around the edge of the charcoal where they get enough heat, and dripping fat won't hit the coals and flare up. Turn them often, like once a minute to keep them from burning. If they are getting close to done and they don't have enough char then you can move them to the center of the grill for a bit. It also helps to have some sort of baste to coat them with to keep them moist like bbq sauce or a marinade. With sausages you can cheat a bit by slicing them down the long way and cooking them flat a few minutes over high heat.

If you are cooking different foods at the same time, like burgers, sausages, and chicken then separate your grill into zones. Burgers get high heat, sausages medium, and chicken low. If you want to cook mostly food that needs a medium to low heat then you will get a lot of mileage from arranging your charcoal intelligently, like in a long strip down the middle of the wide part of the grill, or in a square grill in a torus shape. This will give you much more area of your grill with the temperature you need.

Really important for lidless grilling is a spray bottle full of water to put out flare-ups, a mist sprayed on the base of the flare works magic and it won't kick up ash all over your food.


What's the difference between masa for tortillas and for tamales? I often buy fresh prepared masa from Mexican markets in order to make tamales and pupusas.  Mexican cookbook authors stress getting the correct masa for the recipe, either masa for tamales or masa for tortillas.  However, the masa at the market is in an unlabelled bag and is identified by the proprietor as just "masa".  Questions:

is this more likely to be tamale or tortilla masa?
is there a real difference?  What?
if there's a real difference, is there a way you can modify one type of masa into the other?

Clarifying: the above question is about fresh corn masa, not dried flour.  Prepared masa, in particular, has at least oil and salt added to the fresh-ground corn.

I found a link that will provide the explanation you are looking for:

http://www.mymexicanrecipes.com/ingredients/masa-harina.html

Here is a direct quote from the site:

  Masa is dried corn that has been cooked in limewater (cal), soaked overnight, and then ground up while still wet. Sold in this form, it's called fresh masa, and it makes the lightest, fluffiest tamales. In Mexico, it can be purchased at tortilla factories in two ways: with smooth consistency for making tortillas and, upon request (if you are lucky), with a coarser consistency for making tamales. (Be careful to differentiate between masa para tamales and masa preparada para tamales; the latter, available at some tortilla factories and large Mexican groceries, is the coarse-textured masa mixed with lard and flavorings.


What is this type of hot plate and how do I use it? We have this type of hot plate in our house. It has a raised centre section that depresses when a pot is placed on it. The temperature control has 10 graduations compared to 6 for the other 3 hot plates, which do not have the centre section.

We just tried use it to boil some oranges to make orange cake. The water started bubbling over so we turned it down to 3 but it still kept supplying a high heat. What is the centre part and how does this hot plate work?

Edit:

The other three plates do not have this centre section.

I used to have an electric oven with similar hotplates and while I can't find a reference because it was such an old model I recall it was a safety cut-off. It would simply stop supplying power to the hotplate once a pot was removed, something you could easily confirm by seeing what happens if you turn on one of the hotplates without anything sitting on top.

As for the question of usage electric hotplates often don't use a thermostat, they use something commonly referred to as a "simmerstat". They simply control the duty cycle of the heating element, so in your example setting of three it would spend approximately 30% of the time on and 70% off.

I've tended to spend most of my life cooking with them and can't really think of shortcuts to learning how to use one effectively other than experimentation and getting used to them. For example I was just cooking some dried chickpeas and while I started things off at around 7/10 to bring them to the boil I later dropped that to around 2/10 and as liquid evaporated it ended up spending most of the time at 1/10 and that was still a reasonably rapid simmer for a small pot.


Peanut Butter substitute in baking I love to bake and have come across several peanut butter recipes (cakes, cookies, even a multi-layered/multi-component [cake & cheesecake layers] cake) that sound really good.  My problem is I don't like baking things I can't eat (a little selfish I know :D), and peanut butter HATES me.  I love it, but it makes me want to curl up in the fetal position and die.

Is there anything that behaves the same as peanut butter that I can substitute?  I know it will change the flavor drastically and for most recipes it won't be a problem.  I know I can use other nut butters, but I'm asking if there are other alternatives.  I know Nutella (flavor-wise) can be substituted for most peanut butter baking recipes, but the texture is different so I don't think it behaves exactly the same (especially if I'm trying to make cookies where that would matter more than cake).

What about cookie butter?  Would that behave the same as peanut butter (assuming I decrease the sugar required)?

I read Is it possible to subsititute nutella for peanut butter?, but it's very vague with its question.

I'm a professional baker and my daughter is allergic to peanuts and peanut anything is my husband's favorite, so we have had to learn to adjust.  I use soy nut butter.  It doesn't contain any peanuts or tree nuts or even sesame so it's safe for most allergy sufferers (except soy). To me it tastes more like real peanut butter than sunflower seed butter.  The brand I like is called Wow butter and comes in crunchy and creamy varieties.  It has a slight aftertaste, but you get used to it if you dont eat PB regularly. You can find it at most health food stores.  Another great option if you can eat almonds is Barney butter.  It's made purely from almonds in a peanut free facility.  It's pretty pricey - almost $9 a jar, but it is delicious and works well in baked goods if you don't mind paying for it. I typically just use this one as a straight substitute in pb&j. Nutella is delicious of course, but not PB flavor.  if you do bake with it though be sure to undercook just a bit because it burns more quickly and will turn your treats into little bricks.


What does butter do in cooking? When cooks use butter in cooking for whatever recipe, what is its function? For example, if I add butter to a chocolate sauce which is made from heavy cream and milk chocolate, what do people expect the butter to do?

It's not used to sweeten the product. It's not used to make it thick because with the heavy cream and chocolate its already thick. It's not used for flavor, or is it? What does it do?

Is there a general rule as to what function butter is supposed to do in cooking?

And please don't tell me it's just for the obvious point of being salty or buttery in flavor, surely there is more to it, some chemical process and purpose?

Butter serves multiple purposes.  Butter does = flavor, particularly when the milk solids are caramelized.  Butter is also used as an emulsifier.  Butter + water or stock, can easily become a delicious sauce.  An emulsifier is also the role it plays in your example of a chocolate sauce.  It contributes to the smoothness of the chocolate sauce.  Butter plays many other roles as well.  For example in laminated dough (the dough that a croissant is made from) the butter plays the role of keeping layers of dough separate and trapping steam during baking, making a flaky pastry.


How do I fix a cast iron pot that was heated empty for hours? I left my cast iron pot on the gas stove, on high flame, and then forgot about it for 3 hours. It was empty and I was drying it before I oiled it to store it. After I discovered it and let it cool, I oiled it with a paper towel and all this rusty stuff came off and continues to come off. Is my pan ruined? What should I do?

Your pan is NOT ruined.YAY! What has happened is that you have burned off most of the seasoning. Any other kind of pan would be ruined, but your cast iron pan only needs to be stripped and reseasoned. If you have a self-cleaning oven cycle, that is a great way to completely strip the pan. You can also throw it into a hot fire (like a fireplace, wood stove, or campfire if you've got one) and just leave it until the fire is out and you can touch the pan. For any of these methods, the pan should be up-side-down.
Another thing you can use to get to the bare metal is oven cleaner, in a hot oven or not, depending upon the product. Again, the pan should be up-side-down.
Complete the mission with steel wool and dish soap, an SOS pad would be great for this.
Now it is naked, and needs to be seasoned. Unfortunately, it will stick like hell until you've got a good solid season. Season it a few times and cook only greasy food in it for a while. It'll come back eventually.
You may get answers that say you don't need to strip the seasoning you've got left. I would disagree with that, seasoning over badly damaged seasoning never gets as strong and smooth. Start from scratch.
Look here for seasoning advice: What's the best way to season a cast iron skillet?
I have recently become a flaxseed convert, so my preferred method is this one, from Sheryl's Blog, which I first saw thanks to Neil G's answer to the above Seasoned Advice question. The whole article is worth reading, but here are her instructions for seasoning from scratch. I just did this to one the cast iron pans I inherited from my grandmother. The result was fabulous.

