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[Frumple]

Mm... yeah, there's a point there. The stuff I've got on hand is just store bought concentrate, drinkable but basically bottom of the barrel in regards to everything else. I actually love meat that is sweet, sometimes pretty intensely (Imma' straight up candy some of that stuff one of these days*), but... yeah, quality. I'll table the thought until the next time I pick up some of the better stuff.

They actually sell some unfiltered apple juice around here that is just goddamn amazing, so... I'll wait. Make sure the cooker works fine, wait a month or two to be able to justify dropping a tenner on meat again, get the good stuff and give it a go.

*Take some beef tips, probably cook it up beforehand and then, I'unno, caramelize the ruddy things? Drench the blighters in maple syrup and cook it a little more to sear it in or somethin'.

[Akura]

snip

snippity

You two are inspiring me to try myh and at breadmaking. Maybe. Last time I made some it was okay, I guess. Family ate it within 10 minutes, so I didn't get to let it cool.

There's this really cheap bread recipe I've used, basically just flour, water, baking powder, and sugar. I don't know if it's normal, or if I was doing it wrong, or the baking powder was past its usefulness, but it came out fairly dense. Not "bad" dense, but significantly denser than any store-bought bread I've had.

[penguinofhonor]

I don't think baking powder can get you light, fluffy bread. For that you want to let your bread rise a while and get a lot bigger as it fills with air. Typically with yeast. Baking powder does its reaction in a shorter time and then it's finished, so it's good for something you want to rise a bit while it's cooking, but it doesn't make things fluff up as much.

[Avis-Mergulus]

Yeah, baking powder's for pastry. For bread, you gotta have yeast.

Spoiler: Fairly generic white bread recipe with rather uncertain measurements (click to show/hide)

1 glass warm water
1 teaspoon honey (or sugar)
37 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon yeast

Mix the honey and the water, add the yeast, let it ponder its fate awhile. Measure out the flour, add the salt, then pour the yeasty water in, mix until not disgusting, then knead for like 15 minutes. Let stay in a buttered bowl for two hours, make sure you keep it in a warm and dark place. Then plop it out, roll it, fold it in three, roll it again, fold it in half (the seam is the bottom of the bread), make some incisions on top. Let stay for another 30 min. Than bake at 220 C (preheat the oven) for approx. 30 min, but you should check it with a pick to see if it's done.

[Jopax]

For bonus tastyness and energy toss some sunflower seeds into the dough while mixing

Or sprinkle some cornmeal on top to have a cool looking and tasty crust

[Bauglir]

Yeah, baking powder's for pastry. For bread, you gotta have yeast.

>She's never heard of soda bread

[Descan]

This seems a relevant place to ask.


... Why the hell does honey make (white, store bought) bread hard? Is it the temperature? I don't know :V

[Comrade P.]

... Why the hell does honey make (white, store bought) bread hard? Is it the temperature? I don't know :V

Could you please describe your experience? Because frankly I have no clue what kind of phenomenon is that.

[Descan]

Take some honey, in a bottle. Put it on a slice of bread. Spread it out relatively thin. Wait a couple minutes. The honey side turns hard and almost crunchy, the bare side is still as soft as it started with.

[Comrade P.]

Take some honey, in a bottle. Put it on a slice of bread. Spread it out relatively thin. Wait a couple minutes. The honey side turns hard and almost crunchy, the bare side is still as soft as it started with.

I'm sorry, I'm afraid I cannot relate. I have never experienced that. Must be because natural honey is actually very easy to come by over here, and I have that stuff in my kitchen. It doesn't do that with my store bough bread.

Oooh, now I'm reminded of that honey in a clay pot my friends presented to me on my birthday. I tucked it away someplace...

[Bauglir]

I, too, have never experienced this. Either Descan is a witch, or else Canadia is just so cold the honey freezes even inside kitchens.

[Frumple]

No... I've seen that happen before. It's probably more noticeable if you leave the bread in the fridge overnight -- it's pretty obvious in cold PB&H sandwiches, ferex.

If I had to guess, it probably has something to do with the crystallization process some honey goes through. I don't think I've ever seen it happen with tupelo, as an example, but store clover it's fairly consistent. Either that or it's just making the bread sticky and then drying out, basically accentuating the bread's texture. Honey that dries for a bit is a bit irritating to get off things.

[penguinofhonor]

It happened to me very regularly when I was a kid and I'd get peanut butter and honey sandwiches for lunch. My lunchbox was cold, and the honey and bread would always have that texture by lunch (I liked it). I've got no clue why it happens, but I'd also guess it involves the honey being cold and getting some of the moisture sapped out of it by the bread.

[scrdest]

It happened to me very regularly when I was a kid and I'd get peanut butter and honey sandwiches for lunch. My lunchbox was cold, and the honey and bread would always have that texture by lunch (I liked it). I've got no clue why it happens, but I'd also guess it involves the honey being cold and getting some of the moisture sapped out of it by the bread.

Opposite, actually. That's why honey basically never spoils and was used on wounds - it basically has negative moisture.

[Frumple]

Eeehhh... can't speak of the moisture bit, but the spoilage is only like, half the picture. Honey's big thing re: long term storage is that, depending on what's in it, it likes to crystallize -- turn to sugar, something along those lines -- and some sorts'll do so faster than others (though, on the other hand, there are indeed varieties that stay liquid basically forever -- the tupelo I mentioned above is one of 'em* ). Does tend to last a while, though. It's just a while for some sorts is measured in months, and a while for others is measured in small mammal lifetimes.

*We actually had a huge jar of the stuff sitting in one of the cupboards in my house for, like, five+ years. Was still about as edible at the end as it was in the beginning. I... I never really ate from that particular jar, though. Friggin' thing had a dead bee in it. Honey was still fine, other folks in the family still ate it without problem, it's just... ugh. Something inside me viscerally retreats from the thought of having to pick bee legs out of my honey >_<