Baking and Cooking.
TarotMaster
Member Posts: 147
I love baking and do some cooking form time to time. So far i have made in the past year over 500 cookies or more. 6 cakes and 2 types of breads.
Here are some picks so far: The fist is carrot cake. The second is Bread with garlic on top. The Third is just a plain cookie with chocolate chips.
Feel Free to post your own as well.
Here are some picks so far: The fist is carrot cake. The second is Bread with garlic on top. The Third is just a plain cookie with chocolate chips.
Feel Free to post your own as well.
14
Comments
My girlfriend is an amazing cook (lucky me). She also loves to bake and recently made banana bread for the first time (I can't wait to try it when she next comes to visit me)
Personally I make a mean peanut butter and jelly and some pretty good steak (brown sugar adds +2 flavor damage). I recently learned how to make stir fry and I took a picture of some. It looked awesome. I'll share a bit later when I return to my computer.
I'll snap a few shots.
Edit1: I made the batter today, but am waiting until tomorrow to cook them. Here's so far:
Chickpeas, soaked in water for a few hours, ('til they're no longer crispy)
[Spoiler]
Cilantro, Onions, Parsely, secret ingredient
[Spoiler]
Combine everything, add a dash of water and chickpea flour. All ready to cook! Salt to taste.
[Spoiler]
Spoilered because iPhone images are huge. Hopefully I don't break the thread! Final picture(s) to come tomorrow
I volunteer once a week at a historical place. Anyways part of what I do there is make cinnamon rolls for selling to the public (to raise money because apparently my local government is cheap haha). I'm not certain if I made this specific batch (and I wouldn't have actually baked them just created the dough from scratch and then rolled the rolls) but this is an example of the kind of thing I make.
balls from dried fruits
breaded onion circles
home-made chocolate
salt pretzel
Holy @#$% thats huge look awsome!!. And i never understood why the Americans called them cub-scouts instead of just cubs and then when kids get older scouts.
poppy-seed cake
let's name it chimney cake, there's no english name for this:
rainbow-muffin:
butterfly cookies:
and an ordinary chocolate cake:
[Spoiler]
Excuse the misshapen forms. I had a couple of requests to make "burgers" out of the batter. Philistines, the whole lot of 'em.
Crepes is the thinnest brother from france.
Taking it before overcoat with knife and a spoon of Sirup or Marmalade or alternative as nutella.
Can we stick to food?
Getting back to topic.
This isn't the recipe I used to make the cinnamon rolls above but it is the one I normally use when making them at home. I've spoiler tagged it because its rather detailed (namely because it is written for people who have never made dough from scratch before).
Cinnamon rolls: (16-18 rolls) (created with help from Wikihow)
Ingredients for the dough
2 ½ cups flour (I normally use all-purpose)
5 teaspoons fresh yeast or 8.5 g / 1/2 tablespoon of dry yeast
5 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup milk
5 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
1 pinch salt
Ingredients for the spread
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 stick of butter (1.5 cups), kept at room temperature
Optional: 1 cup of crushed pecans
Other:
Some flour for dusting of cutting board (just to stop the dough from sticking).
2 casserole dishes (the long ones you'd make like a lasagna in)
A big cutting board (the bigger the better)
Rolling pin
Brush and a small cup of water
Notes:
The recipe I use technically calls for an "Egg Wash" (made up of 1 egg with 2 tbsp milk beaten together) that you "paint" onto each cinnamon roll. I've never bothered with it.
You can use dark brown sugar or yellow sugar for the rolls. I think yellow sugar works better because it's not overpowering and it complements the cinnamon as well as the sugar found in the dough.
Directions:
Mix the ingredients for the dough up (for say a few minutes). If you've got a mixer of some kind for the job use that but I normally do this recipe by hand. You'll want the dough to be consistent and also not sticking to the sides of the bowl you are mixing it in (so not too wet). If you have to add in a little bit of extra flour that alright (add a like a tablespoon at a time until the dough isn't sticking).
Knead the dough. Technically the recipe here calls for it to be done in a bowl that you've floured a little. I just use a floured cutting board.
If you've never kneaded dough before basically just fold the dough in half and then press down on it with your two palms. The aim here is to just stretch out the dough, give it some strength, ensure the ingredients are mixed, and to develop the gluten. So folding it and pressing down 15-20 times should be good enough. If you find the dough sticks to your hands then put some flour on your hands.
Now take your dough, throw it back into the bowl you mixed it in, and cover the bowl (a dish drying towel will do). Give it an hour to rise. The dough should hopefully double in volume.
While its rising it's now time to make the spread you are going to be applying on top of the dough. There are two approaches you can take with this.
Approach A) (I've found this to be the quicker approach)
You want your butter to be soft. If it's not quite there yet at this point I normally give it 10-15 seconds of microwave time (which is probably a baking no-no). Whatever is required to to get it soft enough that you can easily work with it (make sure it doesn’t become a puddle though).