The Recipe for Perfect Cast Iron Seasoning
The basic idea is this: Smear a food-grade drying oil onto a cast iron pan, and then bake it above the oil’s smoke point. This will initiate the release of free radicals and polymerization. The more drying the oil, the harder the polymer. So start with the right oil.
Go to your local health food store or organic grocery and buy a bottle of flaxseed oil. It’s sold as an omega-3 supplement and it’s in the refrigeration section because it goes rancid so easily. Check the expiration date to make sure it’s not already rancid. Buy an organic flaxseed oil. You don’t want to burn toxic chemicals into your cookware to leach out forever more. It’s a fairly expensive oil. I paid $17 for a 17 ounce bottle of cold-pressed, unrefined, organic flaxseed oil. As it says on the bottle, shake it before you use it.
Strip your pan down to the iron using the techniques I describe in my popover post. Heat the pan in a 200°F oven to be sure it’s bone dry and to open the pores of the iron a little. Then put it on a paper towel, pour a little flaxseed oil on it (don’t forget to shake the bottle), and rub the oil all over the pan with your hands, making sure to get into every nook and cranny. Your hands and the pan will be nice and oily.
Now rub it all off. Yup – all. All. Rub it off with paper towels or a cotton cloth until it looks like there is nothing left on the surface. There actually is oil left on the surface, it’s just very thin. The pan should look dry, not glistening with oil. Put the pan upside down in a cold oven. Most instructions say to put aluminum foil under it to catch any drips, but if your oil coating is as thin as it should be, there won’t be any drips.
Turn the oven to a baking temperature of 500°F (or as high as your oven goes – mine only goes to 450°F) and let the pan preheat with the oven. When it reaches temperature, set the timer for an hour. After an hour, turn off the oven but do not open the oven door. Let it cool off with the pan inside for two hours, at which point it’s cool enough to handle.
The pan will come out of the oven a little darker, but matte in texture – not the semi-gloss you’re aiming for. It needs more coats. In fact, it needs at least six coats. So again rub on the oil, wipe it off, put it in the cold oven, let it preheat, bake for an hour, and let it cool in the oven for two hours. The picture above was taken after six coats of seasoning. At that point it starts to develop a bit of a sheen and the pan is ready for use.
If you try this, you will be tempted to use a thicker coat of oil to speed up the process. Don’t do it. It just gets you an uneven surface – or worse, baked on drips. Been there, done that. You can’t speed up the process. If you try, you’ll mess up the pan and have to start over.
The reason for the very hot oven is to be sure the temperature is above the oil’s smoke point, and to maximally accelerate the release of free radicals. Unrefined flaxseed oil actually has the lowest smoke point of any oil (see this table). But the higher the temperature the more it will smoke, and that’s good for seasoning (though bad for eating – do not let oils smoke during cooking).
I mentioned earlier there’s a myth floating around that vegetable oils leave a sticky residue. If the pan comes out of the oven sticky, the cause is one of three things:
You put the oil on too thick.
Your oven temperature was too low.
Your baking time was too short.
It’s possible to use a suboptimal oil for seasoning, like Crisco or bacon drippings, and still end up with a usable pan. Many (most) people do this. But the seasoning will be relatively soft, not as nonstick, and will tend to wear off. If you want the hardest, slickest seasoning possible, use the right oil: flaxseed oil.


Blind baking: Does the choice of weights matter? Blind baking is done by lining a pastry shell first with parchment paper and then with some kind of weights to ensure that the bottom stays flat and the sides upright.

I have seen recipes that use rice, lentils, beans or even ceramic pie weights. And apparently all of them work. But does the choice of weights matter? Is there a difference e.g. between rice (small grains, each comparatively light) and beans (larger heavier beans)? Has anyone tested this?

What matters is keeping the crust from puffing and pulling away from the pie plate or tart mold.  So any of those work...more or less the same, but the typical drawback is that it is difficult to keep the sides of the crust in the proper form.  One of the most ingenious ways to deal with the issue is to line your pie plate with dough, place parchment on top, place an empty pie plate on top of that.  Now flip the whole thing over so that the empty pie plate is on the bottom (placed on a cookie sheet).  The dough is now baking upside down on top of the empty pie plate (leave everything in place, so that the dough is between plates with parchment while baking)...no shrinking or puffing.  Also...a well-chilled dough helps.  You can even form, then return to the fridge for a while to chill before baking.
Edit after question in the comments:  The question from @Alex led me to revisit the origin of this technique, which I recently heard about on Dave Arnold's radio show, "Cooking Issues."  It comes from a book called Pie Marches On by Monroe Boston Strause.  It can be found online.  It does not use two pans as I originally thought, rather, he blind bakes on the bottom side of one pie tin.  Then flips onto a shallower pie tin for cooling and filling.


What to look for when purchasing a honing steel? I currently don't have a honing steel.
Since I have just started experimenting with cooking I bought a cheap IKEA santoku to learn to care about it. I am planning to buy a better knife (not necessarily santoku) after some time and experience.

I currently don't have any honing steel. With so large spread of prices, conflicting opinions in cookbooks/tutorials it's really hard to make a decision.

So far the guides were consistent with:

The steel should be at least 2cm longer than the knife
The steel should be magnetized to catch metal waste

How can I decide whether a honing steel is a good one or bad?

Magnetizing can cause other problems, especially since you can also end up magnetizing knives which will then be MORE difficult to clean from metal debris.

There are smooth steels which really only set the edge straight; there are properly abrasive ones (diamond, ruby, ceramic), and there is the cheap in-between the ridged steel is. Do not confuse these three. Most criticism of honing steel use is towards ridged steels, combined with careless use.

Use of honing steels is mostly considered a bad idea for harder (60 HRC and above) knives. Especially ridged steels, especially with sloppy/cavalier "kebap cook"/"butcher" style technique. However, a cheap IKEA Santoku, unless it is something VG10 cored, will not be 60 and above. A "good" knife, especially if you choose a japanese style, might very well be. For such, you best use some kind of (paddle) strop for maintenance; a smooth steel or abrasive steel might also work IF used at a proper angle (this means you need the same basic knowledge needed for sharpening freehand on a stone...) and with caution. The "japanese way" appears to be to actually sharpen them on a fine (polishing) whetstone very regularly.

When it comes to abrasive steels, especially diamond!, be aware that you can accidentally change the edge angle significantly, create a coarser edge finish than intended, or raise a burr - all of these are a problem if done unintentionally (and probably inconsistently).


Can you preserve canned kidney beans so that they still have their shape? I buy kidney beans in a can, but the amount is always too big. Normally, I throw away the leftover beans, thinking that freezing them will turn them into mush (thinking the water will expand and make the membrane tear).
Is there a way to avoid this? Or another way to preserve them longer than a few days (preferably a few months)?

Note: I haven't actually tried this, so if they hold their shape nicely after freezing, please inform me.

Beans freeze marvelously. I put mine in freezer bags and lay them flat so they freeze quickly and are easier to thaw.

They are very sturdy little nuggets of joy and hold up well to canning or freezing without getting mushy.

Different beans behave differently. Pintos soften quickly and don't have much of a skin. Black beans keep their shape and skin a lot longer. Kidney beans are in the middle- if you boil them too long they will mash but they are a lot sturdier than pintos.


What is Vegetable Meat? I have come across this food,  but I am not sure what it is called. This is a totally vegetarian food but looks like non vegetarian. It is made up of soya(soya beans). Does any one knows whats its real name and whether such food exists or not? Also, how organic/non artificial free from chemical is it? How Hygienic is it? What are the famous restaurants in the world for it? I have heard some Chinese restaurants which offers vegetarian Chinese food, is that the same?

