For this year's final project, we were once again tasked with finding a recipe on our own and making it. Since we had an abundance of apples and oranges at the school, we were also encouraged to incorporate those as ingredients in the recipe. I also chose to utilize my sourdough starter that we were assigned to begin making a few weeks ago.
I used this recipe: www.fermentingforfoodies.com/prefermented-cobbler/. The first challenge was the apples. I didn't expect two and a half pounds of apples to be six apples, and I'm a really slow worker so this pushed back my baking time significantly. In the spirit of saving time, I only used 5 so that I would be able to finish the baking by the end of class, at least. This probably made the cobbler thinner than expected, as well as my not knowing how large a "10 cup baking dish" is. I think I chose too large a pan, so this also made the cobbler thinner. One other struggle I had was with the sourdough crust. I was unaware of the texture it was supposed to be (the recipe said sticky, so I suppose I should have added some more water) and it ended up being too dry. It also appears uneven because I was hesitant to roll it out and have to add more flour to it, further drying it out. In hindsight, it would probably really benefit from me adding more water. I had to hand stretch it out, and some parts broke because they were uneven (hence the ugly patches). Despite all this, the taste was surprisingly better than the appearance. You can't really go wrong with apples covered in brown sugar and cinnamon, and the sourdough itself doesn't taste too bad. It's a little dry on top, but serving it with whipped cream solves this problem. I'm a bit disappointed with how it looks, but I've grown used to my baking looking somewhat unconventional (just look through my previous posts). I have still learned from this recipe and experience, and I will take this new knowledge forward with me. We were also tasked with converting and reducing the size of the recipe. While I did use the 1x proportion as given by the recipe, I have also converted and divided it in half: apple_cobbler_conversions.docx
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For today's class, we made chocolate cupcakes! These came together really quickly and, as advertised, came out very moist, which I enjoyed. The process of creating the cupcakes was pretty simple and we ended up having a lot of free time after finishing the batter. We were also provided with some chocolate frosting (not pictured) made by Ms. Siverson, which made for a nice contribution to the cupcake. I don't usually like frosting on my cupcakes, but the flavour and texture were nice and didn't harden even after a day after it was made. Overall, I didn't really have any issues with this recipe. It was tasty and quick, and I might make it again on my own time.
Continuing with our breads unit, today's recipe was tortillas! We were also provided ingredients to make salsa and some white cheddar and eggs as toppings. Similar to last class, we used the electric frying pans to cook the dough once it was shaped and ready. This time I prepared the dough while my partner made the salsa and grated the cheese. We used a scale to equally divide the dough into smaller balls that we would later roll out into tortillas, first flattening them into circles with our palms and then rolling them out.
For the first few tortillas, we had trouble getting them to form air bubbles when cooking, even though our pans were definitely hot enough. We soon realized that the circles were too thick, and went to flatten out the rest of the tortillas more. These formed bubbles a lot more easily and cooked faster. Since I don't like eggs, I only put cheese on my tortillas (to melt on the pan). The result was very good, though definitely best when fresh. For today's class, we made green onion pancakes. Having been in this class last year, I remember making the same recipe in the past. However, this time I found the pancakes to be significantly less oily (either I put too much last time or much less this time). My partner and I made the dough and let it sit for half an hour while I chopped up the green onions. I learned from this that I need to work on my knifework skills...
After half an hour, we each took 3 pancakes' worth of dough and rolled them out, brushed them with oil, scattered the chopped green onions on top, and then rolled them into spirals to sit for 10 more minutes before rolling them out again and frying them on the electric frying pans. I had a bit of trouble with my first pancake, as, after remembering how oily mine were last year, I went a little too light on the oil and it took a little extra time to fry my first pancake up properly. Other than that, they turned out pretty well! Adding soy sauce when serving definitely helps, though. Since we had Friday off in commemoration of Good Friday, this week we baked in back-to-back classes on Tuesday and Wednesday. We decided to make two types of bread: one no-knead recipe and one festive Italian Easter bread recipe. On the first day, we prepared the doughs and let them sit for a day, and on the second we formed and baked the breads. The whiteboard picture attached at the bottom is an adjustment to the no-knead bread recipe.
