Cooking : The Electric Boogaloo Return

[hanniballecter]

we do have a cooking thread, but its last reply is like, four years old, so i figured maybe necromancy wasn't the way to go here. but if i am mistaken, by all means please revive it and cast this one to the dungeon !

 

cooking ! (and also baking). any one up to share recipes from their culture, or maybe just dishes they like ? (americans, you too have a culinary culture, as in i can assure you i've never had pumpkin pie, or key lime pie, or yumyum, or any baked cheesecake or cornbread, and these are very unheard of dishes in france, except maybe some form of cheesecake) i've got some ! i'll start off with macarons. they're my favorite thing, along with éclairs (which i plan on making some very soon, with lemon curd inside), but the best and completely foolproof recipe i've found is not french, but korean ! here's the youtube link for it.  

[SomeRandomCorviknight]

I like cheesecake! I'm not really a baker, but making cheesecake is super easy and fun. And the base tastes good, and it involves breaking things with a big wood object, which is good for stress ;] 

[Vitoriarex]

This is the best thing i've made so far (and I suck at baking, so it needs to be easy recipe) but I thought I would share

 

If you have something special coming up, you can make it ahead and stress less 😃

 

Luscious Gingerbread Cake

Make 1-2 Days Ahead

 

Ingredients:

150 ml vegetable oil

200g golden syrup

200g black treacle

125g dark brown sugar

9 pitted prunes, chopped finely

30g ginger, minced finely

2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground allspice

⅛ tsp ground cloves

¼ tsp ground black pepper

¼ fine sea salt

250ml oat milk

300g plain flour

30ml warm water

1 tsp bicarbonate soda

2 tsp cider vinegar

 

Method:

 

1. Heat oven to 150°C Fan (170°C no fan)

2. Line a 23cm square tin with baking paper, overhanging the sides well

3. In a 22cm saucepan mix together oil, golden syrup, black treacle, sugar, prunes, ginger, spices and salt.

4. Warm over gentle heat while gently whisking to combine. Do not over whisk air into the mixture - do not boil mixture.

5. Once melted and mixed, take the pan off the heat. While warm, add the oat milk, whisking to incorporate.

6. Whisk in flour in 3 or 4 batches and incorporate well

7. Dissolve the bicarb in the warm water, add the vinegar and quickly whisk the fizzing mixture into the pan.

8. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 50-55min.

9. Leave to cool in its tin on a rack. Once cool wrap in baking paper and then foil. Leave wrapped to “cure” for 2 days before eating for best flavour.

 

[hanniballecter]

ive never had cheesecake before and i keep telling myself i oughta try, do you have any simple recipes ?

 

and thank you for the recipe vitoriarex !!! i admit i had to google what treacle is because we don't have it where i live. same for the golden syrup i'm pretty sure, but it sounds yummy 🤗

 

as for me i come back from the dead with great news : i did manage to make lemon éclairs but could not fill them without making a disaster. i guess i suck at piping bags and the like.

[rodymanners]

On 8/7/2021 at 7:00 PM, hanniballecter said:

we do have a cooking thread, but its last reply is like, four years old, so i figured maybe necromancy wasn't the way to go here. but if i am mistaken, by all means please revive it and cast this one to the dungeon !

 

cooking ! (and also baking). any one up to share recipes from their culture, or maybe just dishes they like ? (americans, you too have a culinary culture, as in i can assure you i've never had pumpkin pie, or key lime pie, or yumyum, or any baked cheesecake or cornbread, and these are very unheard of dishes in france, except maybe some form of cheesecake) i've got some ! i'll start off with macarons. they're my favorite thing, along with éclairs (which i plan on making some very soon, with lemon curd inside), but the best and completely foolproof recipe i've found is not french, but korean ! snaptube vidmate

do you know how Middle eastrens cook their food , do you know that the best food in the world is served in the middle east ??

Edited August 31, 2021 by rodymanners

[catstaff]

On 8/31/2021 at 8:10 AM, rodymanners said:

do you know how Middle eastrens cook their food , do you know that the best food in the world is served in the middle east ??

 

So, are you going to share some recipes or what?

 

I'm an okay cook, I just don't like cooking, lol! I'm all about quick, easy, and minimal cleanup, so I hardly ever bake. That said, I'm generally capable of following a recipe and having it turn out okay, even when I goof something up. @Varislapsivery kindly gave me a recipe for piparkarkut, Finnish gingerbread cookies, back before Christmas... I screwed up somewhere in doing the metric-to-American measurements and put in at least twice the syrup as I should have done and I ended up with something that by texture, was halfway between cookies and candy. Tasted good, looked like 💩!

