Baking, jellies, canning the arcane sciences

Sludig

Sludig

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I think the major threads are kinda covered, cooking, lazy cheap cooking, and eating out. But baking..... something I hate to dive into a try much. My wife is kinda a failure at a homemaker. We've been farting around w/ a bread maker. A few loaves super tasty and nice fresh. But I find it's tough to get a consistency I like. Often too like kinda crumble thick, such that trying to make a say a sandwhich, PBJ tends to fall apart/absorb too much of the topings. Meat sandwhich slice to be stable need to be almost too thick to eat the damn thing once filled. She's been pretty lazy about trying to actually find different recipies or whatever. I know it's possible w/ a machine because decades ago my mom could make bread that was much crisper thin little solid crust and very pillowy soft center that was basically extra nice french bread for PBJ.

Also kinda want to learn to do more desserts. We have persimmon tree's and I hate seeing all that fruit go to waste. Late enough in season the taste is really good, though we have the small kind so it's mostly stone. Would love to make jelly etc.

So anyone that identifies as a housewife, or a scientist. Post some of your favorites, guides, or advice etc.
 
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Dr.Retarded

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Sludig said:
I think the major threads are kinda covered, cooking, lazy cheap cooking, and eating out. But baking..... something I hate to dive into a try much. My wife is kinda a failure at a homemaker. We've been farting around w/ a bread maker. A few loaves super tasty and nice fresh. But I find it's tough to get a consistency I like. Often too like kinda crumble thick, such that trying to make a say a sandwhich, PBJ tends to fall apart/absorb too much of the topings. Meat sandwhich slice to be stable need to be almost too thick to eat the damn thing once filled. She's been pretty lazy about trying to actually find different recipies or whatever. I know it's possible w/ a machine because decades ago my mom could make bread that was much crisper thin little solid crust and very pillowy soft center that was basically extra nice french bread for PBJ.

Also kinda want to learn to do more desserts. We have persimmon tree's and I hate seeing all that fruit go to waste. Late enough in season the taste is really good, though we have the small kind so it's mostly stone. Would love to make jelly etc.

So anyone that identifies as a housewife, or a scientist. Post some of your favorites, guides, or advice etc.
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My wife does most of that stuff. I can sort of bake, but everything has to be so exact. My stepmom before she passed was a master. She could bake anything, and used to make jams / jellies all the time.

It's something I wish I was definitely better at. I don't believe it's necessarily hard, but it's definitely follow the recipe to the T, and you can still screw it up if cooking times and temps get wonky.
 
Fogel

Fogel

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You both hit the right points, a teacher at a cooking school coined the term "In cooking when you make a mistake you have a new dish, in baking when you make a mistake you have trash". Until you learn why ratios of flour/water/fat/sugars are important for whatever item, you really can't deviate from any recipe. The only part of baking that is forgiving and you can wing is the decorating phase.

I do tons of baking and Americas Test Kitchen recipes are some of the best I've found and they explain the science of why why the recipe works

 
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Fogel

Fogel

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Sludig said:
I think the major threads are kinda covered, cooking, lazy cheap cooking, and eating out. But baking..... something I hate to dive into a try much. My wife is kinda a failure at a homemaker. We've been farting around w/ a bread maker. A few loaves super tasty and nice fresh. But I find it's tough to get a consistency I like. Often too like kinda crumble thick, such that trying to make a say a sandwhich, PBJ tends to fall apart/absorb too much of the topings. Meat sandwhich slice to be stable need to be almost too thick to eat the damn thing once filled. She's been pretty lazy about trying to actually find different recipies or whatever. I know it's possible w/ a machine because decades ago my mom could make bread that was much crisper thin little solid crust and very pillowy soft center that was basically extra nice french bread for PBJ.

Also kinda want to learn to do more desserts. We have persimmon tree's and I hate seeing all that fruit go to waste. Late enough in season the taste is really good, though we have the small kind so it's mostly stone. Would love to make jelly etc.

So anyone that identifies as a housewife, or a scientist. Post some of your favorites, guides, or advice etc.
Click to expand...

Two variables for bread that people underestimate is mix time and flour type. Mixing flour and water creates gluten, which gives bread its toughness or "chew". The longer you mix, the more gluten you develop. However, you can over mix and your dough will have the consistency of cake batter, though most people under mix, its harder to over mix. For example, at the bakery we mixed our bread dough at around 11 minutes for our Italian bread, and at Dunkin the donut batter was usually 2-3 minutes mix time.

