News from the lab
Oct. 30th, 2010 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lyornI have been experimenting in the kitchen, with fun results.
Friday we had a small Halloween Party at work, and I decided to bring muffins. In the spirit of the season, I covered them with pumpkin-orange icing. Which confused a lot of people.
"Is that tomato?"
"No, pumpkin."
Shocked look. "Really"
(What do you think?) Patiently: "No. It's coloured icing."
Still sceptical: "Oh."
Good thing I didn't colour it green. Icing goes well with the date-walnut muffins, I found, but there should be ground nuts in it.
The problem with muffins is that a muffin needs some commitment. You cannot try one and then have a few more if you liked the first (unless you are really, really hungry). So I have been thinking about making mini-muffins for a while now. Yesterday I got a silicone mini muffin tray, which looked very promising. Unfortunately, on measuring I found that the standard tray will hold 1.2 litres of dough, and the mini one less than 0.3, which means four trays off a standared recipe, which means that the last of the dough will have rested for 90 minutes before going into the oven. Not so good.
So, today I experimented:
Setup: Took the double-chocolate-and-hazelnut muffin recipe, which produces a very fluid dough, and filled A) some paper cups and B) the mini muffin tray.
Result: Complete paper cup fail. Mixed results on the tray.
Summary: The taste is great. Only the shape is weird. I have to re-try this with a more solid dough.
Details:
Filling the paper cups was like mud-wrestling with the dough. It got everywhere. Including into my hair. There is a place for everthing, including chocolate muffin dough, and my hair is not it. In the oven, the paper cups capsized and the dough flowed out, forming nice flat gooey cookies. I took them out after fifteen minutes, peeled off the paper, put them top-down and put them back in for 5 minutes to make them a little less soft.
With the tray, the results were a little better, but after only five minutes of cooling, most of the muffins came out in two pieces. I put them back togehter, and also put them in top-down for five more minutes, in the hope that the chocolate will weld the halves.
I also made chocolate chip cookies again, in case some kids will come trick-or-treating tomorrow. Most likely they won't (I'm two stairs up), so I won't buy some sweets that I wouldn't want to eat myself if they are left over, but I won't give some kids the kind of sweets I *do* buy for myself. So, cookies it is.
Came out fine. The orange food colouring really benefits the cookies. It does not benefit the rest of the kitchen, though. I wonder if the colour will come out in the wash.
To something completely different, can anyone please check if the comments on e.g. the previous post become invisible if one is not logged in? I tried, but they stayed visible to me. I would like some more input on this.
Friday we had a small Halloween Party at work, and I decided to bring muffins. In the spirit of the season, I covered them with pumpkin-orange icing. Which confused a lot of people.
"Is that tomato?"
"No, pumpkin."
Shocked look. "Really"
(What do you think?) Patiently: "No. It's coloured icing."
Still sceptical: "Oh."
Good thing I didn't colour it green. Icing goes well with the date-walnut muffins, I found, but there should be ground nuts in it.
The problem with muffins is that a muffin needs some commitment. You cannot try one and then have a few more if you liked the first (unless you are really, really hungry). So I have been thinking about making mini-muffins for a while now. Yesterday I got a silicone mini muffin tray, which looked very promising. Unfortunately, on measuring I found that the standard tray will hold 1.2 litres of dough, and the mini one less than 0.3, which means four trays off a standared recipe, which means that the last of the dough will have rested for 90 minutes before going into the oven. Not so good.
So, today I experimented:
Setup: Took the double-chocolate-and-hazelnut muffin recipe, which produces a very fluid dough, and filled A) some paper cups and B) the mini muffin tray.
Result: Complete paper cup fail. Mixed results on the tray.
Summary: The taste is great. Only the shape is weird. I have to re-try this with a more solid dough.
Details:
Filling the paper cups was like mud-wrestling with the dough. It got everywhere. Including into my hair. There is a place for everthing, including chocolate muffin dough, and my hair is not it. In the oven, the paper cups capsized and the dough flowed out, forming nice flat gooey cookies. I took them out after fifteen minutes, peeled off the paper, put them top-down and put them back in for 5 minutes to make them a little less soft.
With the tray, the results were a little better, but after only five minutes of cooling, most of the muffins came out in two pieces. I put them back togehter, and also put them in top-down for five more minutes, in the hope that the chocolate will weld the halves.
I also made chocolate chip cookies again, in case some kids will come trick-or-treating tomorrow. Most likely they won't (I'm two stairs up), so I won't buy some sweets that I wouldn't want to eat myself if they are left over, but I won't give some kids the kind of sweets I *do* buy for myself. So, cookies it is.
Came out fine. The orange food colouring really benefits the cookies. It does not benefit the rest of the kitchen, though. I wonder if the colour will come out in the wash.
To something completely different, can anyone please check if the comments on e.g. the previous post become invisible if one is not logged in? I tried, but they stayed visible to me. I would like some more input on this.