I've been trying my hand at sourdough bread for a few months now and it is getting better and better, but this keeps happening, and I have no idea what might be the cause:    My impression is that during the rise, the crumb tears into two pieces in the middle.  This is probably relevant: The dough is 80% hydration white bread flour, around 3 hours autolysis, then lamination and three stretches and folds spaced out. Altogether around six hours of bulk fermentation, overnight in the fridge (5&nbsp;°C), and baked in the morning on a pizza stone, with 250&nbsp;°C with steam for 20 minutes and 220&nbsp;°C for 20 minutes (the oven has the air convection turned on).  My problem is I have no idea which part of the recipe is to blame for the outcome, so I'm not even sure where I am deviating from the recipe I'm trying to copy (to be very exact, I'm trying to follow this one now: )  I'm not sure if this is important, but it also doesn't open up so well (but I don't have a proper lame, so I'm struggling with the scoring):
123092
The last couple of loaves I have made have had large air-bubbles which form at the top of the loaf, separating the crust in places from the crumb.     Before shaping, I have been degassing my dough using the King Arthur Flour recommended technique of folding the dough over itself a few times. To shape, I form a rough rectangle, then fold the lower side to the middle and seal it shut with my fingers. I do this a couple more times until I have a nice loaf shape.  Is it possible that I am over-proofing the dough before putting it in the oven? Or is it my shaping technique?
78585
I recently had the opportunity to cook a series of yoghurt cakes.  The first batch were tasty yet somewhat dense.  For the second batch, I (successfully) attempted to lighten the cake by first beating the egg whites until foamy before folding in the rest of the mixture.  Both times I used fruit (raspberries) in my mixtures.  For the dense batch, they 'floated' throughout the mixture.  In my second, lighter batch, they all sank to the bottom.  As I found the second, lighter mixture to be better in general, is there some trick to keeping fruit from sinking like that?
17045
Recently all my attempts at sauces are splitting and I'm not sure what's going wrong. Tonight I tried a balsamic vinegar reduction / chicken stock / pan juices recipe to go with my lamb chops, but once again the dreaded split occurred. My wife is patient and forgiving, but I feel like I must be missing something fundamental to get this wrong so often.  Two questions.   What could I be doing wrong to cause these sauces to split? What can I do to recover when it happens again?   UPDATE: The Pan juices contained a tbsp or two of olive oil, and some of the fresh herb rub I'd coated the lamb chops in (thyme, rosemary, and mint). I did not drain the pan before starting the sauce. It has crossed my mind that perhaps there was too much oil / fats in the pan at that point?  For completeness, I should point out that I also sauteed some chopped shallots in the pan juices immediately before adding the vinegar.
69716
I used vegetables juice for the additional liquid ingredients in milk bread, and it didn't rise. I think there is something in vegetables juice that killed the fermentation of dough.  This is a study, a food experiment. I used radish, mustard green, ginger, onion, garlic, beans, tomato, squash, eggplant, winged beans, winter melon, bitter melon, mexican turnip, and sponge gourd juice. The first step that we did was, we mixed first the yeast, milk and the juice. After mixing all the ingredients the dough become sticky, and it didn't rise.  In our first trial, we have done it right by using the extract of vegetables. And in our 2nd trial, we used the process of juicing, we actually use a juicer to get all the juice. and after all, the juice had an effect in our dough.
107983
I can bake high poly normal maps with a lot of success, however if I try to bake a very simple indentation on a cube with no tapering I get a flat baked normal map, please see the below image to clarify what I mean.   I dont know I am doing wrong because if I scale down the indented face slightly it will bake the normal map correctly, as seen in the image below.
72538
A japanese cheesecake is basically like a cheesecake fused with a spongecake.  When i beat the egg whites they peak perfectly then i am required to get 1/3 of the egg white mixture and fold it into the cake mixture then fold in the rest of the egg whites. Then i pour it into a pan and place it into a baine-marie and bake it for about 1 hour and 10mins at 180 degrees celcius.   In the oven it raises perfectly and looks beautiful, then when i take it out of the oven to rest it slowly starts to shrink and is no longer tall but rather about 1-2cm shorter (20cm cake pan).  Can anyone please help me? Anyone have any suggestions or any techniques on how to prevent this from happening?
50700
I tried pan fried chicken and pre-cooked the chicken sous vide. This meant that the chicken just needed to be crisped once it went in the pan. I dredged in flour then egg and then panko (Japanese bread crumbs). The chicken was cooked perfectly and the crust was really nice, but the two didn't stay together when cut. The breading would shear right off.   I did not dry the chicken after removing from the sous vide, so it was a little damp.   How can I get the breading to adhere better to the chicken? Flour, egg, Panko works great for raw chicken. How can I get it to stick to the pre-cooked stuff?
120528
Cooking lore places a lot of importance on air humidity for doughs. When a dough fails, people quickly point that out as a possible factor, .     Is it really true? I don't doubt that the actual flour moisture content changes, but is it noticeable in the dough preparation, or is the difference too small to matter?  If it makes a difference, what can I do about it?
63008
I have a plethora of whole grains (barley, rye, wheat berries, kamut, spelt) sitting around my kitchen, and I'm getting bored with soups and salads.  Is it possible to use these in bread (yeast, preferably, but quick/tea breads are also okay)?    If so, what are the best approaches/ratios?  Should I cook them first?  Let them sprout?  Pointers to recipes would be greatly appreciated.