 

For myself, I like to cook in ways to get multiple meals out of something. Like, I'll drop a whole chicken into my slow cooker (keeps the meat from drying out as much as oven roasting, although you won't get the nice crisped skin) and do a meal of chicken and whatever side dishes. But since there's just two of us, that leaves a lot of chicken. So then I'll strip the meat and toss the bones back into the slow cooker with more water and leave it on low overnight to make soup stock. The leftover meat gets divided - part to go into the soup, part for chicken salad for sandwiches, and part into a casserole dish with a bag of frozen mixed veggies and some gravy, to be topped with pie crust to make a chicken pot pie. Bare minimum, four meals from the one bird, usually more. Unfortunately, I can't really give any actual recipes, as I'm very much of a "season to taste" and "use whatever veggies I'm in the mood for today" sort of person.

[Tiira]

@catstaff Do you think you're trying again this year? 😸 Anyway, if you're into super easy baking, I can give you another Finnish dessert recipe for Christmas, joulutortut! Or actually, you don't even need a proper recipe to prepare this one, but it's another "must" during the holiday season in Finland. We don't really have many other sweet Christmas foods, we just enjoy our piparkakut and joulutortut with glögi, and of course some chocolate and sweets. (I guess our Christmas porridge could be considered a sweet dish as well, as it is eated with kisel or sugar and cinnamon, but it's still not a dessert). It has been estimated that an average Finn eats 18 pieces of joulutortut per year but this doesn't take into account the fact that some people can't eat them at all, so the number should probably be ever higher. I don't eat that many, though, I prefer piparkakut.

 

So for the traditional joulutortut you will need only three ingredients: puff pastry (I use store-bought frozen puff pastry sheets like most Finns), plum jam that is suitable for baking (or any baking jam you like), and powdered sugar. If using frozen puff pastry, you should defrost it just before baking, then you need to cut it into squares (maybe around 3 x 3 inches, it doesn't matter too much, just be careful when baking them if they are smaller) and make a diagonal cut in every corner. This is where Finnish people start fighting. If you ask me, you should first add a spoonful of plum jam in the centre and then proceed with the folding, but some people might argue it's the other way around. In any case, to make traditional four-pointed stars, you need to fold every other point in the centre and pinch them together. (I hope you won't be shocked by the shape like some Swedish people, I've heard. It is a star.) Here's a video that begins with the classic shape, note how they do it in wrong order with filling & folding though. The second shape in the video was totally new to me but I have seen some other creative shapes, even tried some myself. Today, it is also very popular to experiment with the filling, you can try other baking jams instead of plum or even sweets such as Vihreät kuulat or similar. They are baked in 225 C (435 F) for 10 to 15 minutes, until puffed and lightly browned, then dusted with powdered sugar and eaten preferably the same day. They become dry if stored for too long.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Varislapsi

[catstaff]

@VarislapsiOf course I'm going to try again this year! Christmas is about the only time of year I try baking anymore, what with the other half being diabetic. Guess I'll also be trying the joulutortut as well this year. 😊 Kiitos!

[Tiira]

@catstaff Yay! I hope you actually get some cookies this year!

 

I really enjoy cooking and baking but I bake much less often than I'd like to. Living alone, it would be difficult to actually eat all those things, even if I do have a sweet tooth. I make my own bread though, they are very simple sourdough loaves but making bread is honestly one of my favourite things to do. My sourdough starter is called Tellervo and she's a rye starter, I also tried to create her a wheat-based friend which I named Nyyrikki but with him it didn't work out. I plan to try again in some time the future. I cook for myself nearly every day, and it's almost always pasta, I love simple and easy Italian pasta dishes like puttanesca (without anchovies) and pasta e patate, pasta and potatoes. My favourite would be tagliatelle with fennels but that's my own creation. I am not a recipe person to be honest. I can't just pick a recipe and follow it; usually if I want to try something new, I spend a lot of time trying to find the most traditional way to prepare it, comparing different recipes, but then I will write my own. Sometimes I make the minimum changes to have my vegan version, especially with traditional recipes, but other times it's more like looking for inspiration only.

[Long_Before_Sunrise]

7 hours ago, Varislapsi said:

prune jam that is suitable for baking

We don't have that. We don't make jam out of prunes.

