Recipes and food hacks thread

@Jackinga interested, yes. would i make them, sadly no. I tend to not make cookies and such. Being just me I can buy from the local farmer’s market yummy baked goods and only 1 of them and my stomach and blood sugar thanks me. As a retired nurse, if it has calories we eat them right?

However, i would love to see what you do. So a simple recipe in both formats would be educational.

@Jackinga It was very straightforward; use two packets of brownie mix, replace the water with the same quantity of mulled wine, add one egg to account for the alcohol evaporation, and add one teaspoon of good vanilla extract (he used Penzey’s) and a half teaspoon of Ceylon cinnamon. Follow package directions for pan size and time/temp. Other mixes would probably work similarly.

@Jackinga @werehatrack this whole thing makes me drool. I’m going to tell this to the person who makes the brownies that I buy at the farmers market. She’s done all kinds of interesting olive oil cakes. Another person I know makes fused blood orange Olive oil, not infused fused. And she used it for the oil in various different types of cake mixes.

@Jackinga

And I record all weights

Cooking and baking are two very different skill sets. Cooking is a dance of love. Baking is precision.

edit - at least in my opinion

@capnjb @Jackinga When you’re cooking, things can be adjusted on the fly, and spur-of-the-moment inclusions are most often easily done. With baking, you assemble, heat, and hope it’s right. A significant error almost always means discarding the failure and starting over.

@Cerridwyn

When I write up a Rx for my own use, I do so in both Excel and simultaneously in MSWord. Neither format is particularly transferrable or attachable to these message boxes.

So apologies in advance for however messy this might appear when pasted from MSWord here below:

Zinfandel Brownies
…grams cals/g cals comment
• Zinfandel 480 0.72 346 2 c reduced by half
• Chocolate, dark 567 5.88 3334 20 oz melted Ghirardelli 60% cocoa squares
• Butter 178 7.17 1276 12 oz melted unsalted
• Sugar 567 3.87 2194 20 oz
• eggs 400 1.44 576 8
• AP flour 112 3.57 400 4 oz
• vanilla 12 2.37 28 1 tbsp
• Milk Chocolate 240 5.35 1284 8 oz Ghirardelli chopped
• subtotals 2316 4.08 9438
• 10% wt loss 2084 4.53 cals after water loss on baking

Simmer wine to reduce by half (240g) Mix together butter& chocolate, then cream with sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time.

Beat on med high for an additional 5 min until mixture has lightened in color. Fold in reduced wine, vanilla, then flour & chocolate until fully combined.
Spread mix in buttered, parchment papered 10x15 (jelly roll) pan. Bake 350° 18-20 min, rotate pan at halfway time. Brownies done when temp 195-200°F.

Now owing to the chocolate and the butter, these brownies are pure calorie bombs at ~4.5 cals/g or 450 cals/100g (3.5 oz). A small 30-40g piece is 135-180 cals! And it is indeed tough to eat just one.

It gets even worse if one adds nuts, which I like to do most times.

There isn’t any cinnamon called for in this Rx, but that doesn’t mean that one can’t add it or anything else that goes with chocolate, like dried cherries for instance.

When I make things like this, it is most often to give away. I am currently six and a half weeks into a diet to shed 30-40 lbs, so I am fairly severely diet restricted at the moment.

There is no justice in this world or it would be as much fun to lose those pounds as it was to gain them, dontchaknowed?

I’ll post the Irish Apple Cake and the Cheesesteak Sub rolls Rx next. We’ll see how that goes.

@Cerridwyn Irish Apple Cake Rx

This Rx is a winner! It is said by some to be the best cake ever. Well, I don’t know about that, but it is a rather easy cake to make.

I make the batter in my Ankarsrum mixer and pour it into a greased and parchment lined Aluminum serving platter to bake.

I use fresh ground green cardamom along with the cinnamon as I rather like the additional aromatic, terpene flavor notes of the cardamom (1,8-cineole, α-terpinyl acetate, linalool, & linalyl acetate and in lesser amounts but still significant α-pinene, ß-pinene, sabinene, myrcene, α-phellandrene, limonene, terpinen-4-ol, α-terpineol, & geraniol).

