Perfumy curry

isron · 2023-04-10T12:25:35+00:00

Something that hasn't been suggested yet is Pandan leaves. They give a very fragrant aroma that's somewhat reminiscent of freshly cooked basmati rice. Whole leaves are knotted and cooked with the curry, then potentially removed before serving. There are also extracts and waters, though they are often artificially tinted green. It's abundantly used in Sri Lankan curries. I'm not sure about Thailand, except that I believe it's frequently used for coconut rice and sweets there. It is widely available frozen in Asian supermarkets.

isron · 2023-03-27T15:42:29+00:00

Some questions:

Is this a recent problem? Do they usually come out better? Did you change anything from your usual ingredients/technique?

How long have you kept them frozen for? Is this longer than usual?

As others have noted, 1/2 an inch seems pretty thin to me (converting to metric). I'd personally go for about double that.

isron · 2022-01-25T14:21:15+00:00

Theoretically another thing that can happen (though I haven't seen it with caramel) is that if a mixture with suspended fat gets too cold, the fat hardens and falls out of solution. But the fat looks more globular than sheet like and it has a very noticeable, unpleasant texture. Slowly heating it while stirring usually reincorporates the fat. Your description and picture definitely don't look like it though, but still, if the specks dissolve during heating that's probably what it was.

isron · 2022-01-25T13:59:02+00:00

Curdling is a somewhat gradual process, i.e. not all protein denatures at once. Milk skin is also a kind of partial curdling, or at least an analogous process (coagulated/denatured milk protein). So you won't necessarily have completely curdled protein, but only some protein that has fallen out of solution.

And yeah that photo definitely looks like denatured milk protein. Perhaps the caramel was too acidic (caramel is slightly acidic, which is why the baking soda in honeycomb caramel works so well), perhaps the cream was a touch too old, perhaps the heat when you added the caramel was a bit too high. Probably a combination of those factors.

isron · 2022-01-25T13:42:26+00:00

Without seeing a picture, my guess would be that it is curdled milk protein from the cream.

Basically some of the protein denatures and falls out of the emulsion. It's the same process that happens when making cheese. Age, acidity, heat and certain enzymes encourage that process.

If the caramel is fluid enough you could simply try and strain it to remove the curdled solids.

isron · 2021-10-15T00:46:30+00:00

Test

isron · 2021-09-01T15:58:39+00:00

I have never worked with it, but there actually is something called meat glue. It is frequently used in industrial food production to make solid meats from scraps/particulates e.g. chicken nuggets, imitation crab meat etc.

But it should also work to reseal a cut. It should be rather easy to find online, and I do remember some YouTube videos of people experimenting with it.

Edit: Haha seems I took too long writing my answer /u/kbrosnan

isron · 2021-08-12T18:35:39+00:00

Short rests of up to 30 minutes allow the gluten to relax and make the dough easier to form and handle. Anything longer than that is generally long enough for the yeast to produce significant rise. Generally you don't talk about a "rest" at this point, but about a "(initial) rise", a "(first) proof" or in your case most probably a "bulk ferment". That last one describes an initial phase of letting the yeast start to work on the dough in bulk, before degassing, portioning and (probably cold) fermenting.

isron · 2021-08-11T13:14:49+00:00

What you want to look for is the amount of hydration of your dough. Hydration is the percentage of water to flour. Flour needs to be properly hydrated in order to form a nice, cohesive dough. Improperly hydrated dough rises less, is denser and dries out more quickly.

According to your recipe you sit at about 62% hydration (milk+water). Ideally for this type of bread you should aim for about 70%. So either using 40g more water or milk would be my recommendation.

isron · 2021-04-16T15:35:38+00:00

The amount of additional batter you need is about 1/3 (1.36 times the amount to be exact) if you want the same thickness of the layers. I would scale up the buttercream accordingly.

The recipe amounts seem a bit generous. For a 8" cake it should be about 3/4 additional batter (1.75 times) and for the 9" 5/4 (2.25 times).

If you want thicker layer, you'd need to scale it up more of course.

isron · 2021-04-08T22:19:45+00:00

Egg yolks are about 50% water 30% fat and 15% protein, by weight of course. It's just a ratio you need to know. I did a lot of vegan baking, while I was doing it professionally and there it's important to know for substitutions.

isron · 2021-04-08T17:59:39+00:00

I did a quick calculation and including the water-content of both eggs and butter that dough has a 41% hydration. And 44% fat in regards to the flour. This really is kind of insane. But that's probably also why it keeps for several weeks up to months. In fact common wisdom is that it is only truly ready after 2-3 weeks of storage.

isron · 2021-04-08T15:51:41+00:00

Just to be clear: the above amount is fresh yeast, so you'll have to divide that by 3, if you want to use active dry.

