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Snickerdoodle Disaster

I really didn’t want to admit this, but here goes…

When preparing a previous post about Cream of Tartar I included a recipe for Snickerdoodles because they are traditionally made with Cream of Tartar. However, in my rush to get everything done I made the mistake of adding the sugar to the rest of the dry ingredients when it was supposed to be creamed with the butter and shortening first.

Rather than throw out the flour mixture I saved my mistake in a zippered bag and started preparing the recipe over again from fresh ingredients and using the proper method. Well, that mistake has been staring at me in the pantry ever since. So I decided I would try to turn that mistake into a success.

Using the original Snickerdoole recipe as the basis, I took 1/2 cup of Brown Sugar and creamed it with the 1/2 cup of softened Butter and 1/2 cup of Vegetable Shortening. Then added the Cinnamon, Vanilla, and Eggs (since I was changing the recipe anyway, why not try the cinnamon inside the cookie?). I blended it in the mixer just until all the ingredients were incorporated, then refrigerated the dough for the regulation one hour.

After rolling the cookies into little balls and baking on cookie sheets at 400 degrees for 10+ minutes, they came out like this:

They taste awesome. So, now our family members are all grabbing a tall glass of ice cold milk. Don’t think these will last long.

What is most interesting, besides their having a completely different texture from standard Snickerdoodles, is they actually have a slight coconut flavor as well, although the recipe contains no coconut.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my kitchen crisis and how it was resolved. If only every mistake in life could be remedied this easily. 🙂

We at Lukewarm Legumes would like to hear about your kitchen disasters as well and how you dealt with them; whether and how you were able to turn what looked like kitchen defeat into a resounding victory.

Light and Fluffy Sourdough Bread

For those of you who love the flavor of Sourdough bread, but also prefer a light and fluffy loaf with a thin crispy crust, this is the recipe for you.

We start with Mise En Place by first carefully reading our recipe instructions and its list of ingredients*. Then we gather all the necessary items and measure them into separate containers.

An essential ingredient which must be prepared ahead of time is the sourdough starter. I am very fortunate to have a friend who several years ago brought me some starter from Germany that had been maintained by a German bakery for several hundred years. If you do not have access to sourdough starter, you can either purchase some, or make your own. The purpose of this blog is not to tell you how to make or where to purchase sourdough starter, so I recommend you enter “sourdough starter” in your favorite search engine to locate the resource you need.

Once you have your starter, to maintain it you will need to regularly ‘feed’ your it and store it in the refrigerator. I keep mine in Mason Jars.

The first step to making this bread it to mix the dry ingredients. Then blend in the butter. Finally add the rest of the ingredients, including the warm water. It is essential to check the water temperature because if it is not warm enough it will not activate the yeasts properly. If it is too hot, it will kill the yeasts.

Very important to making this bread is kneading the dough in order to form the gluten. It is the gluten that enables the sponge to develop the bubbles from the yeast and produces the lighter loaf.

Another technique I use with this bread is to place a pan of water in the bottom of the oven and heat it with the oven before placing the bread in for baking. The purpose of this is to delay the crusting over the top of the loaf to allow the expansion of the dough by the additional activity of the yeast from the oven heat before the dough becomes so hot to deactivate the yeasts.

It is extremely important to take great care in how the dough rises. Extra rising times help to ensure a lighter loaf. Also, after the first rise, when you ‘punch’ down the sponge, do not literally punch it down, be gentle. The purpose of this stage is simply to eliminate any large pockets of air, rearrange the dough so the yeast comes in contact with more ‘food’ to create additional carbon dioxide, and form the loaves in preparation for baking.

After the second rise, you are ready to bake the bread. Place it in the oven, which should be full of steam from your water pan, and set the timer for 30 minutes. When the timer goes off, rotate the loaves and continue to bake. The bread will be done when the crust has turned a golden color and the internal temperature has reached between 190 and 200 degrees.

Enjoy!

* Light and Fluffy Sourdough Bread

Ingredients
4 c Flour, bread
½ c Flour, potato
¼ c Milk, dry
2 t Salt, kosher
1 ½ T Yeast, instant

½ c Butter, unsalted butter, softened

1 ½ c Water, warm (105 – 115)
1 c Sourdough starter (room temperature)
2 T Honey

Instructions

In a large bowl combine the flours, dry milk, salt and yeast.

Add the butter and mix with dough hook on low speed.

