many things in the kitchen

i've done many things in the kitchen today, but mostly i find a little stove-side pottering the most satisfying.

as it is, i have two jars of curd in my refrigerator now. one is a lime curd and the recipe comes from flora woods. i also made a lemon curd (recipe from the culinary institute of america), which used five egg yolks, leaving behind five egg whites, which i've frozen. never mind that, i think i could make a meringue pie using the curds and the egg whites, or try my hand at small meringue tarts.
(look at my new electronic balance!) this is my first time using such big limes; i think those small ones that come with hokkien mee are not the right ones to use... there is just no way of getting that much juice from them. anyway, the lime curd was just made by whisking butter, eggs, sugar, lime zest and juice over a low fire until thickened. the recipe didn't call for an ice bath, so i just kept whisking once in a while until the curd cooled down. then i stored it in a oven-dried jar.
the lemon curd was more complicated. as i said, it's a recipe from the culinary institute of america, so i think it's expected that only the yolks were used, and five yolks at that! the exclusion of egg whites means that the curd cooks out to be very silky, very smooth. and of course tempering would be involved, and then an ice bath. classic culinary institute stuff. the only thing disappointing was that my jar was too big, so after i poured everything in, the volume looked unimpressive compared to the lime curd.
hmm, there really is a sense of homespun achievement when you produce jars of stuff like that by yourself. normally, these would go into a larder, which practically no modern home has anymore, but curds have to be kept in the refrigerator. so, there. the lime curd was refreshingly sharp and slightly bitter, and the lemon curd was very brightly/deeply yellow and sweet.

because one of the egg yolks broke when i was separating the eggs for the lemon curd, i reserved that egg for cooking. i took out the star mold that beejuan bought for me and tried to fry the egg. problem was, the mold did not lie flat on the pan, and so a lot of egg seeped out =/

and the project that stretched across the whole day was reinhart's transitional cinnamon raisin bread. the dough is essentially the same as the cinnamon buns one, but the addition of the raisins seemed to make the dough a little less cooperative during the final shaping stage. the dough kept tearing and appeared to be refusing to rise.
i made the biga and soaker in the morning. this time, the soaker contains raisins. and then in the evening i made the final dough. chopping up the soaker, i realised that the raisins were chopped open too. i guess that can't be avoided, but i think whole raisins would look better.
mixing the dough, kneading it, and once in a while sending raisins flying out. after the first rise, you can see that it split down the middle, showing that throughout the rise it didn't form one piece nicely. i think the raisins may be distorting the hydration. the dough was perfect without raisins when i made the cinnamon buns.
anyhow, the split down the middle of the dough helped me divide it quite equally in two. i rolled them into rough rectangles, and this time they didn't stretch as easily. sprinkled the cinnamon sugar over, and then rolled the rectangles up into loaves for panning.
the loaves did not rise spectacularly, but the bread still came out tasty, though i think i love the cinnamon buns more. the raisins were still juicy, but the cinnamon sugar swirled in the bread made parts of it wet and feel rather gummy if you concentrated too much on the feeling.