“because mom said so” is literally how i learned to cook i’m screaming
I’m legit crying. This is hilarious. Give her a sitcom.
In high school, we all complained about having to take home economics and textile classes, but now I look at younger adults and realize, “Yes, actually, I did learn to cook in high school, what’s going on with you guys?” And then I also had more patience to learn from my parents. I know how to mend my clothes. Schools need to teach us how to life as much as subject matter expertise.
Yeah…that went well. I shoulda squashed them first, because now they’re just floating at the top and not doing anything.
Tried squishing them against the glass, but they’re refusing to pop.
Sad blueberry honey experiment is probs just gonna wind up on toast and will not be spoken of ever again.
OH GOD IT’S BEGINNING TO FERMENT
I think I ruined a perfectly good jar of honey 😦
NO YOU STARTED A PERFECTLY GOOD BATCH OF MEAD.
Lean into it!
WHAT SHOULD I DO
add water?
(it’s prob .6-.75 lbs of honey, for the record)
OKAY SO
Get some more honey. I use 3 pounds for a batch of mead.
Take half a gallon of water. Heat it until just simmering, then remove from heat and stir in honey. Once it cools a bit sprinkle in…oh, in this case, maybe a teaspoon of yeast. White wine yeast works best but regular will work ok too.
Sterilize something to let it ferment in. A milk jug would work. Splash a little bleach in there, fill with water, let sit a bit, then wash out well.
Once fermenting vessel is sterilized, pour the honey/water/berries/yeast in. Take a balloon and stretch it over the top of the jug, and prick a pinhole in it. This will keep outside wild yeasts out but let out co2 as it ferments.
Leave it for a month or so.
Then, bottle and drink!
YIELD; 1 gallon of mead, or about 4 ½ 750 mL average size wine bottles.
You mean to tell me I only need a milk jug and a balloon to make mead?
If y’all use a decent box mix and use melted butter instead of vegetable oil, an extra egg, and milk instead of water, no one can tell the difference. I sure as hell can’t.
Also, if you add a little almond extract to vanilla cake, or a little coffee to chocolate cake, it sends it through the roof.
This concludes me attempting to be helpful.
yo I can vouch for this I’ve done this for the last few cakes I’ve made and holy crap it makes suuuuch a difference the cake is still fluffy, but it also seems more dense, and it doesn’t dry out like at all you can leave it uncovered on the counter all day after being cut into, and it won’t get all crusty and dry this is an amazing way to take your cakes to the next level
Does this count as cake hacks?
cake: hacked
OK but if you’re adding all that to the mix why not just scratch bake? There are literally only four ingredients you’re NOT adding yourself at this point.
It’s always so baffling when mix hackers give you a whole ass cake recipe. Like there’s some kind of magic to mixes that needs to form the core of the thing instead of just, a couple dry ingredients and powdered milk.
presumably as a step of intermediate complexity between mix baking and scratch baking, when neither of those fits your complexity needs exactly?
In particular, this is a useful technique for people living in dorms, or traveling, or similar situations!
Baking from scratch means you’ve got to buy a whole tin of baking powder and only use a spoonful, and a whole thing of flour, and maybe multiple kinds of sugar, and maybe cocoa powder, maybe spices, and there’s no way you’re going to use up any of those, you’ll just have to pitch them when you move out.
Not to mention that you’ve got maybe one measuring cup, and there’s no way you’ve got a sifter, and you probably don’t have measuring spoons and how sure are you that your eating spoon is actually the right size…
Scratch baking is great if you’re going to do it regularly! But for situations where it doesn’t make sense to invest in all the tools and ingredients, cake mixes are very practical.
Scratch means you have to worry about ratios. Scratch means you have to keep cake flour on hand. Scratch means you don’t get the benefit of some of the CHEMICALS in the mix that are 100% beneficial to excellent cake.
I bake some things from scratch. Anything requiring creaming a mix is basically a sad joke because all the work is the creaming. Standard cake is not one of them.
Of course, me being me, a standard cake is usually just a component – I don’t actually like “just cake” that much and canned frosting is terrible. So while I don’t scratch bake cake, that cake is getting saturated with tres leches, or put in a trifle, or getting add-ins before baking anyway.
But in a larger sense, who cares? Baking is hard and for fun anyway. Why bake-shame someone?
Just FYI… A LOT of professional bakers (probably more than half) in the US at least use doctored mixes rather than scratch ingredients even for their more expensive cakes like wedding cakes. There are whole forums where they talk about this amongst themselves.
In taste tests they’ve found that while customers may ask for a cake from scratch they often end up preferring the taste and texture of the doctored mixes when all is said and done.
Unless you have some particular allergies or some other reason to avoid box mixes they are often the better way to go.
I’ve been looking into opening up a home bakery and part of the task of producing food for the public is making sure your items are standardized so that every person who gets a cupcake (for instance) is getting the same quality, size, etc., etc.
Doctored mixes really help with that since big companies like Duncan Hines buys in larger quantities, can afford to test/discard bad batches and will rarely have a one-off batch of flour or flavoring that are bad or go bad like you can at home.
