Wheat bran biscuits

Posted: 16 November 2018 | Author: | Filed under: baking, bread, cooking, food, recipes, whole grains | 2 Comments

These are too thin to be what we in the US think of as biscuits and they’re shaped more like cookies because they’re thin. You could roll the dough thicker but you’ll need to adjust the baking time.

Normally bran adds a lot of bitterness to a recipe.  To solve this problem I discovered that rinsing it gets rid of most if not all of its bitterness. The boiling is for softening the bran.

For the rinsing, if you’re not sure if your strainer is fine enough, collect the first drainage into a glass container and examine it for bran. The strainer doesn’t need to be as fine as you might think because the bran swells from the soaking. I use one sold at my grocery store made by Good Cook; they come in 3 sizes and I use the middle one. It has a plastic rim and handle. Don’t do the straining method by using the handle; hold it by the rim or the handle will break.  The first drainage from the soaking will be very cloudy and brown.  The ones after that are not as brown but still slightly cloudy.

  • 80 grams dry bran flakes, soaked, rinsed several times, and briefly boiled
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons butter or oil
  • 3 or 4 parts oat flour, masa, or other non-wheat flour
  • 1 part vital wheat gluten

Optional:

  • 2 tablespoons malt, barley or rye, or a teaspoon of sugar
  • 20 grams molasses
  • 2 tablespoons powdered milk
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Soak the wheat bran in a pot in hot tap water for at least 10 minutes. Pour into a wire mesh strainer and shake out excess water by bringing strainer up to chest level then quickly lowering it and abruptly stopping at sink/waist level. Repeat until very little water comes out, about 10 times. Use care because as it loses the water it can bounce in the strainer. Rinse at least twice in hot tap water by putting it back in the pot and adding hot water and straining again.

Bring rinsed wheat bran to a boil, then drain into strainer, and rinse with cold water. Watch it carefully when bringing it to a boil because there is still starch and protein in it and it creates a foam which will boil over.

Put salt and oil (and optional molasses, malt, powdered milk, and vanilla) in mixer and mix. Add bran and mix well.

Stop mixer and add 3 (or 4) tablespoons of oat flour (or masa, etc.), then 1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten. Start mixer again after adding each tablespoon. Keep adding flour and vital wheat gluten as above, 1 tablespoon at a time. When dough cleans the side of the bowl and sticks to the paddle add another 2 or 3 tablespoons of flour and mix well. Dough will be sticky but will lose most of its stickiness after the rest.  Err on the side of the dough being sticky.

Put dough into a quart yogurt container (grease or butter it first) with the lid or wrap in plastic and let rest for at least 2 hours, or overnight or a few days in the fridge.

Roll out to 1/4″ and cut into cookies with biscuit cutter or rectangles with a pizza cutter. I used a pizza cutter since then I don’t need to try and make more biscuits with the scraps; all of the pieces go into the oven after cutting.

Bake at 375 for 20 minutes, turn over, bake another 12 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Lately I’ve been baking them at 400 for 15 minutes, and I’ve been baking them directly on a pizza stone, after the oven has been preheated for a long time so that the stone is hot. This gives them a nice brown bottom.

You may be wondering why there isn’t a liquid ingredient; that’s provided by the water retained by the wheat bran. So you don’t want to press it with a spoon to extract the maximum amount of water, just do the dropping thing, at least 10 times, until it’s mostly gone and you get some droplets.

I also don’t use baking powder since wheat bran tends to kill any rising ability of the dough. But since I haven’t tried using it I don’t know if they would puff up with it.

I finally weighed the flour before and after. I also proportioned the flour so that it’s 4 parts flour and 1 part gluten, by weight, giving a total of 5 parts. I started with 250 grams of barley flour, dividing that by 5 gave me 50 so I added 50 grams of gluten for a total mixed flour weight of 300 grams. I then spooned it into the wheat bran and stopped doing that when it started sticking to the paddle and cleared the sides of the bowl. I had used 213 grams of the barley flour and gluten mixture, in other words I had 87 grams of it left over. But my above math is a bit wonky since it’s not 1/5 of 300. According to my calculator 50 grams of 300 is 16.65%. According to google a high gluten bread (wheat) flour is 13% so I made something that’s a bit stronger than that, which is probably good considering all of the bran that’s in it. The dough is resting at the moment and we’ll see how it comes out.

