Yummy!: Well, I hope so. I made a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake today with my brand new springform pan and three of those 30 eggs I’ve been typing about. Baked it in a water bath and left it in the oven an hour after it was “done,” then let it cool further before popping it in the fridge. This is supposed to prevent cracks in the top and the center caving in. Can’t try it until it chills overnight, but it sure smells good. Guess who’ll be having a slight sliver of cheesecake along with her breakfast oatmeal? *grin*
Rolling in Dough: Spent the weekend baking bread for the week. Could not locate bread flour anywhere last week, so my loaves are a little flatter than normal. Went out today and restocked my bread flour, so will be good for next weekend’s bread. Made a sourdough using Starter Joe yesterday – this is the second loaf from him and it has a bit stronger tang. He is developing nicely and back into the fridge until next weekend. Made a nice, eggy (2 more of the 30 used up!) sweet bread today, so we’re good to go.
Flan’s the Plan: Also brought home evaporated and sweetened condensed milks, along with half and half and heavy whipping cream. I’m set to make all manner of custard-like dishes in their jiggly, eggy glory. I’ve even seen some savory custard dishes with cheese and bacon – denser than a souffle and helped along by the same baking techniques that I used for the cheesecake. Calories? Cholesterol? Fat? Oh yeah, plenty. I’ll be taking these dishes to the office to share…
The Bodacious Brit (currently referred to as the Piemaker around here) has been experimenting with low-carb low-cholesterol diabetic-friendly pie crusts these last few weeks. One cabinet is full of almond meal, whey powder, soy flour and other esoteric ground cereals, and he’s thinking of going the scientific route and baking up a variety of mix squares to see which one produces the best pie crust.
One of his big problems has been the crust being very crumbly (not necessarily bad, but it makes lining the pan sort of tough, and making an upper crust is totally out of the question). Since neither of us are gluten-intolerant, I think he’s going to experiment with adding wheat gluten as a “glue” for the crust.
Mmmm…pie! It’s fun to experiment – I wish the Bodacious Brit many happy hours in the kitchen and much tasty, healthy success! The only down side is cleaning up the mess… :p