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What are you baking this week?

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby Uschi » Mon May 24, 2021 3:13 pm

aero280 wrote:I did! :) And it's mostly off now. Just a few thin patches. When it burnt, it had boiled into a thick foam which went hard, so the wet cloths I put over it had limited effect to start with.

It's useful to have a set of heavy duty plastic scrapers for taking trim off cars!! :D


... but the strudel is still nice today and we had another slice for lunch!

IMG_3669.JPG


I use denture cleaning tablets or dishwasher tablets for burnt in stuff. The former I crumble over the affected area before covering with a wet cloth, and the latter can be used like erasers.

I had blueberries to use up, so a blueberry traybake was baked on Saturday.

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby jeral » Mon May 24, 2021 4:53 pm

KeenCook2 wrote:Btw, is "sheet" cake the new traybake? :lol:

In the US, a sheet is a flat baking tray same as here and used the same, but their sheets are about double the size, i.e. ginormous.

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby KeenCook2 » Mon May 24, 2021 5:19 pm

Yesterday I made a quiche to use up half a carton of single cream. I filled it with roasted courgettes, onions and butternut squash, which was delicious! We had it with a large salad and apple crumble for pudd. I've started making the crumble mix with flour, fine polenta and oats and it is really very good, and lighter, as well as a lovely yellow, with the polenta.

But, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.
The (blind-baked) pastry almost always shrinks and bubbles. I tried hanging a bit of extra pastry over the side of the dish but it doesn't seem to make much difference, and anyway, still bubbles up underneath. It always tastes fine.

I always use a large, white, china flan dish, which has smooth sides. (Maybe it wouldn't happen with with a metal dish or one with fluted sides?)
I bake blind with proper baking beans. (I'm wondering if I should get a second tub as maybe one tub isn't heavy enough. It's a 10/ 10.5 in dish.)

I use readymade, ready rolled short pastry, which I roll thinner before I line the dish. (I wonder if this is "over-working" the pastry somehow?)
I chill the lined dish in the fridge for ages before putting it in the correct temperature oven on a metal baking sheet.
I always prick the bottom with a fork or sharp knife point.
I have noticed it can be quite difficult to get rid of all the air pockets when I line it after placing it over the dish with the rolling pin. I even tried using a little lump of floury pastry to smooth them out.

Any ideas? :?: :?:

Thank you!

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby aero280 » Mon May 24, 2021 5:32 pm

I have a similar problem with larger flans. I think a second tub of beans is needed. Or at least some extra weight. I still need to buy more beans, but I have got over the problem, for now, by putting the beans in the next size smaller baking tin and putting that inside the big tin on top of the pastry. it still looked a bit light, so I added extra weight in the form of a thick ceramic plate. Flan base came out flat! :)

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby KeenCook2 » Mon May 24, 2021 6:12 pm

Ah, that's interesting, aero.

I might try your ingenious hack!

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby scullion » Mon May 24, 2021 7:13 pm

i saw a tip from heston b. once where he used a load of 'copper' coins (on top of the baking paper) for baking blind as they heated up and helped cook the pastry from the top side at the same time.
if you have a penny jar maybe it's worth a try before you use that cash to buy baking beans?

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby Earthmaiden » Mon May 24, 2021 7:17 pm

I use ordinary dried beans, lentils or rice successfully.

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby KeenCook2 » Mon May 24, 2021 7:24 pm

Ha, scully, interesting take on it! I have one tub of proper ceramic baking beans that I remember lugging back from John Lewis with some other bits and pieces more years ago than I care to remember! Long before heavy, clumsy items could be ordered online!!

Do you use greaseproof paper or silver foil below the beans/whatever? I thought I remembered reading ages ago that using silver foil also helped the pastry cook from the top down, so I've been doing that. I can't say I've noticed much difference between foil and greasproof paper.

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby scullion » Mon May 24, 2021 7:30 pm

i use greaseproof/parchment, personally.

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby Earthmaiden » Mon May 24, 2021 7:57 pm

Same as scully. I find foil leaves the pastry quite soggy and the finish, even when removed and the pastry allowed to finish in the oven isn't as good. BTW, although I sometimes use a ceramic pie/flan dish, metal conducts the heat much more reliably if you want really good pastry IMO.

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby Badger's Mate » Tue May 25, 2021 9:09 am

metal conducts the heat much more reliably if you want really good pastry IMO.


Agreed, it took me a while to realise that metal was preferable to the Pyrex I previously used.

