Baking disasters and other funny things

[wiseheart]

I was baking today. Yeah, surprising, innit? I tried out the gingerbread cookie recipe I wanted to bake with the kids before Xmas. Guess what? We won't be baking it. I could not get the dough to a consistence that would have enable me to roll it out in the first place. Of course, what can you expect from a recipe that requires 4 tablespoons of butter? Not melted butter, mind you, just regular butter. Now, how on Earth am I supposed to measure butter with a tablespoon? (A colleague of mine suggested using a bomb, but that was too radical for my taste.)

Clearly, I couldn't get the amounts right. The dough fell apart like Hungarian economy, and let me tell you, that's a spectacular fall! So I made little buttons and baked them, and then painted them with eggwhite and rolled them in coloured sugar. Even so, they are slighlty bitter. 3 teaspoons of ginger were too much. I never listen to the recipe again.

OTOH, I also baked the honeycake house from the Dr.Oetker package, and it turned out great. Even the sugar icing from the tube worked. It's a lovely little thing, my Knusperhäuschen, Mum is happy with it.

Other than that, I wrote a lot of Merlin stuff (4 pages of Chapter 11) and watched some TV. "Richterin Barbara Salesch" und "Panda, Gorilla & Co". I need to nurture my German a bit, too.

Comments

[remydesire.livejournal.com]

I just started baking on Monday for the first time. Bread, that is. Did you use tubbed butter or sticks? The sticks of butter (unsalted) I got had measurements on the wax paper.

You can also measure it to the weight equivalent if you have a scale for it. I use this to help with recipe conversions: http://www.onlineconversion.com/weight_volume_cooking.htm

[artemis10002000]

Das Knusperhäuschen hört sich toll an!

Schade um die Arbeit mit den Plätzchen, aber manchmal hat man einfach Pech mit Rezepten. Immerhin hast Du es noch rechtzeitig vor dem "Ernstfall" mit den Kindern gemerkt.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Ja das ist wahr. Die Dinger schmecken nicht mal übel, sie sind halt bloß keine Kekse sondern Knöllchen, und das war wirklich nicht der Sinn der Sache. Ich wollte sie als Christbaumschmuck verwenden.

Das Knusperhäuschen aus der Dr Oetker Fertigpackung ist aber sehr gut gelungen, und es war auch extrem einfach. Wir haben es heute zusammengestellt und sind sehr zufrieden mit ihm.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

An interesting page, if I ever figure out how it works. *g*

Of course, it still doesn't answer how in hell am I supposed to measure butter with a tablespoon. *shakes head in exasperation*

What did you bake on Monday?

[remydesire.livejournal.com]

Bread. I thought it would be easiest. Came out really tasteless.

Maybe you can measure by cubic inches or centimeters? The link I gave you also converts tablespoons from that.

Use the second section. It has weights and volumes in both columns. Say you want to convert from tablespoon to cubic inch. Choose tablespoon from the first column and cubic inch from the second column. Put in the number of tablespoons and click calculate. The result will show the converted number in cubic inches.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I somehow doubt that anything converted to cubic inches would be helpful. My head only works in the metric system. *g*

BTW, bread is one of the hardest things to get right. If your oven can't produce the right temperature, it gets burned on the outside and sponge-y in the inside. I've given up on baking bread years ago, despite the wondeful recepies I own. My gas oven just isn't hot enough.

Too bad, I loved working in the cloister's bakery in my youth.

[remydesire.livejournal.com]

Then use cubic centimeters. I was only using cubic inches as an example.

I use a convection oven. My parents don't use the gas oven so it's been used to hold pots and pans since forever. They removed the knob a long time ago. The only oven we have that works is a rickety thing in the basement kitchen that has only ever been used for turkeys and giant things.

The texture of the bread came out okay, and nothing burned. I tried with small loaves and went without a loaf pan, just put the dough on parchment paper. The second batch came out much better. I shaped them like submarine bread and the texture was slightly softer than bagels. I think I added too much flour to the recipe. :D