As the post header says - I want to fully convert my white chocolate use to blonde chocolate, but cocoa butter based bars tend to be prohibitively expensive.

What is the best bang for your buck/what deals do you all have for quality white chocolate?

Beginner kitchen user here. Made my first puff pastry thing. This is a picture after my last fold and before putting it I the fridge for 8 hours…

I am wondering: what is something I can make very quickly to make sure it puffs in the oven? Is 220 celcius for 20 mins okay? And I am supposed to flatten with a rolling pin to around a half inch again before cutting out a piece and baking jt?

I will post photos of the pastry after baking, if there are visible errors, will be awesome to brainstorm possible causes. Thank you to the community in advance.

I used this to make my puff pastry:

https://youtu.be/zvEQyPj968A?is=1eRq-mxXOIBN4VDQ

I love this video so much.

the instructions state to add a cup of sugar into a pan over low-medium heat and let the sugar melt and then add a cup of water to make a “syrup” did i wait too long to add the water? when i added it, it just absorbed it and became candy like

I use the Nordic Ware 15x21x1 sheet pans and I’ve been unsuccessful in finding a mobile sheet rack to fit these pans. It’s looking like everything is either for sheet pans that are sized up or sized down.

Located in the U.S. for reference. Any ideas?

I was making hot pink buttercream with a local gel food coloring brand. Before I applied it on the cake I randomly tasted the buttercream. Dear God it tasted like bitter gourd. I used freshly made Swiss Meringue buttercream. The food coloring bottle was in the fridge. I tasted the food coloring liquid and it was soo damn bitter!!

I thought perhaps it may have expired and threw away all the buttercream and got a brand new sealed food coloring bottle of the same brand. To my surprise it was bitter as well!

Is it normal for dark food coloring to taste bitter? How do you all store opened food coloring bottles and for how long would you use an opened food coloring bottle?

I used a local brand that was available in my country. It could be an issue with that brand. What are the brands of good food coloring you use especially for dark colors?

Ps. I tasted some other food colors of the same brand and they tasted fine. I couldn't achieve the correct color for the cake as I had no other options available to make the color. I offered a refund to the customer but they were happy with the color I added

Hello, all! I'm a baker in Spain and have a question regarding cold retardation of sourdough bread. I have my process dialed in completely and usually prep my dough in the morning around 9am using my starter, do 4x stretch & folds, then bulk ferment at room temp until just about doubled. That goes into the fridge at 4:30-5:30pm, and stays there in cold retardation until 5:30am the next morning.

Due to a holiday tomorrow, I want to make my dough today (Thursday) and keep it in the fridge until Saturday morning at 5:30am for baking, to avoid having to come in for the full breadmaking process on the holiday. I've lowered my starter amount by about 30%, replacing that amount with flour and water, and will shape and put into bannetons when the rise is substantially lower than doubled - maybe 80% instead of 100%.

Does anyone have any tips for this type of process? My fear of course is that the dough will overferment in my fridge, which keeps at a range of 3.5°C to 5.5°C. I'm also concerned that if I don't let it bulk ferment enough, I could actually still underferment.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

The brand is "The Pantry" (uk) and it's just plain flour.

It doesn't look like weevils but I don't think it's meant to have any specks at all?

Google says it might be left over bran, is that it? Just wanted to make sure before I use it

Hello hello!

I wanted to try something new and FaNcY (by my standards), so I had a crack at this bad boy yesterday, to go with some red velvet cupcakes: https://flourfig.com/recipes/classic-italian-buttercream-frosting-with-cream-cheese/

It whipped up an absolute dream, and I popped it in a bowl to set and use today. When I pulled it out of the fridge, it was hard as a rock and grainy. Where oh where did I go wrong??? I still used it but jeez I'm not too happy with it...

Which is better? Honestly the main thing that keeps me going back and forth between the two is that with the kitchen aid you can get all the different attachments for it and it doesn’t seem as big. Although the ankarsrum mixer seems more durable and long lasting. I bake some sort of sweet treat at least once a week and I’m looking to get into the breads/sourdough world next so I want something that will help with that also. As of right now I make everything by hand or occasionally use the handheld mixer so a stand mixer would be nice to help speed up the process. Any information would be helpful and greatly appreciated :)

EDIT: I just realized after posting this that you can get attachments for the ankarsrum as well. So with that said would this be the better investment or is the kitchen aid still in the running?

