What is the most effective method for cooking a massive amount of sweet brown sushi rice I have about 8 quarts of dry brown sushi rice and am looking to cook all or most of it to incorporate into a handful of dishes on the same day. What is the most effective way of cooking that much rice, minus a pressure cooker, that would allow me to prepare the rice Friday and make the dishes that night and Saturday during the day to serve at night?

Please include not only ideal kitchen hardware solutions (in case I can track it down), but more importantly likely stuff (i.e. I have a multi-gallon stock pot with lid).
If there are any additives that would give the rice better staying power (e.g. would adding oil/butter improve or diminish integrity) to make it 24 hours without turning to crap please include this.
Between Friday night and incorporation into dishes, as well for the sake of those dishes, I would like to know the best storage method for both the prepared rice, unmixed, as well as any peculiar caveats for mixing, if any.

If there are any not-so-common-sense problems that come screaming to mind that I might otherwise have thought to include please let me know as I have not done this before but am relying on multiple pounds of rice for the food I am making.

I'd cook it in a regular sauce pan, I guess you'll need a big one for your solution. Then add whatever additives you want (rice vinegar, Mirin ect). Then wrap the rice you're not going to use in cling film like onigiri and place in the fridge for the next day. This is a standard method for Japanese people who take lunch to work.

There are big rice cookers but unless you can rent one somehow (Japanese caterers perhaps?) then it'll cost you a couple hundred at least and you have potential problems with voltages and the language difference.

Definitely do not add oil or butter, I tried a similar thing once and it ruined the rice. Fat and Japanese rice do not go together.

The bigger issue are the dishes you are preparing the night before. Unless you wrap it in cling film it'll dry out also for sushi/sashimi you really should make sure it's fresh off the boat the morning it is served and never warms up.


Source of smoky flavor in salsa? I'm experimenting with making my own salsa. I recently had some that had an interesting flavor, rather smoky. Is anyone aware of what might add this flavor? I'd like to add that flavor to my own salsa.

I don't have a smoker, but I do have a charcoal grill.

Is there a disadvantage to just adding a couple drops of liquid smoke?

Chipotle chiles, especially in adobo sauce (e.g., here), give an excellent smoky flavor. You should be able to find these in your grocery store in the Mexican section.


Is there a mold test kit for packaged food? Many packaged foods taste moldy to me but not to others. I return some products but the stores are acting like I am trying to rip them off. There are several mold test kits for homes and air. Will these detect mold in packaged foods? Recently I got a moldy taste in Vitamin C gummies and dairy-free chocolate chips. These were not expired but I could not even swallow them because of the mold taste. Does packaged food look okay but taste moldy to you?

A household mold test is going to test for the sort of mold which causes problems for buildings. It's a very different organism than that found in food.
The main thing you need to consider is whether you know what mold tastes like. Spoiled food will taste strange in many different ways, so if you're associating what you're tasting with a moldy food you had, you might be recognizing something completely different.
It strikes me that vitamin gums and chocolate chips are both at least somewhat likely to be coated with a small amount of cornstarch to prevent sticking. You should look at the ingredient labels and see if that, or some other ingredient, is common to them. I've heard of people who dislike the taste of cornstarch.


How to store brown sugar without it becoming hard? I put a clothes pin on my opened bags of brown sugar and keep them in a dark pantry at room temperature.  Since I don't use it very often, it becomes hardened.  My work-around is to use a grater to grate it but it would be useful to avoid the problem in the first place.

How should I store it to prevent hardening? Do I put it in the freezer? If so, does it need to come to room temperature before using it?

Storing brown sugar in a tightly sealed container (such as tupperware, rubbermaid, etc.) is the best method.

Once it dries out however it can be re-moisturized by placing a piece of apple or bread with it inside a tightly sealed container.  After a day or two the brown sugar will soften and the bread will dry up or the apple will shrivel.

This is due to the hygroscopic nature(ability to absorb moisture from the surrounding atmosphere)of brown sugar.

You'll see "brown sugar keepers" in gourmet and cookware shops that are round decorative unglazed ceramic or terra cotta disks.  The concept is to soak them in water for an hour or two and then dry and place in the brown sugar.  Save your money and use a piece of bread or apple when the brown sugar is drying up.

You can also soften it for immediate use by microwaving for a little bit.  This should only be used for immediate use because after the sugar cools it will have lost more moisture (due to the fact that microwaves are heating the moisture in food).


How to cook pelmeni in the microwave? Is it possible to cook pelmeni (пельмени) — Russian meat dumplings — in the microwave without any precooking either in pot or on pan? What are the steps?

Anything that is normally cooked by simmering / boiling in liquid can be cooked in a microwave in the same way, if your microwave can keep the liquid simmering.

So for pelmeni just put them in a bowl of salted boiling water (use a kettle or the microwave to bring it to the boil first), bring back to a simmer and cook on high for the same length of time you'd cook them in a pan on the stove. If your microwave is not powerful enough to keep the water simmering, cook smaller amounts at a time.

It's less efficient than doing it on the stove, takes more time and is more fuss. The pelmeni will take longer to come back to a simmer than they would on the stove, so the dough will be relatively overcooked and soft.


Baking German white bread rolls While searching online for a recipe, I found this YouTube video: How to bake 4k german white bread and followed the recipe (in the description):

German White bread (Berliner schrippe)
Ingredients for 6-9 bread rolls:
pre-ferment / vorteig:
200 gr Flour / Mehl
150 ml water / Wasser
5 gr instant yeast / trockene Hefe
main dough / teig:
300 gr Flour / Mehl
5 gr instant yeast / trockene Hefe
1 teaspoon salt / Salz
1 teaspoon sugar / Zucker
pre-ferment must be kept overnight in the fridge, then add pre-ferment to the remaining flour and the dissolved (yeast + sugar + water) and mix with the kneading attachment of the kitchen machine for about 5 minutes. Let it rest covered in a warm place until doubled. form into equal balls and brush with water, cut a line on them, let rest for another 30 mins to 1 hour. bake in a preheated oven (180-200 degree centigrade) until golden. cover the hot bread balls for 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

The only thing I didn't do was pouring water on the bottom rack as shown in the video. The bread rolls came out dark brown, I mean not as shiny and golden as they look in the video. Is this step necessary?
What is achieved by pouring water? Are the bread roll's final look related to that water step? Will putting a pan of water in the oven do the trick?

If your rolls came out too dark, you probably baked them too hot and/or too long.
Note that the recipe states 180°C to 200°C and some ovens run hotter than others. (A separate oven thermometer is a good investment in general, even more so if you see something like that occasionally.) So as a first step, reduce the oven temperature a bit and watch the time.
The steam (because that’s what’s created by pouring water into the oven) helps the rolls rise better by delaying the crust formation and can create the coveted sheen: Condensation on the comparatively cool dough leaves a thin layer of water that binds to the starch and gelatinizes to a glossy layer. A similar effect can be created by misting the rolls with water before baking. A bowl of water will not create a similar amount of steam.


Do I need a special oven to cook a pizza as evenly as the chain stores? When I buy a pizza from Pizza Hut or Domino's, it has a crispy base with a soft cooked middle and a properly done top.

When I make a pizza in my own oven (electric, fan assisted, maximum 230° C), I can get it done to the same standard as a local Indian takeaway but not as good as any of the major chains.  I'm wondering if my problems are due to the oven or the pizza.

Ideally I would like to buy an oven that can go up to 550° C like a brick-built oven.  I'm wondering if I can get a better result with a better oven?  I'd like to do it for under £100 (UK).

I think that if I can bake the pizza in 5 to 6 minutes, that may do the trick; unfortunately I don't think I can afford any of the 90-second pizza ovens or install one at home.

I too have a fan-assisted 230 degree-max oven, and I cook nice crispy-based pizza all the time, thanks to one thing - a pizza stone. Traditional pizza ovens have a stone base that absorbs the moisture from the crust, crisping it properly. A metal pan or sheet doesn't do this, so you get a soggy crust.

Pizza stones replicate the stone base of the traditional pizza oven. They are sized to fit in most conventional ovens, and you can get them from most cook shops, or Amazon, for about £10. Simply place the stone in the oven when you turn it on to preheat, let it get good and hot, then take it out and assemble your pizza right on the stone. Put it back in for 4-5 minutes et voila - a great crispy pizza every time.

You can get wood-fired, stone-based ovens (Jamie Oliver markets them these days) that you have built in your garden, but I'm pretty sure they cost a lot more than £100!


How can I keep my buttercream from becomming grainy? I am making buttercream icing, but the powdered sugar does not dissolve with the butter and shortening. The icing is grainy. How can I prevent this?

This can have different reasons.

How long did you mix it? The transition between grainy and creamy can come late and suddenly, but it should happen eventually.

Was the butter cold? I have been getting the best results with room-temperature butter.

Did you sieve the powdered sugar? If not, that may be the problem. Or did it perhaps get wet at some point and crystallize again?

If all these are NOT the problem, try adding some milk, or if you plan to use it anyway, vanilla essence, in small drops, while stirring.

I hope one of these will help :).


How to substitute unsweetened baker's chocolate for powdered cocoa in cake recipe My friend would like to make a chocolate cake using this recipe:
HERSHEY'S "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" Chocolate Cake.

The ingredients:

2 cups sugar

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup boiling water

The directions:

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.
Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.
Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING. Makes 12
servings.

They'd like to use baker's chocolate squares in place of the powdered cocoa.

Is this possible?

It's just a really basic (plain-vanilla, if you will ;) chocolate cake recipe. You'd be better off just finding a basic chocolate cake recipe that calls for unsweetened chocolate in the first place, especially if you're new-ish to chocolate cake.

Otherwise the substitution that Sobachatina suggests above requires some fancy recipe-adjusting work on your part. Cocoa & fat (melted butter, usually) can be substituted for whole chocolate, but it's not really such an exact science, so I don't think the reverse substitution will give you the results you're looking for.


Age between mild and sharp Mild cheddar is 3-4 months old.

Sharp cheddar is 1 year old.

What do they call the cheese that is between 3-4 months and 1 year?

