Boiling bread dough and then baking it gives you bagels? Why didn’t someone tell me it was as simple as that years ago?! I adore freshly baked bagels. I adore freshly baked bread, but bagels have a special place in my heart. I have so many fun memories of freshly baked bagels. I also have a bizarre memory of making bagels for the first time. Not coincidentally, they all occurred in the same 9 month span. During my first year of graduate school in psychology, I did a practicum rotation through a clinic at a children’s hospital. It was only open once a week and, once a month, we had…
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Basic Ingredients for Custard, Biscuits, and Muffins/Quick Breads
Some time ago, I shared lists for the basic ingredients for cakes, cookies, and bread. That was really some time ago. About a year ago, actually. I’ve done much more baking since then, wandering into the realms of custard, biscuits, and muffins. As this posts, the world is facing the COVID-19 pandemic, and, for whatever reason, people are stress baking. Eggs and flour are difficult to find. I haven’t asked my husband to pick up butter yet as I, a baker at heart, always keep plenty on hand, so I don’t know if they’re as hot a commodity as other things. Like toilet paper. Oh, the toilet paper jokes… So, if…
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A Quick Guide to Ratio Baking Bread
I consider bread to be it’s own food group. I know it’s not, but that’s just how much I adore bread (as long as it’s not sourdough or rye). Once I figured out how to ratio bake bread, the only thing that’s ever stopped me is the weather. See, bread needs warmth to rise properly, which shouldn’t be a problem in Southern California, but it’s managed to thwart me an insane number of times over the past year. Nevertheless, I have persisted, even it means I have to crank up the heat or turn on the oven to the lowest temperature setting possible. I’ve perfected the bread my family enjoys,…
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Adventures in Ratio Baking: Biscuits It Is
I love bread. When the weather started to cool off, and I was no longer able to get a good rise without having to turn on the heat or the oven, I scrambled for something else that could whet my bread thirst. Biscuits! Of course. So easy. So simple. Definitely something I could literally walk into the kitchen and decide to make because the butter must be as cold as possible. Yes! No having to wait for butter to warm up. No eggs to take out. Just flour, butter, and liquid. The ratio is a simple 3:2:1 flour to liquid to butter (fat). The liquid can be milk, buttermilk, water. I’ve…
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Adventures in Ratio Baking: Souffle Wasn’t as Scary as I Thought
I was either watching or reading something recently when the idea of making souffle entered my head. I’ve heard it’s difficult, and I’ve heard it isn’t that hard. Still, I’ve never tried making one, so how am I to know if it’s hard or not? Anyways, I decided it was high time for me to try making one. And probably watch it fall spectacularly. There are so many recipes out there, but, since I started ratio baking last year, using a recipe holds zero appeal to me. Now I find I prefer to read about whatever it is I want to bake on Wikipedia and then branching out from there…
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Triple Berry Muffins
Now that Christmas has passed, our local markets seem to think it’s time for summer, and so they stock the produce section with berries. Considering I live in Southern California, warm weather in January is possible (70s and sunny all week!), so I suppose they’re not wrong about summer approaching. Alas, it isn’t quite berry season, which means I’m sorely tempted, but the quality is spotty and the taste is only perfect if you happen to enjoy tart. Yet, I still adore berries. Well, except blueberries. I think those are disgusting, but I’ll happily stock my fridge with all the others. Whenever I see them in the market, I must…
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Adventures in Ratio Baking: Pie Ratio Plus Custard Ratio Equals Chocolate Pie
About a year after starting ratio baking, I’m finally at a point where I can combine ratios. Quite frankly, I was kind of counting down to this day. How amazing would it be if I could made a dessert using just ratios? Well, it finally happened. Last year, I tried the ratios for making pie dough and custard with the goal of making a chocolate custard pie. Now, I’m not adverse to eating a whole pie, but, most of the time, I just want a slice. I’m not that much of a pie eater. At some point last year, I decided to pick up some mini cake tins, and then I kept…
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Adventures in Ratio Baking: Let’s Try Custard Again
A few weeks ago, I tried making custard using it’s ratio of 2:1 dairy to eggs. Since it just says dairy, and since I just happened to have a can of sweetened condensed milk sitting around doing nothing, I thought, well, why not? Turns out there’s a reason why I’ve never seen a custard recipe use sweetened condensed milk. It’s thick! And super sweet. Last week I decided it was time to try again. The right way. With actual dairy. And I mean using milk. Just milk and eggs, and, of course, cocoa powder because chocolate. Everything is better with chocolate. Well, that’s a lie. I wouldn’t want chocolate on…
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A Christmas Cookie Tradition
Neither an adventure in ratio baking nor a recipe this week. Instead, since it’s December, I wanted to write about a Christmas tradition my mom started when I was very young. For as long as I can remember, my mom would spend an entire day baking cookies. The funniest thing about them was that all the recipes came from cook books, but everyone raved about how good they were and would ask for the recipe. My mom always refused to give them away, but they were in printed cook books and could have been found by anyone. Haha, just one of our many family secrets! But it was really a tradition…
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Adventures in Ratio Baking: Apple Pie Time
Pie scares me. I’ve only ever made one pie from scratch before. A chocolate pie using a recipe. It wasn’t bad. But I haven’t made a pie since. It’s probably been about 15 years. Now that I’ve been ratio baking, I’ve been trying to work my way through all the ratios. Of course there must be a ratio for pie dough. I wish there were one for pie fillings, too. Sadly, it does not look like there is. Fortunately, there are quite a few different kinds of filling. Or maybe that should be unfortunately. My favorite apple is the Pink Lady, but the rest of my family loves Granny Smith.…
