Of course you didn’t have to be a Colonial recycling specialist to make use of leftover fat and ashes. For those dirt poor and/or industrious types, there was always do-it-yourself soap making. Now me, I’m descended from city folk mostly. But living in Louisville as I now do I’ve heard more than a few stories […]
READ ONLast week’s posts on laminated doughs elicited a worldwide outcry from the mechanical leavening community, pointing out that there is more to mechanical leavening than just layered dough. It is very true, and my oversight, since soufflés, angel food cakes, meringues and other egg foam-based devices are all excellent examples of unaided mechanical leavening. I […]
READ ONThe first of the “Big Three” leavening methods is chemical leavening. It’s the latest of the three to arrive on the baking scene, having been invented right about the time of the First Industrial Revolution, some 230 years ago. As its name implies, it involves using chemicals to create “seed” bubbles (usually of carbon dioxide) […]
READ ONSo far in this lengthy and ongoing exploration of leavening, I’ve drawn fairly stark distinctions between the various types (microbial versus mechanical versus chemical, etc.). Yet as my recent detour into croissants has shown, leavening methods can, and often are, combined. Croissants employ laminated dough techniques yet they also contain yeast. This gives the crumb […]
READ ONI try not to venture into politics much here on joepastry.com since, well, this is a baking blog. And anyway the blogosphere is already stuffed to the gills with wannabe pundits masquerading as a food experts and movie reviewers. However sometimes the bigger political subjects have direct application to the world of baking, and today […]
READ ONA good question came in last night from a reader by the name of Benny (all the way from Israel by the looks of it) asking: Dear Joe, What causes the creation of “tunnels” in a yeast raised laminated dough? (volume is o.k.) Large holes (or “tunneling”) is a problem common to yeasted breads (especially […]
READ ONAll those posts on old-time dairying practices prompted more than a few “I remember when…” comments from readers. Here’s a great one from from frequent contributor Sally C.: Your posts have reminded me of Aunt Della — she sold her extra eggs to the egg guy (we had to candle them to make sure they […]
READ ONWith croissants of course. Pain au chocolat especially. Deliver a few of those and she’ll let me spend the whole weekend laying on the couch watching football. Laminated pastry may or may not have the same effect on your spouse but you won’t know until you try, will you? So here, if you’ve ever wanted […]
READ ONSadly no. Believe me, I’ve tried it. Store bought sour cream simply has too little fat in it. Whereas heavy cream contains something on the order of 40% fat, the sour cream in the plastic tubs is a mere 18% fat, about 12% less than the minimum you need to whip (and then of course […]
READ ON…of Not Eating Out in New York, who won Culinate’s Death by Chocolate grand prize with this fiendishly clever post. Very, very well done.
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