baking pan – Simply Delicious: The Cookbook Project

18-2: Basic Yeast Dough II

Jamie Martin Group 18: Basic Techniques, Section 4: Cooking School January 1, 2018September 30, 2020all-purpose flour, baked goods, baking pan, bread flour, bread series, breads, cooking school, dough, fail, frozen, granulated sugar, kneaded, loaf pan, lukewarm, milk, proofed, rye flour, salt, scalded, sifted, vegetarian, white bread, whole wheat bread, whole wheat flour, yeast

Happy New Year! 🍾 We’ll start off this year (as I have other years) by finishing up a bit of old business from last year. I had started a Bread Series at the end of 2017, covering the first part of this Cooking School set (18-1: Basic Yeast Dough I) as well as including 20-12: Basic Rolls as a good base recipe to practice with.

Here, we’ll cover 18-2: Basic Yeast Dough II, which includes the fundamentals of the process of bread-making, as well as some tips on how to tell where your bread may have gone wrong. I’ve been making bread for a while, and I still run into trouble–it’s nice to know what I might have messed up so that I can try to fix it for the future.

Bread making is not a quick process–sometimes you can be working on a bread for 24-48 hours between the blooming, kneading, rising, and proofing. When I was being trained to make bread in the restaurant I worked in a few years ago, we would start making bread at 8 AM, and barely be finished by dinner time around 5-6 PM.

That’s not including our starter which had to be fed every day, as well as making all of the other baked goods that our pastry chef made daily. It can be a LOT of work!

9-39: Zesty Meat Casserole

Adam Martin Group 09: Ground Meat & Sausage, Section 2: Main Courses June 13, 2017October 19, 2020baking pan, butter, carrots, casserole, celery, celery root, cheese, chopped, creamy, dinner, easy, egg-free, gluten-free, grated, ground meat, half-and-half, inexpensive, julienned, milk, Parmesan, parsnips, peeled, piquant, potatoes, salt, sautéed, sweated, Tabasco sauce, untested, vegetable bouillon, vegetable broth, vegetables, yellow onions

Not every Simply Delicious recipe is a home run. With 9-39: Zesty Meat Casserole, perhaps unsuccessfully, tries to break the mold. By not forming the beef into a patty, meatball, or kebab, this casserole tries to do something different. To cook this recipe, I had to prepare a parsnip, something I’m not accustomed to. I made this dish before a trip out of town and brought it with me to have something homemade to eat.

I cut my vegetables in a manner similar to the photograph, but my substitution of milk for half-and-half made the sauce come out runny.

17-42: Luscious Lemon Bars

Jamie Martin Group 17: Baked Goods, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods December 23, 2016September 21, 2020all-purpose flour, baked goods, baking pan, baking powder, bars, butter, casserole, cheese, cheesecake, chilled, citrus, coconut, college, cream cheese, creamy, dessert, easy, eggs, fairly inexpensive, filling, flaked, food coloring, frosting, gift ideas, granulated sugar, grated, holiday baking, icing, lemon juice, lemons, lukewarm, melted, party food, pie crust, powdered sugar, revisited, salt, snacks, tart, vegetarian, XMAS 16, zested

17-42: Luscious Lemon Bars were the second of my holiday baking batches this year (XMAS 16), and one that I’ve baked in the past, given my rather bold notes. I think I was on a cheesecake kick, and thought these would be easier than making an actual cake. “BAD DO NOT MAKE” doesn’t exactly bode well for a recipe–why make it again?

Here’s why: sometimes it’s important to try again, even when the first experience wasn’t exactly a positive one. The first time I made these lemon bars was my junior year of college, so about 10-12 years ago. I had just moved into my first off-campus apartment with my friend, and we had a full kitchen, something I hadn’t had access to for a few years while living away from home in the dorms.

I remember making these in that kitchen (yes, I dragged these books with me all the way out to Colorado and back) and struggling with this recipe. Out of that frustration (and failure) came the note. I’ve learned a lot since then (culinarily and otherwise), so I think it’s time to figure out if it was the recipe or it was me.

1-22: Onion-Potato Diamonds

Jamie Martin Group 01: Hot & Cold Appetizers, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters September 14, 2015February 5, 202080s party, appetizers, baking pan, breakfast, broiled, brushed, canola oil, cheese, cilantro, diced, easy, eggs, frittata, garnish, gluten-free, green onions, hors d'oeuvres, hot sauce, inexpensive, Italian parsley, lunch, minced, Monterey Jack, omelette, parchment paper, parsley, party food, peeled, picnic, potatoes, revisited, roach motel apt, salt, sautéed, scallions, scrambled, sesame oil, shredded, Spanish, Tabasco sauce, tomatoes, vegetable oil, vegetarian, wax paper

Finally, an appetizer from the first section of the book. Another story for you: in my first apartment after I graduated college and moved back home to LA, I threw an 80s Valentine’s Day party, and 1-22: Onion-Potato Diamonds were one of the appetizers I made for it–another was 5-20: Golden Cheese Tartlettes.

Look at them. Something about them just screams 1980s cocktail party to me. This time around, I made them to take to a get-together I was attending, along with 17-36: Grandma’s Spice Cake. Both ended up being big hits.