I have never heard of Tofu being called "vegetable meat". There are some fake meat types based on different types of soya products (or also other plant proteins), like "fake duck". But the only product I have seen bearing the generic label "vegetable meat" is textured vegetable protein. It is made from soya beans whose fat has been extracted to be used for oil production.

As for "non artificial", I have no idea what your personal definition of "artificial" is. It doesn't grow on trees, but then neither does butter, and I have never heard people condemn butter as "artificial". It is a processed product, and it is not a traditional process, but I can't tell you if it is more or less processed than traditional heavily processed foods such as sugar. Also, the amount of chemicals involved is probably dependent on the manufacturer. I guess you have to trust the regulatory organs of your country to not allow the production of food containing something harmful. Organic? This depends on the manufacturer too. If he adhers to organic production guidelines, then it is organic. And hygienic? This is even harder to answer, it depends on not only the manufacturer's decisions about the process, but also on the day-to-day process quality measures his employees take.

There is no reason to say that "vegetarian meat" is the same as vegetarian Chinese food. A cup of rice served in a Chinese restaurant is vegetarian and Chinese, but does not include any kind of meat substitute. If I cook a French recipe and use textured soy protein as meat replacement, this makes it vegetarian, but not Chinese. There can be some overlap between the two, but I doubt that it is big. China has had social conditions leading to vegetarian lifestyles (poverty, religious restrictions) for long before production of such protein began.

I doubt that any restaurants in the world are famous for it, mainly because it is a poor meat analogue. Yes, it offers a high amount of protein. But it does not taste really like meat. World-famous restaurants are world-famous because they offer high-quality food, and no food using inferior substitutions is high-quality. Yes, there are good vegetarian restaurants, but they don't make poor imitations of meat dishes using fake meats, they offer vegetarian dishes made from good ingredients. Some of them can feature some of the more popular soy products like tofu, but they are probably not famous for their tofu, because the tofu is not the main star of all dishes.

This all assumes that what you refer to is actually the textured vegetable protein I linked, but that is far from clear from your question. Other possibilities exist, because people have long tried to find a suitable meat substitute for vegetarians and for people who can't afford real meat. Most are soy-based, like the mentioned tofu and tempeh, but there are also wheat-based ones like seitan, and I think that there was some kind of beans product used sometimes instead of meat. Without you giving us more information, we can't conclude for sure which one you mean. But the answers to the other questions is about the same, with the exception that some processing methods are older than others and so can be considered more traditional (in case this plays a role for your understanding of "artificial").


What are other uses for a pizza stone? I recently acquired a pizza stone to use for baking bread. Other than pizza and bread, are there other uses for it in the kitchen?

A pizza stone can help an older or cheaper oven hold temperature as it will retain heat because of its mass, releasing it when the thermostat turns off the coil and reducing the variability in oven temperature. So, keep your pizza stone in the oven.


What's the difference between Prosciutto, Jamon Serrano and Speck? Jamon Serrano and Prosciutto appear to be pretty much the same thing.  Both are dried cured (and pressed) pig legs.  Speck appears to be the same thing, but made with different cuts of pork.

Is there actually a functional difference in them? Or is the difference in flavour simple due to regional variations (climate, moulds etc.)

Differences are mainly a question of origin. Speck comes from Tyrol (it actually means "bacon" in german, which is misleading) and is prepared with a specific blend of spices, usually including juniper, Jamon Serrano from Spain (it means "mountain ham" in spanish) and is a dry-cured ham, and prosciutto just means "ham" in italian.

There are plenty of differences in flavor, consistency and aspect, depending on the difference of preparation: ripening, spices and herbs and so on.


Why slow thawing is the best way to defrost a chicken flavor wise? From Julia Child's "The Joy of French Cooking":

  The best method for defrosting frozen chicken, according to those in
  the business, is the slowest : leave it in its transparent wrapper and
  let it thaw in the refrigerator. It will lose much less of its juice
  and flavor

How can the thawing method affect juiciness and flavor?

I took a look at Belni, H. (2015) Consumer Attitudes Toward Storing and Thawing Chicken and Effects of the Common Thawing Practices on Some Quality Characteristics of Frozen Chicken in the Asian-Austrailasian Journal of Animal Sciences. In the literature review, the paper states that

  ...the effects of the freezing and thawing on the quality of the meats continue to be a significant problem due to the complex physical, chemical, and biochemical changes during the processes including melting of ice crystals, relaxation of lipids, and relaxation/ proteolysis of proteins.

The author points out that, since the water fraction of the meat is the main issue, freezing rate and the formation of small ice crystals is desirable.  However,  consumers have little opportunity to control this variable, as we are using chicken that has already been frozen, or a home freezer that really doesn't freeze all that quickly.

The author examined 5 thawing methods:

in a refrigerator
on counter at room temperature
in warm water
under tap water
in a microwave

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of the most common thawing practices used by the consumers at home on some of the quality characteristics of chicken meat.

Quality was identified with regard to:

color
pH
drip loss
cooking loss (Cooking loss and drip loss are really about moisture loss * calculated by weight difference)
texture

The author found

  although there were significant differences among the thawing treatments for drip loss and cooking loss values, the experimental study revealed that defrosting frozen chicken meat using the most common home based thawing practices produced similar color and textural profile values among the cooked samples"

Significant differences:

Microwave and thawing on counter produced this highest drip loss.
Thawing in the refrigerator produced the lowest drip loss.

I would think this supports Julia's advice.


Is it safe to keep Carpaccio in a refrigerator for 24 hours? I have just made some home-made Carpaccio from thinly sliced beef rump, lemon juice, olive oil and Parmigiano.

Is it safe to keep the Carpaccio in the fridge for 24 hours?

It was safe to keep the rump, so why wouldn't it be safe to keep the slices of the rump?

The only way that, according to USDA suggestion, it wouldn't be safe is if, in your preparation, you'd left the raw meat out of refrigeration for longer than two hours. These guidelines are generally conservative, but bacteria can grow quite quickly in meat above 40˚ F (4.5˚ C), and even more quickly above 70˚ (21˚C). Meat that will be served raw should be kept as cold as possible -- chilling your equipment before preparation is often a good idea.

The issue, to my mind, is that it sounds like you've already applied lemon juice. Being acidic, that juice will denature the proteins in the meat, changing its texture -- making it "mushy". (This is why marinades often contain acid; up to a point, this action is perceived as tenderizing.)

There's also likely to be some unpleasant-looking and -tasting, oxidation -- and/or maybe dehydration --  of the thin pieces of meat while they sit in the fridge. This isn't unsafe, but it does decrease the appeal of the beautiful rosy-red raw beef you're supposed to have. Rubbing on some oil may help with this problem, as might plastic wrap directly on the surface.

I'd recommend preparing the meat as close to service as possible and dressing it, at least with the lemon and cheese, at the absolute last moment.


What is a reliable source for the caffeine content in tea? If you do a quick google search for "Tea caffeine content" you may get varied results anywhere from 20mg up to 45 for black tea. I wonder:

Where do all these numbers come from? Are they estimations? Has anyone actually measured caffeine in all tea types?
Is there a reliable source for caffeine content in tea?

TL;DR: (1) they are estimates based on a single sample and (2) No.

In order to pre-determine the exact amount of caffeine in a cup of tea, you would have to know many factors (as Choice Organic Teas says):

The exact tea blend and batch you're steeping;
The storage age (and conditions) of the leaves;
The exact steeping method, including times, temperatures, water source, and steps

While theoretically someone with a really generous research grant could create a giant grid that covered a lot of these factors, nobody (that I can find) has.  And the detailed reality is even more complicated than the above list, as factors like "how old was the specific tea bush the leaves came from, and was there a drought at the time" matter.


How to make peanut butter less dry When I make peanut butter at home, in a food processor, it comes out reasonably creamy as in store bought peanut butter, but when I put it in my mouth, it sucks the moisture from my mouth and is too dry and hard to swallow.

How can I prepare it so that it is easier to consume and closer to store bought peanut butters. I tried adding a couple of spoons of oil. Would adding honey help?