In the US and Canada it's usually called medium, or sometimes doesn't have a descriptive term, it's just cheddar. Either way, if your store has anything in between, it should be pretty obvious.

In the UK, it's still medium, though names past that are different.

If you happen to be in Australia, there's a different set of names with only mild in common.


How do I modify cooking methods for a markedly smaller roast than most recipes state? I purchased a small boneless leg of lamb roast for my husband and I to enjoy as an Easter meal. It's about 2.5 lbs. (1.3 kg). I have experience dry roasting larger cuts of beef in the past, but nothing quite this size, and this is the first lamb roast for me. What cooking temperature and timeline should I target for a roast of this size? I know about the temperature I want the roast to be once it's done, just not sure how to get it there. I'm hoping for rare to medium-rare and I'm rather fearful of overcooking it.

It is past Easter but for future you may want to try this.  Get a saute pan or a saute pot you want to roast in, heat it and then brown your roast, all sides.  Before you do that, be sure you season your roast very well so that when you put it in the hot saute pan with the oil you are browning the dry seasonings also (be generous with your seasonings).  Once well browned take out of pan or if large enough pan take out of pan, put a rack on the bottom of the pot put the roast back in, cover, put in preheated 350 degree F oven for about 45 minutes to l hour, covered.  Temperature of roast should be 145 degrees for medium to medium rare.  Let sit for about 20-30 minutes.


Using avocado oil as a substitute to olive oil Olive oil is more expensive than normal oils, but due to its nutrition properties (and probably its taste), chefs prefer to use it for lots of different applications even frying. Avocado oil is more valuable than olive oil, and of course, more expensive. It is normally used for cosmetics, due to its magical effect on skin healthcare.

Apart from its price, is it an ideal replacement for olive oil in different types of recipes? I mean is there any drawback to use avocado oil in recipes as a general oil? because I have not seen such suggestion in recipes. Is its high cost the only reason for avocado oil unpopularity in cooking, or other disadvantages?

See What oil or fat to use for different purposes? for a general discussion about choosing oils.

If you are using unrefined avocado oil, you it will have a unique flavor that will affect your dish or outcome, and in that case, the flavor would be the primary purpose.

If you are using refined avocado oil, its main unique characteristic is that it has an unusually high smoke point at about 480 F (250 C).  While this may make it exceptionally suitable for applications like deep frying, you would have to consider whether the cost is justified, given that many more available and lower cost oils (at least in much of the world) perform very well, and most deep frying temperatures don't exceed 375 F (190 C).

As to a drawback—if you exclude cost—no, there is no reason to avoid refined avocado oil in recipes.


Why does my meat never thaw in the fridge? Everyone on the internet says you should never thaw meat outside of the fridge. My fridge is about 40f cold, and meat NEVER thaws in it. Its always at least -4f even after sitting in fridge overnight.

The only way I can thaw meat is by letting it sit on the kitchen counter. Is there a better way to thaw meat? Because what everyone is saying does not work.

The difference between cold and frozen where a refrigerator is concerned is actually only a few Kelvin (or "degrees").

The standard refrigerator will have warmer and colder zones, typically the top shelf being warmer, the bottom shelf above the veggie drawer cooler. Likewise the back is usually cooler than the front. The temperature you set it to is an  average value. (Check your manual for your model.) In mine, anything on the back of the lowest shelf can, on occasion, be slightly frozen, but I have set it to 4 C.

Also, thermostats in kitchen appliences can easily be off by a few degrees. We have discussed this for ovens here on the site often enough, the same is true for fridges and freezers. A calibrated thermometer can tell you more.

So once you have made sure that your meat actually can thaw by putting it on the top shelf and adjusting the temperature setting, it's all about patience. The time it takes for a piece of meat varies greatly and for a big "lump" like a whole roast, defrosting overnight won't happen. Prominent example: Around Thanksgiving the defrosting times for turkey are discussed all over the web and plenty of anecdotes told about cooks forgetting that it may take days for a large bird...

That's one of the reasons why it's generally recommended to freeze food in smaller, especially flatter packages where possible (e.g. steak or chicken breasts side by side, not on top of each other): It freezes faster (-> food safety) and thaws faster (-> convenience).


Is there a way to treat any firm cheese so that it can be fried? Something like halloumi can be fried directly, other firm cheeses melt before it's done.  Can they be treated somehow so that they don't melt too soon?

It really depends on what you qualify as 'fried'.

You can take hard grating cheeses and sprinkle it on a sheet pan (preferably with parchment or silpat), and bake it around 300-400°F (150-200°C) to get a cracker-like item (search for 'parmesan crisp' recipes).  If you remove it while it's still warm, you can roll it into a cone or tube, lay it over a bowl or cup, etc.

For pan frying, you can coat it in flour or cornstarch, then brown on all sides (or at least top and bottom if you sliced it thinly), but you might need to let it cool down between sides to firm back up.  You might get away with rolling it in corn meal, but it's also a function of the cheese.

If you have an air fryer or a convection oven, you can do a three part dredge and then bake it at high heat, but you may need to freeze the cheese before baking so it doesn't melt too fast.

For deep frying, you'll likely have to batter it.

You can also look for other non-melting cheeses (feta, ricotta salata, paneer, etc)


Can I slow cook noodles? I’m an avid user of slow cooking due to my schedule and need to budget my meals.

I haven’t tried but wanted to know if I could slow cook noodles.

If by “noodles“ you mean pasta that comes in the dry form with or without eggs, then yes, you can make that in the slow cooker.

There is one caveat though: other than your meat, which won’t be affected by a bit of extra cooking time, pasta tends to become soggy rather quickly - or, at least “quickly“ in slow cooker time. After 30 minutes, plus minus a bit, the pasta is usually done. So the standard procedure for pasta cooked in the almost done soup, stew or other dish with sauce is to add it around 30 minutes before serving. You might have to add a cup or so of extra water, if the sauce is very thick.

If you want to cook pasta alone, you will have to either bring the water up to temperature first or at least partly calculate the warming-up time into the cooking time. As pasta tends to clump together if cooked undisturbed, you will have to stir at least once or twice, which of course will interfere with your slow cooker’s heating process.
In short, for pasta alone I suggest cooking it on the stove.


Name of Vegetarian that Eats Insects There are different type of vegetarians, such as Lacto ovo vegetarian, Lacto vegatarian, and Vegan. Some cultures eat insects, which may violate the naming of these rules. I'm curious if there is a name for vegetarians that eat insects too.

Logic suggests entomotarian by analogy with pescatarian and entomo- as a root for words related to insects. Specifically entomophagy is the practice of eating insects.

I'm not alone in suggesting this: a blog called the culinary linguist users of at least in passing, and there are other hits on Google


Lifetime of French press filter I'm thinking about buying a French press for making coffee. I'm just not sure what is the lifetime of the filter? Can I use it for years or do I have to get a new filter from time to time?

Not all French Presses are created equal; some have the obnoxious habit of getting creases at the edge of the filter, which lead to grounds coming up the sides. Other filters deteriorate more quickly.

My experience is that a fine metal mesh filter tends to last longer than nylon filters, and that I am always going to be unlucky when it comes to the French Press.

Inevitably, things fall apart. Replacing the filter will be needed at some point, though good care can help prevent it from going bad. There are really two ways to look at the investment of the French Press:

You're buying a cheap one with the expectation that it'll last only 6 months to a year.
You spend a little more, and perhaps have to replace a part once in a while.

My suggestion is to buy a mid-priced Bodum press; replacement parts are available and relatively affordable, and their products are decent enough to be used in restaurants around the world. Either way, you're spending less than on a decent drip brewer, and getting a better cup of coffee for your efforts.


Substituting maltose for barley malt syrup in bagels Can I substitute Chinese-style maltose (麥芽糖 if you want to search it up) for barley malt syrup in bagels?
From what I understand, the flavour won't be exactly the same, but I'm not sure whether the latter affects the hydration, and how they should be substituted. Can they be swapped directly 1 to 1 (by weight), or must the quantity be adjusted?

Also, if you are not sure what I mean by maltose and barley malt syrup, here are some Amazon links:
Maltose
Barley malt syrup

I would expect that substitution to work fine, in a 1:1 swap.

Both Brown Rice Syrup (what you're calling Maltose) and Barley Malt have a high amount of maltose-the-sugar, plus an assortment of other sugars.  Both are pretty close to pure glucose in their actual sugar content, while at the same time tasting less sweet because of their composition and some of their minority content.

Barley Malt is going to be a bit "darker", with more "roasted" flavors than commercially manufacturer brown rice syrup (although artisan traditionally made brown rice syrup would be very similar).  So it won't add quite as much flavor to the bagel dough as barley malt will.  However, speaking from experience, you can make bagels using white sugar instead of any kind of malt, and they still come out fine.

There's one exception here, and that's pumpernickel bagels.  These dark brown bagels depend heavily on the roasted flavors of dark barley malt (in either syrup or powder form).  I wouldn't try substituting with those.


What does "set aside for x hours" imply? I'm following a recipe for making chutney and one of the steps is "Set aside for 24 hours". Does this mean in the fridge? If not, then does it just not matter?

I was going to leave it in the fridge overnight, since the recipe doesn't specify.

You leave it at whatever temperature is adequate for the food (or stage of food) that is left aside.

If you are canning your chutney, then all stages before going into the canner need refrigeration, and all stages after getting out of the canner are safe at room temperature. So, if the recipe wants it to be done before canning, you have to put it in the refrigerator.

If it is after the canning, there is a twist. For most shelf-stable foods, there is nothing wrong with leaving them in the refrigerator instead of outside. But if the "leave aside" step in your case comes immediately after canning, then its purpose is to ensure the proper seal. For that, you should best leave it under the conditions that it will be exposed to in the long term, that is, outside.


What is liquid glucose? Two days ago, I was making ganache as a topping for cupcakes. I needed, as expected, cream and chocolate. But '1 teaspoon of liquid glucose' was also on the list of ingredients (for 12 cupcakes). I didn't think I had that, so I used 'fondant sugar' (powder sugar with a bit of water, described here as poured fondant).

