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It's no secret, here it is! Complete with the cocaine that was removed from Coke's production in 1903:
Picture and text from This American Life
The radio broadcast recording on the above link makes a very compelling case that the picture at the top of the page is really the original formula for Coke. Of course it has changed over the years; it's not ...
27
I'm aware of three reasons that you might not want to do so:
You tie up spices that you might want to use in other dishes individually
You don't always want to add the spices at the same time.
You can't always keep spices well-blended.
If you only tend to cook one dish or you leave some of each spice in reserve, the first one isn't really a problem.
The ...
24
Mixing strengthens the gluten structure in recipes that use wheat flours. In breads, for example, this is a good thing, as that structure is what allows gasses to be trapped inside, and provides the pleasant chew that we associate with a well-made loaf. However, when making biscuits (or other baked goods where a softer, more crumbly texture is desired......
13
Assuming you're using spices which are all dried and ground, there should be no problem.
In the middle-east, there are always several spice mixtures available in shops. The most famous of which are Ras-al-Hanout and Baharat. These are spice mixtures sold as pre-mixed combinations by the shopkeeper, who is usually the one who grinds the spices.
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The main reason behind the claim is that muffins don't want gluten formation. Gluten in a chemical leavened product like a muffin would make it tough, rather than light, since the protein strands are so sturdy. The sturdy structures that are desired in crusty bread are a problem for muffins and other chemical leavened products.
Gluten is formed when dough ...
10
I've got one of the professional series Kitchen Aids (and my parents have the traditional version to compare and contrast). If money isn't a huge deal, then getting the professional series comes with a more powerful motor and a heavier base that will stop the mixer from "walking" around the counter if you put dough or something dense in the mixer.
One ...
10
There isn't really a technical reason for this in most cases. It is for the convenience of the cook, to get things mixed thoroughly with a minimum of mess and hassle.
However, with meat loaf, once you add the egg, it gets even more sticky and messy.
When I make meatloaf or meatballs, I actually do it in three stages:
Mix all the onions, herbs, spices ...
9
Many, many things happen when flour flour is mixed into batter. From your description, though, it sounds like you are interested in what leads to and relieves clumping.
When water (whether it is just plain water, in milk, in juice, or whatever) and flour are mixed, the water will begin to expand and penetrate the starch granules in the flour. The starch ...
9
I'll try to break this down into components to make it simpler.
If a recipe starts by combining sugar and a solid fat (creaming), this incorporates small air bubbles into the batter which will be seed bubbles for the carbon dioxide produced by chemical leavening. Occasionally, this creaming is used alone for leavening (as in traditional poundcakes).
If the ...
9
No, it is not a good idea at all. It will be worse, not better. What you are missing here is that cocoa powder does not dissolve at all, never, it just disperses in water (or milk). So there is no reason why methods for dissolving stuff would work with cocoa powder. You will need to use a method created for colloid-producing powders like cocoa powder, which ...
8
Oil doesn't really dissolve sugar. The main purpose for the mixing is that in many recipe techniques, especially the muffin method, sugar is treated as a wet ingredient. By premixing the wet ingredients, and premixing the dry ingredients, when the two are combined, you require much less additional mixing to get a homogeneous total batter.
Creaming sugar ...
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I run a gluten free bakery and yes, over mixing is a concern for many cake batters, cookie doughs, pie crusts, etc. I find, what makes overmixing an issue is the gums used in the recipes. This being either xanthan or guar. An over-mixed cake batter will become very stringy and goopy, and will not pour smoothly when run off of a spoon, for example. Cookie ...
8
Caffeine is bitter, tea isn't too bitter because as you mentioned it's only got 40mg of caffeine. If you then triple the amount in there it's going to taste that way. Try adding 3 tea bags to your cup and I'm certain it'll taste just as bitter.
Energy drinks have copious amounts of sweeteners added hence why they don't taste like caffeine.
If you are hell ...
7
If there's leavening in the cake (baking soda or baking powder) that gets activated once incorporated with the rest of the ingredients, and you substantially overmix, you may lose some of its power as you help the gas escape from your batter. Unless you're whipping it vigorously, you're not going to be bringing enough air into the batter to make up for it. ...