Then add the honey, warm water and sourdough starter.

When all the flour is thoroughly moistened either beat on medium or knead by hand for 7 minutes to encourage gluten formation. The dough should be moist and sticky.

Place in oiled bowl, turning once to coat, cover with plastic and allow to rise for 1 ½ hours.

Pour out sponge on a lightly floured counter; gently rearrange dough, shape and place in bread pans.

Coat with oil, cover and allow to rise another 1 ½ hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees for at least 30 minutes prior to baking. Have the oven shelf at the lowest level.

Bake for 30 minutes, then turn. Bake until crust is golden brown and the internal temperature reaches 190 to 200 degrees.

Do not use a baking stone for this bread as the heat retained by the stone will produce a thick hard crust.

Cream of Tartar – Versatile Kitchen Chemical

CREAM OF TARTAR

Cream of Tartar is a very useful and versatile chemical for your kitchen. My hope is that through this article you will gain a greater appreciation of it and how its presence in your kitchen ads value to your efforts and the products you make with it.

ORIGINS

Records of the use of Cream of Tarter extend as far back as 7,000 years. The Archaeological Instutute of America reported in the September/October 1996 edition of its Journal that “Patrick E. McGovern and a team from the University of Pennsylvania Museum found calcium salt from tartaric acid, which occurs naturally in large amounts only in grapes,” at a Neolithic village site in Iran, indicating that wine was being produced in that region of the world at that early date. You can read the full article here.

CHEMISTRY

Cream of Tartar is obtained as a by product of wine manufacture by extracting it from a crystal that is deposited on the inside of wine barrels as the wine ferments. The chemical names for it are: potassium tartrate, potassium hydrogen tartrate, and potassium bitartrate. Its molecular formula is KHC₄H₅O₆.

COOKING
Cream of Tartar has many uses in the kitchen, including:

Baking Powder – Cream of tartar can be used to make baking powder by combing 2 parts Cream of Tartar with 1 part Baking Soda and 1 part Cornstarch.

Meringue – Cream of Tartar, due to its acidity, can be used to stabilize and add volume to beaten egg whites such as are used in angel food cake, pie meringue and meringue cookies. As egg whites are beaten, they expand in volume. The beating of the egg whites causes the strands of egg protein to partially unfold and connect with each other. These interconnected strands wrap around air bubbles which leads to foam development. Cream of tartar lowers the pH of egg whites and helps neutralize the tendency of proteins to repel each other; encouraging their connection. This helps support the air bubbles formed by beating. The result is a much more stable foam.

Snickerdoodles – This famous cookie has the characteristics it does because of the use of Cream of Tartar. See recipe below.*

Icing and Candy – Cream of Tartar is used in icing and candy recipes because it helps produce a product that is smoother and creamier.

Syrup – Adding Cream of Tartar helps prevent crystallization of syrup and honey.

Color Preservation in Vegetables – Boiling vegetables causes them to lose their pigmentation and therefore lose much of their visual appeal. Adding Cream of Tartar to the water helps prevent this. Because of its acidity, Cream of Tartar also helps retard browning of vegetables and cut fruit. However, care must be taken so that the amount of Cream of Tartar used does not affect the flavor of the produce.

However, I tried an experiment comparing boiling broccoli in a Cream of Tartar solution with my standard steam method. I’ll let you be the judge of which method produces the most appealing results:

Broccoli - Raw

Broccoli - Boiled

Broccoli - Steamed

CLEANING

Cream of Tartar can be used to clean your pots and pans as well, particularly aluminum and copper. It can also help take stains out of fabrics such as kitchen towels & aprons, and aid in cleaning your porcelain sink.

TOOTH WHITENING

Although I have not tried it (yet), there are articles about how Cream of Tartar can be used even to whiten teeth. If true, this is of particular help to cooks after years of drinking hot coffee & tea and sipping wine.

PLAY CLAY

Cream of Tartar can be used along with other items from your kitchen to make modeling clay.

1 cup flour
1 cup water
1 cup salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon cream of tartar
3-5 drops of food dye (various colors)

* Snickerdoodles

This recipe comes from the McCormick website.

