The Cooking Thread
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@remi Two other factors in staling (which is mostly a recrystallization of starch due to water migration)--
- Adding fat to a loaf reduces the speed at which it stales by keeping the starch grains apart from each other. A sandwich loaf (usually made with fats and often milk) goes stale slower than a "french" loaf (which, as you said, is just flour, salt, yeast, and water).
- Commercial loaves usually include dough conditioners (which are many) which help form the exact right amount of gluten in the right places and reduce staling tremendously. These are necessary due to the high-speed and automation. An artisinal loaf will generally taste much better (because fermentation == flavor) but will tend to go stale faster.
- Keeping bread in the fridge rapidly causes staling. Never refrigerate bread unless your climate is such that it will go moldy before it goes stale. Freezing is OK though.
- Toasting (or heating in general) will undo some staling, but it doesn't replace the water lost and so will dry bread out.
- "Dry" bread (for breadcrumbs, etc.) and "stale" bread are not the same. Toast your bread for breadcrumbs/stuffing/croutons (actually heat it in a low oven), don't leave it out to get stale.
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@Benjamin-Hall good list. One thing to add is that hygroscopic ingredients can also help prevent items from becoming rapidly stale. One of those that comes to mind is molasses. I always loved my grandma's molasses cookies, partially because they always stayed soft for a long time. Later in life I learned that is because the molasses is hygroscopic and prevents the starch crystallization from taking off.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@Benjamin-Hall good list. One thing to add is that hygroscopic ingredients can also help prevent items from becoming rapidly stale. One of those that comes to mind is molasses. I always loved my grandma's molasses cookies, partially because they always stayed soft for a long time. Later in life I learned that is because the molasses is hygroscopic and prevents the starch crystallization from taking off.
Yup. It's one major reason that high-fructose corn syrup is used in baking--it's an invert sugar (won't crystallize under normal conditions) which helps with texture; all sugars are seriously hygroscopic but free fructose is even more so. Sweet (high sugar), rich (high fat) breads go stale way slower than lean breads, at the cost of not having the crispy crust and soft interior of a nice french loaf.
BTW, HFCS is used for its textural properties almost as much as its sweetening. Even if sugar weren't stupidly both subsidized (sugar producers get federal subsidies) and tariffed (foreign sugar has a high tax, making sugar much more expensive than it should be) and so were used more frequently, there's a lot of things that chemically depend on HFCS (or regular CS) for their texture and other properties.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
I always loved my grandma's molasses cookies, partially because they always stayed soft for a long time.
If you have soft cookies that are now hard, you can make them soft again by putting them in a sealed container with a slice of fresh bread. The bread will become hard and the cookies soft. It's almost magic
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This looks good:
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@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
This looks good
Perhaps not good for your cholesterol level, but it certainly looks tasty.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
This looks good
Perhaps not good for your cholesterol level, but it certainly looks tasty.
Fake news. So long as I stay away from too many carbs my cholesterol does just fine.
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It went in the smoke at ~11PM and was at 203F at ~8:30AM. It was ~17lbs before I trimmed the fat cap which wasn't too bad.
For sides I am going to smoke some German potato salad and baked beans and also have macaroni salad.
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@Lorne-Kates said in The Cooking Thread:
Chocolate Flourless Torte (in GF Chocolate Cake category) got a ribbon! 4th place.
This thread has long been on my "I really want to read this someday" list; I'm finally getting around to it, at least a little.
I'd be very interested in your recipe. And any other good GF recipes y'all may have.
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@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
And any other good GF recipes y'all may have.
I think it's considered unusual to use a recipe for a girlfriend.
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@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
use a recipe for a girlfriend
Isn't that usually done au naturel? What the hell are you going to add? A lot of things might seem like a good idea at first but could be major causes for itches, rashes and other nasty things.
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@Luhmann Some do add whipped cream or chocolate. Different tastes for different people.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
And any other good GF recipes y'all may have.
Steak.
You make steak FOR the GF or WITH her?
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@TimeBandit said in The Cooking Thread:
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
And any other good GF recipes y'all may have.
Steak.
You make steak FOR the GF or WITH her?
I eat it off of the GF. Don't tell my wife.