Is liquid glucose something specific you can buy in stores, or is it a collection name for all kinds of sweet, liquid stuff (honey, syrup, fondant etc.)?

If it's something specific, can you make it at home as well?

And yet another question: if I would have added (powdered) sugar to my cream, would I have accomplished ganache as well (after being poured over chocolate), since I think the sugar would dissolve in the cream?

(Just to be complete: my ganache was fine.)

First of all- glucose is a different sugar than table sugar. Corn syrup in the US is similar but has a few extra compounds. As far as I can tell it is used for similar reasons as liquid glucose in the EU.
http://www.ochef.com/784.htm

It is used for a couple reasons:

it is thicker than sugar syrups.
when making candy a little corn syrup can be added to the sugar solution to prevent crystallization.
in the US at least, it is much cheaper than cane sugar.

You can buy it in stores here- I can't say whether you can in Belgium.

I have, on occasion, been forced to use a very thick sugar syrup in place of corn syrup. The recipe used the syrup for reason #1 above and turned out well. If it had been in there for reason #2 it would have been less successful.

In general, if you can find it, it is probably better to buy than to make a substitute because of reason #3.


What kind of dish/pastry consists of white bread with ice-cream or some sort of mousse inside? I found this randomly:
To me, it distinctively looks like non-sugary bread. It looks like the kind of bun you normally use for making sandwiches, for example put butter and/or cheese inside. It doesn't look like it's "sugary" and intended for being a pastry.
Is this a famous/known "dish"/product/concept?

This is almost certainly Brioche con Gelato, which is Brioche, a sweet and rich bread with gelato a rich ice-cream made with whole milk and sugar.


Best way to chop an onion? Possible Duplicate:
  A definitive method of dicing an onion

Do I first cut it in half or do I make crosswise incisions before chopping it? And what is the best knife to use?

I use two different knives when I dice an onion.  First, cut the onion in half, through the root end (so that each half has a bit of the root on it to hold it together). Next, take a paring knife (the skinny blade is why I use this knife here) and make vertical cuts that go almost all the way to the root.  Next, use the paring knife to make horizontal cuts while using one hand to hold the onion in place. Last, use a chef's knife to make downward cuts to finish the dice.

If you are trying to julienne cut the onion, cut off both the top and root part of the onion and peel it.  Then chop the onion in half vertically and cut thin slices of onion on an angle from the outside toward the middle (about a 10 degree angle should be fine).  I do all of this with a chef's knife.


How do I flip an egg when preparing it "over easy"? I tend to break a lot of yolks when preparing eggs over easy. I also can't do it too fast, making it hard to cook multiple eggs at once (they tend to overcook).

Sometimes the spatula I'm using doesn't want to slide under the egg very easily. Is there anything special about the type of spatula or special preparation with the pan or eggs that might make this harder or easier?

The best thing I've figured out about turning eggs is: do not do it too early. You need to wait for the cooked part of the egg to develop a strong texture before it will support its own weight. It's very difficult to turn a floppy, soft egg, where it's comparatively easy to flip an egg that has been cooked more completely on one side. I also use a relatively high heat, as this "crisps" the cooked surface. It also makes the egg more attractive.

The spatula you use can make a difference, also, though I believe this is minor. The spatula you want is a plastic one with a relatively thin, flexible blade. The really heavy spatulas tend to be too tall, in my experience, and push the egg rather than sneak under it.


Blind baking puff pastry Is it possible to blind bake pastry? I am trying out new custard tarts and want to try blind baking puff pastry. Is this possible.

Yes, is possible, and not uncommon.  You may wish to dock it to prevent excessive rising.

Some pastries are made with puff pastry that is already baked separately, such as the famous Napolean or Mille-Feuille .  For example, in this recipe (which uses commercial puff pastry), the instructions are:

  Preheat oven to 425°F/220°C. Line 2 baking sheets
  with parchment paper or plain brown paper; set aside.

  Unfold puff pastry sheet and trim edges to a 9-inch square. Cut pastry
  into nine 3-inch squares. Transfer pastry squares to the prepared
  baking sheets; prick pastry. Bake in a preheated oven for 18-23
  minutes, or until golden. (Or bake according to package directions.)
  Carefully remove pastries from baking sheet. Cool on a rack.

I cannot endorse the plain brown paper idea, but the method is fairly standard.

Here is another example, from King Arthur flour, of croissants du patisserie, which is essentially puff pastry baked as a croissant (as opposed to croissants du boulanger, the baker's croissants, which are yeast raised as well as a laminated pastry).


Why don't we all eat injera? Or some other form(s) of teff? We are supposed to eat high-protein foods, yet even people without celiac disease complain about gluten...
Tuff, unlike quinoa, is a true cereal grass, and like quinoa, is high in protein that is not gluten... Right?
So why isn't the whole world gorging on injera, or some other form of teff?

Perhaps because there is a shortage of teff. You might want to look at this article from January, 2021, but it does not provide all the answers.
I personally love injera, but I have not been buying teff for a few years after hearing of this problem. Similar problems may be going in with quinoa, but I have not yet researched that.
I generally stick to things such as wild rice. Of I know where and how it is grown, but that's quite expensive. I try to put my money and my mouth where it makes a difference.
What Are the Domestic and Regional Impacts From Ethiopia's Policy on the Export Ban of Teff?


Is there a name for the taste coming from alkaline food? I know "acidic food" is described as "sour" but what do we call food that is "alkaline"?

There is no single word to describe that taste, and no single taste receptor for alkaline substances either (whereas there are taste receptors for acids).

The most recognizable taste to encounter would be "soapy". You can see it as a bit of a special case though, since it is not the taste of a pure alkaline substance, but the taste you get when the alkaline substance reacts with fats. Since most food contains fats, this is what you frequently get if you try to make alkaline food.

You are also likely to get descriptions like "chemically tasting", since it is not a flavor we frequently encounter in food, but it can remind us of the aroma of some inorganic substances in our daily lives. Try overdoing double-acting baking powder in a muffin, or making it with ammonium or potassium based leaveners instead of the widespread sodium ones, and you'll see what I mean.

Beyond that, we don't really have good descriptors. And I am not even sure pretzels count - the goal there is to have the lye react away with the gluten, so they might not be very alkaline in the end. Also, the salt on the surface and the unusual texture distracts us a lot from the subtler flavors there.


What function would tartaric acid play in the making of gummy candy? I just made my first successful batch of gummy candy after trying 5 or 6 diff. Recipes. The problem is that 95% of "gummy" candy recipes are basically glorified jello jigglers....not what I'm looking for. I finally found a British recipe (that was uber annoying as I had to weigh everything in grams). I finally got the texture and consistency right, thank God. The question I have is, during one of the last steps of the process, once everything was mixed and had cooled to 122°, the recipe called for 5g of tartaric acid to be stirred in. What function does the tartaric acid play in the candy? It didn't seem to make any visible changes to the solution and I'm wondering if I could have just done without it? Any help would be great. I'll include my ingredients below, in case one of them plays a role with the tartaric acid.

Gelatin (bloomed to a syrup in a water bath)
Equal parts glucose (corn syrup) and caster sugar (I just used regular sugar as I couldn't find my blender) 25g of both.
Once I mixed and cooled everything I added essential orange oil for flavoring and orange food coloring.
Then I mix the tartaric acid in. Is this a necessary step? If so, what does it contribute to the end result?

My mother always put some ( 1/2 teaspoon) in fudge to prevent or reduce crystallization of the sugar ( she said).


How to distinguish between silicone and nylon spatula and judge their quality I bought a few silicon spatulas from Amazon{The ones I bought}.These are most probably from China, and since those are not from very well known brands, I can't just blindly trust what it says on the packaging. I don't want these to be the nylon ones.

How can I distinguish a nylon spatula from a silicon one.

How can I judge the quality/ safety of these spatulas ??

They look like nylon, but as you actually have them in your possession, the simplest test is to squeeze them. Silicone is soft & 'rubbery', nylon [or anything similar you can put in a pan] is hard & 'plasticky'.


Advice on two-tier cake and height What is the recommended height of cakes when making a two-tier chocolate mud cake? Or to get a decent height, should I make (as an example) two shallow nine-inch rounds for the bottom layer and two shallow seven-inch rounds for the top layer?

As a note before the post I am more scientist than baker.

The stress you can put on a structure before it severely deforms depends on a lot of things including it's Young's modulus. These are very well understood for construction materials but I came across this paper which discussed it for various cake recipes (PDF). The recipe I found for mud cake has about 27% flour so I used values accordingly for my calculation.

If we assume that we do not want more than a 5% deformation (this may seem like a small number but my estimation is an attempt at being conservative, plus it would be at the very least noticeable) then the maximum height would be about 28 inches.

Or to put it another way, your two 9 in pans for the bottom layer and the 7 in for the top would make a delicious cake with some room left over for frosting. If you are really concerned about structure I also came across this recipe which kind of talked about that as well (much more so from a baking perspective).

Other info from Epicurious.


Why did this brown rice recipe fail? I just tried to bake some brown rice (350 degrees in a convection oven) in a white casserole dish that looks kind of like this. Anyway, after 30 minutes (what the recipe called for) it didn't work. The rice just sat there uncooked. So I dumped everything in a cast iron pot and got the job done. Why didn't the white dish work? The water was steaming when I took the dish out for the switch.

EDIT: the recipe called for 1 cup brown rice to 2.5 cups of water or low-sodium broth (I used water). This was same ratio on the rice's bag. Bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes. I did not put a lid on it for the casserole dish or the iron skillet.

This recipe should definitely work if you follow it correctly. Comparing your recipe to it might tell you what you did wrong. From the information you already gave, it seems certain that you didn't cook it long enough (as rumtscho said in the comments). Other things that could have been wrong:

oven not hot enough (your oven might not be as hot as you think)
water not hot enough when added to the rice (Alton Brown's recipe calls for it to be boiling; I don't know about yours)
too much water/too little rice
dish too small (if the water is deep, it won't heat as fast in the oven)
(thanks to Aaronnut, see the comments) non-metal casserole dishes take a while to heat up

Given your updates, well, basically I have no idea how that recipe would ever have worked. As you saw, the water wasn't even hot enough yet after half an hour. If you poured the water in boiling, it might have had a fighting chance, but it still would probably not have been long enough.

