I've been having some trouble with bread lately, and finally decided that I needed quit to wishy-washying and just convert from volume to weight measurements already.

The problem I'm having now is finding enough sources that agree with each other so that I know what I'm doing. One says a cup of flour is 4.4 oz, another says it's only 4, another says no, it's 5 oz. And yet another source says it depends completely on what kind of flour you're weighing, which makes sense to me, but they didn't include *what* the different flours should weigh.

So my question is, what should a cup of plain white AP flour weigh? Is there a difference in the weights of different types of flour, enough to make a difference when I'm converting recipes? Is there a 'definitive' guide to converting volume to weight out there somewhere? (I've found several, but none agree with any of the others.)

Thanks to everyone who helped with the names for the bakery! But we are back to the drawing board with names. My husband wants something simple and around family :-)

Hi all! I'm working on using Stevia and Soy flour instead of Sugar and Flour. I recently adapted a pumpkin muffin recipe using ground stevia leaves from my local tea shop. I cut the amount in half because stevia is sweeter than sugar (its like candy! I love chewing on the leaves from the plant we're growing at home) and it worked out perfectly. I am a little more worried about scaling down for Soy. Everything I looked up about it says it needs to be added x10 and... that doesn't sound right. So I thought I"d wander in over here and ask what you guys thought. Bascially my question is, if a recipe called for 1 cup all purpose flour, how much would you scale up/down?

Thanks for your help in advanced!

- Mary

P.S. Have people trying to watch their calorie count? I found this wonderful Calorie counter that lets you plug in your recipe!

Calorie Counter here!

It's my husband's birthday on Friday, and I've found a few excellent linguine ai frutti di mare recipes. It used to be one of his favorites before he developed shellfish allergies and was forced to avoid things like it. I'm trying to find a way to modify the recipe to retain the flavours while making it safe to consume for him.

The main recipe I've found calls for the following:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• Red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 12 Manila or littleneck clams
• 10 ounces linguine
• 3/4 cup tomato sauce
• 12 black mussels
• 8 shrimp, shelled (tail intact) and deveined
• 4 sea scallops, quartered
• 5 ounces calamari, cut into thin rings
• 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped

I am looking into opening my own bakery & need some help with names. If you could please help me out :-)


Poll #1842161 Need help with Bakery Name
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 167

Which name do you like?

Oh my, these are delicious! The crust is buttery and crunchy with oats.
The filling is full of rhubarb and topped with crystalized ginger.

Many more pictures and info over at The Alchemist.



( Read more... )

So, I've got a loaf of stale french bread, buttermilk, triple sec, almonds, raisins, turkish figs, mascarpone, and a lemon. I have basic baking ingredients like sugar (white and brown), baking powder, baking soda, salt, vanilla extract, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, eggs, and regular milk,

How do you propose I turn this (some or all) into bread pudding?

Oreo cheesecake cookies with chocolate chips... are you drooling yet?

Recipe here!




( Recipe )

Okay, so over the weekend I got some very tasty Basil Lemon Aioli and Smoked Paprika Aioli. The downside is that I have no idea what to do with them! I know they're mayo based, so I figured I could use them as some kind of sandwich spread but there has to be other stuff I can do with them, right? Can I use them in place of where I would use mayo in other recipes? How does this stuff work?

You may have noticed that I went a little coconut crazy recently. I know I've mentioned this somewhere before, but I hate it as a child (I think it was a texture thing), so now I'm making up for lost time :)

I recently posted a list of 10 coconut recipes on Willow Bird Baking and thought I'd share here, too.

1. Buttery Coconut & Almond Morning Buns



(It's hard to pick a favorite because all the recipes are SO different, but I wish I had some more of these hot coconut almond morning buns with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on top right this second.)


( 9 more coconut recipes )

These scones are delicious, quick, and easy. They can literally be mixed, baked, and glazed within 45 minutes -- perfect for the difficult Sunday I had this past week. I love the combination of maples and blueberry because it reminds me of a sweet blueberry pancake breakfast.

Hope you enjoy :)



( recipe + photo )


To read the story I tell to my students ALL THE TIME, see what I was originally supposed to bake last Sunday, and see more photos, please head over to Willow Bird Baking!

x-posted to food_porn, cooking, picturing_food, and bakebakebake

Ok, I'm getting bored with my standard dinners, and am looking for interesting recipes. However, I have several challenges, since I have to meet various dietary restrictions for my family.