With sorghum flour it was 112 grams of flour and gluten mixture left over, but I also upped the butter to 90 grams. As before, 250 grams of flour (sorghum) and 50 grams of vital wheat gluten.

The biscuits made with sorghum flour and gluten were not a success. They have a sort of sandy texture. With the oat flour they have a cohesiveness and smooth texture that the biscuits made with the sorghum flour lack. Although the flavor was good. In the future I’ll combine the sorghum flour with oat or barley flour, 50/50 say, for a total of 250 grams, and then add the 50 grams of gluten. Although I’ve never used it, I suspect that sweet rice flour would also work well in place of the oat or barley flour.

Pumpkin oats fruitcake

Posted: 11 December 2015 | Author: | Filed under: baking, bread, cooking, food, food drying, masa harina, recipes | Leave a comment

This recipe is sort of an offshoot of this pumpkin bread pudding recipe:

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/pumpkin-bread-pudding-recipe

I was thinking of making it again but I wasn’t sure if I had enough bread; I’ve been experimenting with different grains making gluten free quick breads (made with baking powder, not yeast).  Then it occurred to me to just make the Libby’s pumpkin pie filling and instead of using bread cubes use quick oats.  Quick oats are also rolled oats; they haven’t been pre-cooked or anything, just oat grains cut up before they’re rolled so that they’re smaller and cook more quickly.

Special equipment: I’m doing the recipe by weight so you’ll need a kitchen scale. I’m also not specifying a loaf or bundt pan of any particular size so you’ll determine if the fruitcake is done by using a digital thermometer; 190 degrees F.  You can figure out how much batter you’ll need by using a measuring cup and filling a loaf pan with water.  Mine is a little less than 6 cups capacity.

The basic idea is to make the pumpkin pie filling following the recipe on the can of plain pumpkin (with some tweaks which we’ll get to in a sec), add some quick oats, let it rest overnight, add dried fruits and nuts that have been soaking in liqueur, rum, brandy, etc., and then bake.

For the pumpkin pie pie filling two changes are made.  One is to replace some of the evaporated milk with an egg.  If you use the single pie can of plain pumpkin you’ll take out 50 grams of evaporated milk.  Save it or freeze it, or in my case, just drink it.  Replace that evaporated milk with an additional egg; a large egg weights very close to 50 grams.  The other change is to crank up the spices using the amounts from the King Arthur Flour recipe; double the ginger, add some nutmeg, and add some vanilla.  So the updated spice quantities are

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons vanilla

Other than changing the eggs from 2 to 3 and decreasing the evaporated milk by 50 grams and the above spice quantities the recipe is the same as what’s on the can.  (Double these for the 2 pie can of pumpkin pie.)

After you make the pumpkin pie filling you weigh it, then divide its weight by 4, and add that amount of quick rolled oats.  For example, the first one I made I used the large 2 pie can and the weight of the filling was 1,980 grams so for that I’d use 495 grams of quick rolled oats.  If you use the 2 pie can I’d recommend dividing it in half unless your mixing bowl is very large; oats are light and 495 grams of oats is a lot.  That means 2 containers or bowls with 990 grams of pie filling in them and 248 grams of quick oats for each.  For a single pie can of plain pumpkin the numbers were slightly different.  A good spatula with a sharp edge is handy for scraping out the bowls and getting every last bit.

After mixing in the oats cover the bowl with plastic wrap or whatever and put it in the fridge for an overnight rest.  If you remember to, stir it every so often.

The next day drain an appropriate quantity of the soaked dried fruits and nuts. Grease and paper the loaf pan. After the final greasing sprinkle it with flour. Let the fruits and nuts drain while you’re working on the loaf pan.  Then mix the fruits and nuts with the pie filling and spoon it into the loaf pan.  Since there isn’t any baking powder in this recipe it won’t rise in the oven. This means that you can fill the loaf pan right up to the top edge.  The “appropriate quantity” of soaked dried fruits and nuts is up to you.  For example, use half as much dried fruits and nuts as batter. For my loaf pan of about 6 cups I could use 4 cups of batter and 2 cups of dried fruits and nuts.  I don’t pack the fruit into the measuring cup so the spaces between it give me some leeway.   (To be honest I’ve been lax and not measuring how much dried fruit and nuts I’m adding.)  If there isn’t enough batter then it won’t hold together so that’s the main concern; beyond that it’s a matter of preference.