Nice seeing this going around again!
My standard cake is box mix + milk for water + melted butter for oil + dash vanilla extract + frosting from scratch. This really seems to hit the right spot for people of “mmm, homemade” but also “exactly like Mom used to make.” (Do that for a yellow cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, add candles, and serve to a college student, for the maximum “this is exactly what I didn’t want to admit I wanted” potential.)
Seconding the addition of coffee to chocolate cake; a tablespoon of instant coffee powder in a dark chocolate cake makes it taste chocolatey-er without actually adding a perceptible coffee flavor (I don’t like coffee flavor, personally, and I still do this).
Another good option is a box lemon cake mix plus maybe 3 lemons. Zest the lemons, set the zest aside, then juice them and use that in place of the water; then use the zest to flavor the frosting. Adds a nice fresh kick.
Chocolate chips can be dumped straight into chocolate cake mix without fussing with anything to compensate. Sprinkles can go into white cake mix to make your own “confetti cake” with any specific color combo you like. Any kind of dried fruit can be chopped to raisin-size, soaked in hot water (or, better yet, hot juice with a couple of citrus peels added) for an hour, drained, and then added to batter.
Replacing part (up to maybe 1/3) of the water with yogurt (and then the rest with milk as usual) will give you a denser cake; make sure to check if it’s cooked through, and bake a little longer if necessary.
Swirling things through batter for that fancy marbled look is easy. Consider melting chocolate chips with butter, or mixing brown sugar with cinnamon and a little melted butter, or making up two different cake mixes and swirling those together.
I swear by the Cake Mix Doctor’s two cookbooks (one’s general, one’s specifically for chocolate cakes). I think every birthday cake I had as a child was out of those.
How to make your ramen 9001x better, courtesy of /ck/
And you can buy roast beef and roast chicken on the internet. I am set for ramen for like a year now.
QUICK EGG IN UR RAMEN TRICK MY FRIEND TAUGHT ME IN HIGH SCHOOL
pour just enough water into your pot to cover your noodles and other ingredients, then get a small cup/fancy measuring 1 cup cup or w/e and measure out another cuppa watta. dump that shit in too.
make ur ramen. just start boiling and dump whatever you’re supposed to put in in the beginning. u know how to make ramen this isn’t ramen for snot nosed sobbing beginners ok
KEY PART: you know how it says on the back of the package to cook for about 4-5 minutes?? we’re cooking for 5 minutes. wait for your ramen to cook for the first three minutes. stare hungrily if you must. but the EXACT MOMENT 3 minutes hit here’s what you do:
SCREAM. and then stir your noodles to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pot. (scream is optional) also make sure your broth is still more or less covering your noodles, if its not add a bit more. it doesn’t matter if some is still sticking up we just don’t want chewy noodles (unless you’re into that) (i’m into that)
make a lil hole in your noodles. this little hole must have broth in it and nothing more. make it in the middle or the side it honestly doesn’t matter you just need a clear shot to the bottom of the pot
crack your egg and toss that mother into the hole.
COVER EGG WITH NOODLES AS QUICK AS YOU CAN
DON’T. STIR.
I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU STIR FOR THE REMAINING MINUTE AND A HALF YOU probably won’t ruin anything you’ll just have egg drop soup i guess but IF YOU DON’T STIR
Congratulations, you have poached an egg in your broth! Your poached egg now tastes like your ramen broth. Revel in your victory.
no seriously that egg will be mildly chewy deliciousness oh my god if you can perfect this technique you will never have your egg in your ramen another way again
this is as close as you’ll get to ramen made in a restaurant…
I’m just glad this isn’t like that one post that was all “HOW TO EAT CHEAP WITH RAMEN STEP ONE ADD A SIRLOIN STEAK AND $20 WORTH OF INGREDIENTS”.
This is how you can tell I’m poor as fuck.
Most dried ramen is deep-fried which is why it’s so unhealthy. If you boil in plain water, strain, and then add to fresh hot water/broth, it’s a lot better for you in general.
Another recipe:
Boil your noodles. Strain. Take a small frying pan and melt two tablespoons of butter (margarine works but butter is better) on low heat. Add the noodles and flavor powder and mix well.
ANOTHER recipe:
Get a bag of frozen stir-fry veggies from wal-mart. It’s like a buck fifty. Fry those suckers up with some tonkatsu sauce or soy sauce. Boil your ramen, strain. Pile the noodles on a plate, top with your veggies and sauce. Sprinkle a tiny bit of the ramen flavoring on top. Bam, stir fry. The veggies make enough to serve three people (three packages of ramen).
Other things you can add to ramen to make it taste better:
Chopped inarizushi.
A half a can of peas.
A half a can of tunafish to the shrimp kind.
CHIVES MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER.
Oddly enough, boiled potatoes to the beef kind.
Shredded cabbage.
Sliced boiled eggs.
Matchstick carrots (you can get them from most grocery stores for like a dollar a package; alternately make your own from a cheap-ass bag of whole carrots).