So, I come to you for help and inspiration. And, here is the exhaustive list of restrictions:

Lower calorie
Well balanced (as close to equal as possible of protein, carbs, and fats)
low sodium
Very low potassium - no beans or legumes, very little dairy, no fresh tomatoes (a very little bit of canned tomatoes are OK), potatoes only if they are boiled and/or soaked first, no leafy vegetables, no squash, absolutely no bananas, and very limited fresh fruit.
While I love whole grains, the rest of the family is meh about them, so if whole grains (brown rice, quinoa) are included, the recipe better be really good to "make up" for that
No shellfish
Budget friendly
And, finally, since I get most of my meats (except chicken breasts) from raising them ourselves, any cuts of meats need to be as little processed as possible.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Honeydew Ice- The perfect cold treat for the hot weather! Super easy, fresh, healthy, and you don't need an ice cream machine!

Recipe and more over at The Alchemist.



( Read more... )

So my recipe calls for 2c instant rice, but all I have is regular.  I don't mind cooking it longer, but is there a difference in how much it makes?  Does instant rice triple or...??

So I've been gifted a rather large bunch of assorted mint, fresh.  Unfortunately it doesn't have roots to plant it, and I'm getting tired of mint tea...

So, what are some recipes that use fresh mint?  I am not looking for a specific meal category, just any and all suggestions. 

The mints I have are:
Apple mint
Spearmint
Peppermint
and Chocolate mint.

Thanks so much!

So tonight I made Mataha, which is an East African dish. It's a dumpling in the bottom of the bowl with a vegetable soup on top. It's from this vegetarian bean cookbook I have, Bean Banquets. The dumplings have these big speckled Christmas Beans that I get at the farmers market, potatoes, spinach and hominy. The soup has onions, garlic, curry, cauliflower, cabbage, spinach, tomatoes and fresh peas.

Because everything I buy at the farmers market comes fresh from the farm, I had to shell all the peas and de-stem all the spinach and I had to chop all the ingredients and cook the four dumpling ingredients separately, and the beans took forever to cook (I should have soaked them longer). Oh well. This soup is DELICIOUS. It took me a total of 4 and a half hours to cook though, and there was a ton of chopping, cooking, mashing, you name it. But it was worth it It is really good.

( pictures )

We got two meals out of the recipe so our dinner cost about $8 for the three of us, so it was a little pricey, but we're eating cheaper the rest of the week. I'm trying to see if it's more expensive to eat as much organic as possible (meat is sort the only really expensive organic item nowadays). I'm also trying to eat as little processed food as possible. Really it's just time it takes. But as a vegetarian meal it's really filling and feels like a meal.

Also, it took forever to make because I used dried beans. If I had used a can of kidney beans instead, the entire meal would have taken about an hour.

Here's the recipe (click twice for full size):

( click for the scan of the cookbook )

I am very proud of myself and have actually GROWN some shitake mushrooms on a mushroom log (took a year to fruit, and I didn't do anything to it, but still...)

I now have a bowlful of shitake, plus 4 large flat mushrooms (portabello mushrooms?)

I also have onions, garlic, and assorted other veg plus standard storecupboard stuff.

What ideas have you got for showcasing the shitake? I was thinking of a mushroom stroganof - any good recipes?

PS. No meat, please. Thanks.

This may brand me a total cooking dork, but I have always been terrified of using a paring knife. Particularly given some of my other hobbies (see icon).

Well, I manned up and used one for peeling the ginger for my next pickling batch. SO MUCH EASIER than the veggie peeler or the spoon!

I feel like a total kitchen ignoramus that it took me this long to get over my fear of the paring knife...

Scenario:  Husband's 30th birthday party.  Surprise party.  He'll be out of the house for the 3 hours prior to the party, at which point I'll have to acquire and prepare all the food and decorate the house, while taking care of a 10 month old.
Ideas for food?  I'm already ordering pizza ;)
What are your easiest party recipes?

I made pizza tonight! We used our new pizza stone and I made whole wheat dough in the bread machine.

Here's the perfect pizza:



Pizza pictured: half had red sauce, cheese, pepperoni, bacon, red onions and yellow hungarian peppers the other half was red sauce, mushrooms, italian sausage, red onions and yellow hungarian peppers.

Pizza #2 (which was the first pizza and we didn't pre-heat the stone so it wasn't done enough in the middle, but was still good): white sauce, half with tomatoes, basil, onions and bell peppers and half with sausage, mushrooms, bell peppers and onions.

Here's the dough recipe I used:

http://www.food.com/recipe/bread-machine-pizza-dough-with-whole-wheat-flour-137143

Here's the pizza stone we bought - worked great. Just pre-heat the stone in the oven, and put a little cornmeal on the stone before you put your dough down and the pizza will not stick at all. Also goes in the dishwasher.

http://www.amazon.com/Rada-Cutlery-Stoneware-Round-Baking/dp/B0037FT26S/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1336877466&sr=8-6

It's my turn to host supper club this month so my husband and I will have two other couples over tomorrow for dinner. I'm thinking about a Spanish tapas type menu but wanted to run it by you all to see if seems yummy and cohesive.

