Recent content by Amwazable

I've recently been learning to make choux pastry. I was wondering if anyone could tell me the actual scientific reason for cooking the flour at the start. What does it do, and why is it necessary? Why couldn't you just mix the batter using cold ingredients and cook it from there? Thanks :)

Ganache is a substance made of a mixture of cream and melted chocolate. The consistency will depend on the proportion of cream to chocolate. Truffles are made using fairly thick, semi-solid ganache (roughly equal parts cream and chocolate), which are then made into balls, covered in chocolate...

You can easily salvage it. Scrape it back into the pan and add a splash of milk to stop it from sticking. Then, heat it up again and boil it like you did the first time round, this time until it is at the correct temperature or the soft ball stage. :)

If you make a pound cake, you beat the butter and sugar together to form air, and then fold in the other ingredients. The texture will be slightly more dense than sponge cake made by whipping eggs, but you could add some baking powder if you wanted to counteract that effect. :)

Thanks everyone! I made a loaf today, and although the dough didn't really get to the texture I was expecting, it came out OK, just slightly dense. I think I will try the method of leaving the mixture to rest before kneading it. I've been using a 5:3 ratio of flour to water (give or take), and...

I've made bread twice now, and it seems to keep coming out really dense and heavy. I think the problem is with the kneading, because every time I've been kneading for at least 20-25 minutes (when most recipes only say 5-10), and the dough still doesn't have the right consistency. The...

Thanks, but I'm not really looking for specific recipes. As I mentioned in my opener, I want to try and learn about fudge for myself, so that I can create and edit my own recipes however I want, rather than just use existing recipes. :ermm:

I see, so the main reason you'd suggest getting a tailor-made one is that the steam can escape when the two pans aren't designed to fit together? I doubt I'll be able to afford/bother to buy a proper one, so if I am just using a bowl over a pan, what things do I need to look out for (obviously...

Thanks :) Addie, what exactly *is* a double boiler? I thought it was just the name for what you do when you put a bowl over a pan..? PS - When you put the bowl over the pan, is it meant to make the pan airtight, so there is no gap around the outside? And should the bottom of the bowl be...

I'm not.. would that prevent the burning if I stopped stirring while it boiled? Would it be able to be hot enough?

Also, another thing is - should you stir it or not while it is boiling/simmering? Because when I've made it before, if I stop stirring for even a second while boiling it, it burns on the bottom and ruins the batch. So how are you supposed to leave it for 20 mins+ while it reaches the right...

Anyone else got any tips? :chef:

Thank you so much! That all helps a lot :D *bookmarks for future reference* :)

I've been working on improving a fudge recipe for weeks, and I *still* can't get it right. :mad: I feel like the main problem is that I don't really understand what all the ingredients do specifically, and why you would or wouldn't include them, as well as the amounts/ratios of all of them. I...