Cooking it uncovered is weird, too - it means that once it's hot, you'll start losing a lot of water to evaporation. The recipe on the bag likely has you cook it covered on the stove, so clearly you shouldn't be using the same amount of water with it uncovered.

As for the amount of water... 1:2.5 really sounds like too much water to me. I've seen some people online claiming that 1:2 is right for white rice, and brown rice needs more water, but in my experience that's a recipe for soggy, watery rice. (Edit: Of course I was basing that on covered rice; rumtscho rightly points out in the comments that for uncovered rice you'd need even more, since you lose some as I mentioned.)

So if I were you, I'd forget about the recipe you used, and try the one I linked to. Many people (including me) have had reliable success with it.


chocolate creme anglaise is runny I want to make a creme anglaise au chocolat for tart filling.
I used the recipe of my best pastry chef Pierre herme:

125g milk

125g cream

3 egg yolks

70g sugar

90g chocolate (70%)

I first mixed the yolks with sugar then added the milk because I used only 250g milk instead of using cream to reduce the amount of fat.

The I cooked it as creme anglaise to 84C and added them to chocolate and mix until melt.

Then I poored the mix into tart shell and let them rest to the next day.

The next day I saw the chocolate cremeux still not set properly and it is like runny chocolate sauce (100% liquid).

Why that happened ?

What went wrong is that you mixed up your terms and made the wrong recipe.

There are many custards. The common thing is that they are all a liquid thickened by mixing it with egg yolks and cooking them until they are just right. But from there on, you get countless variations, and they can have different names.

The name "crème anglaise" is used for a liquid custard. It is somewhat thickened (not as liquid as pure cream), and is used as a kind of sweet sauce, poured over pastries. A typical use would be to eat it with an apple strudel.

Yours turned out more liquid than in the original recipe because you had 40 g less fat and 40 g too much liquid. But even if you had not done that, the recipe is still expected to stay runny.

If you want to fill a tart, I suggest that you use a different custard, for example a crème pâtissière. It is a cooked custard (not baked like a flan) and sets as a spreadable/pipeable mass. It will use the same ingredients as a crème anglaise, but in different proportions, so the taste will be very similar.

The "don't do substitutes" thing still applies. In baking, the amount of fat and sugar in recipes is what creates the final texture, and cannot be changed due to dietary considerations. If you try, you will end up with food which is too dry, or too runny, or in some other way different from the original.


Santoku knife from Victorinox vs Kasumi Is there any significant difference between santoku knife from e.g. Victorinox versus santoku knife from e.g. Kasumi?

Can I as normal kitchen user :) be able to distinguish the difference between santoku knife from Victorinox, and a knife from Kasumi, which has damascus steel and costs almost 3x as mutch as the knife from Victorinox? Is the quality worth the money, or can the much cheaper Victorinox do the same for me?

Kasumi

Victorinox

As a former line cook, I can say that many people I've worked with prefer Victorinox knives at work because:

The non-slip NSF listed & approved handles are a great plus
They sharpen easily and hold an edge well
They perform well in demanding, commercial applications
They don't cost a fortune to replace when someone 'permanently borrows' one, or uses your knife to do something they would rather not use their own to do (this is more common than it probably should be)

I've owned many of both kinds, and honestly, I only use my expensive knives at home.

There's more practical reasons to go with a less expensive brand that maintains a very positive review average over a very expensive brand, but it's your choice and your money :)

I personally save the big bucks for vintage knives that have gone up in value consistently over the years, especially given how mass production obviates eventual rarity. So if you want to go expensive and have it last as an heirloom, go rare, too.

Otherwise, the 'house knives' from any commissary supply chain are great, and many feature Victorinox. Sure, I'd love to use a Shun, but my 10" Mercer Culinary gyuto holds a nice edge, too, and the resin / santoprene handle makes me much more confident with fish.

This holds a little less true with breaking knives (or Deba), or those that are engineered to take abuse, you can end up ultimately replacing cheap blades so often that you ended up spending the same anyway. But that's another situation entirely, and worth different consideration.


Water bath issue when doubling a cheesecake recipe to make bars I have a recipe for a cheesecake that I'd like to double.  Of course I would have to use a 9 X 13 pan and make it into bars (which I don't mind).  It will eventually get covered with a chocolate mint ganache.  With that in mind, how important is the water bath?  Can I forgo it altogether (since it will be a 9 X 13 pan and hard to water bathe)?  Or should I put a pan of water below the pan to help keep moisture in the oven?

The water bath for a cheesecake is to control the temperature of the thick custard in the springform pan (cheesecake is technically a custard) - you don't need to worry about the moisture of the oven in the absence of a water bath.

The equivalency you stated of your pan volumes is a problem, though.    The two pans are not as comparable as your volumes suggest.  The area of a 9" round pan (your springform) would be π x r² = 3.14 x (4.5")² = 64 in.² (roughly).  The area of a 9" x 13" rectangular pan would be 9" x 13" = 117 in.² which is roughly twice the area of the springform pan.  What that means is that the same volume of cheesecake filling would fill a 9" x 13" pan roughly half as full as a 9" springform pan.

Unless you have a huge amount of filling, the custard should set-up much more quickly in the larger pan and should not be as much of a problem to bring-up to temperature evenly like a thicker cheesecake in a springform pan.  As long as you aren't planning to bake your bars in a scorching-hot oven and you remove them from the oven before they look fully set, you won't need the water bath.


Aprons for the home chef What do I look for in a good high quality apron?

Where can I go to get one?

What sort of tasks are you looking to protect yourself from?

If it's really messy stuff, or to wear while doing the dishes, you might want something that's non-absorbant, like PVC.  I've only really seen them at restaurant supply stores, but it's possible that you might be able to get them from chemistry supply places, also.  (and in this case, pockets are not a good idea, as they collect stuff that you've then got to clean out).

For long hours of grilling, I like something that's more insulating, which in my case would be a leather welder's apron, which you can get from welding supply stores.  I've looked around for something that might be more reflective of radiant heat, but haven't had any luck.

For just general practical use, something that cleans up easily is important.  Restaurant supply stores are a good bet for those sorts of things, but you can sometimes find them in stores that sell grills when it's that season.

For the decorative ones, you basically have two styles -- printed ones with witty/obnoxious sayings on them.  I typically find them online.

The other more frilly decorative ones ... you can find at most housewares stores, some department stores, and if you want something more one of a kind, try esty.

... as for features ... I'm not a fan of pockets, myself.  I guess they're useful for thermometers and timers, but mine clip on, or sit up on a counter or next to the grill, so I don't care.  What I do care about is that they cover the areas that you're trying to protect (an adjustable neck strap is so much better than tying a knot in the line around the neck so try to shorten it) and they don't have straps so long that they get snagged if I sit down for lean up against something.

And it should come on and off without too much difficulty ... which I've only really noticed is a problem with some designs of welder's aprons (it's hard to explain ... it doesn't just go over the neck, and attach in back) ... or if you have to tie off the top to shorten the neck opening.


Name for turning ingredients to powder / mush, and then molding back into their original shape Is there a name for the technique of turning an ingredient into a homogeneous mass, and then molding it back into its original shape, or the shape of a less-processed form of that ingredient? Examples:

Pringles are made by turning potatoes (and some wheat) into powder, and then molding them back into a shape of a potato that was sliced up and fried.

The McRib consists of homogeneous meat that's been shaped to resemble a more natural configuration of meat.

Harvest Snaps are peas that have been turned to powder and then pressed back into the shape of a fresh pea pod.

Bonus Question: All the examples I can think of are industrially processed food. Are there any traditional or home recipes that use a similar technique?

Reformed

This is most often used to describe meat products such as "reformed ham" or "reformed scampi". You can occasionally see onion rings made with chopped onion described as reformed, e.g. here.

Pringles could be described as "reformed potato snacks" for example. Pringles are less than half potato though, so that may not be entirely accurate.

As for doing this at home, it's common to bake a potato, scoop the potato from the skin, mash it up with some seasonings and then put it back in the skin, thereby reforming the potato.


Baking in drinking glasses -- heat vs. logo paint, other issues I've made this chocolate Guinness cake (Nigella Lawson) before.  It's delicious and looks good.  But it would look even better baked in pint glasses (or half pint).  It's a moist, slow-baking cake so should be fairly forgiving on cooking time.What should I consider before doing the experiment?  Things I have thought of:

The glass breaking from heat.

Obviously this is a risk.  I believe it would be a small risk if I place the glasses on a cold, thick baking sheet so they warm gradually without thermal shock.  If anyone has tried this and proved me wrong, I'd like to know.
Paint on the glass.

Best of all would be to use a Guinness glass.  But what would happen to the painted logo in the oven?

What haven't I thought of?

What you want to do has been done successfully. There is a video and instructions here:

Guinness Cake baked in Guinness glasses

I believe the greatest risk of thermal shock would come when you remove the cakes from the oven. Do not take the glasses out of the baking pan and place on a cool counter top (doing this can break some heat safe glass).  Cool in the baking pan on a cooling rack or on a pot holder/towel.

As far as the painted logo on the glass, if it is commercailly produced, the logo would have been heat processed/baked on, so the heat in your oven should not be a problem.


Over watered single layer I put 1 cup of water in a single layer box recipe that only called for 1/2 cup. How much cake flour do I need to balance out the water?

Unfortunately, the box of cake mix has much more than just flour in it (dried milk, sugar, leaveners, flavoring etc...)... and it may not even use cake flour.

Your best bet will be to buy a second box of the same exact cake mix and double the remaining ingredients as well, so if the came mix calls for 1/2 cup water and an egg, you'll need to add a second egg.

Now, it's possible to come up with a list of ingredients you will need to add to save yourself a trip to the store but we'd probably need to know which cake mix you used to start with.


