These recipes are for Grandpa and his family. This category includes recipes from magazines, TV shows, newspapers, and other sources where I don’t have permission to republish the recipes, but still feels they are recipes that he may want to cook for himself at a later time.
Hot-water crusts are one of the oldest forms of pastry; they were molded around a filling and baked free form, rather than in a pie dish. With a hot-water crust, instead of cutting cold fat into flour and then adding cold water, boiling water is whisked into fat (usually lard) until it forms an emulsion. This lard mixture is then added to flour. The result is an extremely pliable dough that’s easy to work with since it doesn’t crack or tear.
When we (Cooks Illustrated) compared a hot-water crust in several recipes (quiche, deep-dish apple pie, and blueberry turnovers) with our Foolproof Pie Dough (Nov./Dec. 2007), we understood why it might not have been eaten in the past. It baked up so tender, some tasters called it “mealy”—the result of both its higher-than-usual fat content and the fact that “precooking” the flour with a hot-water emulsion causes some of its starches to immediately swell with water, making less of the liquid available to form structure-building gluten.
HOT WATER CRUST: Boiling water and fat are emulsified, then added to the flour, createing a nicely pliable dough but a mealy crust.
CLASSIC CRUST: Our favorite pie dough (cut cold fat into flour, then add cold water) is both pliable and flaky.
While a hot-water crust is simple to prepare and easy to work with, stick with our Foolproof Pie Dough if you want pastry worth eating.
Hot Water Crust Pastry
INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup solid veg shortening (Crisco)
2 TBL butter
1 teaspoon milk
1/4 cup boiling water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
STEP BY STEP
In a large bowl, combine shortening, butter, salt, milk and boiling water.
Whip with fork until completely emulsified (smooth and creamy).
NOTE: The solids should be added while solid, to dissolve slowly so that they can be emulsified into the water drop by drop, and not overwhelm the water. Do not premelt your solids.
Add 2 cups flour and stir until all flour is incorporated. Scrape sides as necessary.
Cooking For Groups| En Español | En Español PDF This information will help volunteers prepare and serve food safely for large groups such as family reunions, church dinners, and community gatherings. Get the booklet, artwork, and more.
Cleanliness Helps Prevent Foodborne Illness | PDF By keeping everything clean that comes in contact with food, consumers can be assured they are helping to do their part to Fight BAC!®
Deep Fat Frying and Food Safety | PDF Important guidelines to prevent deep fat frying injuries at home, and to ensure that food is cooked to a safe temperature.
Food Safety After School | PDF | En Español PDF Learn why children are at risk for foodborne illness and know the kitchen practices that help keep them from becoming ill.
Food Safety Tips for College Students | PDF The USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline answers questions from parents or students about the handling and storage of food for college kids.
Kitchen Companion: Your Safe Food Handbook (PDF Only) This food safety handbook contains all the basic information you need to know about food safety…some old, some new… and all in one place.
Meat and Poultry Packaging Materials | PDF
Explains various types and uses of packaging materials and how their safety is regulated by government agencies; includes a glossary of packaging terms.
Mechanically Tenderized Beef | PDF USDA now requires meat processors to disclose mechanical tenderization and give safe cooking instructions to consumers.
No-Show Guests Jeopardize Food Safety | PDF When guests encounter emergencies and the meal must be delayed or cancelled, food must be handled “just right” to remain safe.
Refrigeration & Food Safety | PDF Covers the importance of refrigeration, placement of foods, proper storage temperatures and times.
Shelf Stable Food Safety | PDF Answer your questions about the safety and proper storage of shelf stable foods — those that do not require refrigeration, like (most) canned goods; learn about the science behind modern food packaging methods.
Smoking Meat & Poultry | PDF | En Español | En Español PDF Where there’s smoke, there’s well flavored meat and poultry. Using a smoker is one method of imparting natural smoke flavor to large cuts of meat, whole poultry, and turkey breasts.
Tailgating Food Safety Q & A | PDF A tailgate gathering requires the same safe food handling practices as picnicking outdoors because a refrigerator and running water are probably not available.