Mix up the cinnamon and brown sugar. (do not mix the butter in with it).
Optional: Mix in pecans.
Note: If you are going to use pecans they should be crushed up. The easiest way to go about this by hand is to take the pecans you are going to use and put them in a plastic bag. Ideally an open freezer bag. You then can use your roller to crush them. Otherwise some kind of food processor would probably work just as well.
Approach
Like approach A you’ll want the butter soft but not a puddle.
Mix up the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon (also mix in the crushed pecans if you are using them). You'll want this to be pretty consistent. I normally do this by hand though I suppose you could use some kind of a mixer.
Now in either approach you could probably get away with somewhat reducing the amount you are going to mix for this spread (less butter, brown sugar, etc). However, I've found that the recommended amounts work great.
Dough (1 hour later).
So an hour has past. Your dough, being an idealist dough that works like clockwork, has risen exactly on schedule (if this isn't the case and you feel it hasn't risen enough give it a bit more time). It should be roughly double its original size.
Preheat your oven to 375 Fahrenheit ( 190 Celsius)
Take your dough and put it onto your cutting board (lightly flour your cutting board beforehand). Your goal here is to take this dough and spread it out so that it is a large rectangular shape. The easiest way to do that is to actually punch down on the dough. It sounds odd but basically start punching down on the dough, going from the bottom left side of the dough to the right side, and then repeating this all the way up it. Flip the dough over and repeat this process.
I write this because it's probably going to be a lot easier to do this and then roll it, rather than just trying to roll it from the start. You are trying to spread the dough out fairly evenly here.
Once you've got your dough's length to roughly that of your rolling pin (maybe a little bit longer if you have a short rolling pin) try to use your pin to shape the dough so that it's as close to a rectangle as possible. If you can't do this is not a big deal though. Dimension wise I suppose you'll want your dough to have a width that is half of its length (but if it isn't that not a big deal).
Now you are going to start spreading your mixture onto the dough. Here we go back to the two difference approaches I mentioned earlier.
Approach A)
Take about 2/3's of your butter (roughly a cup) and begin spreading it on dough. Spread it evenly across the dough but leave a band of about an inch at the top of your dough free of any butter.
When this is done take two thirds of your mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle it over top. Lightly press the mixture into the dough with your hands just so that the brown sugar it is no longer dry. Do this anywhere you've put butter.
When you are done take your remaining 1/3 mixture of cinnamon/brown sugar, and your 1/2 cup of butter and put them aside. At some point shortly you'll want to mix them together.
Approach
Take about 2/3 of your (butter, cinnamon, brown sugar) mixture and begin spreading it on the dough. Spread it out evenly across the dough but leave a band of about an inch at the top of your dough free of any mixture. Leave 1/3 of the mixture (you will need it for later).
Now you'll want to roll the rolls. Remember that the dough should be a little stretchable. If it breaks a bit in places it's not a big deal (obviously don't make it a habit of doing this). Regardless of the approach you took for the spread start rolling the dough up. As you are rolling the dough you can pull on it a little to tighten it up. Also try to pull the dough at its ends so that the two ends of the roll are flat/even (nothing dough is bulging out of the sides). When you've rolled the dough to the point that you are at that empty inch of dough take a brush and lightly brush on some water onto that part of the dough (this is just to help hold the roll together). Complete the rolling.
If you’d like you can cut off an inch or so from either side of your roll. These are your end pieces and chances are they are fairly light in terms of how much spread they have on them. I normally bake these as well but it's up to you.
Now take your two casserole dishes. Lightly cover the bottoms and sides with some vegetable/cooking oil.
Take the remaining log/roll and spread it out as evenly as you can. Cut it into 16 equal pieces (easiest way to do this is to cut it in half, then cut one of the halves in half, and so on). You can lightly press down on the dough with your knife to figure out a good size for each piece. Place the rolls in the casserole dishes. 2 rows with 4 in each row. You can also throw in an end piece in each if you'd like.
Now take your remaining mixture and spread it out over top of the other set of rolls.
Bake both batches at 375 Fahrenheit for 12-15 minutes.
Note: When you pull it out of the oven your cinnamon rolls will probably look very soupy. Don't worry about it. For me that’s always how they've turned out. Leave them on your counter/cutting board to cool down for 10-15 minutes. The spread in particular will cool down and harden up.
I also help make various types of bread as a volunteer in this big outdoor wood heated oven that this place has. An example of that kind of bread is this picture (though some of the bread ends up being stuff that is a lot more mundane than this).
Anyways, does anyone here use avocado for anything? (food related I'm not looking for beauty products hehe) Someone I know randomly gave me one and its not the type of thing I'd normally buy. I'll probably just end up throwing it in a sandwhich or salad but I figured I'd first see if there was anyone here with far more creative ideas.
Finally because this thread just simply has too few pictures of cinnamon rolls here is a picture of what the cinnamon rolls look like when they are individually wrapped (I'm not normally involved in this).