Another greaseproof user here.

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby Stokey Sue » Tue May 25, 2021 10:49 am

You can use balls of crumbled foil to weight down the paper when baking blind, doesn’t actually weigh much but works

My ceramic baking beans are so old they came from the original Elizabeth David cookware shop, I was going through a quiche phase at the time

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby KeenCook2 » Tue May 25, 2021 12:09 pm

Stokey Sue wrote:My ceramic baking beans are so old they came from the original Elizabeth David cookware shop, I was going through a quiche phase at the time


Where was that, Sue? Was it the one on Fulham Road?

Yes, I realise metal conducts heat better, but I really like my white ceramic dish! And the pastry is fine, apart from the shrinking and bubbling up.

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby Stokey Sue » Tue May 25, 2021 12:41 pm

I think I bought them in the Covent Garden branch, which wasn’t even there for long

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby KeenCook2 » Tue May 25, 2021 1:02 pm

Ah, yes, I remember it was there now, then Fulham Road, then the end of Knightsbridge, I think, then Marylebone Lane?
There was that really nice American homewares shop next to the Fulham Road Elizabeth David, wasn't there? Can't remember what it was called now. Our bathroom bin came from there. Also one of those plastic kitchen bins with the flip tops. I seem to remember that they weren't as widely available then as now. I think we must be talking 30 or 35 years ago?

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby Stokey Sue » Tue May 25, 2021 1:46 pm

I think the Knightsbridge one was the original, but ED herself was bought out early on and none of the peripatetic branches were really anything to do with her, though still quite good if pricey

Ah - according to the Guardian the original shop was in Pimlico, and she was bought out in 1973
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... dy-of-food

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby KeenCook2 » Tue May 25, 2021 2:23 pm

What a lovely article, thanks for posting, Sue. I only really started cooking when I was at the RCM in 1972 and hadn't discovered her shop yet.

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby Stokey Sue » Tue May 25, 2021 3:02 pm

I don't suppose I could have afforded her shop until I was working, post 1975

There was a great shop on Berwick Street that sold cheaper versions of classic cookware, including French white porcelain, I think largely seconds, run by two women - most of the goods were in piles on the floor

I still have pieces bought on Berwick Street in ~1976

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby ZeroCook » Tue May 25, 2021 4:26 pm

.
Quiche and blind baked pastry: I use dried beans, usually with paper, sometimes with foil and I don't often have problems. I have a jar of beans that are only used for baking - probably pour in enough so that the beans are about 2 to 3 deep. I use ceramic/glass, pyrex glass and heavy duty metal fluted flan tins which all work well. If I've let the pastry chill long enough - at least a couple of hours - although the pastry will shrink away from the sides a bit, it doesn't shrink down from the top. Enough pastry chilling/resting time is really crucial I find.

Crust crispness factor. Temperature - I find blind baking works best at a high temp around 200C until the pastry just begins to colour, then turned down for the filling. Pies and tarts are best baked with bottom heat source or if not, a piece of foil over the top to stop over browning.

I've never used ceramic baking beans/balls so I took a look. I don't know when brand people use, but it seems they're generally around 10mm and round white balls.

The first thing that strikes me is that they're round - minimal surface contact because only the smallest area of the ball will be in contact with the surface. Dried beans are fairly flat and have less air spaces when poured into the flan tin. Second thing I noticed is that the ceramic beads are white which could tend to reflect heat away rather than absorbing it. Dried beans are very dark.

I don't know if these are correct inferences or complete rubbish, but you could try a quiche using dried beans and see if you get different results, KC2. Then again you might not :lol:

Good piece on Elizabeth David. Thanks for posting.

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Re: What are you baking this week?

Postby KeenCook2 » Tue May 25, 2021 5:36 pm

Interesting comments, ZC. I have also found that it's best initially at 200 deg - or 180 in my fan oven - then lowered for the filling.

Yes, I imagine surface area in contact with the pastry using ceramic beans will be less than with flat beans, on the other hand they get awfully hot. And if they're on foil, the foil itself may help to even out the distribution of heat? At least, that was my thought ....
It's been so long since I used dried beans I can't remember how hot they get! Like Sue, I got the ceramic beans when I was very into making quiches back in the day!
I also had various rings, that I have kept but not used since I can remember. I vaguely remember that they're not great on warped baking sheets, that most of mine seem to be! Probably because some of them are as old as the flan rings :lol:

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