The Frying Pan

Cerberus

1:13 AM

Hi!

@Jolenealaska Picture!

Jolenealaska

Coming up! :}

It is Yummy!

Incredibly soft, but not in a Wonder bread way

It's got potato, potato water, egg and quite a bit of butter.

It's reminiscent of brioche. But it's famously good for sandwiches.

As buns, it would be awesome for cheeseburgers.

So now I need to use exactly the same measurements and procedure to make another loaf, this time using tap water instead of potato water.

To add to my Q&A about potato starch in bread.

2

Q: Effect of potato water on bread

Inspired by another question here, I am going to make potato bread. I am using the King Arthur Flour recipe. (For 2 loaves) 1 tablespoon instant yeast 99g sugar 283g to 340g lukewarm water or potato water (water in which potatoes have been boiled) 170g softened butter 2 1/2 teaspoons salt 2 la...

Cerberus

1:31 AM

Yay!

Yes, it does look like brioche.

Jolenealaska

1:53 AM

@Cerberus I want to think of a word that describes what makes it different than brioche. It's not as rich as brioche, and it has a spongy, elastic quality, perfect for sandwiches. I'm going to make myself a juicy cheeseburger tonight using the end pieces like a big bun. :)

But the bread isn't even the most exciting thing I've cooked today.

Cerberus

Hmm spongey for sandwiches?

Then what is the most exciting things!

Jolenealaska

Not spongy as in absorbent...

Cerberus

As in airy?

Jolenealaska

Spongy like it holds its shape when it has got to hold juicy things...

Cerberus

Hmm...

Jolenealaska

1:59 AM

Airy is good...

Have you ever had potato bread?

Cerberus

No!

I had never even heard of it.

Jolenealaska

The most common way to see it here is cheeseburger buns.

And they're considered a bit special.

Cerberus

I make a cheeseburger with "normal" bread?

Like those.

Jolenealaska

Those are gorgeous.

Cerberus

Well, just a fairly standard kind of bread to make good sandwiches with?

Jolenealaska

2:05 AM

If they're the diameter of the burger, so they are sliced horizontally, I would call those buns.

Cerberus

The Dutch normally eat slices of a different kind of bread, more like in your picture.

You could call them buns!

Depends on the size of the burger hehe.

Jolenealaska

I think that's really the difference between the terms. If you slice it vertically to stuff it, making more than one sandwich, it's bread. If you slice it horizontally to make one sandwich (or burger), it's a bun.

That's why 2 end pieces of my new loaf feels more like a proper cheeseburger bun than regular slices.

Cerberus

Right, so it has to be all crust on the outside.

Jolenealaska

2:20 AM

Yes! :)

At any rate, you can find potato bread and potato rolls in any big grocery store here, but they're premium. If a burger joint uses potato buns, they're gunna mention it on the menu or in their advertising.

And, if you just eat the whole thing, without stuffing it, maybe shoving some butter in it, or dipping it in gravy, it's a roll.

Jolenealaska

2:50 AM

Potato dough is good for all three - bread, buns or rolls!

What's exciting is I have a great answer for this:

Successful experiment with pictures of every step.

5

Q: Can you candy salt?

Bear with me... I'm working on a pretty amazing ice cream. It's Dulce de Leche, made the kind of scary traditional way of boiling cans of sweetened condensed milk, then mixing that with a custard and freezing it in my ice cream maker. As a recipe, it's getting there. I use the scraped seeds of a...

salt candy

Jolenealaska

3:17 AM

GAME QUESTION

First one that can guess what it is WINS!

I just cleaned out under my fridge.

It was there.

At first I was puzzled, then I realized exactly what it is.

That's a US quarter BTW. Diameter 24.26 mm (0.955 in)

Cerberus

3:36 AM

Melted plastic wrapping materials that you left sitting too close to the stove?

Jolenealaska

Very close! :) I think it was you I was talking to when it was made.

Remember this?

Cerberus

Hmm not sure! But that sure explains it...

So you put something made of plastic in your oven.

Jolenealaska

I was sooo worried that I had just done something really bad.

Cerberus

I seem to remember advising you to wash/clean the oven...

Jolenealaska

I forgot I had stashed some dishes in the oven so I could pretend I had a clean kitchen.

Cerberus

3:43 AM

Haha.

And then you set it to preheat?

Jolenealaska

One of those dishes was the plastic lid for a cake pan. YEP, I thought to look just about when the oven beeped to say it had reached 350F.

I was a wreck about it!

But once it cooled it just pulled away apparently in one piece :)

I guess two legs broke off and escaped under my fridge.

Cerberus

Heh.

Did it stink?

Jolenealaska

Nope

Cerberus

It tried to run away!

It became all runny, but then you broke its legs.

Jolenealaska

Yes! They made it, cause I'm keeping them for posterity :)

Cerberus

3:47 AM

The legs made it?

