Chocolate: Making Ganache

Hello fork musketeers!

Today we'll be focusing more on ganache. Om nom nom nom nom!

What is ganache?

Ganache is chocolate mayonnaise.

Okok, let's back up a bit...

Ganache is like chocolate mayonnaise. It's an emulsion of fat (cocoa butter) and liquid (cream). Fortunately you don't need a food processor or blender to make it, plus there are -tons- of ways to make your ganache flavourful and much more interesting.

The ratio between chocolate and cream will depend on what you'll be doing with your ganache. Generally speaking, if you're making truffles or want to cut out a shape, go for 2:1 (chocolate : cream). If you're looking for a glaze, 1:1 will suit your needs very well.

Method

There are a few ways to make ganache. The usual way I've seen is to boil your cream; pour it over your chocolate and let it melt before mixing it and wishing you had stronger biceps. In general, you'll want your cream; chocolate and flavouring. In this case, matcha.

At school, our teacher was very adamant not to boil the cream. Boiling the cream causes the liquid and fats to separate and you totally change the flavour of the cream. So, you warm it up. Key word being warm and it should feel slightly cool to the touch.

But Olivia, you might say, this won't melt the chocolate if I pour warm cream over it. What are you getting at?

Well, while ganache is like chocolate mayonnaise, it does require some attention to the temperature of your ingredients. If either of your ingredients are too hot, the emulsion won't work. At school, my teachers taught us to keep the average temperature of our ingredients between 30-35˚C. So we heat the cream and melt the chocolate. But if your method's been working out for you, go for it. Although I do think boiling the cream is a bad idea since it does affect the taste, but anyway... you'll heat your chocolate and your cream.

When they're at the desired temperatures, pour your cream into your chocolate in three or four parts. This ensures you get a good chance to have a good emulsion before committing all of your cream in. (Although if you're in a rush, pouring it all in works just as well. Don't tell anyone I said that.)

Step 1: Pour your cream into your chocolate

Now when you're making your emulsion, do not mix from the outside and do not use a whisk. Mixing from the outside doesn't create an emulsion, which makes both of us sad, and using a whisk incorporates air into the mixture. This will also mess up your emulsion. So use a spatula and mix from the centre!

As you're mixing, you're going to think, "oh donkey butt, I messed this up before I started." Just believe in yourself and keep mixing with your spatula. Eventually, in the centre, you'll see the cream and the chocolate come together into a ganache. Just keep mixing and when the cream no longer gets pulled into the centre, add another part of cream. Keep doing this until all of your cream is in. Then, and only then, can you run your spatula along the sides of the bowl and bring it into the centre.

Now you might think you're done, but if you look closely, sometimes your ganache will be a bit on the oily side. It'll kinda.... slide. Everywhere. For a small amount you may not notice this, but for a larger amount you'll see it. Just like buttercream, the answer to this is to just keep mixing. Just keep mixing, just keep mixing... until the ganache sticks to the sides of the bowl. Just be sure not to overwork it, otherwise your ganache can split. Yikes!

If all goes well, you should have a beautiful, glossy and sexy looking ganache. Delicious!

I hope you guys enjoyed this post. The next post will look more into how to flavour your chocolate in different ways.

Tempering chocolate

Hello fork musketeers!

It's almost been a whole (albeit busy) month and not a single post on chocolate? I call that blasphemy. So here is how I'll make it up to you guys: let's talk about tempering chocolate.

What is tempering?

If you've even dipped your toes into making adorable, small chocolates, chances are you've tried your hand at tempering chocolate. Heck, if you're even remotely aware of the chocolate process, chances are you've at least heard of it. You may not know exactly what it is but all you know is it's something something shiny chocolate; something something mmm so tasty in my tummy.

Without getting too technical, tempering, or crystallization, is the process of getting the cocoa butter crystals into the right pattern/formation to give chocolate all of its characteristic qualities: the snap; the taste and the smooth appearance. If you've done some basic searches on the internet, most resources tend to talk about tempering in terms of temperature. At school, however, my teachers insist on calling it crystallization. No joke, they'll always correct us when we say tempering. So what's the big deal?

Well, it's a matter of perception. The school of thought for tempering relies solely on a number. Yes, while it's true that the crystals you want melt at X temperature and you need it bring it down to Y temperature, chocolate is still a living medium. It's not quite like bread, but some chocolates don't act the way they normally should. For example, we did a bunch of dark chocolates with coloured stuff (cocoa butter based) and remelted it all. After that, it started being a little weird; namely staying streaky and getting really thick soon after it reached the desired consistency.

Now if we were using a thermometer, we would be too afraid to raise the temperature because it wouldn't be the "right temperature". In reality we needed to raise the temperature to keep the right consistency. Tempering involves relying on numbers that may not otherwise work; crystallization involves listening to your chocolate and reacting accordingly to make your work easier.

If you're curious about the technical parts, you can take a look for the heading, Technical Deep Dive. It'll be at the end of the post.

