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What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking?
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
I made my partner a birthday cake at the weekend, which was also a practice run of part of our wedding cake later this year. The interior is deepest, darkest chocolate with salted caramel. Took one day to bake, stack and apply the crumb coat and then the following afternoon to frost it. I learned a lot! The cake batter also domed a fair amount so there's a LOT of leftover trim, which means cake pops for the office tomorrow.
Made some tomato soup for lunch today too which was nice and simple, and much needed after some fairly unhealthy eating habits last week.
The cake is beautiful. I love the aesthetic!
The cake domes because the outside cooks faster than the interior, so doesn't have as much time to rise. One thing you can do to keep the cake from doming as much is cook it for longer at a lower temperature. For larger cake pans, you can use heating cores to help it bake more even/level. I did 14" square layers for the base of my BIL's wedding cake (over a decade ago), and doing both these things helped significantly.
Thanks! Yeah, I figured it would be a temperature thing causing the doming - fantastic for my bread but could create a lot of waste for cakes! I have some baking strips that can be soaked and wrapped around the cake tin before baking which I guess work in the opposite way by keeping the outer edges cooler for longer, I just didn't use them this time around.
A square cake must have been truly impressive, they seem like a headache to frost neatly!
Let's just say, I definitely had a different perspective on the cost of wedding cakes after doing that one.
I made a 2 tier cheesecake for my best friend's wedding a while back (banana cheesecake with peanut brittle, piped peanut mousseline and a rum caramel sauce) and that was stressful enough. Between that and the time it took to get anything close to a presentable finish on this birthday cake, I really do undestand the pricing of professionals a bit more!
Trader joes tortillas are my current obsession. After years of those junky mission ones, I have found myself a new heaven. I'm making wraps of all sorts and it is delicious.
Spanish egg tortillas seem simple enough. I'll have to make these when I run out of junky tortillas.
What kind of fillings are you having right now? Any standouts?
Man I could make a youtube video about this. I've got this down to like an 8-9 minute meal and it uses up my leftovers and lets me be a mini-chef at lunch time.
For ingredients use use whatever leftovers are in the fridge. Plus of course some staple items that I keep available.
Done. Place the tortilla on a plate, plop the cooked food into the tortilla (maybe add a little acid or parsely if you want fancy)
Wrap it and eat it.
What slow cooking veggies do you keep pre-chopped?
Onion mostly. Sometimes carrots or mushrooms too.
for mushrooms I buy them dehydrated, then you just soak them in some water for 5-10 mins and then chop them up and stick them in the fridge.
I've been doing low carb recently.
I've been making a lot of:
A recent experiment that I did was trying to make a zucchini, almond flour, and egg white patty that I pan fried. On top of it I served chopped mushroom medley fried with bacon, and holindaise sauce.
I miss making fresh baked bread.
I still don’t understand the appeal of riced cauliflower. The textural variation is one of cauliflower’s best traits. Ricing removes the variations and makes it harder to eat.
I bought a vegetable spiralizer but I have only made zoodles with it a handful of time. The food turns out great but I just can’t deal with the prep and the associated mess.
Re: riced cauliflower - I find that I can get enough spices and fry time with it to get much more flavor than I would with flourettes of cauliflower. I still att straight up cauliflower and broccoli to my stir-frys that have riced cauliflower but they don't hold into the spice nearly as much. I get it pre-riced and frozen as it's cheap and eliminates the mess for me. A bit part of it for me is how quickly I can throw it together and have a super flavorful meal.
Re: vegetable spiraler - I got an attachment for my kitchen aid mixer which is super easy to set up and clean. All in all to prep a single zucchini I think it takes me less than 5 minutes to set up, spiral, and then clean/put away. Not advocating to replace or get more gear but I've been very happy with this tool set.