Two attempts and I can’t get a decent batter consistency. It ends up as a dough with the very absorbent, granular manioc flour…and a dough simply won’t puff up like it should. So I’m going to do what my trusted source made me swear I wouldn’t do: use tapioca flour. I can see no other […]
READ ONThough there are several cultivars of cassava out there, most cultures place the different species into one of two broad categories: bitter (sour) and sweet. And as you might expect, the bitterness of a cassava corresponds to the amount of cyanide-producing glucosides it contains, with the bitter ones containing up to 50 times more linamarin than the sweet ones.
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Mention the great agricultural gifts that the New World gave to the Old and most people think corn (those who aren’t chocoholics of course). Yet there’s another that’s at least as important, especially in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world: cassava, also known as yuca or manioc.
READ ONFor a cheese puff recipe it seems to be missing a couple of things. A leavener for starters. There’s no yeast and no baking powder. And then there’s the flour thing…there isn’t any. No wheat flour at any rate. Instead we have manioc flour, also known as the dried and ground starch of the cassava (also known as yuca) root. It’s the same starch that tapioca is made from, in case that helps.
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Linzer torte…that’s pretty much just a jam tart, right? That’s what I thought going into this. Oh, how wrong I was. But I can see why there are so many short crust, tart-like Linzer tortes in the world. Not only are they easier to make, if you add a layer of some sort of almond cream/frangipane to them you can approximate the taste of the real thing. However you can’t duplicate the texture, which isn’t flaky but rather moist, rich and cake-like.
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I’ve become a convert from Linzer dough to Linzer batter because it produces a torte that is more like, well, a torte…not a tart. Tart crusts are hard and flaky. By comparison the crust you get from this batter is like a dense, nutty cake. Use this as a base for a Linzer torte, or pipe it into small rounds and use it for Linzer cookies. Either way you will not be disappointed.
READ ONOr at least one of them, is Johannes Kepler. Like Linz’s least favorite son, Kepler wasn’t actually from there. Rather, he was born in Germany. Still he lived in Linz for quite some time, teaching mathematics and adding to his famous laws of planetary motion. Kepler did a lot in Linz, but the thing that captured my attention while I was reading about his exploits there this week was his participation in a debate about the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar.
Yeah sure Joe, sounds real interesting…click! Fine, but I’ve always found the topic fascinating — for what it says about the action of the solar system, but mostly for what it says about the all-too-common inaction of manmade political and religious organizations. For the Gregorian Calendar was officially instituted in 1582, but it took almost 500 years before it was finally, fully implemented around the world. And even today there are some holdouts.
READ ONReader Jim sent me this exhaustive rundown of all the various American doughnut species, helpfully put together by folks at Serious Eats. There’s some pretty scary stuff in there, especially toward the bottom. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
READ ONNo, seriously, it doesn’t. Check this out. Thanks to reader Jordan for the tip — and the pun!
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