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Baking
Mar 6, 2020 23:34:08 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Mar 6, 2020 23:34:08 GMT
Clotted cream ~ that stuff they serve in Heaven?! Your scones look like a photo from a fancy cooking magazine.
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Baking
Mar 7, 2020 0:35:34 GMT
Post by lagatta on Mar 7, 2020 0:35:34 GMT
Those look utterly loverly!
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Baking
Mar 8, 2020 21:03:52 GMT
Post by cheerypeabrain on Mar 8, 2020 21:03:52 GMT
Thank you. Jeff and Russell made short work of them.
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Baking
Apr 1, 2020 15:39:17 GMT
Post by cheerypeabrain on Apr 1, 2020 15:39:17 GMT
Bored baking has been going on over the past week...made some crispy cheese biscuits last week Muffins the other day, cherry & almond and white chocolate chip, several went to neighbours. Then today I've made a shedload of sausage rolls and a few cheese straws.
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Baking
Apr 1, 2020 16:02:28 GMT
Post by kerouac2 on Apr 1, 2020 16:02:28 GMT
It all looks great although I know from experience that I am not a fan of sausage rolls.
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Baking
Apr 3, 2020 20:51:20 GMT
Post by cheerypeabrain on Apr 3, 2020 20:51:20 GMT
Jeff's birthday treats...white chocolate mud cakes with white chocolate ganache and smarties...milk chocolate grated over them too...taking some to my neighbours who are in isolation tomorrow. Another treat.
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Baking
Apr 3, 2020 21:22:34 GMT
Post by kerouac2 on Apr 3, 2020 21:22:34 GMT
I absolutely adore the concept of baking and am totally impressed by everything that you are doing. My problem is that I am not attracted to just about anything made with flour, even though they taste good. I buy a baguette or croissants only about once every three or four months. I am rather surprised that I have not been expelled from France.
Keep up the good work!
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Baking
Apr 3, 2020 23:22:11 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Apr 3, 2020 23:22:11 GMT
Smarties are M&Ms?
Lucky Jeff (Hi, Jeff ~ happy birthday!) & lucky neighbors.
Cheery, you say the neighbors "are in isolation tomorrow". Is it because they fear one of them is ill? I though pretty much everyone in your area was already in isolation.
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Baking
Apr 4, 2020 1:51:17 GMT
Post by mich64 on Apr 4, 2020 1:51:17 GMT
Indeed! Smarties are like M&M's but here in Canada they are more of milk chocolate where I find M&M's the chocolate is darker and not as sweet as Smarties. Are they the same for you Cheery? Everything looks delicious! Ever since I baked the cake the other day, I thought maybe I should try cinnamon rolls. I think I have all the ingredients and I know my husband enjoys them, we will see tomorrow.
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Baking
Apr 4, 2020 4:45:00 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Apr 4, 2020 4:45:00 GMT
Thanks, Mich. Even though I'd heard of Smarties, I always imagined them as something else, something not chocolate anyway. Weird that they have them in Canada but not the US.
Mmmmm ~ cinnamon rolls!
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Baking
Apr 4, 2020 5:50:47 GMT
Post by kerouac2 on Apr 4, 2020 5:50:47 GMT
Smarties kept M&Ms out of France for a long time. Back in the old days a single brand of that sort of item was considered sufficient.
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Baking
Apr 4, 2020 5:55:16 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Apr 4, 2020 5:55:16 GMT
Not to start a war, but M&Ms are obviously better because dark chocolate is always better than milk chocolate.
I'm still inordinately thrilled to finally know what they are.
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Baking
Apr 4, 2020 6:30:53 GMT
Post by bjd on Apr 4, 2020 6:30:53 GMT
As a kid I only knew Smarties. I didn't know what M&Ms were until much later, but generally American chocolates are not as good. Now I don't eat anything like that -- they are just too sweet. My husband tried to make bread in the past year but could never make any successful sourdough. So he has been occasionally making a brioche, although the texture is not the same as the brioches in Paris, which are extremely complicated to make. And yesterday he made a sweet bread using yeast, a mixture of flours and raisins and almonds. However, there is a shortage of flour at the local supermarkets, and the yeast seems to have disappeared. On the Thorn Tree yesterday, it seems to be the case in parts of Italy and Germany, so maybe it's all those stay-at-home husbands who have decided to bake using it up?
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Baking
Apr 4, 2020 7:26:13 GMT
Post by onlyMark on Apr 4, 2020 7:26:13 GMT
Can't get flour here for love nor money, and I don't understand why at all. Must be loads of people deciding to stock up on it when they've hardly used it before. The bakeries are open and you get get tons of fresh bread every day. I like baking bread and unlike K2, I will eat it every day in one form or another. There are so many breads in Germany and that they do very well, unlike France where you have baguette or..... maybe baguette then - and for those who wend their way to remote corners of the world, you'll often come across a shop that says German Bakery for just that reason. I was watching a programme about Pondicherry last night and it was mentioned about a bakery making French bread. They did, just baguette, but loads and loads of it mind you. You could take it or leave it because there was no other choice.
But to get back to the subject, I don't particularly like sourdough bread, so that's not a problem trying to keep a culture(?) going, but anything else is fair game to be made when I can get the ingredients.
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Baking
Apr 4, 2020 7:48:10 GMT
Post by bjd on Apr 4, 2020 7:48:10 GMT
I agree that German bread is very good, but I very rarely buy baguettes. There are other kinds of bread available in France. But even if you stick to baguettes, there are the ordinary cheap kind in supermarkets. They have little taste and don't keep, and there are "tradition" kind which are usually pretty good.