Add refined peanut oil. Add more than a couple of tbsp. Add it generously. Try using peanuts from a different source.


Is it safe to blend seeded grapes without removing seeds? It's doubtless unproductive and wearisome to remove seeds from each seeded grape before placing each into a blender. But if I don't remove seeds, can the seeds:

mangle or mar the blender blades?
chip or shatter the blender's container/jar?

In short, no. You could blend pencils and pens with most modern blenders and there's no damage to the blender. Fruit seeds won't be a consideration except in use of the blended fruit. You might need to strain the output to remove bits of hull.


Is tamari and soy sauce a 1:1 substitute? I tried a bottle of San-J tamari for the first time today. It tasted salty and bitter. I found that adding a pinch of sugar with the tamari to smooth out the bitterness made it taste more similar to soy sauce. But, wanted to get your thoughts? Is tamari and soy sauce a 1:1 substitute?

The answer is both yes, and at the same time no.
The problem is that there are a lot of types of soy sauce (see What are the differences between types of soy sauce? ), and many of them are not good substitutions for each other.
Depending on what type of soy sauce you're replacing, Tamari may be a good 1:1 substitution, or it may not be.


How should I poach an egg? What's the best method to poach an egg without it turning into an eggy soupy mess?

I have tried many techniques but what gets the best results for me is dropping them directly in water and vinegar. Complete method below:

Take eggs out of fridge early and leave to reach room temp. It is okay to leave them out of fridge overnight if cooking for breakfast.
Fill pan with water - I use frying pan with minimum depth of 4cm.
Add splash of vinegar to help the egg coagulate.
Bring water to boil then reduce heat until you can see a few tiny bubbles rising from bottom of pan.
Crack 1st egg into ramekin of some sort - I use a narrow tea cup.
If cooking one egg:

Stir the pan very slowly from the outside and then gently slide egg from ramekin into middle of pan.
NOTE: Do not make a rapid whirlpool in the center of pan - the centrifugal forces will pull the yolk towards the side of the pan creating a yolk sack with whites left in the middle of whirlpool.

If cooking many eggs:

Gently slide egg from ramekin near outside edge of pan with following eggs near edges of pan. Use a spoon to push escaping whites towards egg after sliding in for a couple of seconds until it starts to coagulate.

Cook for about 3-4mins for runny, longer for harder yolk.
If eating immediately:

Use a slotted spoon to lift eggs onto a plate with 2 layers of paper towel. Make sure to drain excess water - you may like to shake slotted spoon a bit.
Place a paper towel over eggs and press down gently to soak up excess water.
You should be able to pick up your perfectly poached egg with your hands and show your friends how pro you are.

If cooking lots or eating later:

Remove eggs with slotted spoon and place into bowl of cold water.
You may quickly heat them up in hot water when ready to use.

This is my morning routine twice a week - with english muffin, butter, bacon, rocket/spinach salad and hollandaise sauce.


What are some low fat butter substitutes for cookies? What is a good butter substitute for baking cookies? I am looking for something that would contain less fat grams per serving than butter. I have difficulty breaking down fats so I need something that would be gentler on the digestive system. I would greatly appreciate any feedback or ideas.

You are asking not just to substitute for butter, but to reduce the total amount of fat in cookies.
All of the most common butter substitutes are going to be oils, margarine or other fats since they will perform similarly in the chemistry of the cookie.  This makes it difficult to offer a simple substitution.

Instead, I recommend taking the approach of making cookies that are naturally lower in fat such as:

Meringues - zero fat
Macaroons  - little fat, just in the coconut
Macrons (french style) - little fat, without the filling -- just from the nut powder

or using recipes designed specifically to have lower fat content.   If you google "reduced fat cookie recipe" you will find a wealth of results.

One site that looks promising, although I cannot vouch for it as I haven't tried the recipes is:

Good housekeeping's reduced fat cookie recipes

Another source for lower calorie recipes that are often pretty good, although not targeted specifically at reducing fat is:

Cooking light

Since fat contributes a lot of calories, you may have luck with their recipes.

The benefit of using recipes designed for less fat is that they are (from reputable sources) tested and likely to give you a better outcome than simply trying to substitute in a traditional recipe.

Also, you can try simply reducing the amount of fat in the cookie.   This is going to be tricky as it will modify the chemistry, but you may be able to get away with a 1/4 to 1/3 reduction before you get completely unpalatable results, but this will require testing on a recipe by recipe basis.  It also will not work well for cookies based on the creaming method, as the fat medium is part of the leavening (the purpose of the creaming method is to create a solid fat/air foam).

One final thought:  some people say you can substitute apple sauce.  You might try this on a recipe by recipe basis, but it will completely change the cookie.  I think you will get better results with recipes created from the ground up to use less fat.


Failed chocolate sponge I'm new to bakery and I can bake chiffon and angel food cake alright, but everytime(3 times) I bake chocolate sponge, I always end up with something with good moisture but super stiff. What could I have done wrong and how can I make the cake more tender in texture? Thanks!

My recipe: 3 eggs, 40g butter, 40g(in egg white)+20g(in yolk) sugar, 60g flour, 20g cocoa powder for a 8-inch square baking pan. 170°C, 10min.

And what I did:

Separate the egg white and yolk, whip the white until there's a curly spike when I pick up the wisk. During the whipping process, pour in the 40g of sugar.

Add 20g sugar to the yolk and stir until the mixture gets a bit pale.

Add 40g of melted butter into the mixture and stir until the mixture is smooth. Pour 1/3 of the egg white foam into the yolk-butter mixture. Mix carefully as not to deflate the egg white. When mixed well, pour in the other 2/3 of egg white and mix.

Add in the flour & cocoa powder. Bake in preheated oven.

Sponge and pound cakes contain fat. Therefore, they are not usually made with pure egg leavening. Egg leavening relies on a protein-based foam (whipped eggwhites), and fat deflates protein-based foams and/or prevents them from "curing" at high temperatures.

If you found a sponge cake recipe without chemical leavening, this is a sign for a bad recipe. The best would be to search for a better recipe, especially if you are a beginner baker. Troubleshooting baking recipes is an advanced skill which requires both experience and theoretical knowledge - certainly attainable for the average home baker, but unnecessarily hard for beginners. With the tons of recipes available at your fingertips for free, it makes more sense to search for a better one. It will give you correct ratios and temperatures and save you failures and frustration.

And a small pedantic part: what you are making here is not a sponge cake, but a pound cake. They have the same ingredients, but sponge cakes are made using the creaming method, while pound cakes use melted butter. The upside: both of them are tasty :)


Why did my devil food cake come out flavorless? Here is a picture of my devil food cake . The recipe is in this video (there is no written recipe). Just by looking at the cake, could you tell what mistakes I have done baking it?

Recipe:
400g butter mixed with 2 1/4 cups white sugar (I didn't use room temp butter so I let it mix a LOT with the sugar).

Add 4 eggs each at a time. Add 3/4 cup dutch process cocoa (didn't have dutch process so I used regular cocoa with 3/4 teaspoon of baking soda to reduce the acidity of regular cocoa) with 3/4 cup hot water and 3/4 cup 15% sour cream + 113 grams of bittersweet dark chocolate.

Then add 2 cups (240 grams) white flour. Mixed everything and put in a buttered and dusted pan. Baked in oven for 180 degrees (350 f) for 35 minutes (recipe called for 45 but it would have burned if I cooked that long. I also made sure with a thermometer my oven was at the right temp). Let rest for 15 minutes then take out.

It was supposed to come out choclatey, brown, fudgy and moist. Instead it came out dry, black, flavorless and it also broke into two pieces when I took it out of the pan.

In baking it's very important - particularly when making your first cake - to follow the recipe as precisely as you can.
If you do not have the ingredients - Dutch processed cocoa, in this case - find a recipe that uses ingredients you can get. The pH balance is not the only difference between the two, as explained in this Serious Eats article:

Dutch process cocoa has a more intense "chocolatey" flavor while natural cocoa looks lighter in color and tastes slightly astringent.