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@TimeBandit said in The Cooking Thread:
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
And any other good GF recipes y'all may have.
Steak.
You make steak FOR the GF or WITH her?
Pretty sure that beastiality is illegal, even with a cow.
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@izzion said in The Cooking Thread:
@TimeBandit said in The Cooking Thread:
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
And any other good GF recipes y'all may have.
Steak.
You make steak FOR the GF or WITH her?
Pretty sure that beastiality is illegal, even with a cow.
Depends on the state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bestiality_in_the_United_States
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@TimeBandit said in The Cooking Thread:
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
And any other good GF recipes y'all may have.
Steak.
You make steak FOR the GF or WITH her?
If she's got a nice rump, it would be a waste not to enjoy it
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@Jaloopa Careful, or you might get roasted.
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@Luhmann said in The Cooking Thread:
@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
use a recipe for a girlfriend
Isn't that usually done au naturel? What the hell are you going to add? A lot of things might seem like a good idea at first but could be major causes for itches, rashes and other nasty things.
"Trick or treating can earn you some serious jail time..." thread is
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Related, a lot of these look really good:
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@boomzilla related:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLURsDaOr8hWXGHjXPa3nTFZnbqJcAfs4N
It is a playlist so it did not OneBox. Ben really should fix that.
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I bought myself something I've wanted for, literally, decades. When I moved out after I graduated university, my parents gave me some stuff to help me get started on my own. I asked them for a KitchenAid mixer, but they bought me something significantly cheaper. It served very well for many years, but due to raisins, when my ex and I separated, she wound up with part of it, and I have one attachment that's useless without the part she has, so I've been making do without a mixer for 10 years. Walmart had the basic model for $40 off, so I splurged and bought one last night. I also got one attachment that they had in the store, and just ordered the flour mill attachment.
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@HardwareGeek stand mixers are amazing.
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@Benjamin-Hall My old one was decent but not remarkable. It was a motor base to which could be attached a mixer head, a blender jar, or a chopper. It did all 3 jobs well enough, but it lacked the versatility of a KitchenAid.
It was the availability of the flour mill attachment that pushed me over the edge. GF flour costs something like 8x normal wheat flour, but now I can mill my own rice, GF oat, quinoa, lentil, whatever flour for, I hope, a small fraction of the cost of the tiny bags in the grocery store.
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@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
GF flour
So ... how does this work? You dry hump your girlfriend until she turns into flour and then what?
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@Luhmann worse than that, it's just crappy flour that lacks the useful properties that make flour work in recipes.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
@Luhmann worse than that, it's just crappy flour that lacks the useful properties that make flour work in recipes.
Yes. GF flour is a lie. Unless you're doing tempura, in which case rice flour is needed (and gluten is evil). Or unless you're one of the poor celiac sufferers or someone allergic to other wheat proteins.
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@Benjamin-Hall or you are going low-carb to lose weight.
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@Luhmann
GF flowers are the things you buy in hopes of getting lucky, but in reality all you're doing is making up for all the things you forgot to do and the underwear you left on the floor, so you're still left with nothing but your pillow.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@Benjamin-Hall or you are going low-carb to lose weight.
I like to use soy flour as the main component in breading for low carb recipes.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@Benjamin-Hall or you are going low-carb to lose weight.
Gluten-free flour isn't (necessarily) low-carb. Low-carb flour is very likely also GF, but it doesn't work the other way around.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
Gluten-free flour isn't (necessarily) low-carb. Low-carb flour is very likely also GF, but it doesn't work the other way around.
Really? I can't think of any gluten-free "flours" that would not also be low-carb. Which ones wouldn't be?
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
Gluten-free flour isn't (necessarily) low-carb. Low-carb flour is very likely also GF, but it doesn't work the other way around.
Really? I can't think of any gluten-free "flours" that would not also be low-carb. Which ones wouldn't be?
Rice. Oat. Undoubtedly other grains like that...I don't really look at all the different types.
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@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
Rice. Oat. Undoubtedly other grains like that
Like the ones that @HardwareGeek mentioned upthread and I forgot about because my memory is about as long as my dick? Got it.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@Benjamin-Hall or you are going low-carb to lose weight.
