Poll Results: Pancakes or Waffles

My dear readers,
I am sorry that I didn't give the results for this a month ago. I was just too busy. But, things should be going back to normal now. I am going to try to give you at least one post per week
-Coline

Anyways, here are the awaited results (because you couldn't at all see them on the blog before):

Pancakes	6 (33%)
Waffles	11 (61%)
neither	1 (5%)

Votes so far: 18

This is definitely a record turnout: 18!! So waffles are clearly favored by you all, and by me as well. Either way, they both are delicious with real maple syrup (none of that "breakfast syrup" stuff for me), and you are the person who doesn't like waffles or pancakes, you can still enjoy the wonders of maple syrup. It goes wonderfully with plain yogurt (my dad's idea) and oatmeal.

Please vote on my next poll to express your opinions about frozen desserts with just one click of the mouse!

Yummy chocolate cake!

Last weekend I threw my friend a surprise birthday party, and we made a chocolate cake! The cake was delicious, and it was also my first layer cake with frosting and all that. The recipe was pretty easy, but with a strange ingredient...

I made one change: I replaced the milk with soy milk for my other friend who is allergic to milk. The soy milk left no aftertaste. We were going to halve the recipe, but I accidentally added the full volume of water, so then we just completed he recipe to make the entire cake.
This brings me to the strange ingredient: 1 cup of boiling water. I was surprised when I first saw, but then I noticed that quite a few other recipes for chocolate cake also use boiling water. I am going to try to find out why.

I found this recipe in Sharffen-Berger's Essence of Chocolate "That Chocolate Cake" (the first recipe), and it is also online, but I pasted it in here to facilitate your life

Here is the recipe, copied straight from Sharffen Berger (with my comments in [brackets])

Ingredients:

Cake

• Unsalted butter and flour for pans
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• ¾ cup Scharffen Berger unsweetened natural cocoa powder [really, any brand works, just make sure it's unsweetened]
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• ½ cup canola oil
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup boiling water

Frosting

• 1-1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 5 ounces Scharffen Berger 99% Cacao Unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped [Once again, any brand. I used 100% from Ghirardelli]
  
• 8 tablespoons (4 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method

For the Cake:

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter the bottom of two 9-inch round cake pans. Line the bottom with parchment paper, then butter and flour the parchment and the sides of the pans.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder, and baking soda, mixing on low speed. Min in the eggs, oil, and milk.

Increase the speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and mix in the water. The batter will be soupy.

Divide the batter evenly between the cake pans. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. [I baked them 25 minutes in a convection oven]

Remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack for 5 minutes, then turn the layers out onto the rack and cool completely.

When the cakes have cooled, check the frosting. It should have the consistency of mayonnaise. If it is still too thin, allow it to cool longer. [See, I didn't read the last instruction and didn't wait long enough]

For the Frosting:

In a small saucepan, combine the sugar and cream and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat and simmer for 6 minutes. Add the chocolate and butter and stir until melted. Pour into a bowl and stir in the vanilla. [If the frosting starts curdling like mine, just beat it continuously for a few minutes. When it cools it will be normal again.]

To Frost the Cake:

[it will be a lot easier to frost the cake if you let the frosting cool one hour before hand]

Place one cake layer on a serving plate. Spread the frosting with a hot palette knife or icing spatula to give the frosting a beautiful shine. Run the knife under hot tap water and dry with a towel. Spread about ¾ cup of the frosting over the top of the first layer. Top with the second layer. Spread the remaining frosting over the top and sides of the cake, heating the knife again as necessary.

Serves 8 to 10

Note: The cake was soft and fluffy when fresh, and after three days in the refrigerator it was denser and more intense. You choose.
Also, if the cake is fresh, I recommend slicing it with a serrated bread knife, it will tear the cakeless.

Picture time!


Frosting!

Playing with fire!

A slice!

My Wild Yeast Adventures! Part Two: What do I do now?

So, you have caught your yeast, what do you do with it? Well, the book I use tells me to make a new culture, this time a more permanent one. The author calls it a Barm, and I will too for simplicity's sake.

• To make barm you take 1 cup from your seed culture (give away or discard the rest) and mix it with 3 1/2 cups high gluten/bread flour and 2 cups water.
• Transfer the barm to a large clear container at least twice its volume.
  
• Let it sit out on the counter until it bubbles and rises some, then put it in the refrigerator.
  
• If you do not use it in the following three days (or if you use more than half) you will need to refresh it.

Refreshing is basically feeding the yeast. To refresh the barm first weigh it, the add equal amounts (by mass, not volume) of flour and water to double the weight of the barm. As long as you stay within the doubling and quadrupling zone, the refreshment with be effective. Let it sit out until it bubbles, then refrigerate it. Refreshing will give you another three days.