I ended up doing more work on the Italian Easter bread (cazzupe) while my partner worked on the no-knead bread. At the end of day 1, we found the no-knead mixture to be a little more liquidy than we expected, but we decided to leave it. It turned out on day 2 though, with the help of lots of extra flour (and some kneading, despite the name). I think I added a little too much flour to the cazzupe, so they were somewhat difficult to roll into ropes and twist around. They still worked, but the shape wasn't perfect. We were lucky enough to get one of the three available dutch ovens, which gave the no-knead bread a nice, round shape and a crusty exterior. The cazzupe was excellent coming right out of the oven. Some others decided to put glaze and sprinkles on theirs, but I actually prefer plain foods, so I opted to just sprinkle some sugar over mine. Both breads turned out better than I expected! The no-knead was a little dry when I came home, but I had some with raspberry jam or butter and that seemed to help considerably. Recipe from: www.food.com/recipe/chocolate-chip-muffins-9326?mode=Metric&scaleto=12&ftab=tweaks#activity-feed
For today's class, we once again made muffins. However, this time we were tasked with finding a recipe on our own and making that instead. My partner and I decided we wanted to try chocolate chip muffins. Unfortunately, the recipe we originally agreed on required sour cream or yogurt (neither of which were available at school, and we did not prepare to bring our own), so we instead chose a different one. The techniques for this were very similar to the previous berry muffins, in that we had to be careful about overmixing and creating a well for the wet ingredients. This time, I forgot to take pictures because they came together so quickly! I found this recipe to be quite easy (they look kind of crispy in the final image because I couldn't get to the oven and left them in for ~4 extra minutes). Today in class we made triple berry muffins. These are our first muffins of the year, so we had to keep in mind to create a well in the middle of the dry ingredients for the wet ingredients to be poured into and also to not overwork the muffin mixture so that it will properly rise. Overall, the muffins came together without much trouble. We decided to add the berries in at the end so as not to give the batter a purplish hue.
I think they turned out pretty well! The granola mix on top is also pretty good on its own (if a little too sweet for my tastes). I personally think this is one of the better recipes we've made this year. This class' baking was fairly simple - we were to prepare apple strudels using phyllo and the apple filling from this post (burnabymountainhomeec.weebly.com/blog/apple-strudel). My partner chopped the apples while I prepared the rest of the filling and the phyllo. I enjoyed rolling up the triangles - it was easy for me because we use the same method at home to roll up plastic grocery store bags for later use as small trash bags in the house. The recipe overall finished very quickly, but it was fun to try a completely different method than what I've done before.
The filling itself was very tasty! The almonds were a nice addition, though my partner and I decided to leave out the raisins. I found eating the strudel to be a bit of a strange experience, though - I'm so used to biting into spinach and feta spanakopita that the apple surprised me (even though I made it). For today's lab, we made Cornish pasties, a time-proven meal with a lot of history. Veggies, meat, or any leftovers are cooked and encased by the dough, which, once baked, would keep everything warm and ready for lunch. The crust would be used as a handheld so that the rest of the pasty would stay clean of any dirt accumulated while working before one's lunch break.
Since there were multiple steps to this recipe, I made the dough while my partners prepared and cooked the filling. We found the filling to be a bit bland initially, so we added a bit of extra seasoning, and it quite improved the taste. I found the pasty as a whole to be very tasty, in the end! It definitely did retain its warmth for a while after we pulled them out of the oven. One thing I personally could improve would probably be to not overwork the dough - it's likely that I may have affected the quality of it by firming it up too much. For today's class, we made small apple pies. As with the previous day's recipes, we made the dough and chilled it before continuing on to the rest of the pie so that it is easier to work with. I made the dough and my partner cut up the apples and made the filling. We both took turns rolling out the dough and assembling the pies.
I was pleased with the appearance of the pies, but I personally found this recipe, as with the previous one, to be slightly too dry and crumbly for my liking. In the future, I will experiment with adding more water to bind the flour. |