[Sca-cooks] RE: What classes would you take/teach?

[sjk3 at cornell.edu]

> It was essentially a tasting class.  the handouts
> simply listed the ingredients that I brought, along
> with common substitutions.   The students were
> urged to taste each item, then write down their
> impressions of its taste - and compare it to a
> commonly suggested substitution.
>
> Then I did a whole series of shortbread where I used as many different
>kinds of flour as I could find, along with several different kinds of
>sugar, and fats. This was to show how big a difference an ingredient
>change can make - especially if you don't the know the why/what for
>which you are substituting.
>
> Standard recipe was 1 cup flour, 1 / 2 cup fat, 1 / 4 cup sugar, mix
>lightly, place in pie tin and bake in moderate oven until just brown
>around the edges.
>
> So I would have the following:
> white flour / butter / white sugar
> unbleached flour / butter / white sugar
>
> Kateryn

    I remember the first time I truly realized how much a difference this
could make.  I'd been using unbleached flour for years for baking bread,
and would always make a few loaves when I visited my parents (still do!).
One year they either couldn't find unbleached flour, or my dad just
grabbed the first bag of wheat flour he saw in the store and didn't
notice.  In any case, when I tasted the dough, having not noticed the
lable on the bag, I was caught completely by surprise at how "odd" it
tasted.  I went hunting for bag to see why (could it have been an old one
they pulled out of the back of the pantry?) and discovered it was
bleached.  They've learned, though.  :-)

Sandra Kisner
sjk3 at cornell.edu