What is the difference between pot roasting and braising? I'm looking at this guide for cooking cuts of beef:

http://www.newworldfrontiersman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/1288720744352.jpg

and some are supposed to be braised, while others are supposed to be pot roasted. As far as I can tell, both are seared and then partially covered in simmering water. What is the difference between these cooking methods?

Pot Roasting = Braising

This more recent document from the same association, Cattlemen's Beef Board and National Cattlemen's Beef, supports this by using them interchangeably: 3 Simple Steps For Braising/Pot Roasting Beef

I was trying to figure out what the document from your question may have been implying by the cuts the different cooking techniques were recommended for. And I'd guess, because Pot Roasting is applied to more connective heavy cuts, that braising would be a shorter cooking time. That's my best guess.


What is the purpose of tempering chocolate? What is the purpose of tempering chocolate?  If I'm dipping something in chocolate, can I get by with just melting the chocolate?

Chocolate is an odd substance when it comes to melting and hardening.  When chocolate hardens, its melting point will end up being just a few degrees higher than the hardening temperature.

When chocolate crystallizes at high temperatures, it forms a strong, dense crystalline structure that, texture-wise, is quite brittle.  Most bought chocolate (baker's chocolate and chips) is already tempered, but when you melt it, you break down that crystalline structure, and if you harden it at room temperature then it ends up forming very weak crystals that will melt in your hand.

If you use a special coating chocolate (couverture or the lower-quality compound chocolate) then you don't need to worry so much about tempering (although it's still a good idea), but if you use ordinary chocolate and don't temper it then your coating will end up being messy and wet and rub off on your hands while you eat it.  It might even melt while stored.

Tempering is the key to making a room-temperature-stable chocolate coating.  If you don't do this, you'll need to keep your pastries refrigerated until they're ready to consume.


How do you cook a steak like those found in fine steakhouses? I went to a 5* restaurant once, the steak was unbelievable.  You could cut it with a butter knife, it was fat and juicy, pink in the middle, great stuff.

When I cook it at home, I seem to just slice the beef thick, shallow fry it in olive oil with some garlic and  that is all.  It tastes pretty good, but is so far off what I had in that restaurant.

Anyone know how to cook the best steak?  Better cuts of meat?  Fry in butter?

Also any tips in general on how to cook good steak.  All appreciated!

The most important thing you can do is buy quality beef. You can throw a USDA Select steak on a 700 degree charcoal grill, cook it perfectly, and it'll still be tough and not at all what you'd get at a fine steakhouse.

In the USA there are three grades of beef available to a consumer: Select, Choice, and Prime. There are lesser grades but they go to fast food joints, prisons, military personnel, and miscellaneous other weird uses.

In most american supermarkets you will find only select, period. This is an "average" steak. It's typically devoid of marbling, and results in a rather flavorless tough steak.

To find choice steaks you have to go to a higher end supermarket, e.g. Whole Foods You will pay significantly more for a choice steak, but the difference is marked. The marbling will result in a tenderer steak due to the internal fat melting and tenderizing the steak.

Finally, prime cuts. These are very hard to come by in any supermarket unless you live in a bigger city. You typically have to go to a specialty shop or butcher for these. Less than 2% of all beef is classified as prime. On top of this, restaurants get first pick. So even if you do buy a great prime steak, you are likely getting the lower end of the prime spectrum. However, the difference is amazing. The marbling is more intense, more evenly distributed and when cooked properly results in a steak that melts under your knife.

Another one-up a fine steakhouse has on you is they age their beef. Any steak you buy in the grocery store is minimally wet aged. The finest steakhouses dry age their beef. The difference? Wet aging consists of simply vacuum packing the meat (as in a whole side of cow) and refrigerating it for about a week. After that, it's cut smaller and sold to stores. Dry aging is a more complicated and expensive process. Dry aged beef is hung for at least two weeks in a refrigerator. Moisture in the meat is allowed to escape and evaporate, which concentrates the beef flavor of the beef. The beef also grows a moldy rind which is cut off and thrown away. After the aging is complete you're left with 75-80% of the meat you started with. This commands a premium price.

Unfortunately, you can't dry age a steak in your home. There are some refrigerator aging processes that you'll find on this site and others, but they aren't a true comparison.

Another variation that has become more popular is grass-fed beef. This has become a recent fad, at least in the USA. Cattle are traditionally fed corn which makes them fatter and "juicier", but it also leaves the meat tasting very bland. Likely, if you live in the USA, every steak you've ever had was corn-fed. Grass-fed beef on the other hand is fed predominantly grass, they're allowed to graze as cows should. This is good for the cows, because they don't actually eat corn. A cow is made to eat grass. Corn is rather harsh on their digestive system, but they are given no other choice. In the wild a cow would never eat corn. The end result is a very different flavored steak. Grass-fed beef has a much richer, meatier flavor. However, it's also tougher than corn-fed beef. For this reason a steak you will be served in a fine steakhouse is likely not to be grass-fed unless it is specifically designated as such.

With all that out of the way I suggest doing what I do. When I feel like an amazing home cooked steak, I'll splurge on a nice choice ribeye, dip it in a mixture of melted clarified butter and oil, season liberally with salt and pepper, and pan fry it.


Oven features required/desirable for baking bread at home I am considering to buy a new built-in electric oven for my kitchen because the old one does not have top or bottom heat (believe it or not). I regularly bake heavy rye bread (e.g., of the Danish kind), but would also like to bake other kinds of bread, both sourdough and yeast variants. For this purpose, which features and functions should I be looking for in a new oven?

Just top and bottom heat, or anything else?
I have seen steam functions in some brands (e.g., AEG), which I guess would come in handy (?).
Are special bread baking settings (e.g., NEFF) useful?
Is a proofing function useful, or is leaving on the light just as effective?
Would a food sensor/oven thermometer be useful? Some ovens come with one that you can stick into meat (I guess probably also bread...), and it displays the temperature on the outside or stops when done. Good or bad for bread?
People have recommended getting telescopic rails (e.g., Bosch and other brands). Are they still worth it if the oven is below the worktop?
Anything else I should look out for with a view to baking bread? Or is a basic model with just top and bottom heat useful enough for all kinds of bread?

Probably also not a complete answer (can there ever be for such questions?), but the main criteria for me with a focus on bread would be (in no particular order):

Maximum temperature.
For bread, 250°C is usually good, but speaking from experience, the step from bread to pizza is small and for those, the hotter the better.
Sturdy rails and racks.
I bake my bread either on a stone (2.5 cm thick, rectangular, almost as large as a baking sheet, not the flimsy round ones sometimes sold as pizza stone) or in a rather large Dutch oven. Especially the stone is heavy and I still pull out the rack halfway for some breads, because it’s easier to maneuver them. That’s a serious bit of load.
A non-fan top and bottom heat option.
Yes, people make good bread in fan ovens, but I have also had issues with hot air blowing onto one side (remember that turning a half-baked bread is not a good idea, as opposed to some cakes), and the fan can also prematurely “blow away” the very important steam. If you can set top and bottom heat separately, it’s nice, but not that important.
A non-crucial but actually neat feature for bakers can be a timer that starts or stops your oven at a given time. My stone needs quite some time to heat through and a timer means that I can set it to pre-heat well before I get up, then I can just take my overnight breakfast buns straight from the fridge to the oven when I get up and we have them for breakfast with maximum convenience. But that’s just a very personal preference, not a determining feature in my opinion. I have also used it for other timed applications and it was especially handy when the kids were smaller and life a lot more unpredictable in general.

Apart from the specific use case, there’s one feature that I miss a lot at the oven I am using at the moment:

A self-cleaning function.
Of course running the pyrolysis cycle uses a lot of energy, but I hate scrubbing the oven, especially the little nooks and vent openings and roasting a chicken or something that does splatter leaves a mess, no matter how careful you are. And instead of harsh chemicals, you just need a humid  cloth and perhaps some all-purpose cleaner to wipe out the ash.

A few thoughts about the various extras:
Unless you already know what you are going to use the specific features for, I wouldn’t pay extra for them, as there’s a good chance that you won’t be using them. If the oven you selected for its basic features anyway comes with some of them, fine. If your budget is large enough and you just want them for a reason (even “just because”), that’s of course another case.
And remember that the more features you have, the more can fail - a separate meat thermometer can be exchanged cheaply (or you can use multiple ones or one that connects to an app, or...), a built-in one would need either a costly repair or you would switch to a separate one in that case. Just for example.
I struggle to see how “special programs” for bread would cover the many cases of bread - your Scandinavian rye needs a totally different baking temperature gradient and time as, for example, a fougasse. But I admit I haven’t explicitly researched the feature.


How can I make nutritional yeast? I live in a country where nutritional yeast is not readily available. I'd like to make it. Anyone know how?

Other forms of yeast, such as baking yeast and brewer's yeast are easily found here. I understand these yeasts are essentially the same organism (Saccharomyces cerevisiae?), so I'm wondering if I can't combine yeast—instant baking yeast for example—with some kind of nutritional base like sugar water, let it ferment, dry it out, and "harvest" it.

I have to humbly disagree with SAJ14SAJ (I still have the utmost respect given the breadth of knowledge). Most of the steps you need to perform are regularly used by homebrewers and hobby mycologists to renew or isolate special strains of yeast/fungi that are otherwise unavailable. For instance, if you wanted to isolate the yeast used by Chimay to brew the same style of beer using the same yeast as the brewery, your best option is to culture the yeast from one of their beers. The only major exception with what you would like to do is the addition of drying at the end.

While safety cannot be guaranteed when doing this outside of the lab, following decent sanitary procedures it is absolutely possible to do at home. Some specialized equipment IS required but can be found at your local restaurant store, amazon, or a lab supply store. Basically, be clean, be sanitary, and don't be dumb and you should be fine.

There are 4 essential steps you will need to perform.

Create a sterile substrate for the yeast to multiply in
Isolate yeast cells and innoculate the sterile substrate
Wait for the yeast colony to grow until it flocculates (falls to the bottom of the solution)
Wash and dry the yeast

First, is create a sterile substrate. You can follow the steps here:
https://byo.com/stories/item/434-canning-yeast-starters OR
http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/starter-made-easy-pressure-cooking-your-starter-wort-ahead-time

I do disagree with their using a hot water canner in this situation. Wort can be either acidic or alkaline, so there is no sure way to know that botulinum spores have been eliminated. I would suggest using a pressure cooker at 15PSI for 15-20 minutes. Once they are cooled, they should keep for up to 1 year.

