How do I get caramels to turn out grainy?

Question

Yes, I know the opposite of the usual question. I've been making candy since I was a little kid. My caramels are always smooth and creamy. My partner's father thinks they taste good but that the texture is all wrong. He liked the gritty/grainy ones his mother used to make. Everything I have ever seen listed as a way to fix grainy caramels I have tried reversing.

I have tried many things, including:

• adding granulated sugar late in the process
• not using corn syrup or other invert sugar
• cooking them at high temps
• cooking them for too short a time
• stirring or not stirring at all the wrong times
• switching recipes
• varying the fat content

I guess I am wondering what makes caramels turn out grainy. It's not as far as I can tell, wholly related to the sugar dissolving/melting. If it was adding some granulated sugar as it cools should cause more crystals to form.

Is it related to the liquid content? Because sometimes after months in a cupboard even ordinarily smooth caramels will have developed some graininess.

Answer

As you mentioned it is all about how the crystals form.

Some of the factors off the top of my head:

• How saturated is the solution - The more sugar packed into the syrup the more easily it will crystallize.
• How quickly it cools - The slower the bigger the crystals
• Interference - Do you have a starch or other sugar molecules gumming up the works?

Obviously you already knew this from your question.

Not using other sugars will help. You might also try adding more sugar to the recipe at the beginning to fully saturate your solution. The fact that you add sugar at the end and it still dissolves in makes me think your solution could take a bit more. Letting the solution cool slowly with your seed sugar at the end should help.

You would think it would be easier to get it wrong. Perhaps you simply have too much experience doing it right.

Ask an amateur to try out your recipe and see if they fail properly.

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What does the “bold” setting on my Cuisinart coffee maker do?

Question

I recently bought a Cuisinart coffee maker.

It has a button to switch between "regular" and "bold" when brewing. I have no idea what this actually does. I thought that usually bold coffee came from different beans or from the amount you used, not from a setting on the coffee maker.

What does this function do and when would I use it?

Answer

"Bold" appears to be a flavor term in general, usually referring to a type of bean; however, on coffee makers, it appears that the water drips more slowly, which allows more flavor to be extracted from the beans. This source confirms that this appears to be the case on at least one Cuisinart model.

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Why let dough rise twice?

Question

I'm just wondering, what's the point of letting dough rise twice? I've seen a bunch of recipes in the form:

1. Mix dough together and knead
2. Let it rise
3. Knead again
4. Let it rise again

Why do they do this? Doesn't kneading just push the air bubbles out?

Answer

Allowing dough to rise twice results in a finer gluten structure than allowing it to rise once. It results in a smaller crumb and prevents huge gaping airholes in your bread. The reason that you have to let it re-rise is that you just pushed all the air out with the kneading you did developing that gluten structure.

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Is deep-frying silicone oil safe for home use?

Question

Perhaps it is due to confusion surrounding silicone, but what studies exist that document the safety and best practices of using silicone oil? I understand it is used for as an anti-foaming agent in deep-frying, and also has medicinal purposes (as an anti-flatulant); but in a high temperature evironment, does it remain inert and safe?

Answer

Not much is out there.

Food-grade silicone oil (dimethylpolysiloxane, for the chemists out there) is routinely used in medical and food-prep devices, and it has been approved by the US FDA Office of Food Additive Safety for use as a direct additive in diverse foods, like milk, dry gelatin dessert mix, canned pineapple juice, and even salt. Of course, we're talking about minuscule amounts, in the range of 100 ppm; at high concentrations, it is a skin and eye irritant. So what level is safe? We can't assume that the FDA ever tested it, as the Office of Food Additive Safety is woefully underfunded.

An informal literature search yielded me only a handful of scientific articles looking at silicone oil in frying. The most promising was by Bertrand Matthaus, Norbert Haase, and Klaus Vossman, "Factors affecting the concentration of acrylamide during deep fat frying of potatoes," Eur. J. Of Lipid Sci. & Tech., V.106(11), pp. 793-801 (Nov 2004) (fig. 3 specifically measures acrylamide concentration as a function of the amount of silicone oil). Unfortunately, I don't have a subscription, so I can't tell what the bottom line was.

Myself, I don't see the benefit of using it at home.

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How long can fish be left out?

Question

I was defrosting fish and forgot about it. It has been left out for a long time. How long can fish actually be left out before it goes bad?

Answer

A quote from the below link;

"Do not thaw frozen seafood at room temperature. Thaw in the refrigerator or defrost in the microwave oven. If thawing in the refrigerator, allow one to two hours per pound of seafood".

http://www.uaex.edu/Other_Areas/publications/PDF/fsfcs100.pdf

&

Another quote from the link below;

"... If food is allowed to remain at room temperature for two hours or longer, bacteria can multiply and cause food poisoning. - Even a tiny amount of contaminated food can cause severe illness. If you have any doubt about the safety of the food, throw it out!"

http://www.calpoison.com/public/food.html

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how long can i microwave microwaveable plastic containers for?

Question

I've got a microwave container and no oven and looking to cook some stuff - is it possible to microwave a container that's marked as microwave safe for 40 minutes or so?

Answer

A microwave-safe container shouldn't be heated significantly by the microwave (only by conduction from the food it contains). So, it should be fine, so long as the food is, and as long as the food doesn't exceed its allowable temperature.

You can test fairly easily—put the container, partially filled with some water, in the microwave for a few minutes. Does the container heat up, possibly more so than the water—especially where its not in contact with the water? If so, I'd be reluctant to use it in the microwave for that long.

Some containers are microwave safe, but only for heating to maybe 160°F or so. A common example is LDPE (often used for plastic wrap). Some can't take boiling for more than a short time (e.g., HDPE). Polypropylene should be fine, even with boiling. Go any hotter (e.g., filled with oil, which is probably insane) and most will fail. If you're lucky, the container will have a resin ID code on it, LDPE is #4, HDPE is #2, polypropylene is #5.

Your microwave may not be fine with 40 minutes of strait microwaving, or with the steam buildup. You should probably check its manual.

I assume also you've read Jay's comment about converting recipes, and that you're doing something where 40 minutes won't result in charcoal.

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What is the conversion rate between dry beans to cans of beans?

Question

A recipe calls for a can (15oz) of cooked beans. How many cups or oz's is that to dry beans? Is this conversion even possible to estimate given that beans differ in amount of water absorption?

Answer

According to the Kitchen Companion, a terrific general handbook which I recommend, 1 lb (about 2 cups) of dried beans is roughly 6 to 7 cups cooked beans, and one 15oz can of cooked beans is roughly 1.75 cups drained, making it equivalent to 1/4 to 1/3 lbs ( or 1/2 to 3/4 cup) dried.

Per my personal experience, dried beans increase in volume from 2.5X at the low end (red lentils, mung beans, etc.) to 5X at the high end (garbanzos). 3X or 3.5X is a good median value for this.

So what kind of beans are we talking about?

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