120950
Hi. I can't bake properly. after countless time of trying I still don't know what causes this though the set up is exactly same as tutorial video. 'white' space just doesn't show up except for the little part that is below jaw which I marked seam. Thank you in advance.
46261
I suspect that my - fairly new - oven gets too hot, so I bought an oven thermometer, which confirmed this.  So I called the supplier.  They say that in order to obtain the correct actual  oven temperature, for any setting, you take the highest reading on the thermometer, and the lowest, and then divide both readings.   Is this correct?
50295
So an often repeated mantra for starters is to (1) make a starter, (2) let it ferment out completely, (3) chill the starter in the fridge for a day or two, then (4) pour/decant off the oxidized "beer" in the starter flask and then (5) pitch just the slurry at the bottom of the flask into the fresh wort to be fermented.  However, I was under the impression that yeasts did not like extremely rapid temperature changes, and going from 40F in a fridge to 65-70F in wort almost instantly seems pretty rapid to me.  I'm not particularly questioning the effectiveness of the technique, mainly because I hear so many brewers espousing it, but I am curious how many here do this for most starters, and if there are any strains where you need to do something different, like pitch the whole starter at high-krausen. I prefer that method, not based on anything real, but just because it makes me the least nervous. (I KNOW the actively bubbling starter is working.)
84356
I have a recipe for rolls where the first stage calls for 2 packages active dry yeast, 1 tbsp sugar, and 1/2 cup warm water to be mixed until the yeast is proofed, and then 1/4 cup cubed butter is added to the proofed yeast.  Then all of that is added to half of the flour (2 cups) and 2 tsp salt and allowed to do the first rise.    If I wanted to use rapid rise yeast instead of active dry, could I skip the proofing step?  Would I need to add the butter at all?  Could I just mix all the dry ingredients, add the warm water and start the dough that way?  What effect would this change have?
94417
I'm learning to make cakes from scratch and bought two of  4-inch round pans to make a small layered cake.  After letting my layers cool, I turned one layer out and the cake fell from the pan after a few good raps on the bottom. The other layer was being a bit stubborn so i used a butter knife to separate the cake from the edge of the pan.  After I did that, I noticed some small shiny bits of metal on the outside of the second layer. I have two questions:   Is this a normal consequence of using aluminum cake pans or did I get a really low quality pan (it was the cheapest one at my local kitchen store)?  If this is a normal consequence of using aluminum cake pans, have I ruined this pan by scratching it or can I use it again as long as I don't use a metal knife to release the cake?
36028
We've had mice work their way into the oven insulation of our standalone range and now it stinks when we turn the oven on.  Looking around on the web suggests that replacing the oven is the most common solution, but that seems extreme!  Any suggestions?  (In this case the oven is a "Viking Professional" (bottom of the line) 4 burner + oven freestanding range. I haven't yet been able to pull it out enough to check if it has removable panels or been able to find a manual online.)  I'm guessing the answer will be something like:   locate the manual for your appliance remove access panels remove insulation while being careful about ?? remove insulation that is "stuck" by doing ?? replace with new insulation from ?? put it all back together and test as follows in general be careful of ??   And, perhaps this is too specific to the brand of appliance? It would be useful to know which brands are more amenable to DIY repairs of this type than others.
47675
Here is the recipe I used, I did not mix it for long, as that make the muffins very hard.   The muffins were very hard, and had a bad after taste and smell. I missed adding some oil, but what else could be the reason ?   Red Millet Flour, 50 g Whole Wheat flour, 50 g Toasted Oat Bran, 40g Whole Green Mung Beans - Sprouted, 100 g Domino - Light Brown Sugar 50g Baking Soda, 2 tsp Salt, 1 Tablespoon Liquid Egg White, 4 eggs 100% Whey (Vanilla), 75g Chobani - Greek Yogurt - 0% Vanilla, 5.3 oz (small packet) Carrots - Raw, 1 cup, grated Bananas - Raw, 1 cup, mashed White, all-purpose, enriched, bleached, 40 g   Also I wanted to try yeast instead of baking soda, but due to eggs and other veggies I cannot let is rise overnight (any ideas ?). I was trying to make good protein muffins which are an ideal breakfast, grab one with a glass of milk and done!   They run approximately 160 calories per muffin 25g carbs, 1g fat, 12g protein.
101369
It's my first tire change experience and I got so far using youtube videos but now I'm stuck. Got these Schwalbe 365 tires yesterday for my folding bike. It is an all season model which feels a bit harder than the tire that was on the bike from the factory but both are 40-406 20x1.5". The bead doesn't sit properly on the rim. This is the case from both sides as seen in the images. There's a small misalignment between where the problem manifests itself on each side of the rim. The tube is also brand new (Continental). The temprature in the bicycle room where I tried is around 16-22 deg.  Hadn't used soapy water when installing the tire and can't measure tire pressure (it's recommended 3-6 bar).  What do you recommend to solve the issue?     Update: bought a pump with gauge, rotated the tire and used a bit of liquid soap to end up with this result:    One thing that I discovered today is that the tire is literally tighter at the point where there's a problem which makes me think the tire might have some issues due to how it was stored I  the shop. But that would be too sad because despite the issues I really like these tires.