Methods for tempering

There are a lot of different ways to temper chocolate. Ideally, when you're done, your chocolate should feel slightly cool to the touch (approx. 30˚C ish). At school we learned two methods: the table method and the seedling method. Whether you choose the first or second method, you need to have a bain-marie set up (double boiler). Putting chocolate directly into your hot pan/pot will most likely burn it. At that point you're just burning away your hard-earned cash, which is no fun to anyone.

1. Table method

The table method needs a few things. For this you'll need:

1. An icing spatula
2. A wide scraper
3. Marble or granite counter top.

Melt your chocolate until it feels pretty warm. If you like numbers, that's around 50˚C. When your chocolate is hot enough, pour 2/3 of it onto the table and start spreading it around with your icing spatula. Then gather the chocolate with your scraper into the centre. Rinse and repeat.

To test the final temperature of your chocolate, dip the top part of your pinky/finger into the hot chocolate, wipe, then into the tabled chocolate. You'll get an idea how cool or warm your chocolate will be when you mix the two parts together. Just make sure the tabled chocolate doesn't start to crystallize or thicken too much; that's usually a bit too much.

When it's at the right temperature, put all of the chocolate back into the bowl and start mixing. It should be slightly below body temperature. Warm it up slightly to get it at a workable consistency.

Pros
1. No bits of unmelted chocolate like in the seedling method. So it's more "clean" in that sense.
2. Makes the overall tempering process quicker.

Cons
1. Requires a number of tools most people don't have at home.
2. Dirties your counter space.
3. Requires more active time dedicated to chocolate rather than doing something else.

2. Seedling method

This is a very accessible method. Obviously not everyone have a marble/granite table and it doesn't even need any tools aside from your spatula to do it!

You'll melt 2/3 of your total chocolate and raise the temperature to about 40˚C (so it should feel warm). Then dump the rest of the chocolate in there and let it melt the chocolate. You can either leave it for a while or mix it.

You'll probably be left with some pieces of chocolate, but don't fret; just bring your bain-marie to a boil and stick your bowl on top for 5-15s. Take it off; stir and gently melt the remaining pieces. Or, if you're too impatient, you can pick them out or run it through a sifter.

Pros
1. Leaves your work space very clean since it's all in the bowl.
2. Allows you to multitask better since you can leave this alone and come back 5-10 minutes later.

Cons
1. Those naughty chocolate bits that didn't melt. (Super annoying)
2. Chocolate cools down at its own pace.

Protip: Chocolate is pretty expensive. Chocolate also happens to be very forgiving - it can just be remelted if you mess up. Remember to scrape your work surface and your tools to reduce the amount of chocolate that goes down your sink and save your hard-earned cash!

Now whether you choose to use the table method or the seedling method, you'll want to check if your chocolate is ready before using it. The easiest way to do this is to take a piece of parchment paper and gently dip one side of it on the surface of your chocolate. Then place the parchment paper, clean side down, onto a cold surface. Now wait.

There's something very interesting that happens. By cooling your chocolate down immediately from a certain temperature, your chocolate will either: crystallize with streaks/dots; crystallize perfectly (smooth and delicious) or take forever to crystallize. So weird, right?

Here are some rules of thumb when handling chocolate:
1. The test should crystallize in less than 5 minutes. Any longer than 3 minutes usually means your chocolate is too warm.
2. If your chocolate crystallizes streaky or dotty, it can mean it's still too warm and/or your chocolate isn't well-mixed. Make sure to mix it very well with your spatula to incorporate the cocoa butter and try again.
3. If you're using chocolate you've melted before, you can mix in new chocolate if you feel iffy about it. Both my teachers said opposing things, so try a batch of "old" chocolate and a batch of new and recycled chocolate. It can't really hurt.
4. You can use a hand blender to cut the bits of chocolate that haven't melted. It helps speed up the cooling process as well.
5. If nothing works, try re-tempering it again.

6. If nothing really works, put it aside and do something else.

Protips

#1. I know home bakers tend to work in small batches but it's actually easier to temper and work with a big batch of chocolate. This is because, by virtue of having more mass, a big batch of chocolate will hold the right temperature longer. This allows you to work more at your leisure rather than constantly cooling and reheating your chocolate to do only piece at a time.

#2. When you're done with your chocolate, pour the rest of it onto a sheet of parchment paper to crystallize. Remember to scrape the bowl as well!

#3. Scraping chocolate is a lot easier when it's solid than when it's still fluid. If you have a small icing spatula, those are perfect for scraping the insides of a bowl. It's also my favourite way to clean a bowl.

Chocolate is a forgiving medium but you need a lot of patience with it. You'll need practice to master the art of proper crystallization but when you do... the chocolate world becomes your oyster.

Technical Deep Dive

So, what's this business thing about crystals and stuff?

If you're familiar with the composition of chocolate, chocolate is mainly made up of cocoa mass and cocoa butter. The key ingredient you're paying attention to for proper crystallization is the cocoa butter.

Cocoa butter is a "polymorph". Not that it can take random shapes, but it's a term that means the cocoa butter's molecules can take on many different patterns or structural shapes. The molecules can go into 6 (!!!) different shapes; the formation chocolatiers want is type 5: the crystal formation that gives chocolate its delicious, snappy and smooth surface.