[Tiira]

4 minutes ago, Long_Before_Sunrise said:

We don't have that. We don't make jam out of prunes.

 

Hmm. How about plums? I'm not sure if prune jam is even the best word, in Finnish we have just one word for both plums and prunes and also this type of jam would be called marmeladi but I googled and apparently marmelade in English would be made with citrus fruit. And you have jelly? Too complicated for me with all these different words, eh. 😹

[Long_Before_Sunrise]

Jam is thick and chunky with fruit. Jelly has the fruit strained out. Orange marmalade is made of orange juice and zest (strips of orange peel. We have plum jelly and preserves, but it's not easy to find unlike grape, apple, apricot, blackberry, blueberry, and strawberry. Fig is hard to get, then we have some exotics like mayhaw

 

Edited September 2, 2021 by Long_Before_Sunrise

[catstaff]

@VarislapsiI'm not only going to try the cookies again this year, I might make a stab at porkanalaatikko as well, since I found a few recipes online. My niece and a few others in the family are gluten-intolerant, so I figure as long as I leave the breadcrumbs off the top, that would be a good one to try. And if the crumbs on top actually make a difference, I can always crumble up some rice cakes to replace them with.

[Capulus]

 hope this counts but i baked a mug-cake once and it was sooo good, though it was just a mug cake to you, it was the best mug cake ever to me, it really made me happy to bake that mug cake

[Tiira]

@Long_Before_Sunrise Ah thanks for the explanation! Culinary terms can be very confusing! We too have a few different words for fruit preserves but I don't think any of them really matches the English vocabulary. Here "marmalades" are made with pureed fruit such as plum, apple or apricot, so they don't have pieces of fruit but are not strained either.

 

@catstaff They're definitely not mandatory for porkkanalaatikko! Not all recipes include them and I've never added them in any of our Christmas casseroles! For piparkakut, I want to remind you that Finnish syrup is really thick and dark and has a rather strong taste (like molasses or treacle) so if your syrup is more liquid, that could also be why it didn't work out the first time!

Edited September 3, 2021 by Varislapsi

[Long_Before_Sunrise]

4 hours ago, Varislapsi said:

Here "marmalades" are made with pureed fruit such as plum, apple or apricot, so they don't have pieces of fruit but are not strained either.

Ok, I made a mistake. That would be jam here. Preserves would be like jam with fruit chunks, but sometimes jam has fruit chunks, but less of them. 

Vihreät kuulat (marmalade balls) looks interesting.

[Tiira]

@Long_Before_Sunrise Okay, thanks! It's not easy to translate recipes. 😸 Haha Vihreät kuulat are a real classic but they are also a typical commercial candy — unlike artisan marmalade balls or squares, these don't contain real fruit, just flavours and colours. I love them though!

[catstaff]

9 hours ago, Varislapsi said:

 

They're definitely not mandatory for porkkanalaatikko! Not all recipes include them and I've never added them in any of our Christmas casseroles! For piparkakut, I want to remind you that Finnish syrup is really thick and dark and has a rather strong taste (like molasses or treacle) so if your syrup is more liquid, that could also be why it didn't work out the first time!

 Oh, I made sure to check on that and I used molasses. The goof definitely came in my measurement conversions. I need to get a food scale that does metric this time around, that will probably help.

 

...and now I'm wondering how piparkakut would taste using maple syrup instead. Eh, let's see if I can make them right this year, then next year I can experiment!

 

Also, I just saw something Tarja posted to her Instagram that made me die laughing... is it really possible to get a salmiakki pizza?

[Tiira]

@catstaff I've never heard of salmiakki pizza but I wouldn't be too surprised. 😹 Actually a lighter colour piparkakku cookie exists here even though the dark and spicy cookies are much, much more common. I think I've haven't even tried those cookies, let alone made them myself, but they're definitely not a new thing. Still, I'm quite sure they'd taste wonderful with maple syrup.

 

Maybe I should bake some cookies this autumn, there are many that I've wanted to try for a long time: snickerdoodles, peanut butter cookies (because I'm a peanut butter fan), some kind of tahini cookies (I love tahini as well) and kourabiedes (greek Christmas cookies)... to name a few.

[catstaff]

@VarislapsiConsidering some of the things I've seen put on pizza here in the US, I wouldn't be surprised either. 🤣🤣🤣

 

Good luck with your baking!