If don't plan on using the barm to make bread soon you can leave it in the refrigerator for up the 2 months and refresh it 1 or 2 days before using. You can also freeze it for up to 6 months and leave it to defrost overnight in the refrigerator three days before using it. Then refresh it

Sorry this post took so long. I completely forgot to publish it!

Update:
Leaving the barm in the refrigerator will not make it become sour. To do that, you must leave it out on the counter (or somewhere else will a relatively constant temperature) and refresh it every 3-4 days.

My Wild Yeast Adventures! Part One: Breeding a Seed Culture

Since I have been making bread a lot lately, I decided a few weeks ago to take it a step further and make sourdough bread. So, on Tuesday of last week (August 12), I followed the instructions in The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart as best as I could to start what he calls a seed culture. Unfortunately I was unable to find the rye flour he called for at the supermarket. Instead, I made a weird combination of flours hoping things would even themselves out.

So, day 1: 1/2 c bread flour, 1/4 c whole wheat flour, 1/4 c buckwheat flour, and 1/2 c water.
I combined them all in a bowl, covered it with plastic wrap, and left it on the counter for about 24 hours.
The next day, I went to see my bowl of goop and noticed something spectacular. There were little bubbles in the culture! I had caught some yeast! This time I followed the exact instructions in my wonderful bread book, meaning that I uncovered it and added flour and water. I then stirred it all up and put it into a tall, vertical plastic container to be able to track the growth of my culture easily.

Day 2: Add 1 cup bread or high-gluten flour (which has more gluten and is much better for this than all-purpose flour) and 1/2 water. The dough was more viscous after the addition.
So, I put the refreshed culture into the plastic container at 2 pm. Three hours later it had more than doubled in size, so I decided to mark the height with a piece of tape. However, before marking it I made the mistake of tapping the side of the container, causing the culture to partially collapse. I marked at the lower level. The next morning I got up to see if it had revived itself, but instead of regaining height it had fallen down to the original level. I was confused and disappointed...
The first picture below is right before the collapse, the second is the next morning. The chronological order of the markings is 2pm, then 5pm, and finally 8am.

I was dispirited by this result, but I decided to continue. When I opened the container the smell of overripe papaya filled my nose. How strange... I threw away half the culture as was instructed in the book, and added some more flour and water.
Day 3: Remove half of the culture (throw away or give to a friend) and add 1 cup of high gluten or bread flour, and 1/2 cup of water. Once again, I poured the mixture into the plastic container, marked the level, and hoped.

24 hours later, on day four, I went to check on my cultivation. There was no rise, and it seemed to have separated into 2 layers, with dark on the top and light on the bottom. This was too much, I couldn't handle it anymore. I gave up. I made plans to throw away, but I never got around too because I was busy. The container just stayed on my counter looking horrible and got worse as the days went by.

Then Wednesday, about a week later, I noticed the culture looked normal again! There were big bubbles all over the surface, and it had risen a bit. I decided to continue my cultivation.

Day 9: I measured the volume of culture I had, 1 1/8 cup. Then I added the usual 1 cup of high-gluten/bread flour and 1/2 cup of water and mixed. I left it to ferment in the bowl for 24 hours while I gave the plastic container a good wash.

The next day it had risen some, so I removed about half (not an easy feat) and added flour and water. Because I was tired of dealing with liquid culture, I decided to add half the water asked for.
Day 10: Remove half and add 1 cup high gluten/bread flour, add 1/4 water. Stir well and let rest 24 hours.

Today (day 11) I saw a nice rise in the culture, about doubled. This means that I get to go to the next level and make what my book calls Barm, which is just a more diluted way of storing and cultivating the wild yeast and its flavorful bacteria. I will address Barm in the next post.

So, since my way of catching yeast was kind of random and full of guesswork, I will also give you the method from the book The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. This book is currently my favorite book about bread. I have read at least three times in a few months.

Day 1: Combine 1 cup rye flour and 1 cup water. Let rest at room temperature about 24 hours.

Day 2: Dough will not have risen much. Add 1 cup high-gluten/bread flour and 1/2 cup water to rye mixture. Let rest at room temperature about 24 hours.

Day 3: Dough should have risen some, about 50%. Regardless, discard half of dough. Add 1 cup high-gluten/bread flour and 1/2 cup water to dough. Let rest at room temperature about 24 hours.

Day 4: Wait until dough has at least doubled in volume, more is better. Make barm as will be described in next post.

Have fun! Catch Yeast!