So, your complaints of no chocolate flavor likely are due to the recipe relying on the stronger chocolate flavor of the Dutched cocoa than natural. On top of this, cocoa brands are highly variable in quality. If you don't splurge on high-quality cocoa, you're probably not going to be happy with the outcome, particularly if the recipe was designed for it. This is one of those ingredients where matching the brand used by the author is probably a good call.
Dutch cocoa is also pH neutral, while natural cocoa is not. It looks like you may have attempted to combat this by adding extra baking soda but that may not be an appropriate solution. The SE article reads:

If a cake or cookie recipe only calls for baking soda, it likely uses acidic natural cocoa. If it only uses baking powder, it'll probably ask for Dutch process cocoa instead. If a recipe calls for both baking powder and baking soda, you'll need to follow the recipe to get the proper balance of acid and alkaline. Recipes that use baking powder will likely rise regardless of tweaking, but not as well; it's best to stick to the cocoa that a recipe calls for.
emphasis added

In addition to this, overuse of leavening (in an attempt to neutralize your natural cocoa) could have caused your cake to over-rise early in the baking process and then deflate because there wasn't sufficient structure to support it, thus causing it to be dense and flat.

Preparing the ingredients properly (room temperature butter) is also very important. Creaming butter and sugar introduces a lot of air into a cake. Failing to do so to a sufficient degree will cause the cake to be dense. It's considered "mechanical leavening" you're mechanically introducing air into batter. In relation to cookies, it's discussed on Serious Eats.

See, unlike stirring, mixing, or beating, creaming isn't about combining ingredients—it's about aerating them. By bashing butter against the sides of a bowl, whether you're going at it with a spatula or with a stand mixer, you're folding it over and over, creating little pockets of air with every turn. Add sugar, and suddenly that process is way more effective, building up an expansive network of sugar crystals, fat, and air.
In pastry-speak, this process is described as "mechanical leavening": physically cramming air into a dough so that it'll puff up in the oven like a hot-air balloon. Google around, and that's what you'll be told, time and again. Creaming adds air. Air is fluffy. Fluffy is good. Good is great. Yay, cookies!
While some recipes may only ask you to cream the butter and sugar until well combined, most invoke the phrase "light and fluffy." Both techniques have merit (the former intentionally cultivating a denser dough), but here I'm gonna stick to addressing the mysteries of "light and fluffy" alone.

Now, the article doesn't actually require the butter to be as soft as many recipes may imply. For cookies she recommends the butter start off at 60F (15.5C) rather than 65C (as many recipes recommend). Lower butter temperature helps reduce spread in cookies. For cakes, where spreading isn't an issue, she recommends a slightly higher temperature for butter and to use warm (instead of cold) eggs.

In my experience, the number one mistake people make with creaming is using overly warm butter. Experts generally cite 65°F as the ideal temperature for butter, but that fails to take into account a couple of critical factors. First, the temperature will go up as soon as you add the sugar, which is as warm as your kitchen. And second, once you start mixing, the friction generated by an electric mixer can be enough to warm eight ounces of butter by one degree every minute. That doesn't leave much time before the butter hits the point of no return [68F]. Therefore, err on the side of keeping things cool.

She notes that butter over 70F won't hold air at all, so don't let it get that high.

In the comments you mentioned that you used a pan that was slightly bigger than what the recipe recommended - 9.8 inches instead of 9 inches. A 9-inch circle has an area of about 64 square inches while a 9.8 inch circle has quite a bit more, 75.4 square inches. That's a difference of about 20%. The difference is less pronounced at smaller sizes but when you get into these bigger cake pans, it can make a huge difference.
This is likely why the baking time was so off for you. More surface area for the same amount of batter means that the entire thing will cook more quickly - the batter will also be shallower in order to accommodate the larger size and will cook through sooner. Being thinner also means it is more likely to dry out - particularly if over baked.
There's an interesting guide to adjusting recipes for different pan sizes on Food 52 that you might find helpful. It addresses a similar conversion to yours:

Just by glancing at the two pans, you might think that a 9-inch pan is very close in size to an 8-inch pan of the same shape, thus making it a reasonable substitute. But if you check the chart, you’ll find that a 9-inch square pan is more than 25% larger than an 8-inch square pan. (The relationship between a 9-inch and 8-inch round pan is similar.) Such a considerable difference will result in a 9-inch batch of very thin brownies that may be over-baked by the time you check them for doneness (because thin brownies bake faster than thick ones). Knowing this beforehand, you can increase the recipe by 25% for results as thick than the original recipe intended. If you want brownies that are even a tad thicker than the original recipe, you can even increase the recipe by 33%.

So, I'm not sure whether other things went wrong. I've not tried this recipe but it's from a reputable source, so it should be fine. I reiterate - follow the recipe or find a different one that you can follow if you really want so have success in the kitchen, particularly with baking!


What is hot raspberry puree? I have a caramel recipe that calls for hot raspberry puree to be added near the end of cooking. I'm assuming that the seeds are supposed to be removed, so how is this different from raspberry juice?

I have a bag of frozen raspberries. Could I just thaw them and put them through a mesh sieve (the way I would make juice)?

Raspberries aren't just seeds and juice, though they're certainly not as fleshy as some fruits. The difference between apple puree (apple sauce) and apple juice is much more obvious. In any case, you should be fine forcing them through a sieve as you suggest.


Roasting 3 Stuffed Pork Loins I am roasting 3 stuffed pork tenderloins together.  If the timing for one is 30 minutes, how long should I roast 3? (A digital thermometer will be used to measure internal temp.)

30 minutes. Provided you have some space between them so the air can circulate, it doesn't matter how many you roast at once.


Chicken Pasta Left on Counter 2+ hours...safe? I took a Cajun Chicken Pasta casserole out of the oven, and after eating, divided the leftovers up and put them in tupperware containers and left them on the counter to cool. Unfortunately, I got distracted and forgot to put the containers in the freezer. From the time they were taken out of the oven to the time I finally stuck them in the freezer was probably 2 1/2 or 3 hours. I keep my house between 70-75 degrees. Should I be concerned about eating them?

EDIT: As stated, I don't feel this is a duplicate question as I'm so close to the "danger zone" in regard to length of time left on the counter.

Food kept at warm or ambient temperature for over 2 hours is supposed to be discarded.

However in this case the food was too warm for the danger zone for the beginning of this time, in fact for quite a bit of it, and you were only a little over the 2 hours, so it's highly unlikely that you actually exceeded the 2 hour limit. That wouldn't be good enough in the restaurant business but at home you don't have to prove it.

I do this routinely, as I've measured in my (rather cool) kitchen that the things I freeze stay out of the danger zone for over an hour on the surface, the coolest part, and I don't want to add lots of heat to my freezer and spoil the quality of the nearby food.

It's still a judgement call, and remember that time in the danger zone is cumulative, so defrost in the fridge and reheat quickly and thoroughly.


Will colored shredded coconut show up in brownies? My coworkers would like me to make faux "special" brownies.  The requirements are that the brownies look the part and still taste good but don't have any actual "herbs" in them.  My first thought was crushed dried mint leaves.  We also came up with colored coconut.  I'm going to try the mint leaves, but will the food coloring hold up on the coconut in the brownies?  Or would I be better off mixing undyed coconut into the brownie with some dyed coconut lightly mixed on top?  Or are there any other suggestions I could use?  I also thought of cat nip but that doesn't seem like it would taste good.

(I'm using code just in case I can't put the real word. LOL)

Thanks rumtscho.  I wasn't sure if I should post as an answer or an edit.  I've edited to remove answer and place here.