Nature being nature, untempered chocolate naturally has all 6 different kinds of formations in different proportions. By heating the chocolate above body temperature, you're effectively deconstructing all the crystals in the chocolate - a tabula rasa or a blank slate if you will. So that's why you have to heat up chocolate, aside from making it uniformly fluid.

Now why do you have to cool it down? Well, it turns out types 1-5 all form and melt at different temperatures. You know what's really convenient? Type 5 forms at around 30˚C or just below body temperature. So if you're trying to temper your chocolate, it may fall to about 29˚C or 30˚C. It's no biggie; just gently heat it back up, which will also make the other types melt and leave the desired type 5 crystals. Now you know why most chocolate tempering tutorials use that magic number.

Realistically speaking you're always going to have a bit of the other crystal formations. However, there's something magical that happens when you mold your chocolates at the right crystallization point. Chocolate has a "memory". As it cools, type 5 crystals will be the dominant formation and it also makes all the other crystals take on the type 5 form. It will continue to harden and crystallize until it's finally set with the wonderful chocolate, snappy and glossy smooth qualities.

As long as your chocolate doesn't completely set (become solid), you don't need to re-temper it. Your chocolate already has the predominant type 5 crystals, so you just need to reheat the chocolate to the workable consistency. Just make sure not to heat it up too much, otherwise you'll be starting from square 1.

I hope this post was helpful. If you have any questions and or comments, don't be shy and leave it down below or contact me by email on the side bar. Thanks for reading!

Bread deep dive: Flour, fermentation and proofing

Hello fork musketeers!

This is part 2 of the Bread deep dive I promised earlier. If you want to skip around, here's the table of contents:

1. Basic anatomy of bread and bread making
2. Flour, fermentation and proofing
3. Fat vs. fat-free doughs
4. Designs on breads

Let's start off by looking at the flour.

It's all about dat wheat

Flour is entirely starch. While most people think flour is a non-perishable item, it originally wasn't... depending on who you ask. During the 1800s, most people would bring their wheat to the miller and grind small batches to use over the summer; they'd be able to make bigger batches just before the winter. What made flour so perishable? The answer is in the grain.

The flour richer people used was different from the flour the poorer people used. It was believed foods that were more white - "purer" in a way - was healthier. So when flour is made, the grain is ground as a mix of endosperm (the actual grain); the bran and the germ; aka whole wheat flour. The flour used by wealthier folks removed the germ and the bran; whereas the flour used by the poorer folks used more germ and bran. Germ and bran have more oils and nutrients in it, thus they would expire more quickly than their germ/bran-free cousin.

As it turns out, flour made exclusively with the endosperm didn't contain enough nutrients. In Canada, flour is mandated to always mix the endosperm and some germ in it; the bran is usually removed - to be used as livestock feed - or kept in. That being said, not all wheat is created equal. Without getting too technical, there are strains of wheat that have more proteins/gluten in it ("hard" wheat) and wheat that has less gluten("soft" wheat). This is partially why different brands of flour don't universally act the same way. Just because you're growing wheat doesn't mean it's going to have the same characteristics as another farmer's wheat. Yeesh!

You may be wondering: so Olivia, what about bleached flour? What's the difference between bleached and unbleached? Enriched?

Industrial-produced flour, like Five Roses and Robin hood, use cast iron grinders to grind the wheat. It's a lot faster and more efficient, however it makes a lot of heat. The heat produced by the milling process destroys some of the nutrients found in the germ and the bran; thus they have to put in additional nutrients ("enriched" flour) to make up for that.

Bleaching/unbleached is a bit more complicated. If you were to get flour from the miller today, you would probably think, "oh boy! Time to make the bestest bread ever with fresh flour!" However, that isn't the case. When flour is exposed to the air it oxidizes and makes the gluten stronger - and also makes the flour more white. This oxidizing process takes a few days or weeks to complete; which usually happens while it's being shipped to your grocery store.

Bleaching is the shortcut way to have white flour. Instead of letting the flour age to turn white and develop the gluten proteins at its own pace, the manufacturer uses bleaching agents and aging agents, such as peroxides and potassium bromate respectively. If you're more conscientious about being organic/reducing the amount of chemicals, you'd probably be more inclined to buy unbleached flour on your next trip to the grocery store. (Totally calling it, by the way)

Fermentation/Proofing

As I covered last time, bread rises because it uses yeast as a leavener; or, in French, levain. This means that yeast eats the sugar and, as a waste product, produces gas (CO2) and alcohol. If we look at the sourdough starter I made, you can see the bubbles of gas made by the yeast.

Now I've been asked this a few times: Olivia, what do you mean there's sugar? Where does it come from? Well, in flour there are two things that are going to help you; an enzyme called amalyse and, of course, yeast.

When you make bread, you put flour; water and yeast. When water is introduced, that's when things start to pick up. Amalyse is an enzyme present in flour and it breaks down starch into simple sugars. Bacteria likes to eat simple sugars, especially yeast. When it's baking in the oven, the enzyme continues to work until it gets too hot; which also allows the yeast to work faster with more sugar until it finally dies off from the heat.

