baking: does it come easily to you?

ah thanks for that tip I'll remember that

I'm going to be serving my cornbread with roast potatoes, sausages and onion gravy and steamed greens. Not sure if that is a bit doing it wrong but I'm treating it like it's like a yorkshire pudding finger type food on a separate plate that you can dip and enjoy basically - which seems right!

Idiot proof indeed!

sounds amazing calz. yeah i usually slather mine in butter but my wife will use as a vehicle for essentially anything.

I'm finding that a lot of American recipes use oil or e.g. oil and yoghurt instead of butter, which is far more common in the UK. Is there a reason for this? I have made a few cakes from an American recipe book and can often taste the oil and miss the delicious buttery taste you get in standard British recipes. Is there a formula for subbing in butter instead of oil?

what book is it? i guess america had a period of time where we loved unsaturated fats, margarine, etc. my mom used to have margarine and jam on a roll for breakfast every day in the 90s.

i don't know whether there is a formula. i have used a king arthur recipe, i believe for corn bread, that allowed a 1:1 substitution. cake is more risky because it requires more exact measurements, and butter contains some water (like 15%?), and milk solids. a coffee cake would probably be an ok place to experiment. if i was doing this i would substitute melted and cooled butter* and add a little extra, then take away a small amount of the liquid. i may be confusing myself with the math here but i think divide the amount of oil by .85** to get the amount of butter you need. then subtract a corresponding amt of water/milk (butter*.15) from the recipe.

*this is only where the recipe wants liquid oil, of course
**here's the other problem, this number varies by brand and i think you guys have slightly fattier butter than we do

i see newer baking blogger (idk what else to call them) recipes using oil i think bc maybe it’s perceived as “healthier” & ppl are more dairy averse & everyone seems to love reinventing the wheel

but any good US baking recipe should call for butter
imo if they are telling you to use oil ...time to find a better recipe!

the only time i used oil for a cake & liked it was a stephanie alexander carrot cake

find a better recipe may sadly be better advice then doing these calculations

unless you need to sub oil for dietary reasons, just avoid altogether imo

um, i meant "than" lol

The book was by Irvin Lin, 'Marbled, Swirled and Layered', but I misremembered - it had butter AND olive oil. I tried this recipe today that was oil & yoghurt https://www.sweetestmenu.com/cinnamon-apple-cake and I'm sure I used to make some kids' muffins from a blog that was similar. But sounds like this isn't the norm!

I mainly bake Mary Berry type cakes, lots of creaming of butter & sugar.
The apple cake was good btw, needed a lot longer baking time tho and possibly needed more cinnamon and the apple sank to the bottom.

I love olive oil polenta cake, but can't think of other cakes I've made that have called for oil instead of butter

I’ve looked at multiple recipes for it but my friend’s instructions were the most helpful (from a now-defunct blog, but one with a lot of great archived recipes)

http://www.domesticdaddy.net/2015/05/23/olive-oil-polenta-cake/

oh ok i see, a lot of quick bread and muffin recipes use sour cream so that's what the yogurt thing is, people don't want to be using sour cream

VG i got the dorie greenspan baking book btw. i need to be exercising more :(

:D yay! dorie rules

my current fave is her mocha walnut bundt cake its so good

https://smittenkitchen.com/2007/07/double-chocolate-layer-cake/ is my go-to chocolate cake recipe and I guess its the oil that makes it very light and delicious and not heavy like some choc cake recipes I've tried. Getting buttermilk in the UK is weirdly hard so I just sub in yoghurt and it works wonderfully.

I just assume that calling for yoghurt/sour cream/buttermilk is just wanting some acid for the bicarb to react with, yes? Like the best pancake recipe is a buttermilk recipe (where I also sub in yog) uses bicarb and baking powder so you get bubbles twice.

I shared this on Slack but here's my recent vegan chocolate cake with a sweet potato-based icing, it is definitely scrummy: https://photos.app.goo.gl/BoU3CU5U62CYA9kt6

And the recipe, which is pretty simple: https://www.loveandlemons.com/vegan-chocolate-cake/

https://i.imgur.com/Bb0LCDX.jpg

looks really good!!

It is! I had to put it in an airtight container because otherwise, I'd be hit with this huge smell of chocolate goodness every time I opened the fridge and wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything else lol.

i usually do that anyway, so that my bake doesnt take on weird “fridge smells”

i made the muffin cake from dorie's book a few weeks ago. so good. i might make it again tomorrow because i got a big bag of apples and i just want to eat it again. i like how it is rough textured with the oats and nuts and stuff, i don't like things to be too cake-like. plus you can pretend it's nutritious and not full of butter.

i need to make that! this weekend i reckon

I just pulled the starter out of the fridge a couple weeks ago; I had left it in there because it seemed to not like the summer weather (too active/stressed, maybe). On first attempt at Tartine Country White this go around it was ok, but still did not have the lighter and airier texture I want. I'm now thinking it might be the very freshly milled/higher protein flour that I had received during lockdown. It seems very grainy during the bulk fermentation, so I just bought some King Arthur bread flour and hope that mixed with the bougie whole wheat will give me the best of both worlds.