Yay!

Jolenealaska

I think of them as a tribute to determination and tenacity :)

Cerberus

Very honourable.

But it is bed time here.

I wish you a good something!

Jolenealaska

Thanks sweetie. Have a good night.

Cerberus

Bye!

Hovercouch

5:12 AM

I just tried precoating candy before enrobing for the first time and OH MY GOD it makes everything so much less painful

Hovercouch

5:26 AM

It's like discovering the reason I was so bad at chopping onions was because I was using a fork

Jolenealaska

5:42 AM

LOL, hi there.

What kind of candy are you making?

Hovercouch

Sup!

I was just enrobing some orange fondants for a party tomorrow

I'm going to have to put a "NOT DRUGS" sign next to it (SF is weird)

Jolenealaska

5:58 AM

SF?

Hovercouch

San Francisco

In other places I lived, it's like you bring something and people are like "oh great, free food", while here it's like "Wait, does this have pot in it? I'm only eating this if it has pot in it."

Jolenealaska

Ah...So you're 1 hour ahead of me. I need to make a run to the store. Sorry this room is so dead, it's better during the week. From Friday evening to Monday morning is pretty quiet.

There are some pretty funny stories here about pot in food too. The Matanuska River valley is pretty infamous.

Hovercouch

I'll have to ask about it sometime! When it's not more dead, I mean

Jolenealaska

I need to run, but welcome. Hope to see you here again soon.

Hovercouch

It's almost like people have lives or something

Later!

StackOverflowNewbie

9:01 AM

Test

Jolenealaska

10:57 AM

@StackOverflowNewbie I assume you're AKA cookingnewbie?

@CookingNewbie still around?

@StackOverflowNewbie I'm heading to bed soon, so I'm writing this with the idea that you'll probably see it before we finally meet up.

I'm a little like you I think, in that I want to break things down into quantifiable, explainable and repeatable ways. If you snoop around my history a bit, I think you'll see that over and over again, in my questions and my answers.

So I am approaching this topic having made a few assumptions.

The first assumption I have, and probably the most important for what I want to say, is that you don't have huge baking experience under your belt.

If that's the case (and please correct me if I'm wrong), now is not the time to be considering diastatic malt powder, or modifying an existing recipe to include potatoes.

Jolenealaska

11:37 AM

Say you have a bread recipe that you have made several times and you love it. The problem is the last third of it always goes stale. Now you have a specific problem to address. So if Optionparty comes along and suggests that you might consider scalding 5% of the flour, the answer makes more sense and can be really tested.

Jolenealaska

12:07 PM

It wasn't until you brought up potato bread that I had really thought about making it. I've never made potato bread before. I found a solid highly rated recipe. The reviews are awesome and the website is trustworthy.

But there is an oddity in the recipe. It says use potato water from boiling the potatoes or tap water. I kind of assume that potato water is preferred and it lists tap water an as option because they know some people will use leftover potatoes or flakes.

But darn it, I want to know for sure. And I want to quantify it, test it, measure it and understand it.

I'm going to come out of the experimentation with a greater understanding of starches in bread. That brings me a step closer to becoming an "expert baker".

Do you remember the Encyclopedia Britannica? Back when it was usually seen in this form?

Say you're in 6th grade and are doing a report on marsupials. You can approach the Encyclopedia in a couple of ways. You can grab the "M" and read about marsupials, then the "K" to understand kangaroos, and so on and so on. Or, you could start with the first page of book "A", and just keep reading until you've happened upon enough info to write your report. I doubt you'd get to quokka before the report was due.

Jolenealaska

12:38 PM

That's enough for now. I'd like to hear your response. At any rate, I see you've been here for a while but have recently become more active. Welcome back! :)

And good night.

StackOverflowNewbie

2:51 PM

Yup, I'm CookingNewbie :) You're right, I do not have a lot of experience with baking. I occasionally bake, but I wouldn't say anything I make is extraordinary (e.g. Cinnabon, Auntie Anne's, etc. are extraordinary to me). I'm not actually planning on baking anything in particular anytime soon. I think my questions are more part of the process for me to learn about the science behind baking, get input from experienced bakers, etc. -- so I can either apply those myself or better gauge a recipe I might want to try in the future. It's all about the science for me. And yes, "quantifiable, explai…

Jolenealaska

Well, I'm getting there.

The difference in my knowledge between what it is now and what it was ~8 months ago when I started playing here is huge.

Can I show a few examples?

WOW...excuse me, 10 months!

time flies

@StackOverflowNewbie

Hmmph...there is a lot of OCD going on around here :) myself included. Our most stellar example of that took off a few weeks ago. He went from being here 20 hours a day to only leaving that message, the only 5 star message on the "starred list".

Yamikuronue

11:21 PM

SO. I do not like Stone IPA.

I probably do not like IPAs in general.

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