Heat 1 C vinegar, 1 1/2 C soy, 3 TBL C rice vinegar, 1/2 C brown sugar, 6 garlic cloves minced, bay leaves, 1 TBL black pepper – over medium heat only until the sugar melts
Add 1 C chicken stock to the mixture
Braise 3 hours at 275º or until internal temperature is 165º
Remove from oven and wrap in foil. Keep wrapped until internal temperature reaches 200º
Slice into 1/2 inch slices and serve with fried rice and Thai Cucumber Salad. Also good with just biscuits and jam.
Press semi firm tofu with a heavy skillet to remove excess water (30-60 minutes) put in between several layers of paper towels
Submerge in 3 TBL each of
hot soy,
apple cider,
dashi, and
ginger slices
Alternately in 4 TBL each of
Worcestershire and
Sherry wine vinegar
with a dash of Tabasco
Let marinate for 15 minutes
Set on paper towels
PROCESS ONE
Mix flour
Dip to cover with flour
DO NOT keep a thick layer. Thinner is better
beat eggs
Dip in hot skillet
Fry till golden brown – about 2 minutes
Eat as breakfast
PROCESS TWO
Cut into squares
Mix 1/2 C cornstarch with 1 tsp sugar and 1/2 tsp each black pepper and salt
Toss in cornstarch mixture
Fry in very hot sesame oil (about 375º) 3-4 minutes per side
Use in other recipes
A good side is minced apple, lemon zest, walnuts, sambal olek and lemon juice.
Another good side is a Thai Cucumber Salad: English cucumber sliced very thin tossed in mixture of 1/4 C rice vinegar, 2 TBL granulated sugar, 1/2 tsp sesame oil, 1-2 sliced green onions, 1 sliced jalapeño or Thai chili and 1/2 tsp salt. Let marinate for at least an hour
Before you go on a long vacation and risk your expensive food, test your cooler’s retention ability. Put an 8 or 10 bag of crushed ice into each cooler and close the lid.
Open the lid for no more than 15 seconds starting at two hours
Paper Towels – ATK Test
Recommended is two-ply Bounty
Wood Chips
Soak Hickory, Oak or Mesquite chips in water for 15 minutes
Wrap in heavy foil – about the size and thickness of a paperback book
Poke holes in the top
Put right on the coals or on the bottom rack
ATK Equipment Review – Skillets
Winner: Oxo Good Grips Nonstick 12 inch open fry pan – $40
A great idea for a Halloween party. – – – Just add 1 TBL activated charcoal for Black Muffins, or 1 TBL fine wood ash (untreated wood) for Gray Muffins
Candied Apples
Put 2 sugar into a heavy pot and add 1/4 C corn syrup. The Chef on TV added 3/4 C water, but this is really unnecessary. As long as a single teaspoon of water remains, the syrup will never get above 212º. You need to bring it up to 300º for caramelization to happen. The water is a shortcut to make the sugar melt, that actually makes the entire process take longer. Skip the water.
Option: For Black Apples, add 1 T activated charcoal when the temperature hits about 285º
Add all but 1/2 C of the flour and beat two minutes on medium
Add 6 TBL butter – one pad at a time until incorporated
Optionally add raisins
Add remainder of flour and stir till combined
Beat 6 minutes on high
Put into 9×12 greased cake pan
Flatten sponge with fingers
Cover and rise 1 hour
If necessary, push dough back into any corners or sides
Crumb Topping
18 TBL butter – melted and clarified
3/4 C white sugar
3/4 C brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
Dissolve all ingredients together to make “Butter Mixture”
4 C cake flour – sifted
Mix cake flour and butter mixture
Rest 10 minutes
Sprinkle crumbs by hand across top of sponge
Bake 350º for 35 minutes until toothpick comes out clean
Turn oven off and rest baked cake 3 hours in cooling oven
Optionally dust with confectioner sugar
North Carolina Lemon Pie
This sounded great, but I am not going to retype the entire episode here. CLICK HERE for Cooks Country recipe. If they take down the recipe USE THIS LINK.
Crepe / Blintz
Use my recipe for crepes. They should be UNDERDONE, and not browned.
For a blintz, make a large crepe using a 12″ pan
When ready to cook brush pan with butter
Heat to 350º
Add 1/3 C batter and tip to spread
Cook only to congeal. Try not to brown too much.
