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Pumpkin Isn’t Actually Pumpkin – But It Is Tasty

According to MentalFloss –

We hate to squash your autumnal dreams, but baking a pumpkin pie might not be as easy as you think. That’s because the canned pumpkin that normally makes pie prep such a breeze isn’t made of pumpkin at all. Food & Wine reports that cans of pumpkin puree—even those that advertise “100 percent pumpkin”—are actually made of a range of different squashes.

Continue reading HERE.

ISS Astronauts Will Try To Bake Bread In Orbit

According to New Scientist –

Astronauts could soon be waking up to the smell of freshly baked bread. A new dough mixture and oven specially designed for use on the International Space Station will be tested during a mission next year.

It’s an ambitious goal. Bread is a staple food on Earth but can be life-threatening in space. The first and last people to enjoy bread in space were the two astronauts on NASA’s 1965 Gemini 3 mission, who shared a corned beef sandwich one of them had smuggled on board. The crumbs flew everywhere in the microgravity and could have got into their eyes or into the electrical panels, where they could have started a fire. Bread has been banned ever since – tortilla wraps are the accepted alternative.

Continue reading HERE.

Passive-Aggressive Cakes – And Some Just Aggressive

BuzzFeed presented a collection of bad, bad cakes.

See them all HERE.

 

Salt-Rising Bread – No Thanks!

Popular Science reported on the somewhat disgusting and possibly dangerous method of making bread, known as salt-rising.

The origins of salt-rising bread are unclear but seem to lie in the nineteenth-century American frontier, where it was likely difficult to obtain fresh yeast or keep a bread starter cool and regularly fed. The salt-rising process produces a leavened loaf from grains and water in about eighteen hours. The name is misleading, because salt doesn’t play a major role. (Perhaps “salt-rising” was just a way of saying “yeastless-rising.”) The real key to the process is heat: scalding-hot liquid to start with, then a feverish but perfringens friendly 100 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit for the starter, sponge, and dough.

Read the disturbing details HERE.

 

Krispy Kreme Unveils The World’s Most Expensive Doughnut

Metro reports –

Krispy Kreme’s deluxe doughnut was unveiled in Selfridges’ Oxford Street store this morning and presented as a prize to one (hopefully hungry) make-up artist from London who said it looked ‘too good to eat’. The gold doughnut, which took three days to assemble, is filled with Dom Perignon 2002 vintage champagne jelly and raspberry and Chateau d’Yquem creme and is topped with a passion fruit glaze, edible 24ct gold leaf, handmade gold-dusted Belgian white chocolate lotus flowers, blossoms, ivy and butterflies, and edible ‘diamonds’. Although the £1k doughnut is not for sale, you can buy a more budget-friendly version by the dozen. They cost £39.95 per doughnut from Selfridges in London or Birmingham. These hand-crafted versions contain the 24 carat gold leaf and are bejazzled with white chocolate flowers, butterflies and more of those phoney diamonds.

Continue reading HERE.

So… You Gotta Have Some Twinkies

Your craving for Twinkies has reached the point where you begin thinking about making your own. Brilliant idea! According to Leite’s Culinaria it is totally doable. But then, this Popular Science article that indicates that a chemistry set and industrial bakery is required to create a “real” Twinkie. I’m guessing that the true lies somewhere in the middle – the homemade version might be good, but not exactly the same as Twinkies. Personally, I don’t understand all the love shown for a non-chocolate snack cake.

Leite’s Culinaria recipe

PopSci article