Update: I ended up making two brownies.
One 8X8 pan with 6 bags of mint tea stirred into it. It gave off a very earthy (and minty) smell and has a very earthy/herby taste (and minty too).  I doubt I'll make the mint ones again.
The second one was a 9X13 pan with 2/3 of a bag of shredded coconut colored green. I put the coconut in a bowl and used gel food coloring.  I don't have a huge selection of colors, so I used green with a touch of brown. I could have used a little more brown so the green wasn't so bright. I mixed it in the coconut and then mixed most of it into the batter. The remainder went on top and lightly swirled into the batter. The effect was really good and amazingly the color didn't seep into the brownies. When you bite into them, the coconut maintained its green color. I didn't have any white chocolate to try the green white chocolate idea, but maybe next time. :)


How to make stone ground flour? Is there a way to make stone ground flour at home easily, preferably manually, from whole wheat/rye/kamut/spelt berries? Is that what a miller is used for, or is that only to make regular flour?

Can I just use something like mortar and pestle?

My end goal is to make sourdough bread and a starter with this stone ground flour.

It is possible, whether it fits your definition of easily is questionable, though.

Whole grain flour is made by grinding whole wheat/rye/... berries until you get a fine flour, a technique used since the neolithic age. The method that is still in use today is basically "rubbing the grains between a firm base stone and a moving upper stone", either shaped like a rolling pin or round and flat like a millstone. (Increase the scale and you get a classic mill.) So your mortar and pestle will work, even if they are not made of the types of sandstone, basalt or limestone that have the "right" mixture of coarseness and durability to make good millstones.

The drawback? Scale and time. You will probably need a lot of time, to get enough flour for a bread. For a starter, it should be ok, though.

If you think about buying a mill because you decide your super-fresh flour is worth the effort and cost, note that good manual mills with ceramic stones are almost as expensive as electric ones, but are way less comfortable. I make a lot of things myself and by hand in my kitchen, but I would draw the line at cranking a mill for half an hour just to get flour for one bread.

For a very "kitchen hack" style of grinding flour (but obviously not "stone ground"), consider your food processor (but check the manual first!): Pulse a cup or two of wheat berries untill you see "flour" and "grits" forming. Sieve off the finer parts, return the coarser to the food processor, add more grains and continue. You can even use the coarser parts for some kinds of wholegrain bread - a question of taste and recipe.


Would this cheat puff pastry really work? I watched this video titled: "Cheats Quick Puff Pastry Recipe by Paul Hollywood". The one claims that it will result in the same dough and as flaky as the original puff pastry. The trick is, he used frozen grated butter instead of cubes of butter and used it twice in the rolling process. I would like to know if this really works, because then I don't have to wait for the butter to get softer so that flattens.

Yes, that will work just like traditional methods. That's the real deal, it's not even a cheat, it's just smart.

BTW, the last line in your question raised my eyebrows. In puff pastry there is no waiting "for the butter to get softer so that it flattens". The butter is flattened (or sliced) with brute strength while the butter is still ice cold. That's critical to puff pastry. If the butter melts even a little before the layers are formed and it goes in the oven, you're sunk. The final product will be greasy and won't puff as much as it should. You get that puff by having very distinct layers of butter between layers of dough. If the butter is allowed to get warm, even a little, it will absorb into the flour.

Paul Hollywood's method is brilliant. It almost makes me want to make puff pastry from scratch. (almost)

For those disinclined to watch the video but still interested in puff pastry: What Mr Hollywood did in the video was grate frozen butter, then he kept the grated butter in the freezer until he had the rectangle of dough ready for the butter. Then he just sprinkled on the frozen butter and did the first envelope fold. He rolls that out into rectangle again, adds more frozen butter, and repeats the fold. Fridge for one hour, one more roll, fold, roll, done. Well! I wish I had thought of that.

EDIT 5 months later:

I'm still not particularly interested in making puff pastry from scratch since I doubt I can improve on the frozen stuff, however, I was encouraged by @rumtscho to try my hand at croissants. Since croissants are basically puff pastry with yeast, I decided to form my croissant dough using Mr Hollywood's technique.

It worked like a charm.


Can I freeze soup in a pot? Can I freeze soup in a pot (I believe it's made of stainless steel)? Are there any health risks? Is there any risk of damage to the pot?

There are no health safety risks with storing food in a stainless steel, or most other cooking pot metals for that mater

The pot should be fine, but there is always a risk with metal in a freezer in that bare skin contact may freeze to it. Also other products in freezer bags may even freeze to it

In general it's easier not to use metal containers in the freezer, unless enamelled or plastic coated


What kind of vegetable oil should I use for baking? I'm going to bake this cake: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/French-Yogurt-Cake-395471
and was wondering what sort of vegetable oil (canola etc) I should use? Would the type of oil make any difference to the cake?

The kind of oil you use in baking is mostly a matter of personal preference.  Any neutral oil (no strong flavor) will do.

I suggest you use an oil that you keep around for another purpose, which is not too expensive.

Some good candidates include:

Canola oil
Peanut oil (refined, except for those with peanut allergies)
Generic "vegetable" oil

Grapeseed oil is also excellent but tends to expensive.

Oils you would want to avoid due to the fact that they bring more flavor which may not be what you want in baked goods include:

Olive oil
Sesame oil
Unrefined oils of all sorts


How long will blackberries keep in the refrigerator if they have been cooked with sugar and water added? How long will blackberries keep in the refrigerator if they have been cooked with sugar and water?

It depends. If you used at least 1/3 sugar to 2/3 berries ratio by weight AND let all the water cook off until it jellied a bit, you cooked a jam. It will last for weeks to months to years, and the first spoilage will be mold, which is visible.

If you either used less sugar or did not cook out the water completely, it was not preserved and the shelf life is like that of any other cooked food, 3 to 5 days in the fridge.


Can jasmine rice and basmati rice be cooked together? I only have one cup of jasmine rice left, but plenty of basmati. Can I just mix them together in the rice cooker?

It shouldn't be a problem, since their cooking times are similar.


Liquid Pockets in Cream Cheese I have a maybe (3 lb?) block of Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese. I just cut into it for the third time and noticed several pockets of what appear to be to be water in the middle of the cheese. I've never seen that before and wonder if anybody knows what causes it. It's well within its expected freshness time, has always been refrigerated and carefully wrapped. The pockets of clear liquid range from 1-2 square centimeters, and are right in the middle of the cheese. The cheese tastes and smells perfectly normal. Can anybody say what this is?

It sounds like whey.  Evidently your block was insufficiently strained before being pressed into the mold.


How can I save apples pieces that became black? Apple pieces became black very quickly. How can I save them?

Apples turn brown due to contact with air and there are a couple of things (that I know) to slow down the process.

Toss the apples with a little bit of lemon (or lime) juice
Submerge them in ice water

both will retard the brown (oxidation) on apples and a lot of other fruit too.


Freezing ready to poach eggs I am generally a bit strapped for time, so in an attempt to maximise my time my plan is to crack eggs into clingfilm and tie them so they make poaching pods, freeze them, and drop them into water when needed.

Has anyone tried to freeze these poaching pods and then poach the eggs from frozen?

This will work from a safety standpoint, unfortunately, freezing alters the property of the yolk.  So, you will likely not get the runny yolk that you would expect in a poached egg, it will be more solid, like a hard boiled egg.  Why not poach your eggs for the week and store them in the refrigerator, then reheat each morning?  According to The Food Lab you can poach eggs and store them, with no loss of quality, for 5 days.


'Lighter' version of American breakfast (I'm neither English nor American so I might mix some things up.)

At home we usually have cereal or bread for breakfast. I really like English/American breakfast with eggs, beans and bacon, though. Do you have any suggestions about how to make a lighter version of that kind of breakfast for people who think that such a heavy/greasy meal is too much in the morning?

But...that's how we got to be Americans =). Some suggestions:

Turkey bacon is (comparatively) light
and very little grease.
Use one egg and mix in some
water/milk, use a non-stick pan so
you don't have any excuse to add in
butter.
Substitute beans/whatever else with
some fruit


Online freely available cookbooks As a programmer, I'm used to have a lot of online books for learning about almost everything.

