Baking

[bixaorellana]

That sound luxuriously delicious!

[cheerypeabrain]

I made blondies today. I'll be making bread rolls and cheese straws tomorrow because our eldest is here to visit. He's recently become vegetarian so there'll be no sausage rolls. Gawd knows what else I'll make...

I'll take a few pics if I remember....

[cheerypeabrain]

Sweet bread rolls and cheese straws





Little Yorkshire puddings. The beef was resting prior to carving that's why it isn't in the oven

[bixaorellana]

Ow ~ I just stubbed my fingers on the monitor trying to grab those goodies!

[onlyMark]

Ended up with still some leftovers so quickly added the beef, onion and potato together, used some shop bought pastry that had been hanging around in the freezer for too long (I think it's shortcrust but would have preferred flaky pastry) and made them into pies. I'll have one later with some fried potato and gravy. Maybe 'petit pois' as well to posh it up a bit. I wanted to use an egg wash instead of milk but didn't have any because I bought myself for Christmas an egg boiling/steaming machine and used them all up -

[bixaorellana]

Looks good!

Did you get the Dash egg cooker or something more elaborate? I have the Dash & consider it one of the great achievements of mankind.

[onlyMark]

I was prompted by seeing a Dash one recently in some article but in Germany on Amazon (which for general items give me a lot of choice) there is one for about 40 USD with just five ratings and one for equivalent to 147 USD with 54,779 ratings. I wanted something cheaper than even the cheaper one because I'm not sure how often I will use it. If I do quite often, no problem if it breaks and then I'll buy a good one. I wouldn't buy a really good one first with the risk it'll just be stuck in a cupboard somewhere like often kitchen gadgets are.
I also wanted the poaching option plus for eight eggs so got this one. The name appealed to me as well -

Venga!

[bixaorellana]

Ohhh, that is very nice, nicer than my Dash!

Dash on AmazonMx was half the price it is in Germany. But if I'd had the choice between the one you got & the Dash, I'd have gotten the Venga -- stainless steel & the poacher thingies are nicer.

[onlyMark]

I'll see about making some egg mayonnaise tomorrow and do an 8 egg boil to see what it is like. I think I'll have to play around again with the amount of water as there is no discrimination between egg sizes or whether they were at room temperature or straight from the fridge. I did a couple of soft boiled eggs and they ended up not soft enough for example.
I also want to do the poaching thing as see how well that works out because for breakfast I'd prefer poached on some toast.

[onlyMark]

Did the poaching but again, need to play with the amount of water. Were not soft enough.

I have a weakness for pastry and had some ready made stuff in the freezer. So I made some aged cheddar cheese... things -

[kerouac2]

They look fully edible to me, and as you know, I'm not big on pastry.

[cheerypeabrain]

Jeff can't manage my crusty bread atm, even the soft rolls that I make were too tough for him. I didn't want to buy over-processed soft rolls from the local shops so I've been searching my recipe books for a super soft bread that he can have with the soup that I made for dinner.

I found barm cakes in a Paul Hollywood recipe book. They're a bit like English Muffins, they're called 'barm cakes' because traditionally the raising agent was 'barm', the yeast rich froth from beer brewing. I used yeast

They have 2 very long proving periods at room temperature then a quick bake in a hot oven. Soft, light and perfect for my poor gummy husband

[lugg]

Ooh some reat baked goodies here.

Cheery - in Manchester, when I was a child, barm cakes were everywhere . I never see them now but remember how good they are/were. Especially as a chip butty !

[onlyMark]

Chucking it down with rain so made some bread instead of going to the shop for it. In Germany and I suppose many countries, the flour usually has a grade number. The lower it is, the finer the flour is. I've been trying a few different ones with the same recipe and made a loaf today with what is rated as 1050, so it contains "parts of the outer layers of the wheat grain" and so darker and rougher than the 450 or 550, an all purpose flour, which here makes soft white bread for example.
Turned out good but I would have liked it to rise a bit more. I know now with my standard recipe I need to add a couple of grams or so more yeast  -

[kerouac2]

Looks very professional!

[onlyMark]

I've bought a silicon bread tin. Stops it sticking and peeling bits off the sides.

[bixaorellana]

Can you get vital wheat gluten where you live?

[cheerypeabrain]

That bread looks yummy Mark

I just sent our Granddaughter a recipe book. I've written down about 20 of our family favourites. Some are from family members no longer with us, like my Mum's date and walnut loaf, Aunty Mary's bread recipe, my SiL Dominique's Mum's recipe for strawberry tiramisu...but I've included easy stuff like cheese straws, scones and cheese biscuits. Some of the recipes are originally from cookery books..but have been changed and fiddled with..like my sticky toffee puddings with toffee pecan sauce, my take on lasagne and steak pie 😁

There are lots of blank pages for her to add her own favourites...she was really happy with it. I even included a temperature comparison table (electric oven, fan oven and gas equivalents) weights and measures. It was fun to do.

[bixaorellana]

Wow, Cheery -- that is one of the best gifts she will get in her whole life! It will surely get passed down, too.

[lugg]

That is lovely Cheery - I have some of my Mums recipes written down by her and cherish them

[onlyMark]

Feb 9, 2024 6:18:26 GMT bixaorellana said:

Can you get vital wheat gluten where you live?

Sorry Bixa, missed that. I don't know. I'll have to look. It's not something I've noticed though. What do you use it for?