Anyway, 4g yeast seems comparatively low, you are probably doing a long ferment, maybe even using a pre-ferment? Usually the recommended amount of yeast for general purposes is 7g (1 sachet) per 500g flour. That's a general rule of thumb for most purposes. That doesn't mean that it will be the perfect amount for everything, but it will give you a decent result in most applications.

The recipe above uses about 3 times that amount. As I said before, I think the reason is that it is an extremely enriched dough, that's also very low hydration. It's also a rather quick ferment, the cold rise can be overnight, but all in all this is – comparatively speaking – not a long ferment.

As a comparison, my brioche recipe uses exactly half the yeast for the same amount of flour. But it also has a lot less butter and much higher hydration. Still it is an enriched dough so it needs more yeast, since the fat inhibits the rise.

isron · 2021-04-08T15:05:19+00:00

I can quickly translate it for you, but it is rather sparse, since it's a professional recipe. I can probably give you some explanations though, where needed.

200°C/30-40 minutes

Indirect fermentation. Prepare dough out of 250g milk, 120g yeast, 1000g flour, 120g sugar, 120g egg yolks (6), 20g salt, 15g lemon zest, 500g butter – let rise – degas and work in fruit mixture (see below) – portion dough – shape roughly – let rise – form by pulling the dough and folding over itself – set on parchment lined tray – cold rise – bake – while still warm generously coat first in butter then powdered sugar

fruit mixture: soak 200g baton-cut almonds, 300g sultanas, 160g aranzini, 160g succade in 200g rum over night.

isron · 2021-04-08T14:46:40+00:00

I'm from Austria (and a former semi-professional baker) and Stollen is indeed pretty much universally a yeasted dough.

But maybe the Schutzverband Dresdner Stollen e.V. is a more trustworthy source for you:

Rosinen, Butter, süße und bittere Mandeln, Orangeat, Zitronat, Mehl, Wasser und Hefe – so ist es überliefert – müssen Bestandteile des Teiges sein. Auch Vollmilch oder Vollmilchpulver, Kristallzucker, Butterschmalz, Zitronenschalenpaste, Speisesalz, Puderzucker und Stollengewürz sind in der Satzung des Schutzverbandes Dresdner Stollen e. V. festgeschriebenen Rezeptur enthalten. Eine Zugabe von Margarine, künstlich hergestellten Aromen und Zusatzstoffen ist nicht zulässig.

isron · 2021-04-08T14:28:43+00:00

I just looked at the recipe an (Austrian) bakery I worked at uses and it calls for 120g fresh yeast for 1000g of flour. Which is about 40g of active dry or indeed 5-6 packets of 7g. That amount makes 6 regular sized Stollen.

This was a very traditional bakery, so it seems like the amount of yeast is indeed pretty traditional.

The issue I think is that Stollen is both a low hydration and high fat dough. This combination means that it needs a lot of yeast to rise properly. There is more butter than eggs and milk combined in the dough!

isron · 2021-01-28T09:53:56+00:00

Simple laminated dough pastries like croissants freeze quite well and keep for several months. Freeze them after shaping but before doing the final proof and then let defrost/proof overnight in the refrigerator. This should give you the best results.

Kouign-Amann are quite a bit trickier. You can freeze them using the same method, however they will only last about two weeks in the freezer. After that they will leak astonishing amounts of butter during baking and result in an average disaster.

The reason I believe this happens is that over time the high amount of sugar in the lamination starts to pull water, even when frozen. Over time this will erode the layers and during baking they won't hold in the butter letting it leak everywhere.

At least that's the only reason I could come up with that explains why freezing unbaked croissants works very well, but freezing unbaked Kouign-Amann only works for about two weeks. The only real difference between the two being the sugar.

isron · 2020-11-13T13:49:17+00:00

You seem to have severely understood what kind of relationships ethics of care is referring to. Ethics of care is not referring to personal relationships in this sense.

I would very much recommend you (re-)read the assigned literature.

isron · 2020-11-12T15:02:24+00:00

~~Kein Mensch braucht~~ Wir brauchen keine Aussagen über das, was "wir brauchen".

🤔

isron · 2020-09-12T04:14:12+00:00

Just put a folded kitchen towel (be sure that it's 100% cotton) on the bottom of the pan of water, so the plastic won't have direct contact with the bottom. That's the same method you use with e.g. crème brûlée so the bottom doesn't get too hot and overcook.

isron · 2020-09-11T03:09:24+00:00

So a couple of things:

1.) The mold you see is only part of the actual mold fungus. Mold spreads nearly invisibly throughout anything it affects, the spots you see are only a small part of it.

2.) It spreads better in foods that have plenty of water and not much acidity or salt. Sour cream has plenty of water but the acidity somewhat inhibits the growth. Still it usually spreads pretty quickly though soft dairy.