I'm sure that there are some cookbooks hidden in the web... but I've found just a few of them...

I know that there are a lot of great websites teaching cooking skills and collecting recipes (and my RSS reader is always exploding with great tips and recipes), but sometimes I prefer to have a whole book in my (virtual) shelves...

So I thought we could create a list of available online free cookbooks, like the programming books one on stackoverflow.

This is an incredibly useful Hydrocolloid Recipe Collection if you are interested in modernist techniques (so called molecular gastronomy).


Is it ok to microwave veggies without water instead of blanching them in a pot of water? Whenever I see a recipe which requires me to blanch vegetables for a few minutes, I microwave them instead.  It's sometimes faster, I don't have to get a pot dirty, and I don't usually have to dry the vegetables afterwards.  The microwave seems to do a very good job of par-cooking any vegetable which is cut up into small, uniform-sized pieces.

However, I've never seen a mainstream cookbook recommend microwaving instead of blanching.  Is there a reason for this?  Am I losing flavor or texture I would get with blanching?  Or is this just one of those bits of propaganda one learns in Chef School, like how garlic presses are evil?

So, is microwaving vegetables to cook them a fine substitute for blanching them, or am I Doing Things Wrong?

My kitchen manager (fine dining restaurant) said that that the only thing a microwave should be used for in a professional kitchen is to heat water.

Microwaving tends to dry out the outside of vegetables, and hurts both texture and flavor.  Proper blanching takes about 5 minutes once you have water at a boil, and maintains both the crisp, fresh flavor and full texture.  Blanching also tends maintain color better, because the outside of the vegetables heats to the same extent as the inside, and this is doubly true if you use an ice bath to cool vegetables after blanching.

So yes, you are Doing Things Wrong.  That said, we all take shortcuts at times, and microwave ovens do work rather well for thawing frozen vegetables.  With frozen vegetables you've already lost a lot of the texture, so the microwaving doesn't do much further harm.


Why do some eggs crack while being boiled? It doesn't happen with every egg. It happens with only some of them.

It doesn't have anything to do with fridge. Almost always I take the eggs out of the fridge and put them in water for boiling.  Many times they don't crack. Some times they do.

What is cause of eggs getting cracked while boiling?

Well, sometimes eggs have non-visible (or non-visible without candling - shining a very bright light into the egg and looking at the light coming out of the egg) cracks.

That would be one possible cause - the crack pre-existed. Even if it was not cracked when graded, cracks both visible and invisible are possible in the distribution process.

Getting cracked from moving around in the pot is possible, depending on how hard you boil them. If actually boiling them I'd suggest a simmer, but in fact I don't suggest that at all - just boil the pot of water, lower eggs in with a spoon, turn the heat off and cover - yank when they suit your concept of "done" (if hard boiled, 20-30 minutes by this method.) "Coddling" is sometimes used to describe this, though it's also used to describe cooking (without shell, and possibly with added ingredients) in a specialized ceramic container (an egg coddler.) Anyway, it greatly reduces the odds of cracking via "rattling around in the pot" (though not why I do it that way; I do it because it appears, observationally, to reduce my incidence of overcooking the yolk and making it nasty.)


Why is sugar a wet ingredient? The last time I checked, most sugar is really dry (unless it's something like brown sugar).  So why is it categorized as "wet"?

Sugar is not really a wet ingredient, it's just treated as one in certain types of baking (i.e. cakes).

When making a cake or other "fluffy" baked good, you want a fairly small amount of gluten to be produced, otherwise you'll get a chewy texture instead, and you definitely don't want a cake to be chewy like bread.

Dissolving sugar in the water inhibits the gluten-forming proteins.  It's a method (actually, the method) of adding more liquid to the mix without getting a tough, chewy cake.  It is for this reason that sugar is considered a "wet ingredient" - because the process only works properly if you add it with the water, not with the other dry ingredients.

It's even possible for sugar to be a dry and wet ingredient in the same recipe; you might add just enough sugar to the water to get the right texture, and add more to the dry ingredients for further sweetening.


When a recipe calls for X cooked amount of something is that before or after it has been cooked? I think I know the answer to this and realize that it is similar to this question about nuts, but I wanted to verify my instinct. When a recipe calls for 1 ½ cups cooked X, is that recipe calling for that ingredient measured before or after cooking?

Recipe-speak is very particular about order.

half a cup of butter, melted means you measure the solid butter (probably with a butter ruler) and then melt it
half a cup of melted butter means you melt some larger amount of butter and then measure (probably with a liquid measure)

Obviously there's no difference between 3 carrots, roasted and 3 roasted carrots. Nor between 2 eggs, hardboiled and sliced and 2 hardboiled sliced eggs. And in many cases the volume of things isn't much affected by cooking. In some cases it is easier to measure before or afterwards, and the recipe-writer wants to point you in the easier way. But in some it really matters. Rice, for example. 1 cup of raw rice yields roughly 3 cups cooked, so recipe writers need to be super clear which you are measuring.

In your example, 1.5 cups cooked X, you cook it and then measure it.


Can one eat a balanced diet if one only cooks once a week? Is it possible to have a balanced (healthy) diet if one only cooks once a week?  I am talking about batch cooking, not eating lots of costly pre-made foods.

”Pre-made food” refers to pre-prepared salads, microwaveable dinners, and other similar foods, which are invariably expensive.

If so, how?

The types of foods that reheat well are also quite suitable for being balanced in one main dish. Generally speaking, dishes with stuff in sauce freeze/chill and reheat well. So stew, curry, chilli, ratatouille etc. should work. Any of those can be made with plenty of veg, which is important if you're aiming for a balanced diet. An accompanying carbohydrate side can often be cooked in a similar time to reheating the main dish, so this doesn't need to be included (unless you want to of course). From the point of view of sticking to nutritional guidelines you can do much better this way than buying ready prepared stuff, and cheaper.

Freezing in single portions is important; I tend to use containers intended for takeaway meals.  Freezing means after 2 or 3 sessions of cooking you've got a variety of meals.  I tend to defrost in the fridge, allowing 24 hours.

Personally I batch cook about 5-6 portions most Sundays, but don't rely on reheating these every night. Quick simple meals (like a stir fry or an omelette) add a nice variety.


Raw milk curdling in microwave Why is it that every time I try to heat raw milk in a microwave it curdles and becomes like ricotta after a few seconds?

The problem you are facing is that your microwave temperature is too high and boils your milk too rapidly. The microwave does not heat food evenly and boils the milk too fast. Milk shouldn't be boiled too rapidly and doing this causes the casein in it to clump together and that curdles the milk. It should instead be brought 'to a boil' by heating on a slow heat for longer until it starts to boil.

So, you can try a couple of different options:

You can bring the milk to a boil in a pan on a stove on slow heat, which will take long depending on the amount of milk. And I can vouch for this method. I've seen my dad do this for years and as long as your pan is clean and the heat is low, you'll have a successful result.
I haven't tried this myself, but you can Pour milk into a microwave-safe container and microwave on medium-high (70%) power, stirring every 15 seconds, just until steam begins to rise from the milk. To scald milk for custards or yogurt, heat 250 mL (1 cup) on HIGH for 2 to 2 1/2 minutes. - Reference


In a tomato sauce recipe, how can I cut the acidity? It seems that every time I make a tomato sauce for pasta, the sauce is a little bit too acid for my taste. I've tried using sugar or sodium bicarbonate, but I'm not satisfied with the results.

My secret weapon is onion. Caramelize the onions first.  This creates a natural sweetness.  Always use ripe tomatoes; if you cannot then use canned.  The canned are made from ripe tomatoes and tend to be a very good substitute.

Also, the celery and carrot suggestions are very much a good addition - you are making a classic tomato sauce when you include the celery and carrots, 1 part each celery and carrot to 2 parts onion.  Add the onions first to get the caramelization.

