This is a good, fast and simple wheat bread. Optimized for baking in gas-fired ovens.
1600 g wheat flour (1:1 mix of ordinary and bread flour; up to about 300 g wholewheat flour is OK)
30 g salt
1 package dry yeast
Dry-mix thoroughly.
Add 1200 mL of warm water.
Mix/knead. Let rise thoroughly. Knead again – add some flour as needed.
Form elongated shape breads. Let rise.
Bake in pre-heated oven to 425 F. For best result, add water in tray at start of baking.
Gugelhupf
500 g Weizenmehl Type 405
1 Msp. Salz
1 Würfel Hefe
150 g Butter
100 g Zucker
3 Eier
225 mL Milch
Hefeteig zubereiten. Gehen lassen.
100 g Rosinen (abbrühen und durchsehen – schlechte aussortieren) unterkneten.
In Gugelhupfform geben, gehen lassen
180 Grad Unter-/Oberhitze, 50 min backen – etwas in Form auskühlen lassen, dann stürzen. Puderzucker aufbringen wenn kalt. Fertig!!
Marmorkuchen
250 g Butter
260 g Zucker
6 Eier
1 Msp. Salz
Gründlich schaumig schlagen.
400 g Mehl mit 1 Pck. Backpulver mischen und durchsieben.
170 mL Milch
Rührteig zubereiten.
Hälfte davon in Gugelhupfform.
Zum Rest: 100 g geriebene Bitterschokolade und 40 g Kakao. Gründlich durchrühren.
In die Form geben und mit Messer durchmischen (marmorieren)
Backen: 160 Grad Umluft, 50-55 Minuten (mit Holzstab prüfen)
In Form etwas abkühlen lassen, dann stürzen. Puderzucker drauf oder Glasur (nach Geschmack). Fertig!!
Strudel (Quark- und/oder Kirsch)
Strudelteig zubereiten aus
500 g Weizenmehl Type 405
1 TL Salz
1/4 L lauwarmes Wasser
80 g geschmackloses Öl (Sonnenblume, Raps)
30-60 Minuten ruhen lassen!!
Füllung:
500 g Magerquark
200 g 40% Fett Quark
4 Eier
120 g Zucker
40 g Gries
Alles gut mit Schneebesen durchrühren.
150 g Mandeln gemahlen (auf Füllmasse aufbringen)
1 Glas Kirschen (gründlich abtropfen, für Kirschstrudel), oder 200 g Rosinen (gut wässern und aussortieren), fuer Quarkstrudel
Zweckmässig 3 Strudel formen auf bekannte Art (Teig dünn ausziehen, Quarkmasse aufbringen, gemahlene Mandeln aufbringen, Kirschen oder Rosinen aufbringen, Strudel zusammenrollen)
100 g geschmolzene Butter – Form gut ausstreichen, Strudel gut streichen.
Evtl. Vanillesauce dazu.
175 Grad Umluft, 45 Minuten backen. Fertig!!
Most of my data, manuals, pictures, web sites, databases etc are hosted on a Dell PowerEdge SC1425 (Dual 2.6 GHz Xeon, 2x 3 TB RAID1), which is a great and affordable machine, but has some shortcomings – massive noise, and considerable power consumption; see earlier post PowerEdge SC1425.
Also, it is just one machine, and in case of some severe failure, all data could be lost in case of some unforseeable event like a big thunderstorm hitting the power line… not a frequent issue, but bad enough, if you have to go back to 6-12 months old partial backups.
Therefore, I decided to try a different approach – still use the PowerEdge as the main system, but run a more energy efficient and silent machine for the actual business. After review of various options, a Dell Optiplex FX160 appeared to be a good option. This runs on an Intel Atom 230 @1.6 Ghz CPU, and included 2 GB RAM. The price is right, USD 40 for the unit, including a 2 GB SATA flash drive, and completely fan-less, and noise-less.
For the storage, 2 GB ain’t enough. First, considering some flash drives, but these still come at a hefty price, for 2 TB storage…. A Samsung/Seagate M9T series will be good enough. These are small, silent, efficient 9.5 mm form factor drives.
A quick test of the read/write speeds:
Read/Write speeds are quite OK, >100 MB/s, plenty to saturate my internet connection, and mirroring the main Poweredge server won’t be an issue anyway – this is all done with the system life, and only by incremental update – not so many files will change from update to update.
Network performance during mirroring from the PowerEdge Server (aka arctur).
Quite a lot of power – in such a nice case; “acrux” refers to a star, and is the host name for this unit.
