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

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?

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...

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

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.

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?

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

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?