I’ve been baking it at 325 degrees F because it takes longer than a regular cake to bake and at 350 the top is a bit too dark.  And at 325 it takes even longer.  At least an hour and 45 minutes, the last one took 2 hours.  So set your timer and when it goes off take it out and insert the digital thermometer and make sure it’s 190 degrees internally.  If not, back it goes for another 15 minutes.  For the last 15 minutes you can turn the oven up to 350 to get the top browner if you’d like.

The end result is very dense and heavy, not like your usual fruitcake. But in my opinion it’s much better than the usual fruitcake. And because it’s so dense I would not do the usual fruitcake thing of brushing it with rum or brandy because you’d probably end up with a sticky and gooey mess.

For soaking the dried fruits I’ve been using liqueur. For liqueur choices the sky’s the limit. I’ve been soaking each fruit in a different liqueur. Cassis is one of my favorites; it’s made from currants. My next batch will use walnuts that have been soaking in Frangelico, which is made with hazelnuts. Previously the walnuts weren’t soaked. If you chop the dried fruit to be at most pea sized it takes about 3 days to plump up. But longer is better.

Letting the batter rest overnight is important so that the oats fully soak up as much as they can. You may be able to use regular oats instead of quick oats, I’ve only been using quick oats.

You don’t have to stick with oats. I made some with a 50/50 combination of teff flour and buckwheat flour.  It came out very dark and tasted great. For the latest one I used corn tortilla flour (masa).  When used in sweet recipes the sugar neutralizes the strong corn tortilla flavor of the masa and it ends up tasting quite nice, and different, but in a good way.  When experimenting with alternatives to oats you’ll need to be careful about how much you use; some will need more or less. For example, with the masa I used 192 grams. The batter should drop from a spoon, but not be as runny as pancake batter, and I suspect that a thicker batter is better.  When experimenting with different flours you can check the batter’s consistency after it’s rested in the fridge for an hour or so and the flour has soaked up the majority of what it’s going to.  But it will be stiffer from being cold so take that into account.  This isn’t a precise chemistry experiment and we’re using a thermometer to test for doneness so as long as you don’t go overboard on it being too runny or stiff it should come out fine.

Bran crackers update

Posted: 11 December 2011 | Author: | Filed under: baking, bread, chips and crackers, cooking, food, food drying, whole grains | Leave a comment

I haven’t been writing up my results lately because I’ve been doing experimenting and retrenching.

For one thing, for ease of slicing I’ve decided/realized that I need to use more water.

For another, I’ve always been sort of suspicious that this atta flour I’m using has an off flavor. The grocery store has 3 different brands, all 20 pound bags, priced from $8 to $13. Being the pinch penny that I am I bought the $8 bag. Even though I have lots of it left I decided to try getting the middle $11 bag to see how it works. So far I’m thinking that I like this one better, but I’ve changed other variables so I really can’t say for sure. I need to bake two loaves of bread with just flour, salt, and water and compare their flavors, not that I’m likely to do that.

And because I have this new flour my latest experiments have been with only atta flour; no rye flour. I need to simplify; it’s too easy for me to complicate things.

One batch I made (recipe to appear later) with just bran, atta flour, salt, and water came out nicely. Then I did a batch with about 1/4 cup of instant potato flakes. That made it easier to slice but the dried slices were a bit too tough so I should redo that one with about half of the instant potato.

I’m currently trying a batch made with sweet potato. I bought a sweet potato, diced it, put it in a metal bowl and cooked it for 7 minutes in the pressure cooker bain marie, then pureed it, then used half of that which was about half a cup. The 7 minutes may have been too long; I’ll try 5 minutes next time. Those slices are currently drying.

Standard procedure for making the rusks.

Real fiber versus faux fiber

Posted: 30 November 2011 | Author: | Filed under: cooking, food, recipes, whole grains | Leave a comment

Nice: Food companies are adding fiber to almost everything, for better or worse.
This confirms something that I’ve always suspected.

Rye crackers with more bran

Posted: 30 November 2011 | Author: | Filed under: baking, bread, chips and crackers, cooking, food, food drying, recipes, whole grains | Leave a comment

I halved the atta flour quantity and increased the bran by the same ammount (I have to fudge the numbers slightly because my scale only does 2 grams at a time; no odd amounts displayed). The dough was very crumbly; I’m not hopeful.