If you're making a wild yeast starter, then the additional bacteria you're concerned about is lactobacillus. While yeast produces gas and alcohol, lactobacillus produces acid: lactic acid and acetic acid. Lactic acid will give the bread more flavour while acetic acid will make it more tangy.

What does it mean when a recipe says to let your dough proof? It's not super complicated; all it means is to let your dough sit while the yeast gets to work. In other words you're fermenting your dough. It might be a little weird to imagine, considering when most people think of fermentation they think of this:

This:

Or everyone's favourite science experiment you find in your fridge:

Totally delicious.

But that's exactly what you're doing when you're proofing your dough. It's fermenting. That being said, during this process you're a) allowing the yeast to do its thing and b) improving the overall flavour of the bread. Since bread making is an art and not a science, you can play around with the fermentation time.

Fast fermentation: Shorter proofing time in a warm place.
This doesn't take as long and you're obviously speeding up the fermentation process. However, the bread is more bland.

Slow fermentation: Long proofing time (usually 8-12hrs) in a cool place.
This allows the bread to develop more complex flavours since the fermentation process is going at a nice, slow pace. However, it obviously stinks to wait 12hours for your bread to do its thing.

Remember that your dough may rise a few times but yeast only rises once. Once it reaches its peak, it's only going to fall from there. In addition to your developed gluten, this will help determine whether your bread is fluffy and airy or dense and chewy.

Sourdough Chronicles: The First Bake(s)

Hello fork musketeers!

I've promised you to tell you about the very first time I baked with George. I'm still fiddling and feeding George regularly and ever on my quest to get the most sour of sourdoughs!

The First Bake

It was pretty exciting to finally use George. I'm kind of glad only two of us used it; even though I had about 2L of starter, we collectively use about 700g. So we cut the starter a little under half. I'm ok with that; I wasn't sure what I'd be doing with all of that starter!

So here's the first loaves I made.

... And here is the second attempt.

Both had a good texture; the second had a nicer crust. However they're still not sour enough! Just.... barely. I did try slightly different things with them.

The first attempt

The very, very attempt at sourdough. Neither of us had ever made it, so we just winged it. We made the recipe based on the idea that a preferment should replace a quarter to half of your flour. I also looked up a few basic sourdough recipes to get the general gist; then we went from there. We just used all-purpose flour to try it out.

The most interesting thing that happened was my using a loaf pan and her rolling it into a ball. Check it out:

The good news is they rose (hurray!). We put some additional water in the oven for better crusts. Despite using the same method, they are the exact same recipe that looks like two completely different breads. Strangely enough, mine was also very slightly more tangy. I think it's because I left mine covered under the heat of the sun. Maybe. I'm not sure.

Anyway, the first attempt was a WIP. I knew my starter was strong enough to make bread rise but the flavour wasn't there. Does this mean the flavour hasn't developed enough? I'll just have to keep feeding and trying.

The second attempt

Since I was unsatisfied with the results of the first, this time I thought I'd try something a little different. I've read that a longer rise time would yield a more sour sourdough so I let mine sit for 5 hours. My classmate used all-purpose as well as another flour. She made her's after 3 hours.

I also fudged my dough a little and made it a little too wet. Maybe combined with a wetter dough and the long fermentation time it didn't rise that much. It did, however, have a fairly nice crumb.

In retrospect it looks more like ciabatta. Hmm!

As I mentioned before, it wasn't very sour; whereas my classmate's bread was noticeably more sour. So perhaps, for whatever reason, adding a different kind of flour - so probably whole wheat and/or rye - can help it be more sour. I made some sourdough pancakes a few days ago and I added some whole wheat to try my theory out. It was totally more sour.

Also very delicious with overripe bananas.

I'm still going to experiment and keep trying out different things to get the most sour out of sourdough. I have a few ideas in mind... 

In addition to these, I decided to try making roti canai with George.

Roti canai or roti prata is a south-eastern flat bread. I've had this a few times when I went to Malaysia. It's always served with some curry as a dipping sauce. My classmate and I made a roti canai recipe with condensed milk; she omitted a preferment while I put some in.

The results? Her's came out a bit sweeter and more flat. Mine was not as sweet but it was fluffier; probably because of the yeast.

I'll be doing more experiments with George. I have a few ideas on my mind...

Sourdough Chronicles: The journey

Hello fork musketeers!

I thought I'd give everyone an update on George. It's been a lot of fun; a lot of research and a lot of troubleshooting.

The curious case of
not very curious George.

The struggle

George has been a confusing experiment. While there was definitively signs of life and activity, George never rose or only very slightly - 125%.

Signs of life!

The rule of thumb for starters is that it should double or even triple (!!) in volume. The idea is if a starter can't double itself, it can't double your bread. Such a far off dream for George (sorry George). So I thought perhaps there wasn't enough yeast to actually finish all the food I was giving it. I skipped a feeding and found this...

Look at dat liquid

The liquid you see there is called hooch. Since yeast poops out gas and alcohol, sourdough starter has alcohol in it. Don't bother drinking it; it's really bad booze. In any case, the presence of hooch means that the starter is hungry! Clearly there was yeast in the starter, otherwise there wouldn't be any hooch. So what the hell, George?