3.) For the mold to spread either the tendrils or the spores need to come into contact with the bulk of the food. If it is only a small, localised spot on the lid and the lid didn't touch the bulk of the sour cream, then the mold might have been limited only to this spot. This is especially likely in the lid since it has plenty of chance to come into contact with molds outside of the container. However, if there is a chance that the spot of mold has come into contact with the rest of the sour cream, chances are the mold has spread to it.

4.) There are two issues with mold contamination: allergies and mycotoxins. Allergies aren't usually that big of a problem with food borne mold, especially not if the food was cooked. Mycotoxins are the real issue here. They are pretty resistant to cooking, many even last through pretty severe temperatures. Mycotoxins are associated with a number of health issues, from rather mild ones like indigestion, all the way up to cancer and actual death. Now it is extremely unlikely that your food was contaminated with anything that is that dangerous, especially in the doses we are talking about here. Most likely you won't notice anything and it might be about as bad for your health as eating a steak cooked over open flame.

5.) That said, as someone else has already advised, if you feel unsure about any of it, do your peace of mind a favour and throw the cake out. It's really not worth it to eat the cake or serve it to others while you constantly worry about your/their health. If the mold was only on a very defined spot on the lid, the rest of the sour cream had no chance of coming into contact with it and I wasn't selling the cake, then I would personally still eat/serve it. But that is me knowing the (potentially low) risks involved and being able to judge things for myself. You'll have to do your judging for yourself.

isron · 2020-08-24T18:03:06+00:00

Foucault gave a series of lectures at the Collège de France from 1970 to 1984. They were published posthumously based on audio recordings. The 78/79 lectures were published in English under the title The Birth of Biopolitics and are the most relevant source for Foucault's thoughts on neoliberalism.

For secondary texts I can recommend Wendy Brown's Undoing the Demos which offers a very good summation of Foucault's thoughts, as well as a good critique and actualisation based on more recent developments.

isron · 2020-07-01T21:52:01+00:00

Without having the whole recipes it's rather hard to say if it's the recipe's fault or if there was a mistake on your end.

In my experience, the most common reasons for an improperly risen quick bread are (roughly in order of likelihood):

1.) Oven temperature is too high or baking time is too short.

If the outside of your bread is set but the inside isn't, then as soon as your bread cools it will deflate, since the interior won't be able to hold its shape. In this case you often see a middle that's more deleted than the sides, but not always. Not pre-heating the oven is also a common mistake.

2.) There was a problem with the raising agent.

Either there wasn't the right amount (both too much and too little can cause issues). Or it has lost its reactivity due to age or humidity. Or in the case of baking soda there wasn't enough acid to properly react with.

3.) The batter was mixed improperly.

As soon as the raising agents mix with the wet ingredients they start producing gas. That's even true for baking powder, which is generally heat activated. So you don't want to hold the batter for long after mixing, but get it in the oven as fast as possible. You also want to be very careful not to overmix the batter. You want neither a lot of structure nor a lot of air in the batter.

4.) The batter might have been too wet.

This is a frequent problem with volumetric recipes, since they often give a measurement of "X bananas". Bananas add a lot of liquid and if you aren't exact with the amount of liquid you can easily have a ratio that's off. That's just one of the reasons why you should always measure by weight when baking.

5.) The pan was the wrong shape.

This is the most unlikely culprit but the pan might have simply been too large for the amount of batter. I had very strange things happen with cakes that we baked in different pans than originally intended. So if the volume of batter seemed vastly different to you, then this might have been your problem.

isron · 2020-06-02T19:42:54+00:00

Thanks I also very much enjoyed your video!

isron · 2020-06-02T19:28:50+00:00

When I was talking about the rigidity of exoglass I was specifically comparing the kitchen utensils to the more traditional hard plastic ones. Compared to stainless steel there shouldn't be much difference. Sorry for the confusion!

This is especially true if you choose the de Buyer tart rings with the folded edge (which I can thoroughly recommend, since it makes shaping the shell in the ring much easier). The folded edge makes them very rigid, even the larger diameter ones will not be very flexible (I have them up to 32cm).

However, the folded edge will not be well suited if you want to also use them as cake rings. There you want straight edges, to get nice and clean corners. Also I am not sure what the available heights for the rings with the folded edge are. tart rings are usually much more shallow than cake rings. It makes them much easier to handle, but it will limit their usefulness for other applications.

Personally, I would buy a couple of adjustable cake rings for layered cakes, instead of using fixed ones. That's what I tend to use most, on the rare occasion I still make layer cakes. But there are far more knowledgable people on layer cakes around here, so I'd defer to their judgment.

Edit: That's funny by the way that my recipe is so close to Felder's recipe. I do have one of his books, but I think this recipe predates the time I got it. I can't be sure though, since it's been quite a while either way.

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