This cake is easy to make. Peeling coring and cubing the apples takes the longest. And even that I have reduced considerably with a bit of practice and streamlining. I use a 177Milkstreet peeler, an Oxo strawberry huller to remove the core after peeling and slicing, and a Zyliss vegetable dicer (no longer available) to cube ~14" slices of the apples. Easy peasy.

BTW, I am always on the lookout for apples reduced for quick sale at my local Korean Farmer’s Market. Many times I can get 3-4 very large apples for $1 or less. I usually have several of these in a crisper drawer of the fridge as a result.

I make it using White Lily SR flour. So if you use AP flour, you will need to add baking powder and baking soda.

I have at one time or another iced it with all three of the icing/frosting variants shown, but of late, I favor the Quick Caramel icing.

Be warned that with the caramel icing the cake is pretty darned sweet.

The original “country or rustic” version of this Rx called for a boiled buttermilk icing. It is easy enough to make, but you have to stay with it, stirring constantly and regulating the heat, or it will boill over. I cook that icing to around 225-230°F, which is the soft crack stage.

Nonetheless regardless of the icing, the places to which I have taken these cakes are always happy when I bring another one. It is soon gone.

North Carolina Raw Apple (Irish Apple) Cake Tim Childers. Servings 12 Prep Time: 30 min Cook Time: 1.5 hrs Uniced cake ~3.7-4.2 cals/g when baked. Rx always a hit!!

• Ingredient Used 5-10-2025 Rx cal/g Comment
• Sugar ____ 410 3.75 2 c
• Canola oil ____ 321 8.80 1 1/2 c
• White Lily SR flour ____ 430 3.57 3 c
• Eggs ____ 150 1.4 3
• Cinnamon ____ 8 2.47 3 tsp
• Vanilla ____ 6 2.37 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Apples ____ 572 0.50 3 c, peeled, chopped
• Pecans 120 120 7.33 1 c chopped, toasted
• Walnuts 120 120 6.67 1 c chopped
• Cardamom _____ 6 3.11 optional (1.9g/tsp)
• Salt _____ 6 0.47 optional (6g/tbsp)

BOILED BUTTERMILK GLAZE (orig Rx) (cake + glaze ~4.27 cals/g)
• Sugar _____ 210 3.75 1 c
• Butter _____ 113 7.16 1 stick
• Buttermilk _____ 122 0.4 ½ c
• baking soda _____ 6 0.00 1 tsp
• Karo Syrup _____ 14 3.50 1 tbsp
• Vanilla _____ 3 2.37 1 tsp

QUICK CARAMEL ICING Anne Byrne (alternate) (cake + icing ~4.62 cals/g) 4-14-2025 final cake+icing 4.08 cals/g
• Butter ____ 170 7.16 ¾ or 1.5 sticks
• Light brown sugar ____ 140 3.75 ¾ c
• Dark brown sugar ____ 140 3.75 ¾ c
• Milk ____ 80 0.63 ¼ c
• Powdered sugar ____ 300 3.87 1.5 c
• Vanilla ____ 9 2.37 1.5 tsp
• Salt _____ 2 0.00 ¼ tsp

WHIPPED CREAM/CREAM CHEESE FROSTING (alternate – refrigerate, if used) (cake + frosting ~4.04 cals/g)
• Heavy cream _____ 245 3.33 1 c
• Cream cheese _____ 227 3.50 8 oz
• Powdered sugar _____ 210 3.87 1 c
• Vanilla _____ 3 2.37 1 tsp
• Salt _____ 2 0.00 1.4 tsp

1. Peel/decore apples. Toast nuts.

2. Chop nuts, then apples with Zyliss ¼” square plate food chopper or equivalent. Set chopped apples aside.

3. Mix dry ingredients, add oil, beaten eggs, & vanilla, saving apples until batter is fully mixed.

4. Spray PAM &/or line a 12x10x2” Al pan with parchment.

5. Bake at 300° until internal temp ~195-200° ~ 70-90 min. Turn pan 180° ~ ½ through cook time (~45 min). Check internal cake temp 55-60min. Cover cake with foil if top is browning too much. Cool before frosting or icing.