All is run on Ubuntu Server 14.04.3 LTS, including SAMBA (to work as a NAS for various Microsoft Windows based systems, SSH, Apache/2.4.7, and eventually, a printer server).
As some of you may know, ginger is not only praised for its taste, but also improves your health. Especially, with all the heavy xmas foods, why not prepare some ginger cookies that are delicious and help digest the fatty items.
Here is the recipe:
250 g unsalted butter
125 g sugar
200 g ground almonds
300 g wheat flour
1 egg
small amount of salt
1/2 teespoon baking powder
2 pck vanillin powder or some vanilla essence
250 g candied ginger, cut into small bits.
First, prepare a dough with all ingredients, except, the ginger. Once dough has reached uniform texture, add ginger, and knead until it is well mixed in.
Then form rolls, about 1″ in diameter, wrap in aluminum foil and put into the fridge over night.
Take out one roll after the other, and cut into about 1/4″ thick slices. Should look about like this (note the space between the cookies, don’t place them too closely on the tray).
Bake at 165-170°C in a air-convection oven. Sure, other types of ovens can be used, at medium heat. Bake until slighly brown at the edges. This will take 10 to 12 minutes. Handle with care after baking – let them cool down before any major handling.
These cookies are ready to eat right after preparation, so no need to start with xmas baking in November.
These are very delicious and chocolate-rich cookies. Enjoy in moderation.
For the dough, take
200 g ground hazel nuts
300 g wheat flour
200 g sugar
1/2 teespoon baking powder
some salt
2 pck vanillin sugar or some vanilla essence
2 eggs
250 g unsalted butter
Prepare a firm dough and let rest overnight in the fridge.
Take out small portions at a time, roll to about 1/8″ thickness, and punch tree-shapes, or other shapes as you prefer. Dough is not too easy to work with, so add some flower and only roll a small portion at a time, not the whole quantity.
Bake at 170°C, in convection oven. Or similar oven, medium heat. Baking time about 10 minutes.
Once cooled, melt some nougat (Viennese nougat, brown, finely ground nougat; alternatively, some nougat chocolate or hazelnut chocolate, finely ground) and assemble 2 cookies with some of the molten nougat. Keep temperature of the nougat in the proper range to ensure medium-firm consistency, otherwise, it will be hard to assemble the cookies. Total quantity of nougat needed will vary with thickness of application, but 200-250 g should be enough.
Let the assembled cookies rest overnight, in a cool but dry place.
Then, dip in molten dark chocolate (about 300 g needed), using a fork, one cookie at a time.
Place on some parchment paper and let the chocolate solidify.
Package in a box, layer by layer, with parchment in between the layers.
Don’t stack more than 4-5 layers to keep the surface of the chocolate nice and free of defects.
To maintain good health and long life, the not-so-secret recipe:
500 g candied ginger, preferably, fresh and strong flavor
500 mL of 40% plain spirit (vodka or similar)
Mix in blender
Store overnight
Filter through a cotton kitchen towel, or similar thin sheet. This is quite laborious; considerable force is needed to get the liquid out but it will work just fine with some patience.
Take filter residue, and mix with another 500 mL of 40% spirit. Let soak for some time (30 minutes), and filter again.
Take filter residue, mix with 300 mL of hot water, and filter/squeeze until all liquid has been removed. Some semi-dry fibrous residue will remain (discard).
This operation should yield about 1.4-1.5 L of ginger extract.
In a steel pot, heat
640 g of plain sugar
10 g of citric acid
240 g water
to 90°C for 2 hours (need to measure with thermometer, keep within 90-95°C)
This will give about 850 g – 600 mL of sirup.
Finally, in a large container, mix the sirup, the extract, and 100 g of honey.
Add 20 drops of orange peel oil (essential oil).
As a result of all these efforts you will obtain about 2 L of very healthy ginger liquor that is ideal for gifts, and sure enough, also to maintain your own health.
To enjoy, either drink pure, 3 tablespoons per serve. Or, even better, mix 3 tablespoons with a cut of hot water (really hot), and enjoy while still hot and inhale the vapors.
No big garden here, but at least, a few plants – a tomato, two zucchini, these should provide some nice food, provided that I don’t forget to water them, and hoping that non of the wild animals (aka rabbits) around here will eat the plants, before they can carry any fruit.
Tomato –
Zucchini plants –
This is how it will look at harvest time –
Breads are mostly made from wheat and rye flour. This is at least a common misconception of the westerner, living in the Northern hemisphere. Almost all kinds of grain can be used to prepare bread, albeit, bread of different shape, depending on structure of the flour, and the rising agent used.
