Any Bakers Here?

[madmark285]

Yep, that's them. The dough is similar to croissants, roll it out and add a layer of butter. The you roll it out and fold it multiple times to create thin layers of butter in the dough. Lots of work 🙂

 

 

[KoeIC]

Interesting! I used the pre-made store pastry dough for those ones 🤣 very easy. 

[Guppysnail]

All of you fabulous pastry makers I have a question.  
 

Back in the 80’s I worked at a higher end restaurant and the pasty chef used to make a baked peanut butter cheesecake.  It would get super puffy but when cooled only the center puff would flatten. It never really fell. They browned it to a golden brown.
It was very decadent but without the over sweet factor or over rich factor that leaves you queasy if you eat one bite to many. 
 

It felt like satin melting on your tongue. 
 

I’ve tried many times over the years but was never able to replicate it. The chef in question passed away so I never got the recipe. 
 

Do any of you folks have a recipe that sounds similar?
 

[KoeIC]

@Guppysnail unfortunately I’ve only made plain baked cheesecakes. The rest are non bake! BUT, if you do get a recipe like that feel free to share! That sounds amazingggg 😃

[Tanked]

On 12/8/2023 at 11:25 AM, KoeIC said:

When I think of a danish, this is what I think of…

Are these what you do or are they something else? They sound delicious! 

I'll take this as a sign!  After leaving here yesterday, I was actually looking to fix a coffee cake recipe. (my icing tastes gritty)  when I chanced upon a  Cherry Cheese Danish that looks like yours on YT.  I will also use the premade Puff Pastry. 

[KoeIC]

On 12/9/2023 at 7:46 AM, Tanked said:

I'll take this as a sign!  After leaving here yesterday, I was actually looking to fix a coffee cake recipe. (my icing tastes gritty)  when I chanced upon a  Cherry Cheese Danish that looks like yours on YT.  I will also use the premade Puff Pastry. 

That’s too good! Lol They’re yummy and easy I like them for breakfast! 
just in case here’s the recipe and instructions I used but you can top it with anything!

https://www.persnicketyplates.com/chocolate-chip-cream-cheese-danish-puff-pastry/?fbclid=IwAR26Bnt9eDuApb7slbf59VYt4OU6stfkNrbGfI-oDBZeoVdjUGMeLRKjVTo_aem_Af23uSg9sM2QBAq_hA0MugrQ5mLGkl5OkLV0BRLIYl8ikO_ZP-QjiqFus-VsO0M0TOA

[Shadow]

@Guppysnail Sounds like that pastry chef went more of a mousse texture set for his cheesecake resulting in the silkiness. My thoughts. 

@Guppysnail https://www.inkatrinaskitchen.com/peanut-butter-truffle-mousse-cheesecake/

[Guppysnail]

On 12/10/2023 at 5:48 PM, Shadow said:

@Guppysnail Sounds like that pastry chef went more of a mousse texture set for his cheesecake resulting in the silkiness. My thoughts. 

@Guppysnail https://www.inkatrinaskitchen.com/peanut-butter-truffle-mousse-cheesecake/

Thanks but no. It definitely was not mouse. It was thick and held shape fairly stiff. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 12/3/2023 at 6:40 AM, Guppysnail said:

I used to grow most of my own produce and herbs and several imported strains garlics that I used to make specialty flavored breads. Store bought degrades the flavor enough to make it not as enticing also. 

I can only imagine.... the wonderful things you made with that.  Man I am hungry for some italian food all of a sudden. 😂

 

 

On 12/3/2023 at 6:02 AM, jwcarlson said:

Anyone else bake?

I read the thread and had to giggle a little, my mom's side of the family, they are the Baker's.  (Literally)

It's one of those things where I absolutely have the skill, but not the patience to bake.  If I needed to knock out a pie or desert or whatever it was, totally can, but I much prefer the free form style of just cooking some good food. 

Nothing beats homemade pie, chocolate chip cookies, and some of the winter holiday foods.  I am going to have to make some gingerbread soon after seeing @Chick-In-Of-TheSea cookies.  Kind of looking forward to it!

[Andy's Fish Den]

I worked 22 years in the restaurant industry, starting when I was 15 washing dishes working my way up to being a chef, running the kitchen and eventually managing the back of the house in two different restaurants. I have always enjoyed baking, and with it being the Christmas season, I am baking a lot now. I started last weekend, and I am hoping to be done baking this next weekend, and when I am done I will have made 16-18 different cookies totaling close to 150 dozen cookies. Sprinkle in some fudge, chocolates and other candies, there will be a lot of sweets in my house, 95% of them will be given away, we make plates and trays up for neighbors, friends, co-workers and others. 

