Panem et Circenses

Singing Bread – When bread is so crispy it makes noises when cooling down
(ignore the magic oven humming)

In all the boredom Alduhir decided to gather the group together to play a game or something, I dunno, it sounded like you pick roles and roll dice or something, and since he mentioned that it might go long I wanted to make sure people are well fed. Playing games while hangry is a mortal sin.
Huh, I’ve never baked two loaves of bread in one day before, and it’s pretty challenging to juggle the timing. Because once you throw the yeast in it’s on, and only a matter of time until that fungus has consumed all the flour. Sounds kinda weird when you spell it out like that but the end result is some nice and airy bread. Well, after you do the preferment, autolyse, mix in the salt, bulk proof, do stretch & folds to develop gluten, preshape, bench rest, shape, final proof, score and bake in a blazingly hot oven (lovely on a warm late summer day like this), and THEN, you hopfully get some nice, airy bread with a bubbly, crispy crust. Timing is everything, the first loaf went harf an hour *glug* over, and it didn’t rise as nicely as the second one.
So wait, what are the game rules again?

1

Crispy Duck Breast Chow Mein

The prep for this is more low and slow than one would think. Start duck breast in a cold pan to render the fat and get a crispy skin, cook noodles, drain, spread out to dry, fry slowly until crisp as well, time everything right with the veggies and make a nice sauce with the pan drippings until you can finally combine everything to a layered dish. Whew.

More Dessert Experiments

I’m sure there’s a part of the dwarven community that will curse me for doing this, but I wanted to mix some whisky into the sauce and felt like the taste was too sharp, so I cooked off some alcohol off. And you know what? It’s kinda nice, but still somewhat overbearing. But the textural mix of streusel, cake, nuts and ice cream was good, so that’s that.

1

Guacamole

In its most simple form mostly avocado, onions and salt, season with lemon and sugar to taste. The thing is, preparation matters and if you mush the onions in a mortar it gets a more distinct onion flavor, something about broken cell walls and enzymes, so I dug out my trusty granite mortar and pestle. Served the guacamole in a cheeseburger. I have a fondness for cheeseburgers, can you tell? Shoutout to Quiz for the original inspiration.

Caramelized White Chocolate Miso Ganache

Another one of those ideas that sound all sorts of weird on paper, but end up really intriguing in practice. Roast white chocolate in an oven until it caramelizes, briefly do the same with some miso, and mix it all together with some water and sugar to balance the saltiness until you get a smooth sauce that packs all sorts of complex flavors. Like a more adventurous version of salted caramel. I honestly have no idea what to do with it, but I’m already wondering how it combines with whisky or dark chocolate. Mixing it with my afternoon coffee to clean out the bowl was already pretty interesting.