84 grams wheat bran
30 grams atta flour
62 grams dark rye flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
192 grams water

Still not getting my hopes up; after its 2 hour rest the dough was definitely crumbly.

As an experiment to hold in more of the moisture and possibly help bind it together I sealed the top of the loaf pan with aluminum foil before putting it in the oven to bake. Since I’m not using any leavening the bread never rises so no worries about it pushing up against the aluminum foil.

It’s baked and cooling down. The top of the loaf looked less dried out than the ones that don’t have foil over them.

After chilling overnight in the fridge I sliced them. They sliced nicely. The aluminum foil trick definitely helps keep the final bread moist and makes it easier to slice. I’ll have to remember to do that henceforth.

The slices are in the food dehydrator drying.

I just tried one of the crackers after several hours of drying; they’re not fully dried yet but it looks like they’re not going to be too crumbly, which surprises me considering how crumbly the dough was. Perhaps baking the loaf covered with aluminum foil is the trick. I should try redoing the sorghum flour recipe with it to see if it helps. I should also see how far I can push the wheat bran percentage; I could halve the rye flour quantity to 30 grams and increase the wheat bran by another 30 grams.

After fully drying: well I’m pleasantly surprised; they came out well. They’re not crumbly and the flavor is quite reasonable. Not especially bitter. They’re also not tough so I could also slice them more thickly and give them more substance.

It seems as if the other flours somehow enable the bitterness of the bran to come through more strongly. I’m also suspecting that the atta flour I bought may be the culprit; the grocery store had 3 different brands and being the skinflint that I am, I bought the least expensive (read, cheapest) one.

Standard procedure for making the rusks.

Sorghum and atta flour crackers

Posted: 29 November 2011 | Author: | Filed under: baking, bread, chips and crackers, cooking, food, food drying, recipes, whole grains | Leave a comment

These are looking good so far; I just sliced them and put them in the food dehydrator. I baked this one at the same time I baked the corn flour and millet flour loaves but had to wait until their slices were dry because I don’t have enough trays to do 6 mini loaves sliced.

Here’s the recipe; same as the others with 50% atta flour and 50% sorghum flour:

54 grams wheat bran
62 grams atta flour
62 grams sorghum flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
170 grams water

After drying: the flavor is definitely unremarkable.

The texture turned out to not be so good; they’re a bit crumbly and won’t hold up for scooping dip.

It would seem that the main advantage for sorghum flour is that it has a low glycemic index.

Standard procedure for making the rusks.

Back to crackers

Posted: 28 November 2011 | Author: | Filed under: baking, bread, chips and crackers, cooking, food, food drying, recipes, whole grains | Leave a comment

I’ve sort of fallen off the wagon with my cracker making. I think it was because I had taken a wrong turn with cooking the bread in the pressure cooker. It made crackers that were too tough. And any added spices or flavorings mostly got killed off by the pressure cooker. So I decided to go back to baking in the oven.

Just before I switched to the pressure cooker I realized that I don’t want to add any leavening to the recipe; a brick is what’s needed. But I’d been experimenting with a recipe that had lots of added ingredients; potato, oil, and milk. So I decided to start from scratch, bake a recipe with just flour, water, and salt to see how that worked in the oven. Of course I couldn’t just do it with plain flour so I used half atta flour and half dark rye flour. The first batch was as follows:

1 cup wheat bran
1/2 cup atta flour
1/2 cup dark rye flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup water

After mixing I put it in a small plastic bowl with a lid and let it rest for 2 hours. Then I baked it in a mini loaf pan for 1 hour in a 350 degree oven. I did the usual of letting the bread cool after it was baked, then wrapped it in a paper towel (to absorb any moisture that might otherwise collect on the inside of the plastic bag), then put it in a plastic bag and let it get fully cold in the fridge. Then I sliced it about 4 mm thick and dried it in the food dehydrator set at 105 degrees.

The crackers were fine.

Next I decided to get a bit more rigorous and use weights instead of volume measurements and add some potato.

54 grams wheat bran
62 grams atta flour
62 grams dark rye flour
22 grams dried potato flakes
1/2 teaspoon salt
240 grams water

The potato makes the crackers a bit tougher. But the flavor isn’t any different.

I also did one with egg, no potato; the total fluid was about 240 grams. These were no different than the first plain batch.