Next, take a small sample of whatever yeast you are working from (almost definitely s. cerevisiae) and use it to inoculate the cooled starter. The best practice here would be to wash the yeast first, (follow this guide: http://billybrew.com/yeast-washing). Then, mix the resulting washed yeast with a little distilled water, suck into a sterile syringe, and innoculate the starter. At this point, you want to close and shake the starter like your life depended on it. An even better option would be to use a flask on a stirplate with a stir bar. You want the jar to be protected from foreign bodies but still allow air exchange. You can modify the lid by installing an airlock, or if you really want to be avant garde, just remove the lid and use a rubber band to seal the top of the lid with tyvek. Unlike if you were trying to make beer, oxygenation isn't an issue here so the one-way functionality of a normal airlock isn't really necessary. Set it in a cool dark location at around 70 degrees F.

Let the yeast do their thing. After a few days of fermenting, you will see the yeast fall to the bottom of the jar. This is a natural process of yeast called flocculation - the small yeast particles tend to cling together, and eventually they will form large enough clumps that they will fall out of solution. The layers that form on the bottom of the vessel are called "trub" in brewing. It's a mixture of yeast and other undissolved particulates that have fallen out of solution. Once you see this has happened, you can move on to washing the new yeast using the same washing procedure as before. If at this stage you sense any off-smells, throw it out and start over - trust your nose and your eyes here. It should smell yeasty and bready. It shouldn't smell bacterial or sick-sweet.

Once you have the cake of washed yeast, you can place it on a piece of STERILE aluminum foil and place it in a food dehydrator with heat. It should dry into a large cake. This can then be crumbled down to be used as nutritional yeast. The heat should be set at 125-130 degrees, which should critically injure/kill the yeast, deactivating it.

The whole process will take a few days, but all of the steps above are done at home by homebrewers and hobby mycologists currently - there's no reason you couldn't do it yourself. Just make sure you keep everything clean and sterile as much as possible. If it seems like too much of a hassle, I'd look out for mail order sources of the yeast. I will warn you though, that this might not produce a ton of yeast without scaling things up a bit (which is totally doable).

Also in response to some other comments - bakers yeast, brewers yeast - they're all different strains of s. cervisiae. So, same species, different strains. The different strains are specialized at certain things, but can be substituted for one another in a pinch (the results won't be as great, but they'll work). Remember, baking was a byproduct of brewing as far back as Egyptian times, possibly earlier. We've been using s. cervisiae almost as long as we've had civilization. Possibly longer.

Also, fun fact - you follow more or less the same steps any time you are working with fungiculture (growth of fungi). This makes sense considering yeast ARE fungi. With a mushroom, you would take a thick sterile syringe to act as a punch, take a biopsy sample from the stem (pierce from one side clear to the other and then eject the sample), cut off the sides of the sample that were exposed to the outside world, and using the remaining portion the same way you'd use the yeast above to get a mycelial culture. The only difference is instead of using a malt starter like yeast, you use agar.


Jar lids popping several times I've canned my whole life (54 years old), I started when I was young helping my Mom, and I've never run into this before.

I've never canned just plain pork stock before, but wanted to try. I had 4 pints and put it in the pressure cooker at 10lbs for 25 minutes. The book called for 11 lbs for 20 minutes.

When I took them out they started popping right away...but they kept popping several times.
In and out of seal. Now they have settled on sealed "popped down".

Has anyone else ever had this happen, do they know what the issue was and they should be ok, shouldn't they, as long as they are sealed?

It sounds to me like the seal on the lids may be very slightly compromised. For example:

lids start down with a good seal
pressure can't escape and starts building up like usual
imperfection in lid seal gives way a vents out pressure/heat, lid pops up
jar/contents starts to cool, constricting, again like usual - this is what seals the jars in a normal procdure
Lather, rinse, repeat

Edit

A thought occurs: it's equally as likely, if not more so, that the opposite of what I described above is happening: i.e., the stock is cooling down and contracting, which creates a negative pressure on the jar, sealing it. However, in a similar fashion to the above, a slight imperfection in the seal holds to a certain level of pressure but gives way past that threshold, allowing the pressure to equalize (which causes the top to pop up).

If they settled in the lid-down position after they completely cooled, they are probably okay (note the probably). What causes a lid to 'pop' after it cools is usually due to bacteria being sealed inside the can and/or compromising that can afterwards. Bacteria starts to eat the food, produces gas which expands and POP goes the lid, and your delicious canned food is no longer safe to eat. So if the lids stay down until you open the jar and the stock still smells okay, you're probably safe.


First time egg pickler, does pressure in jar mean they're spoiled? I hard boiled several fresh eggs, and pickled them with a chilli and garlic flavoured pickling vinegar which had been simmered for ~15 mins, storing them in jars that had been sterilised in the oven for half an hour or so and cooled. (I didn't follow a recipe as such, more a combination of different ones.) Everything had cooled when it was jarred.

They've since been stored in a dark cupboard at UK room temperature.

A couple of weeks later and the pop-up button on the lids is up under pressure.

Am I right to conclude that this effort has been a failure and the eggs are spoiled?

If so, where did I likely go wrong?

Updated to add:
This is one of the recipies I followed (since I used their pickling vinegar):
https://www.sarsons.co.uk/recipes/pickled-eggs

But having also looked at this one:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/pickled-eggs

.. amongst others, I additionally boiled the vinegar and flavourings for about 15 minutes and sterilised the jars in the oven at 180C for about half an hour. (I underestimated the volume of vinegar needed so topped up with fresh unboiled pickling vinegar.)

As somebody who ferments things, unexpected ferments generally should not be trusted. Even I throw them out, even though I'm pretty sure they're safe, personally.

Based on these two recipes and others I Googled, it seems like fermentation is not expected or desired. It seems like the two recipes you link to assume that the acidity of the pickling brine will be enough to preserve the eggs at room temperature for some time. We store vinegar at room temperature all the time!

But there are a lot of variables that could affect this. How much sugar did you use? How much chili and garlic? were they fresh or dried? How big were your eggs, and how much vinegar did you use relative to everything else? How much water did you add to your brine mixture before simmering it? And how long did you let your brine cool?

Although sterilization is hugely important, so is the pH of the brine and salinity/sugar content of your additions. So if you're inventing recipes, make sure you take some time and really think through how your additions could be altering the pH of the overall solution. If you're lowering it, consider how that might change the method.

In order to keep this from happening again, I would recommend hot-packing your eggs, and consider looking into canning them. Hot-packing means take your jars out if the oven, put your eggs in them, pour in your hot brine, and close the lid. Then let them cool and transfer to the fridge.


How to get rid of the taste of flour in homemade bakery? I usually get random cookie and cake recipes from the internet and try them. They are good but all of them have floury taste to me. Possible culprits are the flour I use and how I mix and bake dough. I use Gold Medal All-Purpose Flour and my hands to mix ingredients, having no mixer. What can I get wrong? Is there an easy fix?

Assuming you aren't very unlucky and happen to download a series of bad recipes I think it's one of a few things.

It's possible you could be undercooking your goods. Fully cooked baked goods should not taste like flour.

It's also possible that you could be mixing insufficiently. If this were the case though you'd  likely have some cookies that weren't floury.

The most likely culprit though is packed flour. If you are using volume measurements (most likely given the source) for flour, it's quite possible to use nearly twice as much flour as the recipe intends simply because your flour is packed down more than the author's was.

I recommend using either a food processor or a sifter to sift your flour adequately before measuring. Don't undo your sifting by rapping your measuring cup on the counter either! Simply scoop, scrape to level and dump it in the mixing bowl.

See Also:

What Kinds of Recipes Should I Sift/Aerate The Flour?
How can I make sifting easier?
What is the purpose of sifting dry ingredients?


Putting half thawed joint of pork back in fridge to fully defrost? I have a 2kg joint of pork which I took out of freezer last night and kept of the kitchen counter. I was wondering is it safe to now put back in the bottom of fridge to continue the safe defrosting proceedure? Or should I throw the joint away?

Frozen food should always be thawed in the refrigerator no matter what, here's an explanatioon :

frozen food put on the counter will defrost quicker than in the fridge , but bacteria activities will occur, now bacteria activities will occur no matter what, but if you keep it in the fridge the amount of bacteria will be less than if you left it on the counter.

That being said, I would check what the temperature on the surface is, if it's between 2 and 5 degree celcius than I would assume it would be safe for consumption if you let it finish defrosting in the refrigerator, otherwise might as well throw it away because when you get to the point of completely thawing your joint on the counter, the surface will be swarmed with bacterias and will most likely make you sick.

So in a shell : temperature on the surface is key.

Hope it's not too late !


Is there a non-alcoholic substitute for rice wine? I'd like to cook something that calls for rice wine, but alcohol is prohibited for me. What can I use as a substitute for it?

The first choice would be a non-alcoholic mirin such as Honteri mirin, made by Mizkan, or the Kikkoman Kotteri, mentioned in the comment above. I have a bottle of Honteri mirin and on the bottle it states that it is a non-alcoholic mirin.

However, it should be noted that any of these products containing fermented rice can have trace amounts of alcohol. Even soy sauce can contain alcohol. From  Kikkoman :

Is there any alcohol in Kikkoman Soy Sauces?
Kikkoman Soy Sauces contain greater than 2% alcohol by volume. The alcohol is not added, but is a result of the fermentation process. Like wine or beer, our soy sauces are brewed and they are made from wheat, soybeans, salt and water. During fermentation, the wheat starches are broken down to sugars and part of the sugar is changed into alcohol.

So, while you may not see it listed as an ingredient, products may contain alcohol as a result of fermentation processes.
If you want absolutely no alcohol, there are a few other options such as white grape juice, a broth that complements the dish, or an additional amount of another cooking liquid used in the recipe. If your recipe only calls for a small amount, you could replace it with water.


