From Talk
Posted by astarteny, December 28, 2007 at 7:13 AM
for xmas i decided to make a sherry trifle. i was doing great until i got to the custard. i seems to have some kind of block about it. in the past i've watched a nicely thickening custard turn to scrambled egg in seconds and wanted to avoid a repeat of that. so this time i undercooked it and it was too thin -- not thick at all.
i've heard about heating it until it coats the back of a wooden spoon and you can run a straight line through it with your finger, but is there anything more specific than that -- like temp? at what temp will the egg start to scramble and is it past the point of recovery then?
your advice is much appreciated!
From Talk
Posted by astarteny, November 1, 2007 at 8:00 AM
last january i thought i'd try to make my own sourdough starter and nurtured a mother starter out of organic grapes. i fed it every week and was turning out 2 loaves of really nice bread every sunday for my weekday lunches. as the weather got better, my urge to bake bread diminished and i went 3 weeks without feeding it. i managed to bring it back with daily feedings, and keeping it at room temp instead of the fridge.
that lasted another month, but then life intruded and i was going on holiday and then moving house, and then unpacking and the starter has been woefully neglected. all in all it's probably been about 8 weeks since i last fed it.
is it too late? do you think i've killed it? what would be a good way to know? or should i just start all over again?
also -- is there a minimum quantity i need to keep alive? my recipe calls for 250g of starter for 2 loaves, but the total weight of the starter was more like 750g -- could i have just chucked all that out?
all your advice and comments are much appreciated.
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