I did more research and found a common problem for sluggish yeast is temperature. This month has been relatively cool for June and sluggish yeast means it isn't warm enough for them. I put George in the oven with the light on and I plan to get a seedling mat for him.

And suddenly, after a few feedings, George sprang to life.

Yes; I moved George
into a bigger container.

The top black mark is where George was before. About 4 hours after feeding him, he didn't just rise - he tripled in volume. (I was so proud and I never doubted you, George) Now that it's been getting warmer, George would always have a crust on top when I left him in the lit oven. Starters are pretty resilient, so I wasn't worried; the crust meant it was a little too warm in there. Now he sits quite contently on the counter.

After each feeding, he peaks between 200 - 250% at the 6 hour mark then falls to about 120% at the 8 hour mark. Every. Single. Time. I'm now a proud owner of a healthy, bouncing sourdough starter.

I've read that the rule of thumb for feeding a starter is to always double the amount; so if you have 1kg of starter you need to give it 1kg of flour and 1kg of water (100% hydration). However I haven't been doubling; I'm kind of cheating by using cups but I generally feed George 1 - 1.5 cups of flour with equal part water. I tried doubling the amount as well. In both cases, George always rose by 200-250% and hasn't developed a hooch layer. I guess what I'm doing is working so far.

I don't want to have this post be too long, so I'll write up another post about the first bake with George. Oooo! If you have any comments, don't be shy. I always appreciate feedback or maybe some questions you guys may have!

Until next time, fork musketeers.

Bread deep dive: The anatomy of bread and bread making

Hello fork musketeers!

This is part 1 of the Bread deep dive I promised earlier. If you want to skip around, here's the table of contents:

1. Basic anatomy of bread and bread making
2. Fermentation/Proofing
3. Fat vs. fat-free doughs
4. Designs on breads

So without further ado...

What's in bread?

Bread is everywhere. It's the first thing that welcomes you to a nice restaurant after you've been seated; it's the vehicle to the pate you've been thinking about all day or it could just be a really good sandwich with the right bread.

As I mentioned before, bread making is more of an art than a science. This is because you're working with so few ingredients: flour; water; yeast and sometimes salt. While this makes it look easy, it's actually easier to mess it up because it's so simple. You know, the thing that's easy to learn but hard to master.

Bread is basically gluten. Gluten is a protein that is made up of two components: gliadins and glutelins. These proteins are mainly found in grains such as wheat, rye and barley and gives structure to the bread as well as elasticity. Gluten is literally the protein that gives the bread structure.

You can develop gluten in a few ways. The standard way is to knead it. There are lots of ways to knead and you can definitively find one method that you like the most. I prefer to grab the front "edge"; fold it back on itself; rotate 90˚; push forward with the heel of my palm. By kneading the dough you're developing the gluten thus making the structure of your bread more sound. If you have a wetter dough, like ciabatta, you can do the stretch and fold method. I haven't tried it myself but it looks promising.

Now the next ingredient is yeast. Yeast is a bacteria that naturally occurs in nature, including flour and fermentation. If you were trying to make a sourdough starter, you're trying to cultivate "wild yeast" or the yeast naturally found in flour. Commercial yeast is a specific strain of yeast that is particularly effective at fermenting your bread as well as making it rise. If you look closely at breads, you'll see a variety of bubbles within the bread structure.

These bubbles are caused by yeast releasing alcohol and gases. Yeast is used to leaven, or rise, breads because it also adds flavour to the bread. This combination of flavour and ability to rise the bread is something you can't get with baking powder or baking soda alone. Before you get wigged out by bacteria in your bread, you can rest assured that yeast and any other bacteria dies off while it's being baked. Actually, as the internal temperature of your bread rises, the yeast becomes more active and releases more gas until it finally dies off. This is why your bread also rises in the oven.

In a weird, philosophical way, by making bread you are playing with life. You're handling, observing and taking special care of something that is alive and needs your attention to be the best it can be. Kind of like a baby, minus the ear-piercing shrills adorable cuteness. The dough is usually pretty darn soft though. #HolyShitPlushGauge™

Bread making tips

So if you found a baker's bread recipe, you might have read something like this:

1. Flour 100%
2. Water 70%
3. Yeast 1.5%
4. Salt 1.5%

The first thing you're thinking is probably: what on earth did I just read? Percentages are about adding up to 100%! This adds up to 173%! What gives, man? Is this some secret bread making language I have to decode before I can make cool breads? Darn it!

Well, the reality is fortunately more simple. It's a slight quirk in bread recipes that allows you to easily scale your recipe. So let's say you wanted to use 500g of flour, well it's going to look like this:

1. Flour: 500g (100%)
2. Water: 350g (70% of 500)
3. Salt: 7.5g (1.5% of 500)
4. Yeast: 7.5g (1.5% of 500)

If you've checked out some bread videos, some people would suggest to reserve some flour to adjust the consistency of your dough. This is actually not a great idea since your recipe is based on the amount of flour you've used. So, as a rule of thumb, you should be reserving the liquid portion of your recipe (water and/or milk). As much as we'd like to think all the all-purpose flours at IGA are the same, in reality they aren't. Some flours are drier than others or act differently. Of course don't beat yourself up if you tossed in all your water and your dough is too wet. At that point there's not much you can do aside from putting in more flour.

