The Importance of Nutrition

[errantember]

I've now finished both my bowl of chocolate pudding, and my sampling of the new shortbread I made, so, filled with sugar and caffeine, it's probably time for bed.

Incidentally, I tried making the soda bread from The New Best Recipe with rye flour instead of cake flour, and it's substantially better. It has a more rounded personality, with just a hint of rye, that gives it a lot more depth than the original. I also discovered the spreading problem I've been having with the shortbread was almost certainly because of the organic, cultured hippy-butter I'd been using. An Emergency Sweet-Tooth Run to the grocery store tonight forced me to get standard Land-O-Lakes commodity butter instead, and it held it's form far better, allowing the shortcake to remain mostly round, with only about a 45-degree slope around the outer edge.

Comments

[jb-27.livejournal.com]

Did you make the soda bread with 100% rye? I know that yeast-leavened breads made with 100% rye are often very dense, and can even become gummy if over-kneaded, because the rye doesn't behave exactly like wheat flour. I'm surprised to hear that its qualities worked well in a chemically-leavened bread. The recipes I've seen for rye have used between 25% and about 60% rye flour, with few exceptions.

[errantember.livejournal.com]

It wasn't the main ingredient, which was still unbleached all-purpose flour. The recipe also calls for cake flour, which I'd run out of, so I substituted rye flour instead. It's slightly more dense than normal soda bread, but it's also a bit more flexible, which means not as crumbly.

on the shortbread

[bramblekite.livejournal.com]

you may want to try varying the flour by a smidge or a dab to see if that helps it hold up better. I know the normal shortbread recipe is something ridiculously easy like 1 part flour-1 part butter-1 part sugar but try maybe a 1.05 on the flour and see if that helps.

me, I don't care much what it looks like, it tastes like heaven :)

Re: on the shortbread

[errantember.livejournal.com]

That might help, too.

[comodulate.livejournal.com]

I take mail order!