Flour

20 Jan 2012 Comments Off

My mouth produces extra saliva every time I mention the word ‘flour’. Flour for me represents mountains of baking goods which are my obsession on this life. I love eating baking goods and most of all, baking goods are very intriguing to me. It is one thing to cook but an entirely different thing to bake. Baking involves ‘chemistry’, a bounding of ingredients together to create unique and perfect cakes, pies, cookies, pastries, oh and breads… yes, breads…

For me, a real piece of baking well takes to know the technic on ‘how to’ instead of ‘ingredients to’ because when I know how to make it, the ingredients involved are left to the imagination of the cook. Of course, there are basic ingredients to start with, like sugar, eggs, butter and flour.

Flour has its unique property and those properties change with the country I am residing at the precise moment of one of my creation. So this is one of the reason I do not like recipes written because the ingredients will change the recipe, depending where I sit that day and which store I go to get them.

Somewhere, somehow, the majority of the people do not a recipe, guideline to start somewhere which is very understandable. I cook and bake with a ‘know how’ most of the time and not with a ‘recipe’.

Flour, a recipe book, written by Joanne Chang, is a wonderful tool to have around my house. Mrs. Chang has an easy way to explain the principals of baking, in a very simple way and so far, every recipe I have tried from her book, with my own adjustments here and there, came out to be winners. We bake the same way I guest!

Yesterday, using her recipe for granola bar, page 154, I came out with this perfect granola bar, one that I have been searching for few years, to nip it to my own likes. You see, because I move so often, I need a granola bar with a good base, as a starter, to hold all the ingredients together in a bar. So this recipe does deliver that to me. It holds it shape, once done. So no matter if I use sesame seeds or walnuts or whatever I have handy, if I follow the ‘know how’ of her recipe, I will achieve what I am looking for in a granola bar.

Her pate brisée on page 92 came as a dream come true to me, after having tried for so many years to succeed in making pie dough, without any accomplishment. The pate brisée is made with true butter and the technic explained is what makes it a miracle for me.

Pop tarts, on page 88, is also a winner. I have that thing about pop tarts. I do not know why but it does something to my hunger stat every time I see a box of pop tart on a shelf (I did spot them here in Shenyang…). Over time, the store pop tarts got smaller in size and smaller in taste, which is the reason I made those as soon I saw the recipe in the book. Just one statement here about this recipe: ‘They are out of this word. They are so good and very easy to make.’

Sticky buns, what can I say to this… I made those a while ago, and they are, to me, the perfect breakfast pastry. In her book, Mrs Chang has a similar recipe on page 84. Mine was made with cranberries at that time, with a different recipe but it was so good. I shall make them again in the very near future.