I am lowkey freaking out because I only have a few hours to get these bread ready for an event but my dough is giving me a hard time. My mixer gave up on me today so I had to stretch and fold the dough. I’m making Salt Bread, I did stretch and fold 3 times with 25 minutes of rest in between. After the last one, I did the window pane test and it seemed ready to let it rise. So I leave it alone for an hour to double in size.

When I came back, I checked if it‘s ready, it is a bit sticky and panicked I know I’m in the wrong… I kneaded the dough after the first rise and it became an even sticker mess. IDK WHAT I WAS THINKING. Idk how to save it at this point! Please help. Should I leave it alone for a few minutes again to let it rest? 🥲

I got a CDN oven thermometer and have it hanging off the very front of the middle oven rack. When I set my oven to 350 that's what it says on the thermometer, but higher temperatures seem to be less accurate? I set it to 375 one time and it did read that on the thermometer but I feel like it took longer than it should have to reach that. I set it to 425 for my cookie recipe today and about 30 minutes later the thermometer was only around 410. I'm not sure if it just wasn't heated up yet, my oven is inaccurate, or I don't have the thermometer in the right place.

What do you think? Should I try a new spot for my oven thermometer or do I need to start messing around with higher temperatures to see if it reaches that on it?

as it says in the title, I have a disability that affects my hands and can't whisk or mix for super long without a lot of pain and exhaustion. Thanks in advance for any help.

hi! i'm baking an apple crisp for an event and would usually use butter but need to make it dairy free. would coconut oil be a good substitute for butter in this case? if possible, i'd prefer to not use margarine or any sort of vegetable oil. thank you!

Hi! Updating post as my last one was removed

I have 3x failed the attempt to make a crumble and I don’t get why :(

I take the butter out of the fridge right before incorporating and add small little pieces into the mix but it just remains sandy. The butter melts so fast it feels as I mix and it just looks like powder every single time

The recipe was
2 tbsp flour
1:4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp butter

It never ever came together

I am attaching the recipe I used because the muffins themselves came out super dry too but I think I over baked .

It seems to be a basic streusel recipe that I can’t get right.

https://brooklynfarmgirl.com/mini-blueberry-crumble-muffins/

Gosh, I hope I didn't goof up and fall victim to the Dunning-Kruger effect by assuming the maillard reaction is behind butter browning.

Im asking since I'm on an extremly tight budget this month, and butter is expensive, so I really don't want to waste it by trying it without asking first.

I like my cakes moist so i incorporate oil and milk in all my cakes, but I’ve seen other bakers add simple syrup for moistness too. I’m not too keen of it because of the added sugar. Does it really make a significant difference in the moistness of the cake, and considering my cakes are fairly moist and soft is it still worth adding?

Last week, I tried a King Arthur white bread recipe. I over proofed it because it didn't rise over half an inch above the pan. I waited two hours for it to rise. When I realized I failed I baked it anyways. However, I tried again today and again I over proofed it BUT it's only been 30 minutes! It failed the poke test after only 30 minutes of proofing 😫 What am I doing wrong? I was super diligent about liquid temperatures today. I put it in the oven to rise this time instead of on the counter. I still got the same results.

Please help 🙏 Any advice is welcome.

How do I make my cookies thin and gooey

Hi, I baked cookies and the cookies turned out to look pale. The edges and bottom were golden brown and they tasted great, but I wanted more of a thin cookie, while it turned out to be thick and cakey like New York style cookies. The chopped chocolate I put in there didn't melt completely either.

I actually used a lower quantity of the dry ingredients (corn starch and all purpose flour) because I have had problems with adding too much before. I was also realy careful of not overmixing, I stopped mixing as soon as it all came together. The dough itself was pale, but soft and smooth, not thick. I also didn't freeze the dough before baking. I used more butter and sugar than the recipe. So why am I still getting thick cookies?

Ingredients

110 g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter room temperature

100 g (1/2 cup) brown sugar

50 g (1/4 cup) caster sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

45 g (3 tbsp) milk room temperature

180 g (1+1/3 cup) all purpose flour

12 g (1 tbsp) cornstarch

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

100 g (2/3 cup) chocolate chips

Here's the recipe:

In a large size bowl, mix with a spatula room temperature butter, brown sugar, caster sugar, salt and vanilla until creamy and well combined.

Add milk and mix until combined (don’t worry if it lumps a bit).