7
Once you start thinking in terms of techniques, it shouldn't be that hard. The book Ratio has an excellent overview of different methods for cakes. The blog pastrychefonline.com does as well. You can see an overview of the:
Creaming method in which softened but not melted butter and sugar are whipped together first to create a network of air bubbles for ...
7
Stone based electrical wet grinders (not to confused with "wet/dry grinders", which are a type of blender), as are used in indian cuisine, have been used/modified by some chocolate enthusiasts as conches, and there are now some models by the same maker specially targeted for such usage, for example the Santha Spectra 11 model. Some models of unmodified stone ...
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It shouldn't be a problem, since their cooking times are similar.
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By mixing the dry ingredients separately and whisking them a bit before adding them to the liquid, you are making sure that the baking soda/powder/salt, gets evenly distributed throughout the flour. Also, the flour will be able to absorb the liquid easier and more uniformly without the flour becoming over-worked.
From my personal experience, when I didn't ...
6
Some (many) bread machines don't mix well, so you might not get a good mixture whatever you do. But it's worth trying.
If you are making the bread immediately after adding the ingredients, it probably doesn't matter much how you add the ingredients; just put the yeast and the sugar and such in the centre.
If you use the timer, it is important that the ...
6
You may want to keep them separate for shelf-life reasons. If you combine them, the shelf life of the mixture will be limited by the freshness of the least-fresh spice you mixed into it. Different spices' flavors also degrade at different rates, though generally you don't have to worry about the flavor of dried, ground spices degrading for at least 6 months. ...
6
A paddle mixes denser ingredients vs a wisk attachment that will aerate light ingredients. Things mixed with a paddle are always intended to be completely mixed- as opposed to folding or cutting which aren't done with a mixer.
This means that you can use whatever you want to thoroughly mix those ingredients (as long as it doesn't melt them): a stand mixer, ...
5
I remember when cake mixes included the number of strokes needed to mix the batter by hand. The Betty Crocker FAQ website (a U.S. baking mix company) suggests 150 strokes per each minute of electric mixer time recommended. Note: that is not 150 strokes per minute! So if the directions call for 2 minutes of mixing, that translates to 300 strokes.
Betty ...
5
Getting it uniformly mixed is kind of the real reason. You want to get it all mixed as much as possible before you get the flour wet and it starts to develop the gluten. Regardless, you have to mix enough to make it uniform.
For cakes (mentioned in the question), its largely about avoiding 'over-working' the batter. You want a small, even crumb so (...
5
Perhaps I am not entirely qualified to answer this post, but as someone who was taught to cook (by my mother) mostly without recipes, when it comes to dishes like curries or stews, salt is simply 'to taste.' This, however, is always with the added note that you can always add more salt later, but taking it out of a dish that has been over saturated with it ...
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Assuming you are making what I'd know as batter (for pancakes, waffles, yorkshire puddings, or batter for deep-frying): Don't add flour to batter..... it goes lumpy due to the reasons @SAJ14SAJ has stated; you should be starting with flour and making batter. If you need to add extra flour to thicken batter I'll address that at the end.
To make lump free ...
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No, you can use the blender. Use the slowest speed and manually do short pulses (1 second on, 2 seconds off).
You may have to use a spatula and mix it to get an even result. The pauses are so that the food doesn't get too hot (friction from the blades can actually boil things). Stop early, it's easy to make an unrecognizable paste in the blender.
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Finally reporting back, once I noticed I hadn't written this up yet.
The reconstituted egg yolks work, with a few quirks.
After blending them with water, I had let them sit for a while - to make sure all the yolk from inside the lumps had a chance to re-hydrate. After a while (half hour or a bit more), I noticed the mixture had become thick. I added a ...
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Yes, there are small scale conches available - e.g. this 8kg machine1.
Whether this qualifies as "very small scale" is for you to decide.
1 No endorsement, just a random example.
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It definitely works if everything is room temperature or a bit warmer, maybe 20-30C (68-86F), and it definitely won't work if it's all pretty cold.
It sounds like you may be a little too far on the cold end. You have coffee at 0C, plenty of ice to hold it at 0C, and a small amount of condensed milk at room temperature that'll rapidly cool down as soon as it'...
5
Fusion is a great word for a thorough mixing of things, conveying the idea of almost welding them together. So I see what your friend means when she describes your fusing together of different recipes for a particular dish as fusion cooking.
But when people use the term fusion in relation to cooking they often mean the marrying together of different types ...
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