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[nenjin]

Oh right. Leavened and unleavened flour. Apparently there's like a dozen things that can serve as leavening.

[Sappho]

Yeah I'm in the Czech Republic. And it turns out that it really matters which grade of flour you use. And Czech people are very confused about how we can bake anything with only one type of flour. I know the difference between the three types, but I still don't know what types of foods are cooked with what types of flour. All I know is I should have used the finest one for cookies, but no one told me that until after I had baked them.

[nenjin]

And Czech people are very confused about how we can bake anything with only one type of flour.

Tell them with an utterly straight face that some Americans believe using multiple types of flour is a socialist plot. You'll make their day.

[Blargityblarg]

The consistency of the cookies is more like biscuits,

...

Aren't they American and British names for the same thing?

[forsaken1111]

Well... buy some more supplies and bake a second run of cookies! Cookies are always worth it.

[Sappho]

The consistency of the cookies is more like biscuits,

Aren't they American and British names for the same thing?

In America a biscuit is something else. It's like a type of crumbly bread. But I think I can save the rest of the dough if instead of baking more thin crappy cookies, I bake it all in a thick (about 1.5 cm) square. I bought a can of strawberries in syrup and I'll heat that up and pour it over the cookie, or biscuit as is probably a better name for it. It will be my dessert for Xmas dinner this evening and I think it'll be good.

I'll try baking cookies again sometime soon, but I've got other stuff on my plate for today. In this country, Xmas eve is the big holiday, not Xmas day. My focus today will be on the nice dinner I'm making (and which I already know how to make and know it will be good).

[forsaken1111]

Good luck and happy holidays then.

[DJ]

Single type of flour for everything? O_o

Don't you have at least light vs dark flour?

Anyway, if they're using the same flour classification in Czech republic as they do in ex Yugoslavia, look for tip 400 next time.

[Sappho]

Americans don't typically bake the same way Europeans do. You can buy different types of flour, but it's not common. When you go to the supermarket, it's just simple white "all-purpose flour" and maybe "self-rising flour" with yeast already mixed in. If you want to buy other types of flour, you can find it, but it's really an exception. Americans also don't typically eat dark bread, so there's not an abundance of dark flour. That's one of the things I hate most about visiting my family - there's no good bread anywhere and I can't even get the right kind of flour to bake it myself. In fact, most Americans are currently under the mass delusion that bread is the thing that makes people fat, so an incredible number of people don't even eat it anymore. Instead the main part of every meal is a huge slab of meat - which the rest of the world knows is what really makes you fat.

In this country they are broken into three grades. I can't remember the Czech words for the types, but it's basically the smallest kind, the middle kind, and the biggest kind. Apparently American all-purpose flour is most similar to the smallest kind, so that's what I should be using when I bake using American recipes.

[forsaken1111]

In fact, most Americans are currently under the mass delusion that bread is the thing that makes people fat, so an incredible number of people don't even eat it anymore. Instead the main part of every meal is a huge slab of meat - which the rest of the world knows is what really makes you fat.

I enjoy your gross generalizations about Americans, especially since you are wrong both about your generalization and your health advice.

[Sappho]

I am being partly tongue-in-cheek of course, but most of my family has forsaken all forms of carbohydrates (refusing to eat bread, pasta, rice, or potatoes except occasionally in extremely limited amounts, which they afterwards complain about for hours) and instead they eat massive amounts of meat, claiming that it is healthier, which it is definitely not. Certainly health and nutrition is far more complicated than adding or removing any single type of food - but I've never met a fat vegetarian!

[forsaken1111]

Yes that is a bit extreme. Being a vegetarian is also no guarantee of being thin. One could eat nothing but baked beans and still be vegetarian, and you'd gain plenty of weight.

[malimbar04]

I talked with my wife (an amazing cook here), and here is her advice.

Invest in a pastry cutter. In the world of baking, apparently it's the next best thing to the invention of flour. It cuts butter very nicely too (with little effort).

Also, sometimes butter isn't the best choice. For her sugar cookies, she uses Crisco instead. Apparently butter always makes her cookies turn out brittle and hard, but Crisco makes them relatively fluffy. Similarly, with her no-bake cookies she only uses margarine, relying on the brand Country Crock. Some brands make the cookies oily though, and plain butter makes them (again) too hard and dry.

[DJ]

Lard makes a lot fluffier dough than butter, and it doesn't have much of a taste. The latter is a bit of a downside, though, because a big plus of butter is the taste it lends to doughs. Some chefs simply combine both to get both fluffiness and buttery taste.

[eerr]

Yes that is a bit extreme. Being a vegetarian is also no guarantee of being thin. One could eat nothing but baked beans and still be vegetarian, and you'd gain plenty of weight.

I will not accept anything but a real life example of a fat vegetarian, to prove your assertion.