In Which Our Heroine Fails at Danishes
May. 17th, 2022 09:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
writerkitWe failed at making danishes and therefore made blintzes instead. Also Mathfiend is my favorite human and Wintersweet is my favorite cookbook.
This started last week with Mathfiend suggesting that we could make more interesting things if we planned far enough ahead that I could pick specific things up at the grocery store so we weren't bound to pantry staples. (Which, not coincidentally, decreases the randomness of what I bring home from the grocery store and increases the likelihood I will eat something regularly in the coming week; my resistance to wasting anything we've cooked together or that he's cooked for me tends to overcome the executive function problems I attach to meals.) I was flipping through How to Bake Everything when we were having this conversation, and landed on "Let's make cheese danishes!" (Sidenote: my internet osmosis is such that even though I do not watch and do not like Big Bang Theory, I cannot think of cheese danishes without thinking of this genuinely funny clip of Sheldon and Amy playing Counterfactuals.)
I did not read the recipe all the way through before purchasing the ingredients. This was a mistake.
Because as we went to start on it today we realized that it has several steps that are "Do thing. Chill for half an hour," and a rising step-- and I do not think failing to anticipate a lengthy rise on a dough with no yeast it in it was unreasonable of me. Mathfiend's weekly visit tends to last several hours, but not that long, especially when on a day when we didn't jump right into baking. (Yes, I did look at the estimated time. What I did not realize was that the estimated time for making danishes starts from the assumption that you have already made "1 Recipe Danish Dough," which is itself a prolonged multi-hour process. Once you've done that the actual danishes aren't unreasonable, and I do think time estimates in cookbooks should call out explicitly that it's going to be longer if you're starting from the very beginning if it calls for one of some other recipe in the book.)
That plan having failed, we turned to my cookbooks for a plan B that would include most or all of what I'd bought (cream cheese, ricotta, and a lemon) while also being modifiable to my food issues. Finding nothing in How to Bake Everything, I turned to my beloved standby Wintersweet, which has a cheese chapter.
By percentage, Wintersweet probably has the highest proportion of recipes I either make regularly or realistically see myself trying out of all my cookbooks-- especially impressive when you consider that half the chapters are focused around ingredients I straight-up can't have. Almost every recipe in it that I can eat (or can modify) is on the to-make list. It's not the one I use most often-- it's mostly a strictly focused dessert cookbook with a few forays into fondue-- but it is far and away my favorite. And it came through for me once again in the form of two recipes. First, a cheese danish recipe that is considerably less ridiculous than How to Bake Everything's but still takes some time, which we will be making next week since it was getting late by the time we found it, using the cream cheese. And a Ricotta Blintz recipe using the ricotta. Since you top it with whatever fruit jelly I can't have, we made vegan lemon curd to go on top, which is getting less tapioca starch next time but still tastes good even if it is very thick. (Mathfiend: "It's a little too sweet for me, which means you're probably going to love it." He was not wrong.)
This also took longer than it was meant to, mainly because I had a dizziness flare-- my first in a while; it's been a really long time since we had to modify our plans around that. This meant that while I managed to mix the crepe batter, we could not do the intended plan of me making the crepes while he made the filling and lemon curd, and he wound up making all of it. (Have I mentioned Mathfiend is my favorite human?) They are delicious and now I have breakfast for a few days.
I did manage to participate somewhat in cleanup, which is good, because this recipe uses a lot of dishes and I don't have a dishwasher. (Desired things in next apartment: larger kitchen with more flat surfaces and a dishwasher.)
This started last week with Mathfiend suggesting that we could make more interesting things if we planned far enough ahead that I could pick specific things up at the grocery store so we weren't bound to pantry staples. (Which, not coincidentally, decreases the randomness of what I bring home from the grocery store and increases the likelihood I will eat something regularly in the coming week; my resistance to wasting anything we've cooked together or that he's cooked for me tends to overcome the executive function problems I attach to meals.) I was flipping through How to Bake Everything when we were having this conversation, and landed on "Let's make cheese danishes!" (Sidenote: my internet osmosis is such that even though I do not watch and do not like Big Bang Theory, I cannot think of cheese danishes without thinking of this genuinely funny clip of Sheldon and Amy playing Counterfactuals.)
I did not read the recipe all the way through before purchasing the ingredients. This was a mistake.
Because as we went to start on it today we realized that it has several steps that are "Do thing. Chill for half an hour," and a rising step-- and I do not think failing to anticipate a lengthy rise on a dough with no yeast it in it was unreasonable of me. Mathfiend's weekly visit tends to last several hours, but not that long, especially when on a day when we didn't jump right into baking. (Yes, I did look at the estimated time. What I did not realize was that the estimated time for making danishes starts from the assumption that you have already made "1 Recipe Danish Dough," which is itself a prolonged multi-hour process. Once you've done that the actual danishes aren't unreasonable, and I do think time estimates in cookbooks should call out explicitly that it's going to be longer if you're starting from the very beginning if it calls for one of some other recipe in the book.)
That plan having failed, we turned to my cookbooks for a plan B that would include most or all of what I'd bought (cream cheese, ricotta, and a lemon) while also being modifiable to my food issues. Finding nothing in How to Bake Everything, I turned to my beloved standby Wintersweet, which has a cheese chapter.
By percentage, Wintersweet probably has the highest proportion of recipes I either make regularly or realistically see myself trying out of all my cookbooks-- especially impressive when you consider that half the chapters are focused around ingredients I straight-up can't have. Almost every recipe in it that I can eat (or can modify) is on the to-make list. It's not the one I use most often-- it's mostly a strictly focused dessert cookbook with a few forays into fondue-- but it is far and away my favorite. And it came through for me once again in the form of two recipes. First, a cheese danish recipe that is considerably less ridiculous than How to Bake Everything's but still takes some time, which we will be making next week since it was getting late by the time we found it, using the cream cheese. And a Ricotta Blintz recipe using the ricotta. Since you top it with whatever fruit jelly I can't have, we made vegan lemon curd to go on top, which is getting less tapioca starch next time but still tastes good even if it is very thick. (Mathfiend: "It's a little too sweet for me, which means you're probably going to love it." He was not wrong.)
This also took longer than it was meant to, mainly because I had a dizziness flare-- my first in a while; it's been a really long time since we had to modify our plans around that. This meant that while I managed to mix the crepe batter, we could not do the intended plan of me making the crepes while he made the filling and lemon curd, and he wound up making all of it. (Have I mentioned Mathfiend is my favorite human?) They are delicious and now I have breakfast for a few days.
I did manage to participate somewhat in cleanup, which is good, because this recipe uses a lot of dishes and I don't have a dishwasher. (Desired things in next apartment: larger kitchen with more flat surfaces and a dishwasher.)
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Date: 2022-05-21 04:37 pm (UTC)Yeah -- I've learned to read the recipe through in part because of our favorite brand of soup mix. They always include the time to make the dish, except that they omit the initial "soak the beans for four hours, or overnight" in the timing for the (many) packets that include beans.