baking

[lauralh]

"I would recommend this to anyone who likes the scientific method, including those who have never heard the name 'Harry Potter' before in their lives." In all seriousness, having just recently completed the series, I will say that I enjoyed this more. But then I've been a fan of Eliezer's for years. One of many websites I stopped reading while unemployed with chronic headaches.

In other news, I was trying to figure out how to get soufflés made without wasting egg yolks, and hit upon crème brûle. I used to adore a ginger version at this Indian/Pakistani restaurant, and modified this recipe a bit. (For one thing, I only weighed out about 30g of fresh ginger. Also just slow simmered it for a couple hours to get the ginger taste in less than a day.) It turned out pretty great despite messing up the oven temperature*. The raspberry soufflés weren't quite as good, but that was 'cos I used raspberry jam, which wasn't liquid enough to stir. But Reg adored them so that was cool.

While I was pondering whether or not to actually do the sugar top, I looked at Alton Brown's recipe (of course). His was a bit different, and most of the comments recommended adding more yolks. (His ratio was a quart of cream to 6 yolks, whereas the recipe above is about half as much cream to 5 yolks, more or less.) And also I used one big container rather than a bunch of little ramekins. So it was a little bit tricky to get the sugar evenly distributed. Also I do not have a kitchen blowtorch, so I just used the broiler. It wasn't a perfect top, but it was pretty effective anyway.

* I put the oven at 375F to make the soufflés, then five minutes before the cooking timer went off, checked and they were DONE. I turned off the oven in a panic, thinking they might be burnt. But they weren't. I then turned the thermometer to 325F but didn't actually turn the oven back on. Yikes. Didn't realize this till the next timer went off. The custard wasn't quite set, so five minutes at 300F helped.

Comments

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

You can freeze egg yolks if you add a bit of salt or sugar to stabilize them.
I usually use them up in aioli or ice cream.

[stick-figure.livejournal.com]

Reading the fanfic, and it is possibly the most hilarious thing I've seen all year.

[joblessmusician.livejournal.com]

A regular torch from a hardware store will work just as well. (Actually, I think that's what Alton said, too, so you probably know that already.) The broiler's a bit tricky.