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Baking
Apr 4, 2020 12:50:55 GMT
Post by cheerypeabrain on Apr 4, 2020 12:50:55 GMT
I still have plenty of my Brexit flour left...but it's mostly wholemeal or multi-grain now. Probably wont bake any more cake until Russell's birthday in May...the bread really perked everybody up tho. Gone now.
Bixa. Yes we're all staying at home, it's just that a few of the neighbours live alone and one lady in particular is very frightened by the current situation. My baking seems to cheer her up and reminds her that other folk are thinking of her.
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Baking
Apr 4, 2020 18:36:12 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Apr 4, 2020 18:36:12 GMT
You are the best, Cheery! I may be all wet about this, but ...... I think that really traditional baguettes are in fact a form of sourdough. All sourdough breads are not the same, i.e., not necessarily "sour". It's the texture, taste, & crumb of baguettes that make me think they're a type of sourdough.
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Baking
Apr 12, 2020 10:48:01 GMT
Post by tod2 on Apr 12, 2020 10:48:01 GMT
Since lockdown and trying to find chores to keep me from just staring at TV, now that my son has hooked us up with IPTV and I can watch all countries and their channels, I have started making the off baguette. Not bad actually as we like them crisp outside and chewy inside with lots of holes in the dough. Also made a choc box cake and in the oven as I type there is a vanilla box cake in the oven with added sultanas, pecan nuts and almond slivers.
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Baking
Apr 12, 2020 16:14:57 GMT
Post by kerouac2 on Apr 12, 2020 16:14:57 GMT
My kilo of flour remains unused. I am waiting for the highest bidder.
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Baking
Apr 12, 2020 18:28:53 GMT
Post by cheerypeabrain on Apr 12, 2020 18:28:53 GMT
Is it strong white bread flour? You could make croissants or brioche ?
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Baking
Apr 12, 2020 19:35:51 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Apr 12, 2020 19:35:51 GMT
I have a kilo of flour in the freezer, but it's way too hot here right now to think of baking anything.
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Baking
Apr 12, 2020 19:54:23 GMT
Post by kerouac2 on Apr 12, 2020 19:54:23 GMT
My parents in Florida had to keep their small stock of flour in the freezer too, because of the weevils.
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Baking
Apr 12, 2020 20:43:04 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Apr 12, 2020 20:43:04 GMT
I always put weevil bait like flour, rice, beans, popcorn, etc. in the freezer for a while ("a while" = a few hours up to when I remember it's in there) after I bring it home from the store.
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Baking
Apr 12, 2020 20:50:44 GMT
Post by casimira on Apr 12, 2020 20:50:44 GMT
I have a blackberry pie in the oven as we speak. It's T's birthday and I almost always bake a pie rather than a cake as we both prefer pies.
The blackberries I foraged from a secret patch up on the batture. They came in real early this year and had I not stopped yesterday while on my bike to scope out their ripeness, they would have been gone in a couple of days devoured by the birds.
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Baking
Apr 12, 2020 21:56:52 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Apr 12, 2020 21:56:52 GMT
Happiest of happy birthdays to dear T! ❤️️
Coincidentally, my next door neighbor gave me a commercial jar of blackberry jam today. It was nice of him, but just not the same as that pie!
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Baking
Apr 13, 2020 0:35:28 GMT
Post by lagatta on Apr 13, 2020 0:35:28 GMT
Strong flour is for bread, not for croissants.
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Baking
Apr 13, 2020 13:59:49 GMT
Post by kerouac2 on Apr 13, 2020 13:59:49 GMT
The blackberries I foraged from a secret patch up on the batture. I think that picking blackberries is one of my top three favourite memories from growing up in the Deep South. Even though there are plenty of blackberries in France, it is just not the same...
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Baking
Apr 13, 2020 19:56:14 GMT
Post by cheerypeabrain on Apr 13, 2020 19:56:14 GMT
Strong flour is for bread, not for croissants. My recipe books all use strong white bread flour, I've used it to make them successfully in the past. Maybe ordinary plain flour would work better, I've not tried it.
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Baking
May 26, 2020 21:47:27 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on May 26, 2020 21:47:27 GMT
I am thrilled to be able to post in this thread, since I hardly ever bake. I made chocolate chip oatmeal pecan cookies today, and they are rather fabulous. I used this recipe from the web, with a few changes, to wit: used regular rolled oats instead of quick-cooking and added ground cardamom. The other change I would make when I make these again would be to reduce the sugar, as I'd say they are too sweet for most adults. They're really lovely, though, and rather luxurious because there is lots and lots of "stuff" in proportion to the binder material. The blog writer says these are chewy, which is not what I wanted -- give me crisp every time! Maybe it's because I used the regular oats, but my cookies came out nice and crisp rather than chewy. fivesilverspoons.com/chocolate-chip-pecan-cookies-orange-zest/
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Baking
May 28, 2020 14:56:55 GMT
Post by tod2 on May 28, 2020 14:56:55 GMT
I made a vanilla cake today - the box said French Vanilla. That got me thinking about which French island did the vanilla come from? If it came from the Comores then I have vanilla pods in a small bundle and which I have never used. . Maybe it came from Mauritius or Mayotte. - Maybe, but the actual cake mix came from India! And here was me thinking Pillsbury was American At any rate, the cake turned out flawlessly so I drizzled some icing over it.
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