A lean bread is flour, water, yeast and salt. Sandwich bread is enriched with sugar or milk. Milk has fats and sugars, in solution. Sugar makes the dough more extensible, which helps the dough to flow and rise. However, sugar or milk change the crust and crumb. Salt interacts with amino acids making up the …
Bread machine recipes have to be customized for machines. I stopped trusting “standard” recipes. I adapt recipes, mainly from the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC”). I worked out my approach to yeast and low sodium in baking in a Panasonic SD-YD250 for medium (1.5 lb.) loaves June, July and August, 2018. BLBMC recipes did …
The Zojirushi Virtuoso BB-PAC20 bread machine. It is a 2016 machine, superseded in the product line by the Virtuoso Plus. I found a refurbished machine in an online store. It is a large, heavy, stable machine. It is quiet, compared to other machines I have owned. It doesn’s rattle and try to dance off the …
I began to chart recipes in tables when I realized that each manufacturer has its own set of programs for its machines. Predictably, standard recipes (e.g. Bread Lovers Bread Machine Cookbook) fail in some devices. Bread machines are either dry (flour) first or wet (water or milk) first, according to manufacturer’s recommendation. Either way, load …
Instant Pots and other pressure multicookers are high energy devices that saute and pressure cook, but do not necessarily perform well at simmering. An Instant Pot or other pressure multi-cooker will cook steamed rice in the pressure cooker program. A stovetop pressure cooker will too. The preheat and the time at operating pressure bring the …
The principals of Double Insight developed the Instant Pot pressure multi-cooker in 2008-9. It was on the market by 2012, and took off in 2015-6 with social media and presence in Amazon Market Place. “Instant Pot” is not a trade mark like Vacuum Cleaner or Bandaid. Instant Pot launched a sous-vide heater in 2018, and …
Multi-cookers were, 2009-2018, electric pressure cookers with: a heating element in a round plate below the cooking vessel, stainless or non-stick metal pots, sensors, a control panel and a programmed control responding to feedback from the sensors. The conglomerate Midea of Guangdong Province, China patented a multi-cooker in 2006. The Instant Pot pressure multi-cooker took …
A pressure cooker reaches cooking temperatures above the boiling point of water (212 F. or 100 C.). Pressure cooking involves time to bring water to a boil, reach cooking temperature, and a period at the operating pressure and temperature. Pressure cookers use high heat to build pressure and get food to a cooking temperature; low …
I used a slow cooker for many years. I have invested time and effort in learning that method of cooking. Slow cookers braise food in liquid at low heat. Most slow cookers made from the 1950s to the early 21st century used ceramic crocks heated by a single electric heating element- low powered and poorly …