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Baking is definitely Chemistry. You get your ratios wrong? And you risk spawning some kind of mutant.

If you’re really clever and invested you can better understand why a given dough’s ratios are what they are, and adapt to modify. But if you’re more casual? Obey The Recipe To The Letter.

And get a thermometer for your oven. Because every successful baker Really Know Their Oven, and where a given dough, batter or what have you is best off in terms of height, depth and so on.

Me? I’ve a bread maker I’ve not used in years, and a recently procured Kitchen Aid I’m yet to use. Guess I’m well overdue some experimenting!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Baking is definitely Chemistry. You get your ratios wrong? And you risk spawning some kind of mutant.

'Cooking is an art, baking is a science' is a popular saying, if not always accurate.

 Pyroalchi wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:

using different cast iron pots and "dutch ovens", varying heat and humidity regimes and self made sour doughs. Quite fascinating to watch and the results are rather impressive. Even though it is time consuming enough that she only does it when she doesn't have stress at university.

Now to my mind, a dutch oven is an entirely different affair and one not really conducive to producing food..

Better than Belgian Biscuit.

D’you reckon dumplings count as bread?

@ dutch oven:
I meant this thing here:

What other meaning does "dutch oven" have?

I’m not gonna answer that one.

It’s silly rather than foul, but I’m still gonna leave it for someone else. Or you can Google the term adding “slang”.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
D’you reckon dumplings count as bread?

I’d say no.

They are generally unleavened. Which IMHO is required for bread. Could be yeast, or baking powder, or whatever. But we need bubbles in a structure.

Of course, a lot depends on what you are calling dumplings. My first thought is Asian dumplings. But as I type this, I recall the turkey dumplings I make, which are basically steamed quick bread (I’d say biscuits, but know the duel meanings for that) over a pot pie filling. Which may be called bread.

 Nevelon wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
D’you reckon dumplings count as bread?

I’d say no.

They are generally unleavened. Which IMHO is required for bread. Could be yeast, or baking powder, or whatever. But we need bubbles in a structure.

Of course, a lot depends on what you are calling dumplings. My first thought is Asian dumplings. But as I type this, I recall the turkey dumplings I make, which are basically steamed quick bread (I’d say biscuits, but know the duel meanings for that) over a pot pie filling. Which may be called bread.

Unleavened breads are still breads.

I can’t think, off the top of my head and without an encyclopaedic knowledge of the food stuff, of a Dumpling which is traditionally baked.

Boiled? Yes. Steamed? Yes. Shallow Fried? Yes. But not baked.

I know some Indian breads (Dosa, Chapati etc) aren’t baked as such either. But then a Dosa is a particularly delicious and frustratingly hard to find in the UK pancake, made from a batter. So perhaps bread is shorthand more than a precise definition. And Indian Breads are otherwise cooked in a dry heat.

 Ghaz wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
D’you reckon dumplings count as bread?

I’d say no.

They are generally unleavened. Which IMHO is required for bread. Could be yeast, or baking powder, or whatever. But we need bubbles in a structure.

Of course, a lot depends on what you are calling dumplings. My first thought is Asian dumplings. But as I type this, I recall the turkey dumplings I make, which are basically steamed quick bread (I’d say biscuits, but know the duel meanings for that) over a pot pie filling. Which may be called bread.

Unleavened breads are still breads.

I’m more familiar with matzos then I’d like, and while technically a bread, I think of it as a glorified cracker.

I also don’t think of tortillas as bread. Could they technically be? Maybe? Pasta? Where do you draw the line? Flour + Wet to make a dough, apply heat. You can get a lot of things depending on what else you add and technique used.

In the vast world of culinary marvels I’m sure whatever line we draw semantically, there will be exceptions. Or we will have to have such a wide definition it’s meaningless.

Without being arse for even a second to google it?

I do feel to be Bread, it needs a dry heat. Well. Dry-ish, as that glorious French Bread needs a tray of water on the floor of the oven, to generate steam. But, and I stress? The steam is an enhancer, not the main medium. Helps develop the crust without drying the inside or some such if memory serves.

We pretty much only get aldi multigrain sourdough. A German company employing Australian breadmakers to use local ingredients (our labels have a meter that tells you what percentage of the ingredients are Australian) to make sourdough. Not sure what you count that as. Tastes good though.

Otherwise it's Kalamata olive sourdough when we're doing a Tuscan white bean skillet, marry me beans, bruschetta, casseroles.

Haven't owned a presliced sandwich loaf in over a decade

 Nevelon wrote:
I’m more familiar with matzos then I’d like, and while technically a bread, I think of it as a glorified cracker.

Saltine crackers do qualify as a type of thin, crisp unleavened (or lightly leavened} flatbread. In its most basic form, bread is just a grain ground into a flour, mixed with water and cooked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_breads

I would say that Bread is dough that is not cooked in water. Pasta is dough that is cooked in water.

We must convene the Ordo Culinarious to set down this question for Imperial sanction.

 Grey Templar wrote:

We must convene the Ordo Culinarious to set down this question for Imperial sanction.

.... and thus began the Bread Crusade of 356. M42, seeing the deployment of 3000 Guard regiments, 80 Space Marine Chapters, 25 Knight Houses and 3 Titan legions to put down the rebellious Taco-confederation...