BOILED BUTTERMILK GLAZE (as per original Rx)

Prepare glaze or icing after cake is finished cooking. If using, boil buttermilk glaze for five mins. !!The glaze will boil up!!, stir constantly & manage heat after it begins to boil.

Best if prepared a day ahead of serving. Alternate icings are better.

QUICK CARAMEL ICING Anne Byrne
Melt butter and brown sugars in saucepan over med heat with stirring until mix begins to boil. Add milk. Bring back to boil. Remove from heat, add salt, vanilla & spoon in powdered sugar while whisking briskly (use handheld electric blender with whisk attachment) until smooth. If too runny add up to ½ c more powdered sugar, but not so much that icing thickens & hardens. Spread over cake; will harden as it cools.

A lot easier than caramelizing white sugar. Great flavor. Dirties few pans. Ready in a snap. Makes 3 to 4 c. Prep 10-15 min. Better than Boiled buttermilk glaze, I think.

WHIPPED CREAM/CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
Whip heavy cream with ¼ (~50g) of sugar until stiff peaks. Scoop most of this aside into a clean bowl. In same bowl without cleaning beaters or bowl, beat soften cream cheese, vanilla, salt, and remainder of sugar until well mixed. Fold in whipped cream. Spread over cake. Frosted cake should be refrigerated if this frosting is used.

@Cerridwyn Cheesesteak Sub Rolls

Having lived in Wilmington, DE for quite a few years, we grew fond of the local neighborhood sub shop, Casapulla’s in Elsemere, DE, especially the mushroom cheesesteak subs.

While we have sub shops locally, they just don’t measure up to the standards of those somewhat pedestrian and common sandwiches of yesteryear. Some of it, no doubt, is the quality of the “Mafia” meat from the days of yore compared to what we can get locally. Some of it is not having 50 years of petrified grease and onion fond permeated into the very steel of that venerable and ancient grill. And some of it is the bread.

We can’t get the type of good Italian hoagie bread made daily down the road from Casapulla’s at Serpe & Son’s Bakery in Elsemere.

I have been making French bread and bolillos since Covid, which is another story. Still, while close, these weren’t quite what I was looking for. I wanted a roll that was crisp and crusty on the outside and tender with a bit of chew on the inside, with a lot of oven spring as well, to give a light and airy roll with a crumb that wasn’t too light nor too dense.

I set out to see if I could come up with a suitable Rx and make these rolls. I found an Internet source in a young man, Charlie Anderson, who was a passionate about these rolls as he was in perfecting a pizza dough for his restaurant.

Charlie did 90% of the hard work for me. I adapted his method, but without the fat/oil. I had to purchase a baking steel (something I had had in mind for quite a while) and find a way of covering the rolls in our old oven to get the steam baked oven spring I was looking for. I first bought an expensive Brod & Taylor cover, which worked but was too expensive and not big enough for more than two rolls to bake at a time.

I found a $7 stainless pan at the Korean Farmer’s Market that worked as good, was bigger and 10X less expensive, and doubled as large kitchen pan to boot.

These are excellent rolls btw. I make a dozen, freeze them, and then Poof! they are gone.

Here’s the Rx along with some cooking notes and comments from my on-going record:

Cheesesteak Sub Rolls – Charlie Anderson (Makes 12 155g 8” Rolls)
• MM Bread Flour ______ 1155 3.57 MM Pizza/Bread Flour 25 lb bag
• Water ______ 690 0.00
• Yeast ______ 12 3.25
• Salt ______ 10 0.00
• Diastatic Malt ______ 25 3.57
1891.5

Date: // 2025 Oven 450°F lower rack, large SS pan to cover rolls. Try to get three under cover to shorten baking time

