All about baking

[Minni]

Depaali,

I am no veteran. I am just a little curious!
I usually like to know "what, why and how" when learning new things.
When I get triggered, I end up filling up forums/friends with my looooooooong, sometimes boring postings!

Thanks for bearing with my postings forumhub friends!

Minni

[Minni]

I shall post the recipe for the breads I promised, but however, I should post in detail some info about bread baking as a process.

1 pound loaf of Old fashioned White Bread
Source: My bread machine's Instruction manual

Ingredients:
6 ounces(3/4) cup milk ( 90-100 deg F)
2 cups Bread flour
1 tbsp Sugar
1 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Butter/margarine
(1+1/2 tsp Active dry yeast
Or
1 tsp fast rise yeast/bread machine yeast/instant yeast)

Mix all the dry ingredients including yeast and then the liquids. Knead till soft. Let it rise covered in a warm corner for 1 hour. Then gently punch it down a little and shape it into a loaf and then let it rise in a warm oven covered in a loaf pan for 1- 1 1/2 hours and then remove the cover and bake in a 350 degree pre heated oven for 40-45 minutes. The doneness is tested by tapping the bottom of the loaf till you hear a hollow sound.

Let the loaf cool in the loaf pan for 5 minutes before you invert it onto a cooling rack. Wait till its totally cooled to cut a slice out of it.

The way to measure bread flour in this recipe is using a scoop to take the flour and then filling it lightly into the cup measure and leveling it.

[Minni]

1 pound loaf of Egg Bread

Well, the procedure remains the same. But the proportions of the ingredients used are as follows:

6 ounces(3/4 cup) water ( 90-100 deg F)
2 cups Bread Flour
1 tablespoon dry milk(like carnation dry milk)
1+ 1/2 tbsp Sugar
1 tsp Salt
1 Tbsp Butter/margarine
(1+1/2 tsp Active dry yeast
Or
1 tsp fast rise yeast/bread machine yeast/instant yeast)

[Kavitha Ravi]

MOIST CHOCLATE CAKE

250 grms butter
250 grms castor sugar
4 large eggs A grade

Sift together

70 grms Cocoa powder
150 grms self- raising flour
¼ cup evaporated milk

Method

Line a 22cm round cake tin with greased, grease proof paper.
Cream butter and castor sugar until light and creamy.
Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Fold in sifted dry ingredients one- third at a time.
Lastly stir in the evaporated milk.

Turn the mixture into prepared pan.
Bake in preheated oven 175oC for 45—50 minutes or until cooked

[Minni]

We encounter these terms on a regular basis...so I thought a little insight helps understand them better.

Enriched and Fortified Foods

Many foods are either enriched or fortified with vitamins and minerals.

What Does Enriched Mean?

Enriched means that vitamins or minerals have been added to the food. The vitamins and minerals are added to replace the original vitamins and minerals that were lost during the refining process. For example, if the food originally had iron, but the iron was lost during the refining process, the food will be 'enriched' to add the iron back into the food.

Consumers often think enriched means 'added vitamins and minerals'. This assumption is incorrect. Enriched mearly means to replace what was lost during the refining process.

What Does Fortified Mean?

Fortified means that vitamins or minerals have been added to the food in addition to the levels that were originally found before the food was refined. When foods are fortified, they will have more vitamins and minerals after they are refined than they did before they are refined. Common fortified foods are: milk (fortified with vitamin D) and salt (fortified with iodine).

"Fortified" is often misued by companies who produce cereal and fruit drinks. Cereal boxes will often say 'fortified with essential vitamins and minerals'. The cereal usually contains high amounts of sugar. Adding vitamins and minerals to the cereal gives it more nutritional value, but it doesn't change the high amount of sugar that is present.

For those interested in further reading about "How to read labels"
I have an interesting link at motherearthnews.com

[Minni]

Excellent Kavitha, I am glad you posted the recipe with proportions by weight.

Castor Sugar that Kavitha referred to is "super fine sugar" as its termed in the US.
"Castor or caster sugar" is the name of a very fine sugar in Britain, so named because the grains are small enough to fit though a sugar "caster" or sprinkler. It is sold as "superfine" sugar in the United States. Because of its fineness, it dissolves more quickly than regular white sugar, and so is especially useful in meringues and cold liquids. It is not as fine as confectioner’s sugar, which has been crushed mechanically (and generally mixed with a little starch to keep it from clumping).

If you don’t have any castor sugar on hand, you can make your own by grinding granulated sugar for a couple of minutes in a food processor.

Thanks.
Minni

[Kavitha Ravi]

CHOCKLATE CHEESE CAKE

Brown sugar 168 grms
Self rising flour 168 grms
Cocoa 56 grms
Butter 168 grms
Eggs 4
Whipping cream 200 ml
Cream Cheese 250 grms + 2tbls brown sugar
Essence vanilla 1 tsp

METHOD

Grease a 21 cm springform tin.
Shift the flour with the cocoa.
Cream the sugar with the butter.
Add in the eggs one by one.
Add the flour little by little.
Add in the essence.
Now beat the cream cheese with the cream and the brown sugar.
Pour half the batter in the greased tin.
Now pour the cream cheese mixture on top.
Now pour the rest of the batter covering the cream cheese.
Bake in a oven 165 oC for half an hour or till the cake is cooked

[ziaxxxxx]

helo..i am glad this thread has begun!...the thing is...whenevr i use store bought cake mixes and bake cakes in teh microwave..the results are very good .. but whne i make cake mix frum scratch or when i make cookies frum the basic ingredients...the cookies never cook proeprly..they are allwyays flat and very soft. not at all crisp like the ones availible in stores ..if i heat them more..tehy get burned..i dont use electric oven...only the microwave...can somebody PLEASE give me a good recipe for crisp chocolate chip cookies and other types of cookies and cakes to bake in the microwave along with the exact temperatures ( in degree celsius)??

[g's mom]

Hi Kavitha

I tried your moist chocolate cake recipe ( sans the egg )
I used evaporated milk and baking soda/powder as told by minni
The only thing is that with out egg 350F seemed a little high for the oven temperature.

Learnt it the hard way.... I reduced it to 320 and it was ok.... but by then the cocoa pwd got burnt some what and it gave a slightly bitter taste..... but it turned out waaaaaaaaay tooooo good from what I had expected ( all my earlier attempts to bake a eggless cake was not so good or should I say bad )

thanks
g's mom

[ash_970]

Dear All,

Any one has tried making puff pastry at home.

Based on the recipes available on net I tried once and instead of

getting puff pastry after baking the end product was some where

between biscuit and cookie...

While I was dreaming of getting a fine ,layered, crisp end product .

I did finished the so called biscuits with tea as a snack .. 8) ...

Can any one help me there how to prepare puff pastry ..it's my

wish to bake a nice pastry