Ingredients
2 3/4 c Flour, all purpose
2 t Cream of Tartar
1 t Baking Soda

1 1/2 c Sugar, divided
1/2 c Butter, softened
1/2 c Shortening

2 Eggs
2 t Vanilla

1/4 c Sugar
1 T Cinnamon, Ground

Instructions
1. Mix flour, cream of tartar and baking soda in large bowl. Set aside. Beat 1 1/2 cups sugar, butter and shortening in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; mix well. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until well mixed. Refrigerate 1 hour.

2. Preheat oven to 400°F. Mix 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon. Shape dough into 1-inch balls.

Roll in cinnamon sugar mixture to coat. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets.

3. Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on baking sheets 1 minute. Remove to wire racks;
cool completely.

——————–

If you are looking for a place to purchase Cream of Tartar in bulk you might want to check Penzey’s

Mise En Place

In a previous post, Baking Powder Experiment-Biscuits, I included an image which was titled “Mise En Place” to demonstrate a bit of the preparation involved in conducting the experiment. As a follow-up to that post, and to provide more information about cooking methodology to our readers who may not be familiar with the term, I provide the following.

Mise En Place - Biscuits

Mise En Place is a very important principle for serious cooks. Mise En Place is a French term that literally means ‘putting in place.’ Mise En Place means you have everything in order to prepare the dish before you begin assembling it.

Have you ever finished putting together a cake, casserole, or some other baked item and placed it into the oven only to realize you had forgotten one, or more, ingredients? Or started to prepare a dish and discover you are missing an ingredient, then have to scramble either to get it from the store, borrow from a neighbor, or find a substitute from items you have on hand?

If you make it a practice to use the principle of Mise En Place, as you have (hopefully) been carefully reading every recipe before starting preparation, then not only will you be less likely to forget an ingredient, you will also be much more efficient in putting the dish together, as well as more accurate in your measurements and the order of assembly.

The order in which you assemble a dish can be essential for producing the results you expect. Having all the ingredients arranged to assemble your dish includes not just pulling out the containers from your pantry and packages of produce and meats from your refrigerator or freezer. It means having all the ingredients organized in the order of assembly as well as measured, and prepared in ways such as: slicing, dicing, and chopping.

But Mise En Place is much more than just about ingredients, it means having the whole dish, even the entire meal, planned in advance by having the necessary implements and tools arranged as well as having timed the preparation of each step of each dish and coordinating the preparation and cooking of all menu items. In other words, it means taking that extra effort and making use of a little bit of additional time, to organize every aspect of your food preparation.

This past weekend we hosted a birthday party at our home. Party food included grilling marinated (lemon juice, garlic, basil, rosemary, and thyme) chicken breasts over charcoal, preparing my Green Hummus (a special request), Naan Bread, Green Salad, Tabouli, Brown Rice, and making Adas Bil Hamad (a Mediterranean lentil dish) – all from fresh ingredients.

This involved first deciding what recipe to use for each dish, making a list of the necessary ingredients, checking for what ingredients were on hand and which needed to be purchased. Deciding when and in what order each dish was to be prepared, taking into account whether the dish would lend itself to preparation in advance, if it could be cooked and kept warm (or cold) until needed, or if it required being finished (hot and fresh) just as guests were arriving.

Of course, another essential is knowing how many guests to expect and how much of each dish to prepare to accommodate the total number of guests. Normally, I prepare enough of each dish to provide every potential guest with an adequate portion. This doubtless results in an excess of leftovers, but I think it is better than running out of a dish and disappointing my guests. Besides, there never seems to be a lack of guests willing to take any extras home after the party.

Once all these things were decided, for each prep session I laid out all the ingredients, along with all the tools, utensils, bowls, pots, pans etc. that would be needed for the dishes at hand. Then I measured, washed, sliced, diced, chopped, and set out all the ingredients on my prep table in order by dish and recipe. (I always group my recipes by ingredient combinations per the recipe instructions.)

You will find that the extra time you spend up front planning, will make the actual preparation much smoother and less problem prone. Personally, I am much more efficient in having all the dishes ready on time, with less stress, and am able to have everything ready for the guests with a clean kitchen and make it look to them when they arrive that putting together the party was almost effortless. Not only does this make for a much more pleasant experience for your guests, but enables you to enjoy the party and your company to a greater degree.

I hope if you are not already utilizing the technique of Mise En Place, you will be inspired to do so. It makes preparing food for the people you care about much more pleasant for you, for them, and the socializing aspect of eating together becomes a more edifying experience whether it is for a large party or just a quiet meal at home.

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