Next up was corn flour:

54 grams wheat bran
62 grams atta flour
62 grams corn flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
225 grams water

And millet flour:

54 grams wheat bran
62 grams atta flour
62 grams millet flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
180 grams water

Notice that I used less water. It turned out that the corn flour dough had too much water; after it had rested for 2 hours there was some water puddled at the bottom of its container. For determining the water needed I was eyeballing and feeling the dough; I should have been feeling it more than eyeballing it since its visual appearance is deceptive.

These two are sliced and drying in the food dehydrator.

The millet flour loaf was quite crumbly and difficult to slice without the slices falling apart. I tasted some of the crumbs and bits before it was dried and it was noticeably bitter. I think I’ll try another batch with it and the potato, and maybe also an egg if the potato doesn’t help. Or perhaps use a cup of pumpkin puree.

I need to go back to the original wheat and rye recipe and try it with milk. The milk might make it more crumbly.

I’m thinking of doing something off the wall and baking the loaf for 30 or 45 minutes, then cook it in the pressure cooker for just a few minutes, at the lower pressure setting. I’m wondering if that will help make the bread denser (and easier to slice) without making the crackers too hard and not dull the flavors.

After drying: The 50% corn flour crackers are definitely crunchy with lots of snap. But the flavor is completely unremarkable. Looks like corn flour can be useful for adding crunch to the crackers.

The 50% millet flour crackers have a bit of a bitter taste. I’d say that the millet flour is a dud.

Next up is 50% sorghum flour.

Standard procedure for making the rusks.

Deep fried batters

Posted: 10 November 2011 | Author: | Filed under: cooking, deep fried, food, masa harina, whole grains | Leave a comment

I bought a Presto deep fat fryer. I can no longer remember my initial reason for wanting one; donuts probably since I’ve been reading lots of bread cookbooks.

After I ordered it and while I was waiting for it to arrive I started thinking about different things that I could deep fry. Potatoes (french fries) obviously, and batter dipped onion rings. In the batter dipped category there are also corn dogs and cheese dogs (a hot dog size piece of cheese that’s been batter dipped and deep fried). Cheese dogs are sinfully good; what’s not to like about hot gooey melted cheese enrobed in deep fried corn bread?

Something I had many years ago was batter dipped and deep fried mushrooms. I was looking at the mushrooms at the grocery store and they’re so big now that I’m thinking that you’d probably need to cut them in half or in fourths. Nearby is this great Asian grocery store, Ranch 99, and they have a nice variety of fresh mushrooms. And a great selection of dried mushrooms as well. I was thinking of using dried shiitake mushrooms but instead of rehydrating them with water, rehydrate them with chicken stock, or water that’s had dried garlic rehydrated in it, or water that’s had garlic or onion boiled in it.

Then there are ideas like adding some stuff to the batter mix, for example, ground dried chilies; I have some ground dried California chili, New Mexico chili, and pasilla ancho. Add some ground cumin as well to that. Into that dip some cheese stuffed jalapenos and deep fry them. Or, instead of just cheese, cook some chorizo and drain it, then mix it with the cheese. For the batter, perhaps the masa harina would work.

One of the first things I made was corn fritters. Instead of using corn meal I used corn flour; I’d bought a bag of corn flour from my local FoodMaxx; they have a Middle Eastern/Indian section with some interesting stuff, including millet flour, which I also bought. The corn flour absorbed a lot of water; the batter recipe I was using was 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup milk, 1 egg, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon baking powder. I ended up adding at least 1/4 cup more water. It also called for 1 can of corn but I used a half a can. They came out well but afterwards I realized that I should have made them without the canned corn, just plain deep fried corn flour batter, so that I could better evaluate how the corn flour works.

But before I tested a batch of plain corn flour batter I decided to try the millet flour. It was just the opposite of the corn flour with respect to fluid absorption. 1/2 cup of water was too much. (I’m using powdered milk instead of real milk since I don’t drink milk and it would end up going sour by the time I used it all.) I ended up adding 5 tablespoons of millet flour to bring the batter back to something that was more workable. For fritters you want something that falls off the mixer’s paddle when you raise it, but it shouldn’t fall too quickly and shouldn’t just immediately drip off. The deep fried millet flour batter I rather liked. It’s very dense, and it has an interesting earthy and nutty flavor. More earthy than nutty I’d say. I set the deep fryer at 375 and cooked them for 2 to 3 minutes.