Ricotta Filling
Fill with mixture of 11 oz whole milk ricotta cheese
1/2 C confectioner sugar
2 TBL cream cheese
1/4 tsp salt
Cover and refrigerate 2-36 hours
Topping – Raspberry Sauce
10 oz raspberries
1/4 C granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
Heat 8-12 minutes
Serve hot over freshly cooked blintz
To Finish the Blintz
Put 2 TBL filling in the center of a cooled crepe
Form into a 2×4 strip or log
Fold bottom in, then sides, then roll to make a packet
OK to refrigerate these overnight for the next morning
Cook in 2 TBL fresh unsalted butter
Fry 6 at a time, leaving a bit of space between them
2 – 4 minutes per side at 350º till browned
If making more, wipe out pan and use new butter
Serve hot with topping
Optional simply use cream cheese with blended strawberry topping
It’s the most crucial element and can make or break your loaf. In India, the two most common types of flour are atta that is used to make chappatis and the all-purpose flour or maida which is mostly used in baking or seen in store-brought breads, cakes etc. I tried the recipes which asked me to use whole wheat flour but it didn’t work for a number of reasons which I’ll come back to later.
And so, I decided to go in for a basic white bread.
When it comes to picking the right flour, Chef Vinesh Johny, baker and owner of Lavonne, Bangalore says, “You need to find the kind that’s got gluten content of about 14%. Anything less than that and your bread won’t bake well or hold structure.” I checked most of the maida packets but couldn’t find the quantity of gluten, but from initial research I figure it’s somewhere around 10% and so I also brought a packet of gluten from Modern Bazaar.
Don’t get confused with trying to find bread flour because all-purpose flour will do the trick and I say this because I cruised through both Modern Bazaar and Le Marche trying to find it myself. I didn’t want to try a recipe and buy ingredients that I wouldn’t want to buy again and so I decided to stick with all-purpose flour.
Yeast: This is an investment you’ll have to make. Modern Bazaar has a few options, they’re all imported but some of them are reasonable priced. I bought a Tesco box which has around 20 sachets of dry yeast and costs around Rs.300.
Things you want to set aside: Warm water, honey, salt, baking soda, sugar, eggs, olive oil and butter, salter and unsalted.
Methodology
I picked three recipes based on ease, expertise and popularity. The first recipe was the one which is most popular on YouTube and shows up every time you type in ‘how to make bread’. The second, was a classic French bread recipe for which I didn’t need special ingredients and the last one was Vinesh’s recipe who’s an exceptional baker.
Recipe #1 BakeLikeAPro
‘Bake Like a Pro’ is a YouTube channel with over a lakh subscribers and it’s all for good reasons. From cakes to biscuits to pasta dough, the channel has catalogued over 150 recipe videos and each one explains how to make a recipe, step-by-step. Bake Like a Pro has an excellent recipe for white bread for which you need a few basic ingredients like flour, butter, salt, sugar, milk and water.
You can watch the video here:
What works, what doesn’t:I had to try this recipe thrice to get it right but that was more my fault than the recipe’s. I couldn’t grasp how far the dough would rise and so I stuffed the baking tray with too much dough. But the one thing which was consistent every time I baked the bread was its taste. I’m not sure if it was the combination of milk and butter, but the loaf of bread had an extremely smooth and creamy taste.
After this recipe, I tried a number of other recipes and each and every one of them turned out to be a disaster which meant I needed to bring in an expert. I called up Chef Vinesh Johny (genius alert!) and here’s what he had to say: “Flour, yeast and water are the three basic ingredients you need to make bread. The rest of them are only for texture or flavour. Eggs and milk make it soft and creamy and sugar gives it a slightly sweet taste.”
Classic French bread recipes call for honey and are a tad sweet which is what makes this white bread different from the others. The ingredients you need for this recipe are water, honey, dry yeast, butter, maida and milk powder though I used milk instead.
What works, what doesn’t: I used two teaspoons of milk instead of milk powder but I should have used the same quantity. The bread tasted delicious but it was crumbly which I think had more to do with the quality of flour I used. So for the next attempt, I plan on adding a pinch of gluten to this recipe. The bread also took much longer to rise, because of the humidity maybe, so I had to leave it for almost 2 hours.
It did taste different than all the other batch of breads I tried and I’d bake it again but it’s not something I’d use for a ham sandwich. It’s the kind you eat with jam or plain butter.
You need a few basic ingredients for this recipe but the technique is what really stands out. So before you start, be careful to read it thoroughly. You need the basics: flour, yeast, salt, sugar, eggs and water.