Different flours have different protein content. Even all purpose flour brands will vary, pillsbury is known to have lower protein content then other all purpose blends. All purpose being 10-11g protein, bread flour being 12-13, and cake flour around 8g. The higher the protein content, the tougher the product will be.
 
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Dr.Retarded

Dr.Retarded

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Fogel said:
You both hit the right points, a teacher at a cooking school coined the term "In cooking when you make a mistake you have a new dish, in baking when you make a mistake you have trash". Until you learn why ratios of flour/water/fat/sugars are important for whatever item, you really can't deviate from any recipe. The only part of baking that is forgiving and you can wing is the decorating phase.

I do tons of baking and Americas Test Kitchen recipes are some of the best I've found and they explain the science of why why the recipe works

Click to expand...
Yeah, Test Kitchen is great. I've got a couple other books that my wife has brought home from The used book store at the library. Their videos are always super informative even if it might be a mundane recipe.

I probably do a threesome with this two blonde ladies after making some roast chicken, and might include the Oriental lady.
 
Haus

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OK. Start from the beginning. Start learning how to make something simple, but that can be improved/perfected.

I learned to make chocolate chip cookies when I was 7... Taught by my grandmother. Only when I was a teenager did I realize her whole recipe was essentially the basic tollhouse one, plus one additional step.

So start with the basic tollhouse recipe. Now I'll tell you the secret, once you mix the dough, put it in the fridge overnight before baking it.

Then over time I started swapping things in and out to try to perfect it. Honestly, I don't think my cookies are better than hers, but probably because I will also always have the psychological impact factor of "grandmas cookies".

What did I change over time?

Grandma (40's depression era American)---> Haus

Shortening --> Salted butter
Vanilla Extract in bottle --> Mexican Vanilla from a 1l jar I bought years ago and still haven't used all of. (also, I use about 1.5x the amount in her version)
Semi-sweet chips --> Dark chocolate (90%) chips (and probably 1.25x the amount in the standard recipe)

When I want to get all fancy ass... I chop up little squared of fudge and put one in the middle of each cookie. Yes, I'm that kind of decadent.

But my best advice for someone wanting to get into it. Find a simple recipe and learn it backwards and forwards. And don't guess at measurements, that shit is science! (As mentioned, eventually learning how the ingredients interact/blend is key).
 
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Cutlery

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I got the bread maker too.

The ingredient you are missing is "vital wheat gluten"

That stops the super crumbly texture
 
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Burns

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Fogel said:
Two variables for bread that people underestimate is mix time and flour type. Mixing flour and water creates gluten, which gives bread its toughness or "chew". The longer you mix, the more gluten you develop. However, you can over mix and your dough will have the consistency of cake batter, though most people under mix, its harder to over mix. For example, at the bakery we mixed our bread dough at around 11 minutes for our Italian bread, and at Dunkin the donut batter was usually 2-3 minutes mix time.

Different flours have different protein content. Even all purpose flour brands will vary, pillsbury is known to have lower protein content then other all purpose blends. All purpose being 10-11g protein, bread flour being 12-13, and cake flour around 8g. The higher the protein content, the tougher the product will be.
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Yea, cookies and cakes are usually easy to make from scratch from the all-purpose flour most people keep on hand, just load up a recipe and go. Other pastries/bread/dough require the correct flour or it wont come out right.

I very rarely bake pastry so I had to relearn this lesson, just last weekend, when trying to make the doughnut recipe from the British chef that was linked in the cheap meals thread (LINK). His recipe calls for a "strong" bread flour, which I read afterwards means high protein (~13%+). Well, all I had was all-purpose wheat... unfortunately that made the dough act nothing like what he was demonstrating. They cooked up, but were pretty ugly because they partially collapsed as I tried to put them in the pan to cook. I doubt they tasted the same either (pretty mediocre).
 
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Arden

Arden

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I'm a pretty decent cook but I suck at baking. You've got to actually follow directions (something I'm not great at), accurately measure ingredients (something I'm worse at), and totally resist the urge to improvise beyond the recipe (something I do with pretty much every cooking recipe). I've always thought of the different cooking types as subjects in school. Baking is like chemistry. I failed chemistry. Cooking is more like writing an English essay: you've got some wiggle room to go off the map and do your own thing and it can still turn out pretty good.
 
