digby's fruitcake was Re: SC - Cheesecake judgingLaurels/Competitions

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

hey all from Anne-Marie

Adamantius tells us:
>The little single-serving cakes rose like brioche after a while. Longer
>than half an hour, but I noticed, as I had enough little muffin-tins for
>maybe eighteen at a time, that as I approached the middle-to-end of the
>batch, a distinct difference between those made at the top of the pile
>of dough, and the bottom. (I was scooping them up with a number three
>ice-cream scoop, kneading _very_ softly, and plunking them into muffin
>tins.) I think perhaps if you had a really good fermentation of properly
>aspirated ale yeast at a stage of what German brewers might call "hoch
>kruezen", essentially when the yeast begins to really get down to the
>business of fermenting, extruding tentacles and grabbing and digesting
>anything in its path like The Blob, you might get a product somewhat
>lighter than a cookie dough after half an hour, particularly if it's
>proofed in a sufficiently warm place. Not that a simple gluten rest
>doesn't help, too, in that same time frame.

so if I took my little package of imported German ale yeast that I've been
saving for just this experiment, made a sponge, and used that? or just
proof it for a good half hour?
>
>Indeed it does. In my darker moments, as I became more intimate with
>this cake recipe than I may want to in the near future, I feared a
>resemblance to every supermarket's generic "iced spice cookies"
>(something about the icing), but when fresh, it is infinitely more
>aromatic and rich, and by the light of day wiser counsel prevails.

I found in my hands, if left out for more than a day or so, it lost much of
its appeal. (well, not ALL of the appeal, just that it wasnt the SAME!!!
you know? :))

I loved the photos of the ship!! did you say you made the mold yourself?
- -AM