1. ____ ~4 min Combine All Ankarsrum scraper& roller for initial mix.
2. ____ 20 min Cover & rest.
3. ____ 12 mins Knead Ankarsrum scraper& bar (preferred).
4. ____ 30-60 min 1st Rise (1.5x-2x).
5. ____ 20-40min 2nd Rise De-gas. Ball. (1.5x-2x).
6. ____ Bake or Chill Cover. Fridge 12-48 hrs. If baking, proceed.
7. ____ 120 min 3rd Rise. Dough ambient. 155g balls. (1.5x-2x) ~15g water wt loss
8. ____ Roll. 8” from triangle shape (~17 min/4 rolls). Put on parchment sheets
9. ____ ~30-35 min. Oven 450°F Final Rise Damp cover.
10. ____ Slash w lame. Heavy spritz slashed rolls. Use OVE GlOVES put 2-3 rolls on baking steel. Cover with stainless steel pot.
11. ___ 10 min 15 min Steam Bake @ 450°F lower rack, SS pan cover (See notes below)
12. ___ 2 min Uncovered for more browning.
13. ___ 60 min Cool before cutting. Final wt 1691

Light weight with crisp crust, soft, chewy crumb

2/2/2025 Rolls with no Crisco, just Diastatic Malt came out perfect. Lowered salt makes higher oven spring along with diastatic malt.

Note: Member’s Mark (Sam’s Club) “High Gluten” Pizza and Bread Flour (25lbs) on 2/3/2025 works fine compared to KA bread flour.

---

Note:Depending on oven temp whether 400°, 425° or 475°, the length of time under the pan cover needed will vary. Lower temps give more control but take longer, viz., at 400°F ~15min, at 425°F ~10min and at 475° ~ 7-8min to “set” the dough. If using the lower shelf for browning while a new batch is steaming, transfer the partially baked rolls to a rack (to avoid burning bottom of rolls) and place on baking sheet on lower shelf. This considerably shortens bake time as one can brown rolls while another set steam bakes. Browning (lower shelf) 400° ~5 min, 425°F ~3 min, & 475°F 2 min or less.

@Cerridwyn
The editing window closed on me before I could finish adding a few pictures and additional comments.

I first bought an expensive Brod & Taylor cover, which worked but was too expensive and not big enough for more than two rolls to bake at a time.

I found a $7 stainless pan at the Korean Farmer’s Market that worked as good, was bigger and 10X less expensive, and doubled as large kitchen pan to boot.

I began this quest using King Arthur Bread flour, but soon found that I was using so much, that the Sam’s Club Member’s Mark Pizza and Bread flour in 25 lb bags at 75% of a 10-lb bag of KA Bread flour worked just as well.

These are excellent rolls btw. I make a dozen, freeze them, and then Poof! they are gone.

In fact, just a few minutes ago, I took half of one of these rolls from the freezer, put it in the air-fryer for 5 minutes, split and butter it and had it as my light supper with a cup of coffee. Sure was good!

After cheese steaks, my other favorite things to do with these rolls is to make homemade meatball sandwiches, sandwiches with Mississippi roast, Italian hoagies with Italian lunch meats (salami, capacola (aka gabagol), prosciutto, mortadella, etc.) and melted provolone, sausage, peppers, and onion subs wet with the cooking juices, and on and on…

@capnjb You are right, of course. Baking is best done with accurately measured ingredients.

Accuracy and precision aren’t the same thing, however. (look it up.) I use a digital scale for accuracy and I record what I do for precision.

Cooking, in general, is more forgiving in that one can take a dish in whatever direction one wishes by adding, eliminating, or substituting ingredients, varying cooking times and methods and the like. But if one wants to cook as near as possible the same dish time after time, it pays to settle down and follow a set procedure with carefully measured ingredients and cooking methods. I go by mass and temperature, mostly not volume and time for both baking and for cooking.

But, hey, that is just my chemical training and background.

@werehatrack I with you on the Ceylon cinnamon. I buy it in packets of whole rolled sticks (like flaky cigars) and grind and sieve it for use. That is real cinnamon.

