Thought Bloggles

I just made the Low-Carb Carrot Cake from ditchthecarbs.com. I used Xylitol as sweetener, added another tsp of vanilla (because that's almost always a good idea), and used a heaping tablespoon of "Mickey's Five-spice" instead of the other spices. The batter was quite satisfying and not very sweet, but the cream cheese frosting part of the recipe is all manner of wrong. The carb/protein ratio is really good, we could use 50/50 whole-wheat and almond flour and still be balanced. Let's see the results: It set fine, but was somewhat dense and dry, falling apart too easily. It was not very sweet at all, possibly due to using a sweetener with a different amount of sweetening power But what I really want to write about is the process, and how this was the most stress-free baking experience ever. I think of it as "prepare and repair". The "prepare" part is also beautifully known as " mise en place " ([mi zɑ̃ ˈplas]) and basically mean...

With my last flour experiment, I found a reasonable proportion of gluten to flour for making simple baking experiments: 25g gluten to 100g water gives something that's roughly bread-like in texture, if somewhat wet. But what happens when you use not just gluten, but also other flours? How do the various flours compare in terms of water absorption and baking effect? Let's find out! Since I'd be adding other flours that have their own properties, I reduced the amount of gluten to 10g, and used 25g of each of the other flours. I still went with 100g of water, but this time I used a finer scale to make sure my measurements were much more precise. I also added 1g (a "dash") of salt, to make it potentially edible. I did three batches, because I only have four of the little baking pans, and because I don't want too much delay between the first and last concoction. This was my procedure: Measure out the gluten, flour, and salt in each baking pan in advance. ...