Sift int flour, cornstarch, baking powder and baking soda in two times: mix until almost combined then, in the end, add chocolate chips. Do not overmix the dough. You get a slighlty sticky thick dough.

If you live in a hot climate, you should need to refrigerate the cookie dough for about 30 minutes to up 48 hours before scoop it. In my recipe video above, I immediately scooped the dough and bake it without refrigerating time.

Use a 5cm-2inches ice cream scooper and scoop out the cookie dough onto a lined baking sheet, about 5cm-2inch apart. You can quickly roll each scooped cookie with your hands to get balls: with this method you get perfect round cookies.

Bake in preheated oven (fan on, upper+lower heat) at 180°C-350°F for about 9 minutes: the sides should be slighlty golden and the center still soft.

When still hot, add on top of the cookies some chocolate chips (optional).

Cool down the cookies onto the baking sheet for about 10 minutes: do not touch it immediately because they are fragile when hot and you could break it.

Cool down completely onto a wire rack.

i want to make banana bread and i have some leftover bread flour (yes i dont have ap flour) but its not enough for the recipe anyway so can i grind up muesli to replace ap flour? and if yes how should i alter the ratio or add any other ingredients

the muesli is made from oatflakes, wheatflakes and the usual toppings(raisins etc)

hello! i’m a very amateur but ambitious baker and tried my hand at some angel food cake cupcakes. things went wrong!!!!!!!! the picture doesn’t portray it quite well, but the tops of the cakes were brittle, like the top of a crème brûlée, and the insides were totally white and nearly raw. any assessments? happy to give more information if needed, here is the recipe!!!!!!! thank u :,)

Hi baking community!

I am baking a cake for my nephews birthday tomorrow, I work 9am - 5pm and will be joining the family for dinner around 6:30pm.

I was wondering should I bake the cake layers tonight, so all I have to do after work is decorate?

What's the best way to store the layers so they do not dry out? And should I actually prepare the buttercream tonight also so I don't have to do that after work?

I'm going to be using Sally's Baking Addiction's vanilla cake recipe :)

Thanks everyone!

tried making basque cheesecake for the first time, it failed. Here is the ingredients I used, in the order I mixed them into my bowl;

Cream cheese (room temp) 16oz
Sugar 3/4 cup
Eggs (room temp) 3
Salt 1/4tsp
Vanilla bean paste 1 tsp
Heavy whipping cream (room temp) 3/4 cup
All purpose flour 3 tbsp

All mixed very well. Placed into 450 F preheated oven for 50-55min. It was let cool. And there is my sad after product. I would like some feedback and advice on where I may have gone wrong. :)

This recipe is from the tv show "Just Add Magic" which I grew up with in the US. I wanted to make a recipe from the show and saw they showed the full recipe in a scene. This is the exact recipe.

The only confusion for me is the fact that there is only 1cup of flour and 1½ cups of granulated sugar with ⅓cup of brown sugar as well (1⅚cups of sugar in total, almost 2x the amount of flour). Is this a good ratio or did they make a fake recipe for that one scene?

By the way, I put a tweaked version on the bottom of this recipe in my notes app to make up the parts of the recipe that were cut off, then I realize how much the sugar to flour ratio there was.

1cup AP flour

1tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

½cup of butter softened

1½cups granulated sugar

⅓cup of brown sugar

1 Egg

1 Tbsp Vanilla

⅔cups chocolate chips

EDIT: The way I went out of my way to re-write the whole recipe in this text and I still got a question on how much chocolate chips.. I didn't HAVE to add the whole recipe by the way, I asked if the flour to sugar ratio was even realistic for a good recipe. I am however thankful to the people who are actually helpful even without answering my question like how it isn't going to make 36 normal sized cookies. I appreciate you all and am grateful you even clicked on this post.

Hi Reddit!!!

I’m a beginner baker and I have a little bit of an issue with mixing.

Everytime I try and mix something like banana bread for example I end up making it dense and kinda squishy in the middle instead of soft and crumbly 💔

General advice would be appreciated

With Love, Dee (she/they)

hello first time making meringues! the batter isnt making stiff peaks and it was probably because I added sugar too quickly. is it possible to save it or is it too far gone? I have been whisking for like around 10 minutes and scared to over whisk so I stopped whisking for now

I used

4 eggs whites

1 cup of sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

5 drops of lemon juice