That smells so good- A Baking Thread

[Tears of Lys]

I'm going to make my walnut rugelach with cream cheese crust this year.  Our daughter loves it and I've been promising her some for ages.  They take forever to make and when you do make them, the recipe makes mass quantities - enough to give as gifts and still have plenty left over.  

You're supposed to roll out the dough, cut little triangles, use just a dab of filling (ground walnuts, sugar, egg white,) and roll them up.  Repeat for the rest of the day and into the night.  

They're a PITA to make, but super delicious with tea/coffee, and melt in your mouth.

 

Edited November 10, 2023 by Tears of Lys
can't spell

[Phylum of Alexandria]

19 hours ago, Tears of Lys said:

They're a PITA to make, but super delicious with tea/coffee, and melt in your mouth.

 

If I'm baking something that's a PITA, it makes me falafel...

[A True Kaniggit]

I’m doing some what’s called drunk baking. 
 

I got some sausage and cut it all up into bite size pieces. And I got some little red potatoes, and cut them up to bite size pieces. And I got some pre-pealed little shrimp. 
 

I’ve mixed it all together with some butter and a shit ton of seasoning. What seasoning? Who cares. 
 

I bake it at 400 degrees until the potatoes are soft. Dinner for 3 days is done. 
 

 

[Toth]

And yesterday I added cinnamon stars to the pile of christmas cookies I have been doing. Surprised how easy it is. Particularly, again, given how pricy they have become.

[DanteGabriel]

Some of my favorite childhood memories involve a warm bag of pandesal (soft Filipino breakfast rolls, rolled in breadcrumbs) on weekend mornings. They are often served with butter, or Spam, or a slice of edam cheese, but I preferred a fresh baked roll all by itself, nothing to interfere with that flavor.

There used to be a number of Filipino bakeries within a ten minute drive of our house back in the 80s. Gradually they moved away, probably priced out of the area as my neighborhood gentrified ("Swingers" really accelerated that process) and immigrants moved out of the center of LA.

Now I'm in Boston and while it's not that hard to find Filipino food, I can't for the life of me find a bakery with fresh pandesal. It's all pre-baked and bagged. I still buy some every once in a while. My son really enjoys them, split and toasted and buttered, but it makes me sad he's never had the real thing.

Mrs. Gabriel learned how to make it when we started dating, but it wasn't quite right and she doesn't really have time to bake any more. Seems like I'd actually have to go to the Philippines to find a proper pandesal.

[Tears of Lys]

On 11/27/2023 at 8:56 PM, DanteGabriel said:

Some of my favorite childhood memories involve a warm bag of pandesal (soft Filipino breakfast rolls, rolled in breadcrumbs) on weekend mornings. They are often served with butter, or Spam, or a slice of edam cheese, but I preferred a fresh baked roll all by itself, nothing to interfere with that flavor.

There used to be a number of Filipino bakeries within a ten minute drive of our house back in the 80s. Gradually they moved away, probably priced out of the area as my neighborhood gentrified ("Swingers" really accelerated that process) and immigrants moved out of the center of LA.

Now I'm in Boston and while it's not that hard to find Filipino food, I can't for the life of me find a bakery with fresh pandesal. It's all pre-baked and bagged. I still buy some every once in a while. My son really enjoys them, split and toasted and buttered, but it makes me sad he's never had the real thing.

Mrs. Gabriel learned how to make it when we started dating, but it wasn't quite right and she doesn't really have time to bake any more. Seems like I'd actually have to go to the Philippines to find a proper pandesal.

Do you have enough time to bake them?  

Do they freeze well?  I know they're probably best freshly baked.  

Now that I'm retired (semi), I keep thinking I should have more time to bake, but somehow it's not working out that way.    

[Fragile Bird]

On 11/11/2023 at 8:25 AM, Phylum of Alexandria said:

If I'm baking something that's a PITA, it makes me falafel...

That’s a dad joke…

[DanteGabriel]

7 hours ago, Tears of Lys said:

Do you have enough time to bake them?  

Do they freeze well?  I know they're probably best freshly baked.  

Now that I'm retired (semi), I keep thinking I should have more time to bake, but somehow it's not working out that way.    

I could learn to do it myself, I suppose, but Mrs Gabriel is a fantastic baker while I can competently execute a boxed cornbread mix. We're actually a pretty great team when we can combine our talents. We used to make empanadas, she'd make the dough and I'd make the filling, usually a nice pulled pork with Filipino flavors, and they were just fantastic.

I hear you about having time to bake. She certainly wants to bake more, but between our jobs and our kid, time is scarce. She did bake rolls for our Thanksgiving dinner and she makes sourdough pizza from time to time. We'll have some downtime around Christmas so maybe I'll ask her if we can make pandesal together then.

I've never tried freezing them -- mostly I guess because we just ate it all up whenever we had it.

What would you want to bake, if you had the time?