[Tiira]

Speaking of cookies, if there's anyone with a super sweet tooth like me, I have a very simple recipe that you can try if you like. And this is very sweet indeed!

 

Cookie spread

You can make this recipe with any hard/crispy cookies you like but nothing soft and chewy or filled. I used these.

 

You will need:

300 g (10,6 oz) crushed spice cookies

75 g (2,6 oz) coconut oil

50 g (1,8 oz) golden syrup

100 g (3,5 oz) powdered sugar

dash of salt

(0,5 tbsp cinnamon)

(pinch of vanilla powder)

up to 2 dl = 200 g (7,1 oz) freshly boiled water

 

+ a blender or immersion blender (optional: also hand mixer)

 

Combine all the ingredients but add only 1 dl (3,5 oz) water at this point. If you want, you can wait a bit so that the cookies (which don't need to be very finely crushed) become softer and the oil melts but this is not necessary. Then, blend them into a smooth spread, adding more water as needed. The texture will become a lot harder in the fridge so make it now a bit softer than you'd prefer, and it will be just right. If you love a fluffy consistency, whip it with a hand mixer.

 

Store in a glass jar and refrigerated. Enjoy with bread, oatmeal, fruit, or simply by the spoonful. 😸 It could also be used as frosting but note that it will get softer again if kept in room temperature for a longer time.

 

I had translated the ingredients already before for another purpose, but I tried to also convert the measurements (grams to ounces) for US people.

Edited September 4, 2021 by Varislapsi

[Aniia]

I love cooking threads! I'll try and share some recipe ideas as we get into autumn.

 

Our dinner plans this week are pretty simple: roasted acorn squash with beets, potatoes, and carrots. My husband's going to try to make lasagna, but we've never done it before so it's an experiment!

 

If anyone is interested, I also have a recipe book that's compiled a good number of my grandmother's recipes - American with a very heavy Polish influence. I just wish I could find her recipe for apple crisp, I'm not sure which of my aunts has it. When Grandma passed, her three daughters divided her recipe cards amongst themselves.

[hanniballecter]

On 9/3/2021 at 12:01 AM, Varislapsi said:

@catstaff Yay! I hope you actually get some cookies this year!

 

I really enjoy cooking and baking but I bake much less often than I'd like to. Living alone, it would be difficult to actually eat all those things, even if I do have a sweet tooth. I make my own bread though, they are very simple sourdough loaves but making bread is honestly one of my favourite things to do. My sourdough starter is called Tellervo and she's a rye starter, I also tried to create her a wheat-based friend which I named Nyyrikki but with him it didn't work out. I plan to try again in some time the future. I cook for myself nearly every day, and it's almost always pasta, I love simple and easy Italian pasta dishes like puttanesca (without anchovies) and pasta e patate, pasta and potatoes. My favourite would be tagliatelle with fennels but that's my own creation. I am not a recipe person to be honest. I can't just pick a recipe and follow it; usually if I want to try something new, I spend a lot of time trying to find the most traditional way to prepare it, comparing different recipes, but then I will write my own. Sometimes I make the minimum changes to have my vegan version, especially with traditional recipes, but other times it's more like looking for inspiration only.

coming in a bit late, but gosh do i envy you ! i tried to make a sourdough starter last year. it sure was alive, but edible i'm not sure. we're not big on natural yeast in this household (as in, we buy it fresh, but don't trust to ferment anything ourselves) so we ended up putting it down. i GUESS the loaf it made looked okay ? but im glad tellervo is going strong !

 

my girlfriend is finnish, also, so your description of the joulutortut definitely brought back some memories ! i think ill try your tips during the christmas cookie craze...

[Tiira]

@hanniballecter Haha, well like I said, my loaves look very plain and rustic, nothing like the pictures you see if you google sourdough. 😹 But I do enjoy my sourdough bread, both making it and eating it and also gifting it to family! If you ever want to give it another try, I highly recommed using rye flour. I've heard it's much easier than wheat, so that's not just my experience. It works well for all kinds of bread, even sweet dough, since you can always make a white wheat levain. I've also heard some people start with rye flour and then gradually swap it for wheat. And all starters get better and better with time, in the beginning they just aren't so strong yet!

 

I made fig jam last week, it was my first time preserving anything. I really love figs and they were so good and low-priced on my local supermarket. Now I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I did everything right, so that I could enjoy homemade jam later this autumn! 🍁 🍂

Edited September 13, 2021 by Varislapsi