I decided to try baking some sourdough bread in my PK Cooker. This is a whole wheat sourdough ready to go. I decided to try baking in a cake pan---one that I was willing to sacrifice, of course. The fire was charcoal with some aromatic wood chunks thrown in. I should have let the cooker temperature rise more before I loaded the bread. Temp rose from 350 degrees to 450 over the course of baking.
It took a little work to get the bread out of the pan once it was done but the pan did escape from the fire unscathed.
A long rise gave me great texture. The loaf came out very, very smoky. Tasty, indeed. I'm not entirely sure, however, that baking on this type of fire gives enough benefit to be worthwhile.
I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...
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