Tortilla Espanol - potatoes sauteed with spices and onions and baked with eggs
Garlic Shrimp
Chicken with chimichurri sauce
Garlic bread
Platter with roasted red peppers, marinated eggplant, marinated mushrooms, marinated artichokes
and sangria of course!

Thoughts? I wanted to keep it pretty simple.

Hi all,
So I love sour cream and perogies, but I usually use one of those store bought dip mixes in my sour cream to give them another flavour, plus I don't eat that many perogies so I use a lot of the sour cream dip for veggies and dip. I got a creamy dill dip package at the store and made it, but it tastes a lot sweeter than I expected it to. I was wondering if anyone has any idea of things I can add to it to cut down the sweetness?
TIA

looking through my collection of recipes, I've found that most of the fish recipes I have are soups
Which isn't really useful in summer :P

I have a LOT of salmon recipes, but nothing much else. Can you suggest some recipes for fish that aren't soups & don't use salmon?

Firstly, thank you to everyone who made suggestions Re: my super spicy ddeokbokki, Here.

I added a little bit of honey, water and tomato paste, and a lot more sesame oil (and a splash of lime juice, because I accidentally added too much sesame oil :P ).
That solved the heat problem.
Then I added some cheese for deliciousness.
And it was just about perfect :)



Edited for html fail :/

Breakfast apple pie, perfect for Mothers Day Brunch!

Recipe and more over at The Alchemist.



( Read more... )

I am in the process of cleaning out my pantry by using up all the "bits n bob" items on the shelf. I do this by seeing what I have that needs using and creating a meal plan that intentionally incorporates a specific ingredient. I polished off some molasses by making a chili molasses butter to slather on grilled corn.

But, I have NO IDEA what to do with the 1.5 bottles of light corn syrup. I also have about .25 bottles of dark corn syrup. I don''t even know how they ended up in my pantry. I eat pretty healthy and generally avoid sweets, so I am at a total loss.

Please help me find a use for this ingredient by suggesting possible recipes? Thank you so much.

Yesterday I got the rare chance to visit a decent Asian grocer. And I bought a few packets of ddeok and a 2kg tub of gochujang (red pepper paste).
So I made ddeokbokki with noodles this afternoon.

On the spiciness scale, it fell somewhere between Dear-god-it-burns-I-don't-think-I'll-survive-this-go-on-without-me and Completely Inedible.

I want to add something to dilute the strength of the chilli. I thought about just adding more water and less gochujang, but that will make the sauce quite watery; I'd like to avoid affecting the consistency (and flavour) of the ddeokbokki sauce as much as possible.
So what can I add ?
Ketchup ? A tomato-based pasta-type sauce ?
Any suggestions ?

I checked the memories and tags and I couldn't find it so I'm asking if anyone remembers; A Roast Chicken recipe that had the potatoes and veggies all roasted in the same pan with the chicken. It called for garlic cloves, lemon, vegetable oil, and fresh thyme sprigs. I can't remember all of the vegetables (because I changed some that I didn't like) but I'm fairly sure one of them was red onions.

I loved this recipe for a long time but now I can't find the card I wrote it down on and I wanted to use it tonight. So if anyone remembers it and can link me or point me in the right direction I'll be really grateful.

UPDATE: I found it! It was hidden away in a notebook in my bureau drawer :D I still don't remember the original posters name, but I'd like to thank them for their Roasted Chicken & Vegetables recipe anyway. So thank you wherever you are!

I have a boneless pork shoulder joint that's just under a kilo (about 2lbs) in weight. I'm marinading it tonight with a garlic, oregano and chile rub in a orange, lemon and lime juice mixture. I want to slow roast it tomorrow, but all the recipes I have that talk about slow roasting deal with much larger joints of meat.

How long, and at what temperature in degrees Celsius, do I need to roast the meat for in order to get the full slow-roasty goodness out of it? Do I just alter the cooking time of the bigger joints? Does the fact that it's a boneless joint affect the cooking time?

I don't know if I really need to sell this to you, but just in case: this is gooey butter cake + strawberry shortcake, so basically, it's perfect.

My fear is that you’re going to immediately deem it too sweet for your taste, so let me address that first: this dessert has the perfect balance of sweet cake, tangy berries, and freshly whipped cream that, without sugar added, lends a rich background bitterness. In short, it’s quite a savvy combination and not cloying in the least. I actually expected the Gooey Butter Cake itself to be too syrupy sweet for me, but was pleasantly surprised at its flavor.