I’d also bought several large cans of pumpkin puree; it’s holiday season so there are big stacks of it at the grocery store. I was thinking of trying it in breads, similar to how you’d use potatoes in a bread recipe. So the next batch was 1 cup millet flour, 3/4 cup pumpkin puree, 1 egg, 3 tablespoons dry milk powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking powder. They were very nice. Not as dense as the ones made with milk or water, which I realized really were quite dense after making the pumpkin puree ones. The pumpkin also nicely mutes the earthy millet flour flavor. And of course it gave them a nice orange color. I set the deep fryer at 375 and cooked them for 2 to 3 minutes.

Next was a batch with the corn flour and pumpkin puree; since it was so thirsty I used 1 cup corn flour, 1 cup pumpkin puree, 1 egg, 3 tablespoons dry milk, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking powder. Curiously, one cup of pumpkin puree was enough liquid; I was expecting to need to add more water but it was fine. Again, a nice orange color. I set the deep fryer at 375 and cooked one for 2 minutes. The first 2 minutes test one was still raw in the center so the rest I cooked for at least 3 minutes. The corn flour is ok but I really like the earthy flavor of the millet flour.

This has been fun. I have several other flours I’m going to try; sorghum, teff, barley, masa harina, and brown rice. There may be some others in the back of the freezer that I’ve forgotten. I still want to make some onion rings but I’m having too much fun playing with the different flours and pumpkin puree.

Dulce de leche in the pressure cooker

Posted: 2 November 2011 | Author: | Filed under: cooking, food, pressure cooker, recipes | 1 Comment

You can find various recipes for dulce de leche on the web; a gallon of milk, sugar, small amount of baking soda, vanilla (optional), cook for an hour on the stove top.

Chow.com has one where you put sweetened condensed milk in a pie plate, cover it, bake in the oven for an hour, stir, then bake for an hour and a half more.

I haven’t tried either of these methods.

In the comments section for the Chow recipe people were relating the way their mom, grandmother, etc. made it by putting an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot, add several cups of water, and cook it on the stove top. Of course there were many comments about how dangerous that is. Talk about a disaster waiting to happen. There’s also the problem with the BPA that the cans are lined with.

All of these seem like too much work to me. The stove top method is sure to need lots of attention in order to avoid the milk sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pan. The oven one takes too long. There were also comments asking how to make a lower sugar version; sweetened condensed milk is very sweet. All this got me to thinking that dulce de leche could very likely be made in a pressure cooker using the bain marie method.

I took a can of sweetened condensed milk, poured it in a metal bowl, covered the bowl tightly with aluminum foil, and put it in the pressure cooker on top of the steamer basket and poured several cups of water around it. Then I cooked it at high pressure for 1 hour.

Well, not exactly that; I first added 2 tablespoons of dry whole milk and mixed that in well before I put it in the pressure cooker. I have this dry milk, Nido, that’s made by Nestle that’s whole milk, not the usual nonfat dry milk. It’s a fine powder, not the fluffy granules like instant nonfat dry milk.

When I took the bowl out of the pressure cooker and uncovered it the sweetened condensed milk had reduced by a lot and had a slightly grainy crust on the top. So I used the electric hand mixer and mixed it well. Then I put it in a jar and put that in the fridge. It’s thick. And it tastes great.

Thinking about the lower sugar queries I made the next batch with one can of sweetened condensed milk and one can of evaporated milk. For the evaporated milk I used whole evaporated milk, not non fat. This time I added 4 tablespoons of the Nido whole dry milk. I mixed everything together well in the steel bowl using a whisk, covered it with aluminum foil and cooked it as before in the pressure cooker for an hour. This wasn’t as thick as the batch made with only sweetened condensed milk. I was almost thinking of putting it back in the pressure cooker and cooking it for an additional half hour but I decided to try letting it cool down to see if it thickened up sufficiently. It was fairly thick, but not as thick as the first batch was, which was quite thick. It also needed a good mixing with the electric hand mixer.

After an evening in the fridge it thickened up nicely. The flavor is incredible. A rich and creamy caramel to die for. But still too sweet.

I think some of the condensation is dripping back into the bowl while it’s cooking so for the next batch I’m going to cook it the way I do my morning mush. I’ll use the 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup with the brown glass lid from a Pyrex pot. The glass lid is a bit too large and sits at an angle because of the measuring cup’s handle, which is good because that makes the condensation drain to the outside of the measuring cup.