Even then, it's a lie. GF flours don't have fewer carbs. They may have more, in fact.
Both rice flour and wheat flour derive most of their calories from carbohydrates. Rice flour is higher in carbohydrates, as one cup provides 127 grams, compared to wheat flour's 84 grams. However, wheat flour is higher in fiber, with 12 grams per cup, compared to 4 grams per cup in rice flour. Fiber helps you feel full and promotes regular bowel movements; Colorado State University recommends that women consume 25 grams of fiber daily, and that men consume 38 grams daily.
Edit: For low-carb you need nut flours (almond, etc). Which also happen to be GF (since gluten is mostly found in wheat), but only by accident.
And even then, they're a lie from a cooking/taste perspective. Ugh.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in The Cooking Thread:
unless you're one of the poor celiac sufferers
There are perhaps as many as 70 million such people. The incidence varies regionally between about 0.3% and 2.5% of the population, with the overall average between 0.6% and 1.0%.
someone allergic to other wheat proteins.
I don't know the prevalence of wheat allergies.
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@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
@Benjamin-Hall said in The Cooking Thread:
unless you're one of the poor celiac sufferers
There are perhaps as many as 70 million such people. The incidence varies regionally between about 0.3% and 2.5% of the population, with the overall average between 0.6% and 1.0%.
someone allergic to other wheat proteins.
I don't know the prevalence of wheat allergies.
A lot of people who think they're allergic to wheat are actually sensitive to the bromates used in bleached flour in the US. A key sign is if they can eat bread in Europe (which does not use bromates).
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@Benjamin-Hall said in The Cooking Thread:
gluten is mostly found in wheat
Wheat (including all varieties and hybrids — triticale, graham, semolina, spelt, etc.), barley, rye, and some oats; it's not safe to assume oats are gluten-free unless they are specifically identified as such.
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@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
Rice. Oat. Undoubtedly other grains like that...I don't really look at all the different types.
... corn, millet, quinoa, tapioca, potato, lentil, chickpea, ... (legumes are high in protein, but are also still rather high in carbs, and on a low-carb diet they should be eaten in moderation if at all)
@Benjamin-Hall said in The Cooking Thread:
For low-carb you need nut flours (almond, etc). Which also happen to be GF (since gluten is mostly found in wheat), but only by accident.
Yes... high-protein, low-carb flours.
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Apple-pear hand pies. First attempt.
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@Benjamin-Hall the great thing about cooking is that even if it is not aesthetically pleasing it usually still tastes good.
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@Benjamin-Hall and BTW, the first time I attempted them the results were much worse than that. I had to really cut down on the amount of filling, be more careful in placement of filling and do a better job crimping.
They looked like a soup sandwich, but they still tasted good.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@Benjamin-Hall and BTW, the first time I attempted them the results were much worse than that. I had to really cut down on the amount of filling, be more careful in placement of filling and do a better job crimping.
They looked like a soup sandwich, but they still tasted good.
They're plenty good. But yeah, there was leakage. And I need to not do the big ones (that big one was a whole sheet of puff pastry)--I misjudged the scale involved. I also have two pints of leftover filling....
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@Benjamin-Hall said in The Cooking Thread:
I also have two pints of leftover filling....
Get a pie iron. There is nothing so simple and tasty as a campfire pie (which you can make on a gas stove if you don't want to or can't have a fire).
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@Benjamin-Hall You've inspired me to do something with the can of pie filling that's been sitting in my cupboard for probably a year or so.
I may need to add something spicy to it, though. Probably.
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@anotherusername depending on the filling you have chipotle chili powder might work. It does wonders to some desserts. Spicy and smoky.
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@Polygeekery Blueberry. Not sure how a smoky flavor would go with it. I do have smoked ghost pepper flakes, but I think the fruity flavor of reaper would probably go better with it. Or maybe I'll just do some with smoked ghost and some with reaper.
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Puff pastry is a pain in the ass to make. Not worth it. Not a bit. The recipe called for bread flour and the dough was ridiculously springy and it made it really hard to work with.
On the plus side, it does at least seem to have worked out halfway well, even though none of them stayed closed.
edit: the layers were really too thick, but whatever. It worked well enough as an experiment for myself at least.