I suppose it's one of those things that you can go through the technicalities as much as you like but that doesn't make it right.

A dumpling just doesn't belong in the bread cinematic universe and neither do biscuits, scones and crackers.

Tomatoes are technically fruit but they live their lives in the vegetable sphere.


I do love the idea of the Ordo Culinarious purging a planet that has been accidentally making heretical bread that somehow has Chaos symbols imprinted on using sesame seeds or something.

 Olthannon wrote:
I suppose it's one of those things that you can go through the technicalities as much as you like but that doesn't make it right.

A dumpling just doesn't belong in the bread cinematic universe and neither do biscuits, scones and crackers.

Tomatoes are technically fruit but they live their lives in the vegetable sphere.


I do love the idea of the Ordo Culinarious purging a planet that has been accidentally making heretical bread that somehow has Chaos symbols imprinted on using sesame seeds or something.

No, the blade they use to make decorative cuts in the bread is unsanctioned. It’s not just the pattern they cut, but they tools they use. And that’s not just a lame pun.

Bread makes the sandwich.

You can take the best cuts of meat, freshest veggies and if you stick it on damp white bread, it will be awful.

One of the hidden truths about American cuisine is that it is essentially German in origin, and this goes into our interpretation of bread.

I deployed to Germany a few times, and wanted to eat "native" food, which was basically upscale American food. Frankfurters, hamburgers, and the local Rhineland favorite of breaded pork cutlets, Jaegerschnitzel. Is there anything more American than Kartoffelsalat at a picnic? English food is a rarity.

Last year I did some research and made a Welsh lamb stew for my father, who absolutely loved it. He knew nothing of Welsh food or culture because for four or five generations, Lloyd men married German girls fresh off the boat. My great-grandparents spoke fluent German, but didn't pass it on to the kids because of fallout from WW I, a fact my grandfather lamented when he was assigned to guard German PoWs. But I digress.

While there are tons of packaged mass-produced flavorless breads (typically beloved of children with unsophisticated palates), even big box stores have in-house breads with real character and texture. This is part of a long term reaction against the mass-market products of my youth. Back then the issue was scarcity, and grocery stores plowed under the local markets because they offers lots of very cheap food, and the epitome was the "generic" brand with plain white labels and black lettering, as if color ink was somehow a luxury.

Happily that's long gone, and there is a strong market for independent, local food, at least here in the frozen arctic waste of Michigan. Michigan actually labels domestically produced food items - not by law, but because Michigan apples or potatoes have some hidden virtue unknown to those grown out of state. It's weird. Our bread preference is very German. For breakfast today I had some bacon on toasted pumpernickel. Delicious.

I had Bacon Rolls yesterday. A relative rarity for me, as I try not to eat much fat* these days.

But this was oak smoked bacon and chewy, crusty rolls from the far, shop. Wee bit of HP to complement the bacon. They were amazing. And yes, the bread rolls, being proper proper bakery sourced? Helped make the difference.

*No, I couldn’t just trim off the fat. What would be the point in bacon if we did that?

Had an amazing chicken pub sandwich on a pretzel bread roll today, from the cafeteria at the hospital I work at. It was amazing! The thing that really made it good was the pretzel roll. Maybe I just love soft pretzels (not the hard-baked kind you get in bags in the potato chip aisle, although those are okay). Pretzels are bread, right? Right?!

Pretzel is indeed a form of bread. Pretzel Buns most certainly have a strong place in the pantheon.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I can’t think, off the top of my head and without an encyclopaedic knowledge of the food stuff, of a Dumpling which is traditionally baked.

Here in the US, particularly in The South, there's a food dish called chicken and dumplings that is baked. Think the opposite of like, chinese style dumplings. Basically, your chicken, veggies and "stuffing" ingredients are generally floating around a dutch oven or casserole dish, and before putting it in the oven for cooking, you carefully drop what amounts to biscuit (american biscuits, not what y'all call biscuits) dough onto this soupy concoction then bake.

Then, because it's all swimming in soup and doesn't quite sink, doesn't quite float, when its done and pulled out of the oven you get this slightly wet bread, slightly doughy feeling bread-like portion of this dish (it's hard for me to really describe it, because basically if it's flaky and dry like bread, you probably over did it, but I don't want to make it sound like it stays like uncooked bread dough either)

Sounds like stew dumplings, or doughboys as I knew them when I was wee.

Made from flour, suet and water. Usually with some herbs and salt.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also? Do we need an Ordo Culinarius thread?

 Pyroalchi wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

We must convene the Ordo Culinarious to set down this question for Imperial sanction.

.... and thus began the Bread Crusade of 356. M42, seeing the deployment of 3000 Guard regiments, 80 Space Marine Chapters, 25 Knight Houses and 3 Titan legions to put down the rebellious Taco-confederation...

Bread for the Bread God!

 Grey Templar wrote:
I would say that Bread is dough that is not cooked in water. Pasta is dough that is cooked in water.

We must convene the Ordo Culinarious to set down this question for Imperial sanction.

Pasta doesn't include a raising agent, so the two doughs aren't really comparable in that way.
Bao and hyrata buns are bread where the dough is steamed, not baked.