All supermarket cinnamon is not true cinnamon, but casia (Chinese cinnamon). It looks distinctly different as hard curled thick short pieces of bark. While it has some cinnaldehyde and other related essential oils, it also contains a relatively high amount of coumarin!

Coumarin is not a good thing to imbibe as a rule. If you are interested in some of the physiological effects of coumarin, I urge you to look it up.

@Jackinga “and I record what I do for precision.” I like to write in cookbooks

@Cerridwyn cube ~14" slices should be cube to quarter inch slices. Somehow the 1/4" got translated to ~14". LOL

@Jackinga
I am likewise a BIG fan of using a scale rather than measuring cup. My biggest issue is trying to find a reliable source of conversion for quantities to weight. So, for instance, did you do your own measurements to convert the WW flour in the recipe below or did you find a source that had that conversion already done.
Recently was planning on making marrow relish and found a wide disparity in the weight of a cup of grated zucchini. Will do my own for future use but would be nice to have a reliable source to at least have a starting point.

@capnj
Odd name for a food product company… Senatus Populusque Romanus…

@chienfou Do not question the Senate

@capnjb Do you have any good recipes for Gorilla Glue?

@capnjb Me too. But I buy it by the kilo as Ajinomoto brand (the original brand, I think).

MSG is the essence of the fifth flavor, umami, viz. glutamate, or mono-sodium glutamate, a natural and an essential amino acid. It is the whole point of tomatoes, fish sauce, ketchup, cheeses, and a lot of other things added or used in cooking to impart savory flavors. MSG is at the center of savory flavor

@Jackinga Dang… remind me not to run into you in a back alley

@capnjb @macromeh Gorilla glue is a polyurethane based adhesive. The exact formulation and ingredients are proprietary. However, that being said, this type of chemistry has been around for decades.

What eventually became “Gorilla Glue” was being used in India to assemble teak furniture by a Danish company in the mid-1990s. So you can figure that it has to be relatively cheap. Look up Gorilla Glue on Wikipedia to learn more about the history.

As it happens, early in my career I worked as a polymer applications chemist for a large chemical company for three years between my M.Sc and Ph.D. I did a lot of work in urethane foams and epoxy resins during that time. So I know a little about urethanes although a bit dated now.

Urethanes are the reaction products of an isocyanate with an alcohol to form a urethane (combination ester and amide linkage otherwise known in organic chemistry as a carbamate group.)

Ho hum, boring. TL:DR. Look it up if you suffer from the short attention span of the younger generations and try to stay awake for there are fortunes to be made with such knowledge and insights.

The cure begins when the glue is exposed to ambient moisture such as that from humidity and once started is hard to stop. This is why that bottle of Gorilla glue that you bought 10 months ago and left on the shelf after one use can no longer be squeezed from the bottle.

I can’t give you an exact formulation for Gorilla Glue, but only offer my opinion as the most likely general formulation.

It is most likely composed of an aliphatic diisocyanate, an aliphatic polyol and a small amount of a tin based catalyst such as either stannous octoate or tributyl tin, plus any plasticizers and inerts to give the desired final physical properties such as to lower Tg, the glass transition temperature, heat deflection temperature, elastic modulus, elongation expansion coefficients and the like for the cured glue.

In any case, I doubt if there is anything that is unique about Gorilla Glue that would not be known by a chemist or engineer skilled in the trade. The value is in the name brand recognition as a result of marketing. This is most especially the case for consumer sales, less so for industrial sales.

As a consumer with only one small purchase in mind, one is more likely to go with a brand name such as “Gorilla Glue” as opposes to some off-brand goo called, “Johnny’s OK glue.”

Industrial users are another matter. Bulk industrial buyers demand performance guarantees, tech support, and price considerations before any large volume orders before using this glue over that other glue.

If you want to know more, search for patents for one-component polyurethane adhesives and pay attention to the “most preferred” citations.