Chef told me that when you're making artisanal breads, it's always better to be on the wet side (so 60/65% to 80%). When bread is made commercially, the dough tends to be on the drier side since it's hard to work with sticky dough. Generally speaking though, bread-making formula follows these steps:

1. Mix all ingredients except fats until just combined
2. Add fats (oil/butter) last and knead.
3. When the dough is ready, set aside in a bowl and let it proof until doubled in volume.
4. Punch down risen dough and shape.
5. Proof again until doubled in volume.
6. Bake/cook/fry/whatever.

If you have a fancier recipe, the steps will look like this:

1. Make a pre-ferment a day ahead.
2. Mix all ingredients (plus pre-ferment) except fats until just combined
3. Add fats (oil/butter) last and knead.
4. When the dough is ready, set aside in a bowl and let it proof until doubled in volume.
5. Punch down risen dough and shape. If you want some cool stuff in the middle, now's the time to add it.
6. Proof again until doubled in volume.
7. Cut a pattern on the top.
8. Bake/cook/fry/whatever.

If you can grasp this formula, you now know the method for 99% bread recipes. It's only a matter of the amounts and ingredients to make it. I know it sounds really easy to do but the complicated part comes from actually handling the thing that's alive: your dough. Depending on the temperature, a recipe that says "3 hours to rise" may actually take 5; you can also add less yeast since it'll be warmer; if your work place is humid, you can hold back on the water, etc etc etc.

I'm sure you can see why making bread is more of an art than a science. The most important thing is to know how your flour acts and to take your work environment into consideration. It sounds really wishy-washy but as you work with dough, you'll learn how to handle it and what to expect.

Recipe tips: Damier (vanilla and chocolate checkerboard cookies)

Hello fork musketeers!

Today we'll be looking at damier. Or, if you played some SNES games, that square-pattern cookie from Yoshi's Cookie.

Apparently it has a name and now
I know it. Sweet.

But in all seriousness, here's the batch I made.

This actually a really simple recipe to make. All you need is some flour, a knife, maybe a ruler and a bit of technique.

Damier tips

So doing this cookie in the middle of bread month is slightly unusual. There's no yeast in it; instead it uses baking powder as a leavener. It's also made with the creaming method (cream butter and sugar together; add eggs; then flour) so it's more like a cake/biscuit. Given the copious amounts of bread we've been making, this was a nice change.

We made this using a "plain" batter and a chocolate batter. The chocolate batter we made was quite thick and a bit tough but you want this to be more on the "tougher" side. This is for shaping.

To shape

Shaping damier is pretty simple. The trick is your dough needs to be cold so it holds its shape.

On a floured surface roll out your plain dough first. Decide how thick you want them to be and whether you want a square or a rectangle shape. I find the square-shaped damiers better looking, so make sure to cut enough pieces for a 2x2, 3x3 or 4x4 cookie. 

Protip: If you used baking powder in your dough, super square pieces will puff up and your shape won't look as nice before going into the oven. Keep it a little rectangular. It's more important to choose a size and stick with it! If you omitted the baking powder you can make everything square

As you cut out these pieces, make sure they're as straight as possible before going into the fridge. They will hold its shape and you'll have a harder time putting them together if they're all wavy curly like. If you have a straight edge handy you can use it to straighten your pieces. When they're all cut, pop them into the fridge and wait for them to firm up.

Now for the fun part. Assembling them together! If you have some kids around, this would probably be the fun part to get them involved. I like to "pre-assemble" the cookie first to make sure I get the best fitting slices before committing. When you are ready to glue them together, wet your fingers and gently press them together. When you're done, put them back in the fridge.

Pre-assembly so I know which pieces
fit best with which.

You can just skip this step if you don't want to do it but I think they look nice with the chocolate/plain layers. If you choose to the outside layers, you'll need some leftover plain and chocolate dough. Just roll them out thinly and place your firm cookie log on top. Double check to make sure the dough is rolled out enough to wrap around your cookie log. Then commit by glueing your log onto your dough and cut off the excess. Gently wrap'n'roll, glueing the sides as you go and, when you get to the end, cut the extra dough off and... you guessed it, back into the fridge. Rinse and repeat for the second layer if you want.

Wet the next side and wrap!

Trim the last side so it all fits together.

When your cookies are firm, now's the time to cut. Cut them between 4-5mm and pop them in a 320˚F oven. They'll start to brown on the edges, so make sure to check and rotate them if you have to.

The reason why you want to cut them about 4-5mm is to prevent them from puffing too much. When the cookies are on the thinner side, the majority of the cookie is being directly cooked by the oven. This prevents the cookie from puffing too much. I only learned this after I baked them.

Protip: If you're having some trouble getting a flat cookie, let your cookies bake until there's a crust. Then put a layer of parchment paper and another tray on top to keep the surface flat.

Then tadaaaa! Cute little cookies!