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Big Phoenix

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For my cookies

1 egg and 2 yolks v 2 eggs
1 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of white. v 3/4 + 3/4
Bread flour v AP

Soft, chewy like an orgy in your mouth when fresh out of the oven. Everyone at work knows my cookies are the best thing theyll ever taste.
 
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Denamian

Denamian

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People also tend to forget how much the weather can affect baking. Not just barometric pressure, which people compensate for when accounting for altitude, but also humidity. I worked at a bakery for a decade and the bakers were always tweaking ratios and adjusting proofing times, especially during summer storms.
 
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Palum

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Denamian said:
People also tend to forget how much the weather can affect baking. Not just barometric pressure, which people compensate for when accounting for altitude, but also humidity. I worked at a bakery for a decade and the bakers were always tweaking ratios and adjusting proofing times, especially during summer storms.
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Yea and unfortunately this is something easier to do at scale than at home too. I'm not awful at baking because I can follow instructions, but I am not great at the whole recipe thing. I never really got into it because the cost/mess/equipment/cycle time. It's easy to make a new recipe and if it's off a bit add some ingredients or seasoning to adjust a bit next time. Baking is just make a mess, 40 minutes later have delicious thing from recipe or complete disaster from your mind when starting out.
 
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Lanx

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Denamian said:
People also tend to forget how much the weather can affect baking. Not just barometric pressure, which people compensate for when accounting for altitude, but also humidity. I worked at a bakery for a decade and the bakers were always tweaking ratios and adjusting proofing times, especially during summer storms.
Click to expand...
this fucking hurricane is gonna land in 3 hours!!!

1726665312555.jpeg
 
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Dr.Retarded

Dr.Retarded

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Arden said:
I'm a pretty decent cook but I suck at baking. You've got to actually follow directions (something I'm not great at), accurately measure ingredients (something I'm worse at), and totally resist the urge to improvise beyond the recipe (something I do with pretty much every cooking recipe). I've always thought of the different cooking types as subjects in school. Baking is like chemistry. I failed chemistry. Cooking is more like writing an English essay: you've got some wiggle room to go off the map and do your own thing and it can still turn out pretty good.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's pretty much how I am, made A's in chemistry though.

I just don't know recipes by heart for baking or at least the ratios of the ingredients. It's mainly from not making that much dessert or baked goods. Always have to pull out a recipe.

Other dishes or methods I know like the back of my hand. Lasagna, gumbo, risotto, meatloaf, whatever, I know all of the ingredients, like you said you got wiggle room. Sometimes you might see a recipe of a version of some dish and say hey that's a good idea. I think that's why I gravitate to cooking more than baking because you don't have that creative ability.

You could probably really learn it and then get creative but it's not an easy thing without years of practice.

That's why I let the wife do it because she knows it and is good at it. My mom was and I had a man who used to make the best cookies ever, my stepmom was great, but she learned from her mom.

I can make different bread puddings, ice cream, and bananas Foster without having to look at a recipe. Those give you a bit of room to maneuver.
 
Dr.Retarded

Dr.Retarded

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Denamian said:
People also tend to forget how much the weather can affect baking. Not just barometric pressure, which people compensate for when accounting for altitude, but also humidity. I worked at a bakery for a decade and the bakers were always tweaking ratios and adjusting proofing times, especially during summer storms.
Click to expand...
Pralines are that way. If you want the best, the weather has to be right. I don't know what the requirement is, but I would ask my mom to make them or sometimes she would just make them because everything was right. We always had them at least once a year growing up.

I think a lot of candy making is temperature / environment sensitive and way crazier than baking is. I've got a couple of cookbooks with praline recipes, but I've never made them. I don't think they're real difficult but like you said the weather has to be right.
 
Dr.Retarded

Dr.Retarded

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Lanx said:
my wife is a chemical engineer, 10years ago she tried to microwave water

don't come at me w/ that school bullshit
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Hey now, I'm not saying I remember much of it. Also if need some quick, boiling water, that's what the little electric tea kettle is for.
 
Arden

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Yeah I microwave water every morning lol. Ironically it's all I use the microwave for. I never microwave food.
 
Dr.Retarded

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I think because you can over boil, or it slops out and makes a mess if it's an tip vessel.

I'll reheat coffee or tea in the microwave, but probably for less than a minute. The little teak at all though we have I guess my wife drinks tea quite a bit, is super handy if you're making instant mashed potatoes or just need some super hot water.
 
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