Tech tools for modern baking-survey and discussion-great brioche recipe!
I finally have all my recipes in electronic format and now I am in the process of formatting them and putting them in cups/gram. Quite a feat! Currently, if I am baking, I will print out the recipe from the computer which is in a room adjacent to the kitchen. This is a somewhat paper hungry method and I am trying to reduce that. It is not feasible(or good for our marriage) to have my husband's laptop (a mini) that close to the baking area and have it survive chronic exposure to all the ingredients so I have to buy my own tech tool. I like my tools to be multipurpose,reasonably priced,sturdy and easy to use.
So the question/survey/discussion is this:
- Does anyone use a tablet/Nook/Kindle as a cookbook? What do you like/not like about your setup? Does it interface with a printer?
- What software/app do you use to save your recipes? Easy? Free? Easy to navigate/edit?
- What format? Spreadsheet?Tables?Text? My recipes are being converted to cups/grams format for scalability and consistency. See sample below. See italicized note before recipe...
- Is there a software you like that will be easy to use when developing a recipe? Currently what I do is print out a blank table on paper and write in my possible ingredients and add info as I go. Editting and crossout and notes in the sideline are extensive. Paper and pencil are what I use now to edit a recipe in progress and keep notes. Then I type my results into my electronic format and save it as a "being developed" or as a "final". I haven't found an easy electronic way to do all the editting while in process yet. Have you?
My current favorite format is to save them in a microsoft Word document that looks like this:
(In light of the season, I'll use my favorite Brioche recipe! Well-used,wonderful recipe! Thanks Floyd!)
NOTE: All measures are as I meaure- using my tools in my kitchen-please do NOT make this a discussion about accuracy or how it compares to your measures. If you feel my "cups" are different from your measurements-just use the gram measures and develop your own "cups" measure that you feel is accurate.
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Lazy Man’s Brioche (from Floyd) Makes 12 buns-3 oz dough each
INGREDIENT | AMOUNT | GRAMS |
|
Bread flour | 3 ¼ cups | 500g |
|
Salt | 1 to 1 ½ tsp | 5g-7g |
|
Yeast | 4 tsp | 15g | Use 2-3 and let raise longer |
Sugar | ¼ cup | 50g |
|
Milk/Cream/Almond/Soy | 1 cup | 250g |
|
Eggs | 2 large |
|
|
Butter | 1/2 cup (1 stick) | 113g | Can sub 1/3 c oil and ¼ cup butter (1/2 stick) |
For chocolate dough brioche: Add 1 serving packet instant coffee and 4 pouches pre-melted cholcolate (equiv to 4 squares) and increase sugar by 20g or ¼ cup
Filling=1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional) (Chocolate chips and solid choc re-hardens after baking-kind of a chunk.) =Can be stuffed with anything sweet or savory(Indian? BBQ pork?)
=Other ideas: Jam-1 tbsp, Chocolate ganache, White cho with orange marmalade, Almond filling, Any pie filling, Add pannetone fruit and flavor?
Egg Wash
1 egg
a pinch of salt
a teaspoon water
Add all of the ingredients to your mixer and mix it until the dough becomes silky. This takes a long time, somewhere in the 10-20 minute range (I think I did around 15). If the dough sticks to the sides or the paddle too much, take breaks and scrape the dough back down into the bowl.
When it is well mixed, shape the dough into a ball and place in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, approximately 1 hour. Degas the dough and allow it to rise a second time, for another hour or so.
Cut the dough into 12 pieces (I used the scale and weighed them out at 3 ounces each). Shape the dough into balls. This fits a large muffin paper very well. If you want to fill them, do so here by placing the chocolate chips on them before pinching them closed. Make sure they are sealed!
Place the dough balls seam side down in brioche pans or muffin tins. Cover loosely and allow to rise until doubled in size and well above the pan, approximately 45 minutes.
While they are rising, make the egg wash and preheat the oven to 365.
Brush the brioche gently with egg wash before putting the pans near the middle of the preheated oven. Bake the brioche for 10 minutes then rotate the pan. Bake them another 10 minutes or until they appear to be done. If your pans were greased well, you should be able to shake the brioche out of the pan while they are still hot. Be careful if the eggwash spilled onto the pans though, because the cooked egg will "glue" the brioche into the pans. I had to gently break through the eggwash with a knife before I could get a few of my buns out of the pans.
PUMPKIN BRIOCHE
Oil | ¼ cup | 50g |
|
Butter | ¼ cup | 55g |
|
Pumpkin(canned) | ¾ cup | 200g | Puree (canned or homemade needs to be thick-not pourable) |
Milk | ½ cup-minus 2 tbsp | 90g | Almond and soy milk works well |
Eggs | 2 | ---- |
|
Bread Flour | 3 cups | 550g |
|
Sugar | ¼ c | 50g |
|
Yeast | 2 ½ tsp (1 packet) | 7g | ??check amount |
Salt | 1 ½ tsp | 7g |
|
Add all ingredients to mixer and mix 10-20 minutes until dough silky. Scrape often.
Suggested filling: reserve some canned pumpkin and mix with cinnamon sugar.
Great as pumpkin cinnamon rolls!
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