What caused the crust on on the top of my bread to separate from the rest of the loaf? I used this Portuguese sweet bread recipe. The bread came out with a great crumb, great flavor, and a great crust. The problem is that the crust on the top separated from the crumb on the top of the bread:

I followed the recipe. The only change I made was that I refrigerated the dough after the first rise and shaping for 12 hours and baked it the next morning after letting it warm to room temperature. Anyone?

What caused it: it's gotta be gases from the yeast exhalations which are unable to escape the air-tight envelope of the crust layer. So they just build up in a bubble right under the surface. Cutting some of those large gashes or cross-hatches into the top of the bread before baking should break up the outer skin of the loaf to let some of that gas out without detaching the top of the bread.


Pre-frosting cake with jelly I am making a chocolate cake for my son's birthday.  Used a boxed cake mix (with a few substitutions) for the cake itself.  Going to use chocolate frosting.  Had the idea to put a light coat of strawberry jelly on the top and let is soak in before frosting.

Has anyone done that before?  Will it work or just make the cake soggy?

Yes, you can do this and it is not unheard of in continental European-style cake recipes that tend to be on the dryer side than many American cakes. A good example of this is Sachertorte, which has a coating of apricot jam topped with a chocolate ganache.

If you have a firm-crumb cake (Sachertorte or pound cake or similar), this would work well, especially with a poured frosting or glaze. If you have a moister, crumblier cake it may (probably will) lose structure. In either case, the temperature of both the Jam and the cake matter. The cake should be fully cooled and the Jam glaze should be warm. Chill the glazed cake before attempting to frost it.

You can make a glaze by warming jam or thinning preserves slightly and cooking until it makes a thick sauce, then cooling slightly. Epicurious has a Sachertorte recipe including glaze if you want an example.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/apricot-glaze-231044


Which food writers do you take to bed? Which food books (and I'm thinking books on food and cooking rather than recipe books) do you find on your bedside cabinet rather than on the kitchen shelves?

McGee on Food and Cooking: An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture keeps creeping back as it answers all those questions about why something works, or doesn't;

Anything by M. F. K. Fisher as I never tire of her simple, witty prose and sheer love of food.

Jeffrey Steingarten - The Man Who Ate Everything and It Must Be Something I Ate

The New Yorker Anthology of Food Writing

Herve This - Molecular Gastronomy


How to separate salt from chocolate? For the cake we needed melted chocolate with some extra sugar.
However, instead of sugar we have added salt.
Is there a viable way to separate the salt?

The chocolate has 60% cocoa in it, and there's also some butter in the mixture.

You're going to have to start over with new chocolate. I'm sorry to say it but there's no way to remove the salt from the chocolate.


Homemade Truffle Salt How do you make truffle salt at home? I tried with just a jarred black truffle I got at the stores. I finely grated it over a microplane and then mixed it with salt and let it sit for a while. It doesn't taste at all like the truffle salt I buy at the store. I can't find anything online either. What kind of truffles do I get? What do you look for? How do I prep them? What is the ratio of salt to truffle? What are the instructions? Thank you.

The process is apparently very simple: grate fresh truffle into salt using a microplane, and pulse with a food processor to blend.  One source said the flavor intensified over time. I can't find a ratio either, but it looks like about 10:1 salt:truffle, maybe less.

Flavor is always going to vary a bit with something natural such as truffles, but if your result tastes nothing like store truffle salt, there's a couple possible reasons.  Perhaps the truffles you're using aren't truly fresh.  I suspect the store truffle salt adds flavor extracts or synthetic truffle oil to punch up the flavor a bit. Stuff derived from real truffles is often milder but more complex than things using synthetic imitations.

Finally, you might try using a different salt.  I'd suggest the best sea salt you can get your hands on. Rougher salt grains might absorb flavor oils better than more regular ones, and better sea salts add their own subtle tastes.


Upside-Down Lemon Squares? I made a batch of lemon squares last night with my tried and true recipe that I have made multiple times. When it was done, I let it sit on the counter until completely cool and put it in the fridge.

After about 4 hours, I took it out to cut it into squares and was shocked to find it had reversed itself! The recipe has a shortbread crust on the BOTTOM and a lemon curd on TOP but when I was getting ready to cut it up, the shortbread crust was on top!

When I put it in the fridge to cool off, it was the right way, so it did this magic trick in the fridge!

There were a few changes I made to the recipe this time:

I poured the lemon curd over the cooled crust instead of a hot crust.
I added lemon zest to the crust for extra flavour.
I increased the filling by 50%.

Would any of these seemingly minor changes cause this magic trick? But more important, how is it physically possible?  I could see if it was different layers of a fluid cake batter that could reverse itself, but the shortbread crust is baked first so it's a solid. Not to mention it reversed in the fridge, not while baking!

It was baked in a 9 inch square pan lined with parchment paper. Does anybody want to tackle this one, so I can sleep tonight?

I assume the crust floated and the curd displaced around it, rather than anything actually "flipping." Actual flipping would fall under the "other members of the household" comment.

Floating merely requires the shortbread crust to detach from the bottom of the pan (perhaps aided by being cool) and lemon curd to flow under it, slowly - it may have been doing this (but not broken the surface) before it was refrigerated, and continued in the refrigerator. Nothing needs to be overly fluid for this to happen - flow in thick/viscous  liquids just needs plenty of time.


Condensation between parchment paper and cake pan I tried the following recipe for making Basque Burnt Cheesecake.

430g cream cheese, room temperature
120g caster sugar
3 large
eggs, room temp (approx 150g of eggs without shell)
270g heavy
cream/thickened cream (35% min fat content)
20g cake flour
1 tsp
vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon juice

Everything turned out great except that there was condensation between the parchment paper and cake pan. It got the bottom of cheesecake a little moist.  Is there any way I could prevent this next time?

Assuming your cake came out well and not overly wet (though I appreciate this is a particularly moist cake/batter), I'm going to guess that this was just because of poor airflow when cooling.
Did you cool the whole pan on a wire rack as suggested? If not, that would be the first thing I tried to fix this. This could help the cake cool faster, allowing less opportunity for condensation.
But some other things to try could include:

Taking the cake out of the pan as soon as it's set enough to move, and letting it cool further on a wire rack. I appreciate part of this cake's appeal is how beautifully soft it looks though, so I imagine this may not be an easy thing to do!
If you baked in a springform pan, could you take the sides off the pan sooner to allow for better airflow?
The third thing is I wonder whether the double layer of baking paper is having an impact here? This may be hurting airflow even further and trapping more moisture.

Just some ideas! Besides a batter being too wet, poor airflow seemed to be the main culprit of condensation building up on the bottom of a cake that I could find, so seems like a good place to start troubleshooting. Good luck next time - the recipe looks delicious.


Quickbreads vs Cakes: Understanding Mixing Ingredients - Type 1:  In a typical quickbread (and certain cake recipes), the instructions will say to mix just until combined, no actual stirring or beating. I think this is because (assuming this is made with wheat flour, either white or whole), overstirring or beating would cause the gluten to develop which would result in a chewy texture, not usually desirable in this case.

Type 2:  Then there's the type of cake where the sugar and butter are creamed and then if I recall eggs are added and then the flour. It's not a problem to continue mixing it, in fact mixing is not only okay but required. This tends to result in a light, fluffy cake.

My question: If my premise for Type 1 is correct (overbeating develops the gluten), why does it not hold true for Type 2?

Your premise for Type 1 is correct, however you seem to have misunderstood Type 2: It is no problem to continue mixing the butter-sugar-egg mixture, but as soon as the flour is added, the gluten starts to develop and you should just mix until combined.

For Type 2, creaming the butter and sugar helps to incorporate a lot of air into the mixture, resulting in a light and fluffy texture. This continues when the eggs are added. Proper creaming takes some time, but at some point further mixing does not improve the result any more.


Why does my fry-bread turn out so oily? I like making fry-bread to go with my chili, but they always seem to be really oily. I like having well browned scones, but I can't seem to do that without plenty of oil, which apparently gets absorbed by the fry-bread.

When making lángos, which is pretty much identical to fry-bread in every respect except the name, there are two keys to preventing an oil-logged outcome:

First, make sure your oil is hot enough, but not too hot. You want to achieve the desired toasty brown color on the outside in precisely the same amount of time as it takes to cook the dough all the way through on the inside, and not a second longer. (Well, OK, so that's exaggerating a bit; you do have a little leeway, but you shouldn't be frying a piece of dough much past the point of doneness just to achieve the color you want; and obviously, you also don't want the outside to be burnt but the inside still doughy.)
Second, when you remove the bread from the oil, blot the excess oil. As in, don't just put it on a metal rack and expect the oil to drip off. Go ahead and use that cookie rack or what-have-you, but line it with a couple of paper towels. Or half a dozen paper towels. Or an I-don't-know-how-people-made-fry-bread-before-paper-towels quantity of paper towels. And then use a second paper towel to blot the top of the bread.

(Important: to prevent sogginess, once you've blotted the bread, remove it from the paper towels, and either serve immediately, or put it in a suitable serving pan in as close to a single layer as you can manage.)

Another aspect that people often mention is how many times you flip the bread. Just like with hamburgers on a grill, there are advocates of the "flip exactly once" method, and advocates of the "flip many times" method, with very little middle ground. I tend to flip once, just because that's less work; I don't actually know if the number of times you flip has any effect on the oiliness of the outcome.


How to serve oranges so it is easy for guests to enjoy them? Usually I just cut them into 6 pieces (see image), but it's kind of messy to eat them this way.
Is there a better way?

For special guests you can 'segment' citrus, but I've always found it a thankless chore that wastes a lot of fruit, so I don't undertake the process lightly. This process is especially nice if you are using the citrus in something like a dessert or salad where the texture of the tough membrane can throw off the dish. However, as is the case with a citrus salad, the time adds up. To do it easily, it helps to have a really good paring knife, and a nice piece of fruit.