In any case, this is something that is likely well beyond the reach of the average amateur homebrew wannabe chemist/formulator owing to the barriers and difficulty sourcing the raw materials unless, that is, you’re Eric T. Meyer, M.D. of the Tech Ingredients YouTube channel, who will go the extra mile(s) in pursuing the raw materials for such a project.

Me? I just buy a bottle of Gorilla Glue, when I need it or when the old one has hardened (cured) on the shelf owing to atmospheric moisture

@capnjb @Jackinga @macromeh
Gorilla glue is one of those products that I have had some success in keeping “alive” for extended periods by placing the container in a second jar and evacuating the air from it. Likewise PVC glue is one of those things that frequently will gel up to the point of being unusable if it’s not protected from the elements. This is also one of the reasons that I frequently store my paints and varnishes etc inverted.

@capnjb DOOOO EEEET.

@capnjb @werehatrack No shaming in the love of the making of the food for the face! I am in full support of anything that gets people excited about cooking. I will happily share the things kitchen related.

@capnjb Those look very similar to the baby backs I did last week. I’ve got some warming up for dinner now.

@werehatrack Yum! I need to find a sale on ribs. They’ve gotten far too over priced lately.

@capnjb
You sound like @Felton10

@capnjb @Felton10 @Kyeh oh Felton and his balls!

@capnjb @Kyeh @sillyheathen Nice to know someone is thinking about my balls other than me.

@capnjb Well, YUM!

@capnjb Gorgeous!

@capnjb @Jackinga as someone who bakes, I concur.

In hindsight, I should’ve drizzled a little chile oil that my cousin, who’s of Taiwanese/American heritage, sent my a few weeks ago. It’s probably the best chili crunch I’ve ever eaten. I’m trying to wrestle the recipe off her.

@sillyheathen That sounds/looks really good!
What is “gno om?”

I used google AI to ask what you could call it in Japanese or Chinese, if you wanted to :

Sumiyaki (炭焼き): This literally translates to “charcoal burning” or “charcoal maker”

炭火工人 (tàn huǒ gōngrén): This directly translates to “charcoal worker.” This aligns with the most common theory about the dish’s name origin

@Kyeh it’s Vietnamese I think. They call it rice paddy herb. It grows wild around the rice paddies in SE Asia. I’m grateful that we have some amazing ethnic markets in the Portland area. I went to SF Mart off Foster and 82nd yesterday. It’s one of the closest that I really love. They have amazing everything. I’m rooting the Gno om and some lemongrass.

@Kyeh

@sillyheathen Oh, you ARE lucky! We have a tiny Asian grocery in town that’s pretty nice, but way smaller than that.
What’s this herb? Is it cumin leaves? The Vietnamese restaurant here used to have a curry that they put cumin leaves in - I loved it, so of course it’s not on the menu anymore.

Edit - oh, maybe what that restaurant called “cumin leaves” really was the gno om, going by what Wikipedia says about it!

@sillyheathen Now that shows some clever versatility to go from spaghetti bolognese to carbonara to a delicious sounding Asian concoction! Bravo! (Brava?)

The one thing I don’t understand is peas in carbonara. The recipe I’ve used, from native Italians, is pasta, guanciale (bacon or pancetta are ok substitutes because of the difficulty of finding guanciale here), pecorino romano, and egg (note: no cream!). I know peas are used in pasta dishes in central Italy in particular, but I think that’s a different dish than carbonara.

@ItalianScallion yep. I used three yolks, cheese and pasta water for the sauce. I was super blasphemous and used a little Gruyère and parm. It worked really beautifully.

@sillyheathen I wouldn’t call using other cheeses super blasphemous, but if you’d used cream…

@ItalianScallion same with Alfredo. There shouldn’t be any cream. Just cheese and butter.

@sillyheathen What I was taught was put the loaf in a paper bag and get the bag wet (but not soaked) and put that in the oven for a few minutes. Also works!

@sillyheathen
I will frequently wet down the crust of my sourdough before I throw it in the toaster oven to make toast, just to crisp the edge better. Seems counterintuitive that steam would help to crisp up the crust but it certainly does!