If you’re gluten-free, you can make a gluten-free version of ramen by making and preparing spaghetti squash and using the bullion recipe above (substitute anything with gluten in it for something without, obviously). The “noodles” are smaller but damn is it tasty. Spaghetti squash, incidentally, grows at the least provocation so if you get a spaghetti squash (which are generally kind of expensive), save the seeds and plant them anywhere. Water them once a day.
Spring-noodle soup, courtesy my husband’s Asian-American ex-girlfriend: Boil your ramen and strain. Heat up a can of soup broth, or simply prepare the ramen bullion. Dip the noodles into the broth forkful by forkful as you eat. You can add other stuff to the noodles, like veggies and meat, as you’re boiling it.
Saute some green onions and minced garlic in a pan in butter or margarine for a few minutes (you can substitute sesame oil for the butter or margarine as well, if you happen to have it around. The sesame oil gives it a really good flavor). Add a dash of seasoned salt. Boil and strain your ramen noodles. Add to the saute mix, fry for a hot second, and you have awesome garlic noodles.
Minute rice! You can add a small handful of minute rice to your ramen as it’s cooking for a more carb-heavy soup to get you through the day. If you couple this with veggies and meat it’s almost a round meal.
THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RAMEN, but if you make macaroni and cheese (Kraft dinner), add a can of tunafish and a half a can of peas to it to make a more filling, more rounded meal.
Seriously, if you are broke and need to vary your diet in any way, I am the person to talk to. I grew up on this shit. A lot of is really unhealthy, but at least you won’t die of boredom.
7-10$ for a bottle of cheap alcohol of your choice at your local liquor store.
However much you want to spend on frozen fruit, juice, and yogurt
Alcohol takes longer to freeze than water, but most home freezers can get down to around 15-20 degrees F, which is where you want to aim.
Fill just over half your blender with frozen fruit
Slop some yogurt on top, idk like a half cup?
Pour wine into the blender until the ‘fill’ line is about a quarter-up.
BLEND THAT MOTHERFUCKER LIKE IT INSULTED YOUR GRANDMA.
You want the texture to be pretty thick (thicc), because a thick smoothie will usually harden beautifully in the freezer – forms a nice solid popcicle.
If its too thin, add more fruit.
Pour your new slurry of goodness into your popcicle molds
If there’s empty molds, repeat above steps for more delicious sludge. Maybe switch flavors?
Stuff into the freezer. Make sure freezer is set to ‘really freaking cold’ (alcohol freezes at a lower temp than water)
Wait a day or two.
(Eat the leftover smoothie)
VICTORY
If you’re not into alcohol, just replace the alcohol with a red or white juice and you’re good to go. I don’t recommend citrus fruits/juice because they can interact badly with dairy. You can leave out the yogurt and replace with half a banana or avocado if you REALLY want to use citrus and want to keep the smoothness.
You can also google delicious fruit smoothie recipes for ideas on fruit combinations.
You can also just use chocolate ice cream and coffee with bailey’s and kaluhua to make a fantastic chocolate popcicle.
Wine is only 11.5%–13.5% alcohol, so splashing a bit of vodka or rum (usually around 40% alcohol) can EASILY get the mix to have ‘more alcohol than a glass of wine)
I’m gonna go into detail about how to make this soup, now that I’m home and I can
1 ½ lb Chicken (diced) 2 Large Sweet Potato (diced) 3 Large Red Bell Pepper (diced) 2 Bundles Cilantro (minced) 3 tablespoons Smoked Paprika 2 tablespoons Cayenne Pepper 1 tablespoon Curry Powder 2 teaspoons Ginger (pressed) 3 tablespoons Garlic (pressed)
3 tablespoons Peanuts (crushed)
½ cup Creamy Peanut Butter 2 cups Chicken Broth 1 liter Chicken Broth (add more for thinner soup)
Some of the measurements here might not be accurate, so if you wanna add more or less of certain things, it’s totally up to you
You need a medium frying pan, a medium nonstick pot with a lid, and a large soup pot for everything to go into. Also, a cutting board, knife, poultry sheers, and a garlic press.
Before you start cooking anything over heat, it’s a good idea to get everything chopped and measured beforehand.
First of all, you gotta dice your chicken and press your garlic, throw them in the pan together with a dribble of peanut oil (just enough to coat the pan) and let that start cooking on a low/mid heat. Stir frequently. (Once your chicken is cooked, put it in the soup pot away from any heat.)
While that’s cooking, you’d put your diced sweet potato, red bell peppers, and peanuts together with a dribble of peanut oil in the nonstick pot and leave them covered on a medium heat. They’ll cook and soften in their own steam after a while, just make sure to check it occasionally. It’ll be done when you can cut a piece of sweet potato as if it were butter. Once it’s done, put it in the soup pot away from any heat.
Now, excluding the cilantro, you’d go ahead and add every other ingredient to the soup pot. Over medium heat, stir it together until everything is mixed thoroughly. Once it’s warm and stirred well, add your Cilantro last (since it’s flavor is lost if boiled or cooked) and it should be done
Procrastination Queen 