Author: doodledweller
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Starches
I’ve been wondering about the differences between flours and starches. Starch is processed by grinding the starch-containing tubers or seeds and then mixing the pulp with water. The resulting paste is rid of its remaining impurities and dried into a powder. Flour results from crushing raw whole grains. Pure starch has been made since Roman…
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Fermenting Tofu Water
I’ve been keeping on with my tofu experiment, because the fat lady hadn’t sung yet. Using soured cheese water, aka fermented cheese whey, should have gotten me to a tofu texture closer to the tofu made with GdL. Surprisingly, it yielded an extra firm tofu instead. Furthermore, varying the salt level did not give a…
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Food is Science
Legend has it that the panettone was born from a forbidden romance in the 15th century. During a Christmas Eve feast hosted by the Duke of Milan – Ludovico il Moro, his head pastry chef burnt the dessert while stealing a kiss from a nobleman’s beautiful wife in the medieval passageway. A young scullery boy…
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Flakes, III
It’s said that making pies is not easy, but if you’ve gotten proficient at puff pastry, you’ll see that it’s just another piece of pie. Call it pie in America, tart in France, or crostata in Italy, it’s all about a sweet or savory filling studded by a flaky pastry dough. There is more than…
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Flakes, II
The croissant is butter and flour fermented into crispy, airy, and buttery flakes. It feels magical that a yeasted wheat dough filled with so much butter could rise into such an open crumb and flaky pastry. But it is possible because of lamination. Yeast works between layers of butter, digesting flour to transform layers of…
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Flakes
I’m talking about flakes of butter marbling a slab of pastry dough for delectable puff pastries. Only simples ingredients, mostly flour and butter, but with proper techniques and time, will create light and airy pastries like palmiers and croissants or a flaky and scrumptious crust base for pies and tarts. Techniques – because making puff…
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Food is Art
The mimosa is brunch’s popular cocktail. Made with Champagne and orange juice, it’s named after the beautiful mimosa flower for its bright yellow hue. But did you know that there is another cocktail made in a similar manner, of Prosecco and white peach juice, called the Bellini. The story of how its name came upon…
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On Reading
There’s much concern around reading. It’s demonstrated through the anxieties around our children’s ability to read – how soon, how much, and how fast. And we’re right to be concerned. Reading is the most basic and low-cost, yet has the power to change the world. Not just about a passing school grade, but being able…
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Hồ Xuân Hương’s Poetry
About 200 years ago, there was a Vietnamese poet named Hồ Xuân Hương. Born into a culture heavily influenced by Confucianism, during a time when women were to abide to the three obediences and the four virtues, she had the audacity to write poetry that was as sexual as obnoxious. For a kid reading her…
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