Edited November 29, 2023 by DanteGabriel

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 11/27/2023 at 7:56 PM, DanteGabriel said:

Some of my favorite childhood memories involve a warm bag of pandesal (soft Filipino breakfast rolls, rolled in breadcrumbs) on weekend mornings. They are often served with butter, or Spam, or a slice of edam cheese, but I preferred a fresh baked roll all by itself, nothing to interfere with that flavor.

I've never gotten to try this, but I think I've told you before that one of my cousin's wife is from the Philippians and when her or her sisters cook it smells amazing. Idk what most of the dishes are called, but I was full as hell afterwards.  

[Tears of Lys]

2 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

 

2 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

What would you want to bake, if you had the time?

I'm still getting around to making the rugelach.  Honestly, people brought over so much food/baked goods for this last Thanksgiving that we're still trying to get through it all.  I'd donate it, but I doubt they'd want stuff that's 1/4 eaten already.  

I've made Shaobing, Chinese sesame pocket buns, several times in the past and I think if I didn't already have all this food, I'd make those.  They're so good, eaten in any number of ways.  

[Fragile Bird]

I’m at the One of a Kind Show, where they sell mainly crafts but quite a few foods as well. 

Does anyone have a good recipe for oatcakes? Someone was selling them and they looked great. Someone else was selling bars with lemon zest buttercream on a graham cracker/coconut base, which sounds delicious but was way too sweet. I bet I could come up with a version that tastes better with less sugar in it.

[DanteGabriel]

8 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I've never gotten to try this, but I think I've told you before that one of my cousin's wife is from the Philippians and when her or her sisters cook it smells amazing. Idk what most of the dishes are called, but I was full as hell afterwards.  

I would quiz you about the components of those dishes you ate in order to identify them, but I think that is outside of scope for this thread. But dude, you should learn the names of those dishes. Filipino food is the new Korean food, or something.

 

6 hours ago, Tears of Lys said:

 

I'm still getting around to making the rugelach.  Honestly, people brought over so much food/baked goods for this last Thanksgiving that we're still trying to get through it all.  I'd donate it, but I doubt they'd want stuff that's 1/4 eaten already.  

I've made Shaobing, Chinese sesame pocket buns, several times in the past and I think if I didn't already have all this food, I'd make those.  They're so good, eaten in any number of ways.  

Mmm, rugelach. What's your filling of choice? I love me some apricot.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I would quiz you about the components of those dishes you ate in order to identify them, but I think that is outside of scope for this thread. But dude, you should learn the names of those dishes. Filipino food is the new Korean food, or something.

I Googled a few articles and found two I'm sure they made, sinigang and Kare-Kare. Asian soup dishes in general are great. I've always wanted to try the traditional dish sumo wrestlers eat, albeit just a single serving. They also made some things I didn't see. As long as the meat base is chicken, beef or pork I'm in (not much of a seafood fan). I found two things I need to try,  humba and lechon. Both look like they smell as good as they taste. 
 

Quote

Mmm, rugelach. What's your filling of choice? I love me some apricot.

Try a fresh apricot hamantash sometime. Cherry and raspberry ones are great too, but imo apricot is the best. 

[DanteGabriel]

49 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I Googled a few articles and found two I'm sure they made, sinigang and Kare-Kare. Asian soup dishes in general are great. I've always wanted to try the traditional dish sumo wrestlers eat, albeit just a single serving. They also made some things I didn't see. As long as the meat base is chicken, beef or pork I'm in (not much of a seafood fan). I found two things I need to try,  humba and lechon. Both look like they smell as good as they taste. 
 

It's cool you got exposed to Filipino dishes beyond lumpia and pancit, which are the gateway foods for most people. I miss my mother's sinigang (with a fish head in the broth) and I don't have much hope of being able to ever replicate it, because Mrs Gabriel would divorce me over the way it would smell up the kitchen.

For Asian soups, I make a mean arroz caldo, which is like congee with chicken, garlic, and ginger. Great for cold nights and a wonderful comfort food.

As for lechon, it is as great as the hype says when it's done right. I'll always brag that Anthony Bourdain called it "the best pork ever."

To bring this back on topic: be on the lookout for ensaymada, an impossibly rich brioche-like bun topped with grated cheese (traditionally Edam).

[Larry of the Lawn]

I've been experimenting with chess pie recently.  My favorite so far is chocolate orange cardamom chess pie.

Recipe pretty similar to this one.

I have skipped the heavy cream altogether a few times, also skipped the cornmeal.  You can get away with skipping the cornmeal with a regular chess pie but once you start adding extra liquids (like you do here with the orange juice ) you need some kind of adjustment to handle the extra liquid.

Other change I did was instead of using cardamom powder, ground up 7 green cardamom pods in the coffee grinder, discarded bigger husk chunks and rolled with that.

I do a butter crust like the one in the linked recipe.  I've tried Graham cracker crust too but I think with all the chocolate-orange-cardamom action we really don't need to confuse it more.  

Also been messing around with cinnamon rolls based on the Pioneer Woman recipe.  Pretty bad ass pastries.  

Edited January 27 by Larry of the Lawn