Adventures in Breadmaking I
21 May 2009 Leave a Comment
in Food Tags: baking, Bread, Food, food science, Gluten
In my continuing effort to figure out this whole bread-making thing, I once again tried to bake a nice fluffy loaf of bread yesterday. It was raining and I figured it wouldn’t be so bad if I heated up the house a little with the oven.
I’ve tried several times before. I figured it was just my kneading abilities keeping me back. I would knead, and knead, and knead, until I was blue in the face and my arms were sore.
Nothing.
I could not get the dough to be nice and soft and gluten-y. like everyone figures it should be. I could not get my dough to pass the “window-pane test”, where when you stretch the dough, the gluten formed will allow the dough to stretch to such a thin consistency, it’s sort of sheer… like looking through an… opaque window….
Gluten… I bought some gluten once. I can’t remember if it was gluten flour, but it was supposed to increase the gluten content in my all-purpose flour. I guess it was a little bit better… Not enough for a nice fluffy loaf of bread though.
I’ve watched my boyfriend’s mother kneading bread dough. It looked simple enough when she did it, 2-3 minutes by hand on the countertop, and she was done…I’ve kneaded up to 20 minutes by hand…
So, I am now a proud owner of my very own Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer (with dough hook!).
My first attempt… The dough clung like mad to the hook, and wouldn’t let go no matter how many times I pulled it off the hook. It would go around and around in the bowl, attached to the hook…. Thump. Thump. Thump. I thought that was the way it had to be (although, it seemed mighty odd), so I let it rip in the mixer for a full 15 minutes. Result? Dense bread.
After a careful internet search, I concluded that this is not what the dough is suppose to do. I am pleased about this, because it didn’t seem like my mixer was handling it too well. The dough is suppose to react like you might imagine, like all the cookbooks and recipes say it should.
I’ll try again another day…
Green Carrots in my Carrot Cake!
08 Apr 2009 Leave a Comment
in Food, Food Tip Tags: baking, baking soda, carrot cake, fix, food science, green carrots
Your Carrot Cake is Safe to eat.
There are pH sensitive pigments in carrots that react with alkaline things, like baking soda. Carrots will turn green when there is either too much baking soda in your batter or if the soda has not been evenly mixed into the batter.
Fix: Thoroughly mix in baking soda, or adjust baking soda levels in recipe.
However, if your carrot cake is green because it has been sitting on top of your microwave for a week, and/or it is fuzzy and green – do NOT eat! 
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