No, I’m not kidding! Using only 3 eggs, I managed to make 2 different desserts in a single hour. It was amazing! What did I make? Creme brulee (for a Bookish Bakes post inspired by The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux by Samantha Verant) and coconut macaroons because I’ve been dying for one since 2007. I was actually a little surprised by how quickly they both went, and how easy they were. I’ve never made either before, so this was kind of fun, kind of a we’ll-see-what-happens-since-I’ve-never-done-this-before. The kids were occupied. The Husband was occupied. It was the perfect time for me to putter around the kitchen all by myself.…
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Adventures in Ratio Baking: Turning Custard Into Pudding
So, a while ago, one of my bloggy friends (hi, Lisa!) asked something about pudding. I didn’t have an answer then about the difference between custard and pudding as they sound a lot alike. Since then, I’ve ended up with egg yolks on my hands and no good idea of what to use them for. I decided to finally look into what, exactly, pudding is. It’s so simple it almost made me want to roll my eyes. Add a thickener, like flour or cornstarch, and you get pudding. Yes, that’s right. Pudding is little more than custard with a bit of starch mixed in (the eggs are actually optional though…
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Adventures in Ratio Baking: Let’s Talk About Meringue
Did you know meringue also has a ratio to it? I didn’t, either, until almost a year ago. I had always strictly followed a recipe because the first time I tried to make it had been a complete disaster. That was also almost 9 years ago, so I’ve come a long way since! The ratio for meringue is so simple. It’s 2:1 sugar to egg whites. All you need to do is weigh the egg whites and then double that amount to get the amount of sugar you’ll need. The sugar is usually granulated sugar, but I’ve also used powdered sugar to no disastrous results. Now let’s go over the…
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Adventures in Ratio Baking: When Making Beignets, Flour is Your Best Friend
I’ve always wanted to go to New Orleans, but not for Mardi Gras. When I was a kid, my mom and I used to watch all sorts of shows about haunted places and ghosts. New Orleans came up a lot, so I’ve always wanted to do one of the haunted tours. Oh, yeah, and I want some beignets because they sound really good. Because of the pandemic, traveling to New Orleans is something we’ll do years from now, but I still like to dream. There isn’t much I can do about the ghosts since we don’t live in a haunted building and my imaginary friend (a ghost) apparently decided to…
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Raisin Buns
When I was a kid, my mom did the weekly grocery shopping at a local market, and my dad would go to the Chinese market about a half hour away to get all sorts of Asian goodies for all of us. We loved the chocolate filled Koalas, the big containers of shredded pork, spicy cracker mixes, and the chocolate Pocky. My favorite, though, was the raisin bread. Soft, sweet, buttery bread filled with raisins. It’s nothing like the raisin bread in these American markets with their cinnamon swirls. I like cinnamon, but don’t care to pair it with my raisins. I just loved that tall raisin bread, with it’s buttery…
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Adventures in Ratio Baking: Another Thing You Can Turn Bread Dough Into? Buns!
I’m quickly finding out just how versatile the basic bread dough is. With the weather warming up, the temperatures are perfect for getting bread to rise, so I’ve been obsessed with bread dough and turning it into bagels and now buns! Some time ago, before the pandemic, I decided to make a coconut cake that left me with too much coconut. After fixating on it for a while, I took some and made toasted coconut custard. That still left me with a little under half a bag of shredded coconut. I got some good ideas from some very lovely followers on what to do with it, but then the pandemic…
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Adventures in Ratio Baking: Boiling the Bread Dough to Make Bagels
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…