Atta flour

Posted: 25 October 2011 | Author: | Filed under: cooking, food, recipes, sundry, whole grains | Leave a comment

I made some pasta the night before last.

I keep noticing these things that my local FoodMaxx sells. For example, in the Indian section they have some spices; the first thing I noticed is that they have whole cardamom, green and black. Green is the usual one. Not only can I now get whole cardamom but their prices are so low. Next I noticed that they have whole mustard seed; enough to last me forever, but the price is so low it feels like it’s practically free. Then I noticed that they have cumin seed. Again, I was sort of put off by how much; it fills up a quart jar. But again, the price was so amazing that I figured that I’ll put it in a jar and keep it in the freezer and it’ll keep for a long time. And whole seeds last longer than ground ones.

Then I noticed that they have flour; at first I thought it was just wheat and chickpea flour, but then I noticed that they also have millet flour, of which I’d already bought some from the health food store. Then I noticed that the wheat flour says that it’s durum flour; the light bulb went off and I was thinking that durum flour is ordinarily hard to get and good for various things. So the next time I went I looked at it and not only is it durum flour but it’s whole wheat durum; that really got me excited (I don’t like using white flour unless it’s absolutely necessary). It’s marketed to be used for chapati, and it’s also used for roti, naan, and puri. There are 3 different brands; 1 of them is a mixture of whole wheat and white, one is just whole wheat, and the third I don’t remember what its composition was, and it was also the most expensive ($13) so I didn’t pay much attention to it. The whole wheat only one was the least expensive, $8, so I got it. So $8 for a 20 pound bag of whole wheat durum flour. If you buy King Arthur flour it’s $4 for a 5 pound bag; Pillsbury or Gold Medal is around $3.50 for a 5 pound bag.

So now I’ve got enough whole wheat durum flour to last me for a long time.

When I got home I pulled out some cookbooks and started looking at pasta recipes and sure enough, durum is what’s wanted for pasta. I followed one recipe but the pasta was much too dry and I had to add a lot more water, although that’s consistent with using whole wheat flour; it definitely needs more water. But the dough kept tearing while I was kneading it. I let it rest for an hour and kneaded it some more and it was still tearing, although not as much. I kneaded in some more water but then it started getting tacky. I remembered that an old James Beard pasta cookbook called for oil in the pasta dough so I kneaded in about a tablespoon of that. The additional water and finally the oil fixed the tearing. By the time I finished it was too late to cook it, and it was an experiment anyhow, so I wrapped it and put it in the fridge. Tried some the next day and it was great. I should have started with the James Beard recipe; it uses about half the flour and I’d have started with the oil in it. Since it’s whole wheat and needs more water I’m going to start by adding an egg yolk in addition to however many eggs it calls for. The Mark Bittman pasta recipe calls for 2 eggs and 3 egg yolks and there’s one in the James Beard book called French noodles which calls for 3 eggs and 6 egg yolks. James Beard also wisely stresses that it’s important to let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes and preferably overnight in the fridge.

My pasta machine’s cutters are dodgy; they cut on every other one so the pasta ends up being twice as wide as it should be with a groove down the center where it didn’t cut. For the second batch I decided to just use the pasta machine to roll the dough and then to cut it by hand, which I liked doing. I also learned a great trick from a cooking magazine for sprinkling flour; use a salt shaker for a nice even sprinkle. I bought one of those stainless steel ones that are the size of a coffee mug with a handle on the side; it was something like $1.50 at TJ Max. After sprinkling the flour on the rolled dough I use a soft pastry brush to spread it around. You can sprinkle a lot of flour on the flattened dough before you roll it into its jelly roll shape just before you cut it; it keeps the dough from sticking together and it rinses off when you cook it.

It was great when I cooked it. It was definitely whole wheat, not the tender delicate (and, to me, insipid) noodles you get from white flour, but I always prefer whole wheat. I put some clarified butter and olive oil on it and some garlic salt and freshly ground pepper. The second time I grated some Romano cheese on it. Both were very tasty.

I’m looking forward to trying James Beard’s recipe; I remember when I used it many years ago that it made a nice dough. I’ll also have to try adding 1/4 cup of some of the other flours; millet, rice, teff, barley, whatever.

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