Essentially, this cake is a beautiful, simple harbinger of summer.



( recipe + photo )


To read my list of very important summer plans, read more the gooeyness and strawberryness of this cake, and see more photos, please head over to Willow Bird Baking!

x-posted to food_porn, cooking, picturing_food, and bakebakebake

A friend of mine stopped by a few days back and gave me 2 packets; one with pomegranate powder and one with cassia bark. I am basically clueless what to make with it. Do you guys have any ideas? Can you please help me out?

Hey all! So there was a Japanese restaurant in my college town that had the most amazing osomashi soup -- a clear broth with scallions, fish cake, noodles and MUSHROOMS. Sadly, I've graduated and moved across the country, so I can't get my fix whenever I like. I woke up this morning thinking about this soup, and specifically the glorious, glorious mushrooms they used -- earthy, sweet, slightly chewy, incredibly umami, tender, amazing mushrooms. Could anyone hazard a guess as to what they were? They were served in slices so I'm not sure of their original shape, but I suspect they were reconstituted (because of the chewiness), and definitely had a deliciously sweet note to their flavor -- unlike any mushroom I've had before. I have a variety of pretty well-stocked Asian grocers around, so if anyone can tell me what they were I'm sure I can find them somewhere. Thank you so much!

Cookie douuuuuggghhh!! I've been chomping at the bit to make another cookie dough recipe and finally developed one for my Brownies & Bars camp (an after school cooking camp for middle school students -- lots of fun and lots of mess!) My 7 campers were the first people in the world to make this recipe, and didn't they do a nice job of it?

These little bars are super simple to make but so delicious. A buttery graham cracker crust supports malted chocolate cookie dough filled with Whopper candy pieces. The bars are drizzled with chocolate and topped with, of course, more candy. If you have a cookie dough lover in your house, they'll thank you for these.



( recipe + photo )


To read about my students' continual request, read more about their love of cookie dough, and see more cookie dough bar photos, please head over to Willow Bird Baking!

x-posted to food_porn, cooking, picturing_food, and bakebakebake

Oh this is yummy. Warm strawberry Crumb Cake. Topped with whipped cream, even better.

Recipe and more over at The Alchemist.


Strawberry Crumb Cake

This can also be made with a combination of raspberries, blackberries or blueberries.

adapted from Food and Wine, recipe by Gerard Craft


Ingredients

Fruit

3 lbs fresh strawberries, (approx. 8 cups or 1 1/2 kilos) hulled and halved

1/2 cup (100 g,) sugar

1 1/2 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 Tablespoons cornstarch dissolved in 2 Tablespoons of water

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped out, or substitute 2 or 3 tsp. of vanilla extract


For Crumb Topping

1/2 cup (75 g.) lightly packed light brown sugar *note- if you don't have brown sugar either make your own by mixing some white sugar with a little molasses, or you can substitute white sugar, although the flavor of the topping will be better with brown.

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (60 g,) flour

Pinch of salt

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature


For Cake

2 1/4 (225 g.) cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick (1/2 cup) (8 Tablespoons) (113 g.) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cups (250 g.) sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3/4 cup (6 oz.) (177 ml) buttermilk *note- if you don't keep buttermilk in the house just use some soured milk by taking regular milk and adding a Tablespoon or 2 of lemon juice or vinegar and let it sit for 15 minutes.


Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit, 180 degrees Celsius, or Gas Mark 4.

In a large bowl, toss the strawberries with the sugar, lemon juice, cornstarch slurry and vanilla seeds or vanilla extract, and let stand until the berries release some of their juices, about 30 minutes. Pour the fruit filling into a 9-by-13-inch glass or ceramic baking dish set on a sturdy baking sheet.

Make the crumb topping. Place all crumb topping ingredients in a medium bowl, use a fork to mash all ingredients together until the butter has mashed up with the other ingredients enough where pea sized pieces of crumb topping appear. Set aside.

Make the cake batter. Using a hand held electric mixer, or use a stand mixer, cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Add the vanilla and mix again. Mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder in another large bowl and whisk well. Scrape down the bowl and add the dry ingredients to the batter in 3 additions alternating with the buttermilk or soured milk, if using.

Spoon the batter over the fruit, smoothing the battter to the edges. Sprinkle with the crumb topping. Bake in the center of the oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the fruit is bubbling, the crumb topping is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs attached. Transfer to a rack to cool slightly. Serve the crumb cake warm or at room temperature with whipped cream or ice cream if desired.

I'm thinking ahead to a June birthday party, where temperatures are likely to be ridiculous for us, and wondering what kind of (strawberry, preferably) icing for cupcakes would best stand up to the heat.