I personally prefer the first layer to be the same colour as the "plus" squares. Otherwise the outer layer doesn't set a strong contrast from the squares.

How do you like to shape these cookies? Let me know in the comments below!

Sourdough Chronicles: The Intrigue

Hello fork musketeers!

I've decided to try making my own sourdough starter.

I've never made sourdough and I'm not very fond of it. However, my sister is a big fan and we recently played around with fermented apple water. It made our baguettes taste like apples. Seriously.

The pink/red tones are from the apple skins.
Nice colour, no?

This has intrigued me since we made fermented apple water. I kept thinking of different ways to flavour a bread and thought the "off" taste of sourdough with a sweeter, fruity note would be a nice contrast.

I've done some research and it seems a bit more involved than other breads. So I've decided to keep track of my baby steps into the world of sourdough.

What's in a sourdough?

Sourdough's name gives you a hint at what it's about. As described by my sister, sourdough "tastes a little off... but in a good way." The reason why it tastes off is because of the starter/pre-ferment used in sourdough. In general, pre-ferment is a 1:1 ratio of water:flour plus yeast to get the fermentation process going.  Sourdough pre-ferment still follows the 1:1 formula, however you don't add yeast. Bacteria, including several strains of yeast, is everywhere and what you've just done is created an open house for the bacteria in your flour to grow. So you leave it outside, preferably in a warm place.

I'm still pretty new to this so I'm reading a lot of articles about making your own starter. So far it seems to follow a certain formula but some of the details are kind of hazy for me.

1. Start with organic flour; whole wheat flour or rye flour. These flours have more micro-organisms that will help you in your bread adventures. If you don't, I started mine with all-purpose.
2. Do a 1:1 ratio of flour and water and whisk well. Incorporating air will help the bacteria grow.
3. Leave for 8-24 hours and "feed" it again. All this means is add more flour and water in equal amounts. So if you started with 1/4 cup of flour, add another 1/4 cup.
4. Repeat step 2 over and over again until your starter is stable.

Mine showed activity within 24 hours. Depending on your conditions, there might only be signs between the 24-36 hour mark.

AAHHH IT'S ALIVE!!

It also smelled really fucking stinking awful. Did I mention stinking awful? Because it was really awful. I was worried I got my ratios wrong but I marched on and fed it again. It was simultaneously an exciting but disgusting moment.

I've read tutorials where parts of the starter is discarded. When you're first starting a sourdough starter, the bacteria in the starter is not very stable. I've read one article where the author high advised against using a week-old starter. So apparently it can take at least a week before things get in order.

Second, when you have a stable starter it needs to be fed in equal parts, therefore increases exponentially (basically doubling at each feeding). So unless you have a lot of empty swimming pools, you'll either use it in pancakes/muffins/whatever or chuck it. When it's first starting, the amounts people suggest varies...

So far my feedings have been all-purpose flour and whole wheat. I've been doing more research and some tutorials suggested 12 hour feedings and others have done 24 hour feedings. My guess is your schedule will depend on the weather. If you're in a warmer area, you'll most likely experience faster bacteria growth so a 12hr feeding is probably best. If it's more cold, you can probably get away with 24hr feeding.

Honestly guys, I have no clue what I'm doing and I'm just winging it.  It's been relatively cool (yeast likes warmer temperatures of 27-35˚C) so I'm going to wait 24hrs today and see if it changes anything.

Smells pleasantly sour. I must be
doing something right!... Right?

 So we'll see how much George grows and stabilizes.

Yes, I've named my starter George. He's my new bacterial tamagotchi pet that I will love, hug (through the container), feed and tuck in at night.

Good thing it isn't a real tamagotchi pet 'cause mine always died on me. Yeah...

Bread deep dive: the intro

Hello fork musketeers!

After I posted the bread basics, I was pretty unsatisfied with the quality of the post. Breads, in general, are pretty much the same: flour; water; salt; yeast and maybe some sugar. And yet it's all so, so different!

As I mentioned before, bread making is more of an art than blindly following the recipe. Breads are particularly sensitive to the weather, humidity and temperature will affect your bread. Rather than blindly following the amounts in your recipe, making bread is more about looking for a consistency and being aware of what you're doing and why.

That being said, the base of all breads is flour; water; salt; and yeast. Bread is ridiculously cheap to make but the process can seem rather off-putting, or confusing, to some. Aside from getting flour in places you never knew flour could get into, there's all the kneading and the proofing and the temperature and gosh darn sticky doughs and the kneading and tldr too complicated brb gonna buy my bread at Metro/IGA/Provigo. kthxbai.

Obviously if you prefer to buy your own bread, go ahead. Nobody's judgin' ya. Making your own bread, however, can be rewarding. Since the recipe is so simple, you can really tailor it to your personal tastes; case-in-point, the bagels I made. Once you understand the underlying principles of bread, the sky is the limit.

Over this mini-series, the tentative parts are:

1. Basic anatomy of bread and bread making
2. Fermentation/Proofing
3. Fat vs. fat-free doughs
4. Designs on breads

It should be informative and help make your breads better!

Recipe tips: Lady fingers

Hello fork musketeers!

Today I'll be covering some older content: lady fingers.