I don't get too fancy with herbs, usually one good fresh herb does it for me, basil or sage are two favorites of mine.

There is a suggestion to add cream, why not use the parmesan end you may have in your fridge, it is dairy and allowed to slowly simmer in the sauce will lend a very nice flavor note.

Acidic sauces are usually reserved for nights when I make a puttanesca sauce - it goes with the capers and calamata olives I add to it.

Don't forget to season with salt and pepper.


Why is soba not entirely buckwheat flour? I thought that soba was completely made of buckwheat flour, but I learned that it's actually around 80% buckwheat and 20% wheat flour.

Is there a reason for this mixture ? Is it for flavour or ease of preparation or cost ?

Buckwheat flour is gluten free.  The small amount of wheat flour gives it more stretch, and helps it stay together a bit better.  For more information, check out this article.


Safety of coffee in thermal flask, long periods of time How long is it safe to hold coffee in a thermal flask?  Is coffee (prepared in a cezve, Turkish method, no sugar) carried in a thermal flask for 24 or 48 hours still safe?

I'm asking because black tea, for example, goes really bad in just a few hours.

Coffee in a container is approximately as safe as boiled water in a container. While it may be unpleasant tasting, the water in coffee and tea is almost universally boiled, and the scalding liquid is placed directly on the grounds/tea leaves. There is a little nutritional value in coffee and tea extracts, providing some support for new microbes introduced after the boiling, but not much.

There is no reason to be wary of coffee kept in a clean, sealed container for a day.


Is there a substitute for dashi? I adore Japanese cooking, but when cooking for vegetarians, I don't want to use dashi (bonito) stock. However, if I just omit it, the result doesn't taste authentic.

Anyone have a substitute?

Dashi (だし) is a class of stocks, and while katsuodashi (かつおだし) made with bonito flakes is the most common type, there are plenty of alternatives.

The most common purely vegetarian one in Japan is kombudashi (昆布だし, こんぶだし) made from kelp.  You can try to make your own, but well-stocked Japanese grocers will have powdered instant versions of this in stock.  Here's one from Ajinomoto:

Note the green packaging to differentiate it from the red/pink katsuo versions.  We use kombudashi often at home, and in miso soup etc the taste is not noticeably different from katsuodashi, although it does lack the strong "fishy" notes.


Is there somewhere I can see a diverse range of plating options? I'm not very good at plating, but I'm okay at copying ways that other chefs have plated their foods. I recently watched a video where two chefs make and plate a dish, and then compare their results to those done by students at a culinary school.

Is there a website that shows a variety of plating options for the same recipe? I realize I can just do a Google image search for the name of the dish, but ideally I want to be looking at the exact same recipe in all pictures, and a reasonably high caliber of presentation.

The Art of Plating is pretty good. They have a website, but I recommend their twitter feed.

Other than that, I would refer to plain google searches. Cookbooks are good inspiration. I think that amongst books, Essential Cuisine is supposed to be one of the better ones for plating (albeit I don't think you would go wrong with something like The Fat Duck Cookbook or Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine).


Breadcrumbs or flour when greasing and dusting a cake form? I unthinkingly followed a recipe for a type of chocolate cake where it said to dust the cake form with breadcrumbs after greasing. Unsurprisingly the toasted breadcrumbs were clearly visible on the outside of the cake after baking.

This wasn't a big deal and the crumbs were easy enough to brush off anyway, but it got me thinking: when is it better to dust with breadcrumbs and when is it better to use flour?

For my chocolate cake, if I'd stopped to think, I would have used a flour/cocoa mixture. If I were making a delicate sponge most likely I would go for flour there too.

What about breadcrumbs though? Perhaps the batter is less likely to stick to the form if dusted with breadcrumbs? Or would you use breadcrumbs to add a little crunch to the cake's outer surfaces (can't say I noticed any crunch myself).

i only have one recipe that calls for breadcrumbs, which is my hungarian torte (uses almond meal) and I use fine purchased breadcrumbs. I've never really noticed them but the cake does come out nicely. There's no issue from a flavour perspective as they're often used in sweet foods (like strudel) to absorb the moisture in the fillings.
I would use flour unless the recipe called for breadcrumbs, but you only need a very light coating...shake around then tip out and tap well.


Bread for the very beginner First of all, thank you for reading this absolute beginner topic :)

I want to make bread at home. To be specific, I used to live in Germany and ate a lot of this type of bread:

It's called Zwiebelbrot in Germany.

I also have something like this.

For the very very, absolute beginner, what do I really need to make bread at home?
Do I need a bread-maker machine, or is my kitchen already enough for this task?
Are there any tip that you want to give me on my first bread adventure?

RESULT:

First of all, gather all types of stuff from (mamas) kitchen :D

Mix everything youghly, drop an egg on it

In a pan, easily fry some onions

After that, mix everything together, add the onions:

After that, knead everything WILDLY (notice the blur on my head:) :

The final result should look something like:

SUMMARY:

My FIRST try ever to make bread, I'm so proud:)

After that, the raw product was:

The finished product:)

and the grande finale:)

Thank you very much :)

To make basic bread, including Zwiebelbrot, all you need is a place to mix and knead ingredients (clean work surface or large mixing bowl), a warmish place for rising, and an oven with reasonable temperature control.

For the onions you need a small pan, and a stove top. Or you can do them in the oven too!

Therefore, your kitchen looks fine.

Making bread is not difficult, or hard work. The effort and time required for kneading bread is way overrated. Also have patience, allow the dough to rise properly.

Expect a few failures; search the net about any failures, if you have them.

Use a marker pen on the oven dial when you find the right temperature (The calibration of the dials is usually not very accurate).

For Zwiebelbrot, you can cook the onions in a shallow tray or light pan in the oven while waiting for it to come up to temperature for the bread. Make sure you cool the onions before spreading on the dough. A simple way is to spread them out on a spare metal oven tray for a few moments first.


How can I evenly grill a thin steak on a skillet? When I fry a thin (1/4") beef steak on a skillet/pan (iron, but not cast iron), I face the following problem:

The steak bends, becoming slightly irregular-dome-shaped
Because of that, the parts of the steak that are in direct contact with the pan sear well, while the ones that only rest on the air do not
When the steak is turned, the same is repeated for the other side, with reverse areas (e.g. if the steak had the edges curved down and seared on side 1, then the center will be curver down and seared on side 2).

How can I prevent this from occurring, short of putting a heavy metal bar on top of the steak while searing; OR using my tongs to press the curved-up parts down to the pan surface?

My method of preparation:

Frozen 1/4" steak, ~6-8" in length (chuck boneless shoulder). No thawing
Salt lightly right before searing, on both sides.

I tried searching on this question but didn't notice anything.

Thin cut meat will curl if there is an outside perimeter of gristle or silverskin (which there usually is). Those things shrink faster than the meat, causing the curling. Take a pair of kitchen shears or a sharp knife and make tiny cuts (it shouldn't take more than 1/4 inch) every inch or so around the perimeter of the steak, just into the meat itself. That should solve the problem.


How to clump store-bought granola? I purchase granola from the store and like to snack on it as an alternative to chips. At the top of the bag, most of the granola are bite-size and easy to pick out. But towards the end of the bag, it is all very small rice-size pieces, and difficult to pick up. Is there a way to take the small pieces and clump them together to make them a bigger size?

this might just work:

let's say there's about a half-cup (or just over 100 ml) of crumbs

preheat your oven to 200F (about 90C) with the door closed
take a paper towel and tear it in half
get one half completely wet with water, but squeeze it out enough so it's not dripping
put it in the bag and shake-shake-shake.  this gets a little water more-or-less evenly on the surfaces of the crumbs
remove the wet paper towel and shake the clinging crumbs back into the bag
dump it all on the dry half of the paper towel and roll it up into a sausage shape
set it in the oven on middle of a rack in about the middle of the oven
close the oven door and turn off the oven
wait at least 4 hours
voila, 1 granola roll, i hope