Poll: Baking

[vakkotaur]

[Poll #1444611]

Comments

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Ah well. People can always look up (un)bromated flour (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-bromated-flour.htm) if need be.

[fionacat.livejournal.com]

I did and then the police came around :(

[thecanuckguy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you left out an option of a flower people use to bake with ... dandelion! That flower is used to make soups and tea, and salads. I've never heard of a Gold Medal flower, unless you're talking gardening contests, in which case I do not do.

Oh, and you misspelled flower.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The missing brand: Ceresota unbleached. Excellent for bread, not too bad for pastry.

My first choice would always be King Arthur but it's not easy to get here. I have to drive quite some distance. Likewise Wheat Montana, and another brand I like, Heartland. Ceresota is readily available in stores here, but we will use Gold Medal unbleached or "better for bread" if Ceresota is unavailable. I buy Hodgson's for whole wheat or rye.

I do use bleached flour for pastry and cakes, but we bake a lot of bread.

Leavening, you omitted sourdough culture, which, while theoretically "wild yeast" is in fact refined by constant reuse. We use that quite a bit. I also use Bakewell Cream(tm) in place of cream of tartar when making biscuits.

Fortunately, I don't know where to get iocane powder, so I'm not tempted to use it.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I've not seen Ceresota around here, but all the brands I listed are available here at one store (two store brands - different names). This is the first I've heard of Bakewell cream.

I rather doubt iocane powder is a leavening agent, but the baking powders lead right into that.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Bakewell Cream is a New England thing. I get it by mail order from King Arthur, and it produces biscuits that stand up like soldiers at attention. ;p

[setsu-p.livejournal.com]

I... I had to say iocane, man. Sorry. XD

Partly because I simply do not have the heart in me to sing to and coddle and carefully raise batches of yeast like Mom does.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Quite alright. I don't sing to yeasties, but I do sort of coddle some... as they merrily make ethanol for me. Perhaps I ought to bring a few bottles (sorghum & ginger flavor) next RCFM.

Also, your icon amuses me greatly.

[setsu-p.livejournal.com]

LOL. I should hope it does, seeing as you're directly responsible for it in the first place!

The few times I've had reason to doubt Mom's sanity have either involved her not coming in out of the rain ("rain" as in "severe thunderstorm"), simply being too nice (the Cedric the Homeless Haitian incident), or walking into the kitchen and finding her talking to her yeast cultures while feeding them with potato flakes like any normal person would feed a tank of goldfish.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Playing in the rain I can understand - but not in a thunderstorm. Too nice I can understand, though I do have my limits. What I find interesting or amusing is the idea of keeping yeast cultures as, evidently, pets. Is there any particular reason for this? Or is this more of a, "Well, since I can't have a slime mold..." thing going on?

[setsu-p.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, no she doesn't actually keep them as pets (I don't think, anyway...). She's been known to bake bread completely from scratch before. The yeast-farming is something she does every once in a blue moon, because she claims her bread's awful. Me personally, I beg to differ, and so do a few other people, but eh. What can you do? Stubbornness is hereditary, and it had to come from somewhere.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Ah, the occasional culturing of wild (I assume) yeasts. I have not done that, but I could see doing it. For bread, I don't see that much point in it, but for fermented beverages I have heard of cases where the supposed ideal yeast didn't work out as well as just letting something wild grow.