[Uproar]

Culinary student here. Hello 🙂

Bread from last week. Proving didn't go well because I tried a new method to ferment yeast and that did not work. Still amazing because I made roasted tomato garlic soup to go with it ❤️

[jwcarlson]

I'm not yet convinced that bad bread really exists.  There's a spectrum, but like pizza (and other things) even bad... it's pretty good.

It looks like it has decent air in any event!

[Uproar]

Today we're making bread, again



 



 

pretty good aeration (that's after 2 hours during the 2nd proving after knockback)

[Uproar]

 

Successsssssssssssssss!

[jwcarlson]

Looks good, @Uproar!

[Tanked]

On 12/15/2023 at 2:33 PM, jwcarlson said:

I'm not yet convinced that bad bread really exists.  There's a spectrum, but like pizza (and other things) even bad... it's pretty good.

Bad bread does exist!   As a young Scout, we were told to mix flour and water into a dough, wrap it around a stick and roast it next to a fire.

Technically it was bread. 😝 It was not good!  I made it once to complete a requirement, but nevermore.

Years later, bread made with the proper ingredients, on backpacking stoves or in Dutch ovens, produced much better results.

[jwcarlson]

I suppose it depends on how hungry you are, @Tanked. 🤪

[Uproar]

 

It was good, just heavy. I don't use any improver and I can't source fresh yeast, so dry yeast is all I got. Maybe I should let it prove for longer than just 2 hours to get better gluten webbing. 

[jwcarlson]

It might help to keep the yeast separate from any salt you might be adding until it has really taken off.  And/or mix it with a little warm water and maybe some sugar for it to eat.  It can get really booming before you put it in the mix.

[Uproar]

On 12/19/2023 at 10:21 PM, jwcarlson said:

It might help to keep the yeast separate from any salt you might be adding until it has really taken off.  And/or mix it with a little warm water and maybe some sugar for it to eat.  It can get really booming before you put it in the mix.

I usually mix flour and salt and then make a well in the centre. I add lukewarm milk, powdered sugar and yeast in the middle and gently stir. It usually ferments well but this time it wasn't great. Maybe I should only put a little milk for the fermentation and add the rest later. I had used the entire cup of milk for it - might have been what caused it to underferment. 

[Uproar]

First try at a baked cheesecake. My dumbass forgot to thaw the cream cheese and hence a very thick batter, causing cracks. I covered it with strawberry compote later though so no one sees the oopsie I made 🥲

Spoiler

 

[Tanked]

With 3" of snow and temps between 1-26 degrees, the predicted icy Armageddon was a bit of a let down.  But as the song says, 'Baby, its cold outside', light the oven. 

The sourdough bread project is on hold while I try to build a 'natural' starter. Overnight proofing and punching down the loaves for a second rise, has resulted in several stomach crushing bricks.  'Discard' biscuits however, are getting better.

 Yesterdays, goal was to produce something other than a quick bread, that I could eat the same day. I tried making Pain de Cristal.  Armed with detailed instructions provided by King Arthurs's Flour and several videos, it should have been idiot proof.  Not being an idiot, I didn't know that.

On the negative side: I never got the smooth elastic dough after the coil folds were completed.  It is possible that my house is just too cold for a quick fermentation to begin.  A 20 min. rest in a 60 degree house/oven wasn't enough.  The soft crust may be a result of the oven not being hot enough.  The recipe called for a 15 min. bake on the stone followed by a 15 min. bake on the rack.  Considering the wet dough, a 30 min. bake might not have been long enough.  The third possibility is that dividing the dough in half instead of quarters, was a mistake.  Each coil fold adds a small amount of water. That would explain the crust, but not the texture.

On the plus side: I ended up with two very edible loaves  with a soft crust, and a crumb that would have been perfectly acceptable on a different type of bread.

[jwcarlson]

I've never punched my sourdough down, sometimes do "no knead" same day bake and sometimes a sequence of folding the dough before putting it in  a basket for a fridge rise overnight, but I'm not sure punching it down after proving overnight is a good idea.  But I'm a big dummy, so who knows. 😄

Edited January 21 by jwcarlson

[Tanked]

On 1/21/2024 at 5:56 PM, jwcarlson said:

I've never punched my sourdough down, sometimes do "no knead" same day bake and sometimes a sequence of folding the dough before putting it in  a basket for a fridge rise overnight, but I'm not sure punching it down after proving overnight is a good idea.  But I'm a big dummy, so who knows. 😄

It's possible that I've missed a detail somewhere, or my starter just wasn't up to the task.  For whatever the reason, the second rise did not happen and I won't be punching down on the next attempt. 

[jwcarlson]

On 1/22/2024 at 10:02 AM, Tanked said:

It's possible that I've missed a detail somewhere, or my starter just wasn't up to the task.  For whatever the reason, the second rise did not happen and I won't be punching down on the next attempt. 

This is a rough approximation of what I normally do for an overnight loaf.  

 

Edited January 23 by jwcarlson