Had a go at making some pastry then wondered what I was going to do with it. So made some mince meat and onion pies and with the left over, a cheese roll thing. I think the proof will be in the eating though. It looks ok but I'll see later. The pies have a bigger hole than normal in the middle so I can get some extra gravy in there later -

[kerouac2]

You seem to be an excellent cook. This leads me to wonder when you will schedule the next Anyport meet-up.

[bixaorellana]

I could just savage one of those pies!

Re: vital wheat gluten:

Feb 13, 2024 10:36:08 GMT onlyMark said:

Sorry Bixa, missed that. I don't know. I'll have to look. It's not something I've noticed though. What do you use it for?

Mark, I learned about it because I can't find bread flour here, which I think in the UK is also called strong bread flour. (cheerypeabrain ?). It's just pure gluten added to plain flour to make it like bread flour.

Here is an explanation: www.chainbaker.com/vital-wheat-gluten/#:~:text=Such%20low%20protein%20content%20is,(3.53oz)%20of%20flour.

Here's a source in Germany: www.amazon.de/-/en/GOLDEN-PEANUT-Vital-Wheat-Gluten/dp/B01MTKTVV0?th=1

A little goes a long way. I experiment with the amount of the vwg and of yeast and sugar because I find many recipes are about getting the bread big and puffy, whereas I'm not trying to duplicate worthless supermarket bread.

This is interesting and the guy's youtube channel has many other videos about the hows and whys of baking.

[onlyMark]

You've got me wanting to go to the shop now and examine all the flours to look for the protein. I do have a packet of mid-range flour in the cupboard and that says it has 12g of protein which is just a fraction less than in the video the strong flour.
I'll work on this and see what happens depending on the flour I can get. Thanks.

Feb 13, 2024 15:53:48 GMT kerouac2 said:

You seem to be an excellent cook. This leads me to wonder when you will schedule the next Anyport meet-up.

Probably best when we are posted to an exotic country and not Germany. In several years then would be the earliest. I'll hone my meat pie and pickle making skills.

[mich64]

Mark those mince meat pies look delicious. What kind of meat do you use?

[onlyMark]

Thanks Mich. It's just normal beef mince but not the lean stuff. It has some fat in it to give it a bit more flavour. The pastry is short crust. If you use lamb mince and a hot water pastry then it is called here a Scotch Pie but I don't like lamb particularly and for me short crust is easier.
I softened up some onions, added the mince, cooked until brown, added some beef stock for ten minutes, drained what was left of the stock off and used that later to make gravy, a table spoon or two I poured back in through the hole when I re-heated them. Seasoned however you like.
Cut a big circle and smaller one, packed the mince into the bigger one in the pie tray, egg wash the edges to stick the top on and then again to cover the top, baked about 170 C for 40 mins close to the bottom of the oven to make sure the bottom was browned properly.

[cheerypeabrain]

Yep, strong white bread flour. I use it for making rough puff pastry and (strangely enough) bread. I got very excited a few months ago when I found a recipe for making Hovis-like-it-used-to-taste. Hovis wheatgerm bread was a special treat when I was a nipper. They sold little baby loaves ( as well as normal sized small loaves) that all of us children loved, they was a perfect little loaf shape.

If I had a prang or got stung when I was little my Nan would make me a hovis, butter and sugar sandwich a strange combination but it stopped me crying. A bit like giving an adult strong, hot, sweet tea after a shock I suppose.

In the early 2000s they changed the hovis recipe..ratbags.

Anyway the recipe I found comes pretty close. The only problem being that I can only buy wheatgerm in huge bags and I only need a couple of tablespoons full per loaf!

Mark, I've never made hot water pastry, and I've only made suet crust a couple of times. I'm going through a rough puff phase atm...laminations don't you know...

[bixaorellana]

Feb 13, 2024 18:32:38 GMT onlyMark said:

You've got me wanting to go to the shop now and examine all the flours to look for the protein. I do have a packet of mid-range flour in the cupboard and that says it has 12g of protein

I feel like a dummy because it never occurred to me to check for the amount of protein. All I knew was that it was or was not bread flour. Anyway, I have a bag of whole wheat flour in the freezer, so I just went and looked. It is 12.5g of protein to every 100g of flour -- not bad.
Looked online and the brand of white flour I use only has 10.88 to every 100g.
I noticed yesterday that the booklet that came with my bread machine says that Canadian flour has more protein than US flour.

Feb 15, 2024 22:09:22 GMT cheerypeabrain said:

I can only buy wheatgerm in huge bags and I only need a couple of tablespoons full per loaf!

Cheery, in the US you can (or could) buy wheat germ in small glass jars. Maybe you could find something like that, or find someone(s) who'd like to split a bag with you. Wheat germ does need to be kept in the fridge or freezer, as it can go rancid.
Those little Hovis loaves sound adorable!

[onlyMark]

Bixa, I had a quick look at the flours in the supermarket yesterday. The range of protein was about the same as yours. The lowest was like a cake flour with 10.8 and the highest was labelled strong bread flour and was 13.
Cheery, can't get suet particularly in German. It is here but little used and hidden away when you can find it so I've never tried a suet pastry and once tried a hot water one that was at best, ok.

[cheerypeabrain]

Another use for strong white bread flour..absolutely delicious cheese scones (I use cheese a LOT) Paul Hollywood recipe




I use strong cheddar in the mix and top with finely grated parmesan