Start by cutting the top and the bottom off, just enough to expose the familiar star pattern of the segments. Then, cut down the orange from top to bottom, removing the entire rind by section. Leave none of the white stuff, it only gets in the way. The smaller you make each strip, the more fruit you can conserve. You should be left with a bald, juicy looking thing.

Now the membrane, which separates each segment, is exposed. To dislodge the first piece (always the hardest), slide the knife just membrane on either side. Once the first piece is freed, you have the room to peel back each membrane in turn. You be left with the essence of orange on one hand, and the deflated (and nutritious) husk of membrane on the other.


What is the best way to pop popcorn on the stove? I have a kettle-corn popcorn recipe that I have to pop on the stove as I don't have a popcorn maker and I wouldn't want to add the sugar to the popcorn maker. This makes me wonder what the best way to pop popcorn, in a pot with a lid, over the stove is?

Use a large heavy-bottomed pot (idealy 3-4 quart size) and place it over medium to medium-high heat until you can hold your hand about 6 inches above the bottom surface and feel the heat radiating off it.  At that point add about 1-2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to the pan, tilting to coat the bottom evenly.  Drop in a kernel or two and cover.  When the kernels pop, quickly add in the remaining, cover and shake the pan on the heat to keep the unpopped kernels on the bottom where they'll heat the best.  Cook and shake until the popping stops.

In order to have enough volume for the popped corn, you'll need to do it in batches of about 1/2 cup of popcorn kernels at a time if you're doing a large amount.


How long does it take to ripen tomatoes in a bag with bananas? I read a tip about putting unripe tomatoes in a bag with a few bananas, and keeping them in a dark part of the house at room temperature. How long, more or less, does it take for the tomatoes to become fully ripe? How can one be sure they are good?

I usually harvest my unripe tomatoes the night before the first hard frost. Anything beyond hard green, and into the yellowish/red stage, goes in a cardboard box with a ripening apple.
That yields me a steady supply of ripe and fairly tasty tomatoes through Thanksgiving, and some years up until Christmas.

Cover the box with a towel. Some of the tomatoes will go bad, turning soft and squishy, so you need to sort every week or so, and consider drainage in your storage spot, but the majority will eventually ripen.
Bananas are ferocious sources of the ripening agent, ethylene, so the time frame with them might be somewhat shorter. Temperature also changes the rate of ripening. Cooler is slower; a fridge is too cold.

Ethylene is heavier than air, so a closed container with a lid is all that's needed to keep it in.


How much temperature control does an emergency food cache need? I just bought a massive amount of wholesale food to prepare for a winter storm this coming weekend. Since I will not use all of it, and want to keep it around for future emergencies, I'm curious about some of the items I have.

None of the items I bought were refrigerated but I am wondering how some of them would fair in the northwestern US with its cold winters and warm summers, namely jam, these milk boxes, canned tuna, soups, etc.

I wanted to keep these large bins of food in my outdoor shed but will the food spoil if it 1) freezes and thaws during the cold months or 2) gets up into the 70's and 80's during summer?

I can keep reminders for any expiration dates, but for the packages that say "no need to refrigerated until opened", I'm concerned it will go to waste.

Short answer: you need to keep those goods above freezing, below 85F, and in a low-humidity environment.

Long Answer:

Freezing: Canned goods, jars, and tetrapaks that are frozen can leak, split, or even explode, and are often unsafe to eat after thawing.

Heat: canned goods safe and nutritious lifetime decreases at temperatures above 85F, and US regulations allow them to fail preservation outright at 100F (which means some).  TetraPak also recommends against exposing those milk cartons to temperatures above 100F for more than 24 hours.

Moisture: cans and jar lids can and do rust, and if the rust penetrates into the interior can cause seal failure.  While TetraPak provides no information about failure modes, they also recommend storing cartons in a dry environment.

So, if you want those supplies to be wholesome and nutritious until their printed expiration dates, store them between 33F and 85F in a dry place.  In Florida, that might be a challenge, but in the NW USA, you can solve that by putting them in a well-lined, well-drained cellar.


What temperature and time do I need to bake a 35cm Madeira cake? I am cooking a very large wedding cake (35 cm or 14 inch) and can't get the cooking time right. Is there a specific temperature I should use?

It's very difficult to cook a cake that large without a heating core.

Basically, it's a metal cup that you put in the middle of your cake so that you can get some heat conduction in the middle of the cake, like you would with a bundt pan or other ring-shaped pan.  Unlike the ring pan, as it's a cup, you also fill it with batter so you have a plug to fill the hole that's created.

(and you generally need to fill the cup with either batter or something else heavy so that it doesn't float in the batter).

You also want to go with a lower temperature and bake it for longer -- this is not only because of the size of the cake, but you also want it to be more dense; if you're going to be stacking on top of it, you do not want it spongy, and you need to reduce the amount of open spring from a high temperature.  I'd highly recommend looking for recipes specifically intended for large stacked cakes.

As medeira cakes tend to be slow cooking to start with, you might be looking at 1.5 to 2hrs to get it fully baked through.


Do all cheeses change their taste during their shelf life, like Brie or Camembert? Brie and Camembert go through 3 stages of ripening and changes in taste. Does it happen to blue, or any other type of cheese?

All traditionally made cheeses (not "cheese food" or pasteurized processed cheeses like American slices or American cheddar that you find in the grocery store) contain enzymes and bacteria that impact the texture and flavor over time. Cheese makers call this "ripening".  The amount of impact that you notice depends on a number of variables...type of cheese, age, storage conditions (temperature, humidity...), and packaging, to name a few. It's more obvious, and a quicker process in softer cheeses, but it also happens in hard cheeses. Storing cheese in a typical refrigerator drastically slows the ripening process, as it is typically too cold, and much too dry to promote ripening. However, with a few modifications, you can fairly easily create the correct conditions at home if you want to build a ripening "cellar".  Most cheese makers will have a perfect ripeness in mind for a given cheese, but most are edible well before and well after this ideal state.  Aromas of ammonia, or a rotting rind are signs that a cheese is well past its prime.


Why does my red palm oil seem to have such a low smoke point? I bought some red palm oil from an African grocer (no brand... it just comes in an unlabeled plastic milk jug), and it seems to have the lowest smoke point of any oil I've used despite every online source claiming red palm oil should have a pretty high smoke point of 450F (I've checked to see that it seems to start smoking faster than EVOO even!)
I'm assuming this means it's an unrefined oil, and that all the sources claiming 450F as a smoke point are using a refined oil. Unfortunately, I can't find any info about what the smoke point for unrefined red palm might be, and I'm kind of worried about using it a bunch of recipes now because of this.
Does anyone here know what the smoke point of this oil I'm using might actually be, or whether I can safely use it despite all the smoke it's giving off?

I've found a couple of sources differentiating red palm from palm kernel oil & quoting smoke points from 150℃/300℉ to 235℃/450℉ depending on how refined it is.
One can only imagine if you got a 'straight from the farm' type then it will be unrefined.
I'd use it only for low-temperature cooking, don't let it smoke too much.
Refs:
https://www.evolvingwellness.com/post/guide-to-red-palm-oil-health-nutrition-sustainability-brands
https://nutivauk.com/red-palm-oil-faq
http://www.clovegarden.com/ingred/oilchart.html


Using seltzer to help a marinade I saw the host on a cooking show claim that using seltzer in a marinade will help the flavors better penetrate meat via the carbonation. Is there any truth to this, and how would it actually work? e.g. would the bubbles carry bits of flavor material, or somehow open "pores" in the meat...?

I would strongly doubt that the bubbles themselves would have any mechanical effect on flavor.  However, seltzer or soda water has a acidic pH, usually between tomato and orange juice. This could account for any tenderizing action. The addition of salts to some seltzers might also account for apparent changes in flavor.


What's the difference between a cobbler, crisp, crumble, buckle, and betty? I've heard all these terms at different times but never really understood the differences. What distinguishes various fruit-and-topping desserts such as a cobbler, crisp, crumble, buckle, or betty -- or are they all the same dish but with different quirky names?

Some of the terms may be regional but they do generally describe variations on a theme.

My general understanding of the differences are as follows:

Cobbler - A cobbler is generally a thickened fruit mixture with scone or biscuit-like top crust. Cobbler crusts, notably "Texas cobblers" can also be made with thinner batters that soak into the filling more than simply sitting on top.

This is an example of a blueberry cobbler with individual biscuits as a topping.

This is a "Texas style" blueberry cobbler, where the batter rises up through the blueberry mixture.

Crisp - A crisp is different as it has a "crispy" topping, usually made of a simple toasted mixture of butter, flour and sugar along with cornmeal or oats. The term is often interchangeable with "crumble".

This crisp has a topping of oats and optional nuts.

Buckle - A buckle is significantly more cake-like with large pieces of fruit (usually blueberries) are suspended within. It often has a stresuel-like topping. In some circles, a buckle is also called a crumble.

This is a blueberry buckle with a crumb topping.

Betty - Also known as a "Brown Betty" is made with bread crumbs mixed with butter sugar and used as both a bottom and top "crust". These are very often (if not usually) made with apples.

This is an apple Brown Betty.

Here's a great resource for the differences in the above and several other similar dessert items.


Does the drying out of vegetables affect the taste after cooking? If I cut the onions and vegetables in the morning, they dry up till evening. Is there a taste change when you eat cooked vegetables, which dried out over 8 hours (before cooking)?

8 hours in still air is probably not going to be enough to thoroughly dry your vegetables.
If you live in a very dry climate and the veggies were sitting uncovered in front of a fan the entire time then you might have actually dried them.

So your title is asking a different question than your description.

Description:
If you live in a very humid climate then you might be more concerned about spoiling than drying. They may have become a little limp so it makes a difference how you plan to cook them. If the veggies are going to be diced and sauteed and used in something else then they will probably be fine. If they are going to be their own side- like steamed asparagus- then the texture may be decidedly un-fresh.

Either way- the flavor will be normal or close to it.

Title:
Actual dehydrated veggies are different altogether. They have had most of their water removed. This concentrates flavors and changes them. They are sweeter and more intense. Their texture is also firmer and ranges from crisp to rubbery to almost normal depending on how much they are rehydrated.