Homemade lady fingers are those fancy little biscuits that always gets a delighted, "Ooohhh!!" smile from your friend. Little do they know, they're pretty easy to make and you can make a pretty big batch under an hour. Crazy, I know. They don't have a very extensive list of ingredients and you will most likely have all the things at home. Crazy, I know!

What's in a lady finger?

Lady fingers, or biscuit à la cuillère, are essentially (separated) eggs; flour and sugar. Most people are probably more familiar with Italian-style lady fingers; the ones that you buy at the grocery store to make tiramisu. Fun fact: there are french-style ones!

The difference between the two is the overall texture. Italian lady fingers were designed for young toddlers in the middle of teething. The harder and drier texture relieves the pain and won't cause the toddlers to choke. French lady fingers, however, were not meant for toddlers. According to Chef, they were given to high class ladies who had an "afternoon tea" meal of champagne, strawberries and... lady fingers. Don't even try pretending you drink champagne because you have lady fingers. You're not fooling anybody.

That being said, you can totally make tiramisu with both. While Italian lady fingers are, conceptually, better since they'll absorb more spiked coffee, you can still use French lady fingers as well.

Lady finger tips

So I have some good news for you. The only electronic assistance you need is your mixer and your oven (gas assistant if you have a gas oven). Hurray! First separate your eggs. It's really important that there is NO egg yolks in your egg whites. Protein is meringue's death certificate. It'll be easier to avoid piercing the egg yolk if you tap the side of the egg on a flat surface, like your table, rather than the edge of a bowl.

Protip: It's way easier to separate eggs when the eggs are cold. You can either pass the egg yolk between the two shells or you can get messy and use your hand as a strainer. Alternatively, though maybe not the most sanitary option, you can use an empty water bottle and "suck" the egg yolk into the bottle and transfer into your bowl. 

First, beat your yolks and sugar together until it drips down your beater like this. This is called "thick ribbons". 

Set this aside in another mixing bowl and wash your mixing bowl very well. Don't worry if there's still a bit of water left in it; just make sure there's no more egg yolk/oil in it.

Protip: You may be thinking, "why can't I beat the egg whites first then the egg yolks? It'll save me some washing!" Raw meringue, however, doesn't do very well at room temperature. If you leave it out for too long it starts to separate and gets watery. It'll be ok if you can keep the meringue moving but you're looking at extending its life 20 minutes max. So, while more cumbersome, this way will prevent you from screwing up your meringue and leaving you with extra egg yolks. Which is annoying as hell, I know.

Gently beat your egg whites until it becomes foamy then you can add your sugar and continue beating. You're looking for stiff peaks; what this means is when you take your whisk out of the meringue it should hold a point or look like a bird's beak.

Chef said think of Big Bird
from Sesame street. Big bird's beak
isn't like this at all. Jussayin.

Now here comes a somewhat tricky part. What you need to do is incorporate the whipped egg yolks and the meringue together in the least amount of folds to preserve the air in your meringue.

How to fold meringue into your other ingredient(s)
Step 1: Use your spatula to take a third of your meringue and plop it into your wet ingredient. If you're incorporating flour, put some of your dry ingredients into the meringue.
Step 2: Gently scrape the side of your bowl with your spatula.

Step 3: ... and fold some batter over the top.

Step 4: Then gently smoosh your batter 2-4 times.

Finished scooping the batter over
the top...

... followed by a gentle smoosh.

Step 5: Rotate your bowl and repeat from Step 1 until the batter is well combined.

You want to make sure you don't have large pockets of meringue in your batter. This will give you some uneven rising in your finished product. When you're done, put the batter into a piping bag or screw modern convention and do the name justice by using a spoon. It depends on how rebellious you feel. I'm quite conventional so I used a piping bag.

Protip: If you have a tray that can fit your wire rack, you can put the wire rack into your tray. Top it off with parchment paper and you have a grid-guideline for your lady fingers. Just make sure to put something in the corners to prevent your paper from flying.

Lady finger guidelines

Once it's all piped out, you must, must, MUST put some icing sugar on top. Do one coat, wait 30-60s, then do a second coat. This is imperative to a crispy, texture top. Don't be shy now.

Notice how I was not shy with the sugar.
DO NOT BE SHY. Shyness won't get you
a nice crust.

Protip: If you don't have icing sugar readily available, you can use your food processor or your coffee grinder to grind regular sugar. Plus this way saves you some cash.

Now bake until it looks crispy, crusty and lovely. It's a really short bake time so don't go away. Mine took about 7 minutes on the dot.

My non-shyness paid off.

There you go. Lady fingers! They're spongey, chewy and have a really light flavour. Can you believe it's only eggs, sugar and flour?! Plus they take less than an hour to make. Now you're morally obligated to make these instead of buying them. No excuses now.

So far we've only been practicing the recipes we've done (we did pain au lait which is exactly like brioche. This isn't new content). Tomorrow we're supposed to be making apple sourdough. I'm pretty excited since I've never made sourdough before and I want to do some experiments with it. Ironically I don't really like sourdough, haha!

I hope you guys enjoyed this. Don't be shy and leave a comment down below!