What works, what doesn’t: The one thing I seriously struggled with here was converting grams to tablespoons. I’m an amateur cook, at best, and so 9 grams sugar is not something I’ve come face to face with before. But this gorgeous convertor I found online came to my rescue (click here). And I’m guessing it’s fairly accurate, because my recipe turned out beautifully.
The other thing I altered in the recipe was the shape. I just separated the dough into three separate rounds to get smaller buns. Since I’ve never baked bread before, the one thing I was confused most about was how much time should the dough rest but Vinesh advised me to let it rest till it doubles in size and not worry too much about the number of hours mentioned in the recipe.
The Verdict
I loved all the three recipes I picked but if I had to pick one, and this is purely based on ease of execution, then it would be the first one by BakeLikeAPro. It’s ridiculously easy and needs no more than a few hours. Plus, the bread lasts for good three days so you don’t need to run to the store before breakfast. It also tastes really good with a bit of butter and jam, it’s got this undertone of sweet and salt which is great too. And just so you can try it at home, I’ve penned down the recipe:
5-6 cups flour
1/2 cup milk
3 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
3Tbsp butter
2 packets of yeast (dry)
1 1/2 cups water
The only thing I added here is a pinch of gluten which you can if you like your bread a bit sturdy.
Method:
1. Heat the milk and add sugar, salt and butter. You can also you margarine if you want. Make sure the butter melts. If it hasn’t then microwave it a bit or over hot boiling water. You don’t want it boiling but it should be completely melt. Allow this mix to cool.
2. Heat up the water to about luke warm and add the yeast. Add a cup of flour and start stirring/mixing.
3. Add a second cup of flour and the butter mix you made in step 1. Stir again for a 9-10 minutes.
4. Add another cup of flour (3rd cup) and stir.
5. Add the next cup of flour and stir/knead for around 5-6 minutes. Add the 5th cup of flour and knead again. Keep kneading till it’s soft and doesn’t break but behaves more like clay. Add a bit more flour if required.
6. Pour some flour on your kitchen slab and start to knead the dough.
7. Oil a big pot. pan for the dough to go into. Cover with a towel and let it rise for around 35-40 minutes. Longer if it hasn’t risen.
8. Punch it down in the pot, take it out and knead it a little bit. Split it into two equal loaves.
9. Take two baking trays, oil them and put the dough in. The recipe asks for oil to be sprayed on top of the dough but i brushed some butter over them.
10. Cover them and let the dough rise for around an hour.
11. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees and bake till golden brown.
A stroopwafel (or StroopWaffle) is a waffle made from two thin layers of baked dough with a caramel syrup filling in the middle. Stroopwafels are popular in the Netherlands, and were first made in the city of Gouda.
The stiff dough for the waffles is made from flour, butter, brown sugar, yeast, milk, and eggs. Medium-sized dough balls are put into a heated waffle iron and pressed into the required uniformly thin, round shape. After the waffle has been baked, and while it is still warm, it is split into thin layered halves. The warm filling, made from syrup, brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon, is spread between the waffle halves, gluing them together.
WAFFLE
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/8 cups butter, melted
3/4 cup white sugar
2 (.25 ounce) envelopes active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm milk
1 egg
CARAMEL FILLING
1 1/2 cups molasses
1 1/3 cups packed brown sugar
1/3 cup butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, melted butter, sugar, yeast, milk and egg.
When the dough becomes to stiff to stir, turn out onto a floured surface and knead by hand for a few minutes.
Set aside to rise for 45 minutes.
To make the filling, heat the molasses, brown sugar, remaining butter and cinnamon in a saucepan over medium heat.
Stir to blend, and set aside.
Preheat a pizzelle iron (waffle iron)
Knead the dough briefly, and divide the dough into 2 inch balls, or a size compatible with your pizzelle iron pattern.
Press the balls in the preheated iron, and cook until the iron stops releasing steam, or until the waffles are golden brown.
Carefully remove with a knife or spatula, and split in half horizontally (like pocket bread) while they are still warm.
Don’t wait too long, otherwise they will break.
Spread filling on the insides, and put the halves back together, pressing gently.
This is a powder that I mix up and keep on hand. It is good for many things, but mainly French Toast. It used to be called French Toast Powder, so you may see it call that in other recipes.