I used King Arthur flour for my first two loaves of sourdough bread, and thought they were both really good. I'm planning on trying the Antimo Caputo Semola Di Grano Duro Rimacinata Semolina Flour which I bought on amazon for my next loaf (mixed with some regular King Arthur bread flour). I understand it's drier so it will require more water

Yeah determining how much extra water is the trick as the extra water makes things sticky. I do my final shaping on a roulpat and never had any sticking issues until I started using this special flour.

At least with the whole wheat - I've never used semolina.

for me, using 200 gm of the starter and 600 gm of King Arthur flour - there was a big difference between 300 gm and 325 gm of water. the extra water made it really sticky to work with. I had to use a pastry scraper to fold it between rests the first few times. Eventually it came into shape. What I understand about the durum flour is that it requires even more water, like 350 gm.

A friend told me that almost any attempt at making bread has a delicious result, even if the loaf falls in the middle or is too dense. I can believe her

after years of only having it on Kindle, i bought Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home To Yours in glorious hardcover & my life is now better.

and i am going to make her Thanksgiving Twofer Pie for ... well ... Thanksgiving lol (it’s a combo pumpkin & pecan pie)

https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/salted-butter-and-chocolate-chunk-shortbread

Should I even bother with the egg wash if I'm not going to roll these cookies in sugar?

i wouldn't, not necessary

Awesome, thanks!

i had the weirdest thing happen

blind-baked a crust for a pumpkin pie
400 degrees for 25 min with foil & pie weights
then 8 min without foil & weights

but when i cut into the finished pie, the bottom of the crust was deeeeeeeeply underbaked, not raw but not crisp at all & looks raw
the sides & top crust are crunchy though!

so weird

baking is not science
it is fucking OCCULTISM i swear

Today I am trying active dried yeast for the first time. I've only ever used instant yeast before, so I'm not sure what I'm about at all.

Put my first attempted batch of meringues in the oven. We’ll see if they bake before they slide into puddles! I’m optimistic but I have no sense of what the pre-baked consistency is supposed to be.

iirc “glossy w stiff peaks that hold their shape” is the goal for meringue mixture prior to cooking

good luck! meringues are one of my faves

Thx I will report back

Hmm they worked, satisfying!

hooray!

Is making a pie crust from scratch worth the experience/effort if I can just buy a pre-made one from Trader Joe's?

I would say yes. It feels messy when you’re doing it the first few times, like you fucked it up and are just having to piece it together, trying.not to work it too much, but it still comes out great

Are the Trader Joe's ones any good? Homemade is a bit fussy, especially if it's your first time out, but if you use butter it is bound to taste pretty good, even if you screw up the texture or the 'presentation' aspect. When the whole thing is basically flour, butter and a pinch of salt, taste won't ever be the problem.

there is no shame in a premade crust! timesaver & they taste fine usually

but if you want to learn to make pastry & you have the patience/inclination, it’s worthwhile! as long as you can take the failure in your stride (which for me was always the hardest part).
my pro tips;
give yourself lots of time
give yourself plenty of room
and walk away (AND chill the dough) whenever it starts pissing you off lol

i like the process of making dough now but i used to find it stressfull & would just buy the premade crusts

Yes! Here's what you do for the perfect crust:

Put some ice in a cup of water and set it aside.

Put two cups of flour in a bowl and whisk it together with 1 tsp. salt. (Note: this is for both a top and bottom crust; if you just want a bottom crust, cut it in half.)

Add 2/3 cup shortening and 2 tbsp butter. (If it pains you to use shortening, then use vegan fake butter. If it pains you to use vegan fake butter, then you can just use 1 1/2 sticks of butter and no shortening, but your texture won't be as good.)

Use your fingers to break up the shortening and butter until the whole mixture has a grainy, pebbly texture, with some pieces pea-sized and some smaller.

Scatter two tablespoons of ice water over the mixture and give it a quick stir with your hand. Scatter two more tablespoons and give it another stir. It should be almost ready to clump together into crust at this point, but you'll probably need at least one more tablespoon of ice water. Go slow. You want there to be enough moisture in the crust that you can pack it together like a snowball, but not enough to make it sticky. Gather it into two equal-sized balls of crust. They should be just on the verge of falling apart. Wrap them up in waxed paper or clingwrap.

Roll the crust out between two sheets of waxed paper. You'll have to put a fair amount of pressure on the rolling pin to make it come together.

Or do like me and have a partner who has pie crust as one of their special skills

the balls “should be just on the verge of falling apart” is the part of the dough making experience that was hardest for me to learn

Thank you for your instructions Lily Dale!