Hello I have something funny to share with you. It is a blunder that really did happen recently. I am a pretty good baker and not only do I specialize in baking a variety of gourmet quality cheesecakes, I am also good at baking Russian Teacake cookies. I know this recipe and I trust the recipe I use and they always turn out good (except for the occasional distraction here or there and you are not within earshot of the timer that goes off when they are through baking. Do you know what I am talking about, can you relate? Then I may have a batch in which I have to scrape off the slightly overdone bottoms of the cookies before I roll them in powdered sugar. A few weeks ago I purchase some flour at the grocery store and I usually use unbleached flour so I bought a bag of unbleached flour and thought nothing of it. I used some when I made breaded chicken and it was fine. When I make breaded chicken or pork chops I like to season the flour and dredge the meat in it then I dip it in milk and then into the bread crumbs (in which I like to also add freshly grated Parmesan cheese and chopped fresh parsley if I have it available when I plant it in a patio pot or herb garden.) I like the curly parsley as opposed to flat leaf parsley ( that was a little tidbit about me.)
My mother is an excellent baker and she makes excellent pies and her pie crust is very good. For the Thanksgiving holiday she baked a pumpkin pie and a cherry pie too. I tasted her pumpkin pie and I could not figure out why her crust was not flaky and yum yum. It tasted good it just did not look like her normal pie crust looks. She said she used the unbleached flour I had and not the regular, all purpose flour. I said it cannot be that for I have also made pies using unbleached flour in the past and they turned out just fine. She wanted to make 2 cherry pie's this weekend, one for my brother-in-law (sweet cherry) and one for her (sour cherry). I still remember her commenting how long it took for these 2 pies to bake in the oven. I thought nothing of it. She asked me to try a small piece of the sour cherry pie this evening and when I cut into the pie I kindly asked her if she used a rolling pin to roll out the pie crust because it was not flaky but was much higher than her pie crusts usually are. I showed it to her and then again she said she thinks it was the flour, the unbleached flour. Earlier this week I made a batch of Russian Teacake cookie dough to bake a few for my daughter. I tried the dough and it was so salty that I kept thinking to myself I know I followed the recipe and it called for very little salt in it. Why did it taste so salty???
The mystery was solved this evening. I looked at the flour we both used and there was a little important line that was printed right under the "unbleached" part on the label it stated "self-rising" and a recipe on the back of the flour was for strawberry shortcake. Mystery solved we both used self-rising flour and that is why it caused the pie crust to have a unique texture. It was not the baker it was the type of flour that was used. I then decided to bake the cookies to see what they would turn out like. Oh my gosh, I think baking soda is in the flour and they were so salty tasting even after they baked and they were rolled in powder sugar right out of the oven and then again once they were cool. I cannot send these cookies to my daughter I just cannot do that. This is now a funny story we will be able to share around the dinner table when we have family gatherings. It is so good to laugh and especially when you can laugh about something as silly as this in your life when you discover what you did.
Needless to say, the self-rising flour will be moved to the back of the cupboard and the regular unbleached and all-purpose flours will move to the forefront. Guess what I will be doing this week? Baking another batch of cookies for my daughter.
Have I told you lately that I just love where I live. Away from city lights so I can see stars in the sky at night ( on a clear night), saw the Big Dipper the other evening. Went on a little adventure with my mother this afternoon, someone suggested to us to go a little north and we would find an apple/fresh produce farm. Loved it, purchased fresh beets and I boiled them this evening. Fresh beets when you have a good batch are wonderful (meaning they are fresh and have not been sitting out for a while.) Just need to boil, peel, chill and slice them and enjoy eating them just like that. The drive there and the farm itself so reminded me of where I use to live, for a moment I felt like I was home again. As we were driving back home the sunset was just beautiful some sections of the sky had the orange look to it and another section had the pinkish look to it.
I talked to one of my very dear friends today before my "flour" discovery. I can guarantee you this much, the next time I talk to her we will laugh about this when I tell her the story about the pies, cookies. She'll read about it in the blog but when we have the opportunity to talk again I will tell it to her with my laugh added to the conversation and we will laugh. Laughter is so good for you it really is. As I was typing this up I was laughing out loud just thinking about it again.
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