Here, a simple recipe that uses a combination of wheat and corn flour, with yeast as the rising agent.
In a big bowl, mix:
1000 g of unbleached wheat flour
600 g of corn flour (masa type, nixtamalized)
30 g of salt (measure rather accurately)
1 bag of active dry yeast
To the mixed powders:
80 g sunflower oil, or pumpkin seed oil
1450 g of water
Corn flour absorbs a fair bit of water, you might need to add up to ~150 g more, depending on the type.
Mix properly, best done using hands rather than a big machine.
Let rise for about 1.5 hours, until you see a considerably increased size.
Portion into about 16 to 20 parts, twist them a bit and put on non-stick paper, on a baking tray.
Bake at about 400-450 F, 200-230 C, for about 22-25 minutes. Oven needs to be properly pre-heated. If at all possible, add 1-2 cups of water on a lower tray, to generate steam during the first part of the baking time.
Mmmmhhh! Very delicious!
One variation – mix 1/2 package of yeast, 500 g of the wheat flour, and 500 g of water – the day before the baking, and let sit overnight, at moderately warm temperature (about 70 F, 20 C). For baking, just add the remaining quantities of the ingredients as per the list above. This will give more coarse pores, and adds a particular refined taste.
Due to frequent requests – here are the configuration files for my LinuxCNC (EMC2) controlled mill and lathe.
The mill is a 3-axis machine, with stepper motors and jog wheel (see earlier post).
emc2 linuxcnc fkm 3 axis mill hal with jog 150101
The lathe has 2 axis, stepper motors, and digital readouts. No feedback on the readouts, but they are great for highest precision work. Configuration files also include the setup for spindel-synchronized movement and spindle speed readout. I have run spindle-synchronized toolpaths for cutting regular and tapered threads with no issues at all, up to a few 100 RPM. The GUI (axis) is also configured for use with a little camera that is very handy to set the coordinates of the tools.
emc2 linuxcnc jet lathe with optical scale and spindel index 150101
Any questions, please ask. These files are meant as a source code collection for you to code your own HAL files, etc.; if you need help with a particular configuration, feel free to contact me.
Please consider that some fragments of the code might be copyrighted by others – however, I have modified it so many times that it is virtually impossible to trace back.
My contribution to these HAL files: You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. The work may not be free of known copyright restrictions in all jurisdictions. Persons may have other rights in or related to the work, such as patent or trademark rights, and others may have rights in how the work is used. I make no warranties about the work, and disclaim liability for all uses of the work, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.
In winter time, nothing better than some low-calorie, strongly flavored candy. It works against germs, improves general health and well-being, and preparing such candy yourself is fun, and you can make them ‘extra-strong’.
That’s how it works. First, you need to get some isomalt. Isomalt is a sugar alcohol – much less (about half) of the calories than regular sugar, it doesn’t attack your teeth, and is slowly metabolized by the human body (doesn’t lead to spikes of you blood sugar level). It is sweet, but not quite as sweet as sugar. No metallic after-taste, it is purely sweet. And, it is non-hygroscopic (it will not absorb water when stored), resulting in less sticky mess, and eliminating the need to wrap each and every candy separately.
This makes isomalt a nearly ideal ‘carrier substance’ for any flavor.
Take about 150-200 g of isomalt, and melt in a small cooking pot. Ideally, use an electric stove – don’t overheat! Stirr!
Once everything is molten, pour onto a silicon baking pad, or siliconized/non-stick (lightly oiled – vegetable oil) paper.
Watch out! This is dangerously hot stuff – it can cause severe burns! Keep children away! I always wear a pair of cotton gloves for isolation, and a pair of rubber gloves on top.
Now, the tricky part. Using a metal blade, knife, or similar tool, move the molten isomalt around, outside in, until it is cooling down a bit, and getting more viscous. This requires some practice.
Next, most important step – addition of the flavor.
The flavor – a saturated solution of (-)-Menthol in Eucalyptus oil (this is about a 1:1 ratio). This is best done directly in a pipet bottle, very handy for easy dosing. The active ingredient of Eucalyptus oil, 1,8-Cineol is a really great compound, it kills bacteria of all sorts, and constitutes about 80-85% of the oil.
Menthol –
1,8-Cineol –
The right time to add the flavoring is reached when the viscosity is just about high enough to handle the molten isomalt with your hands (make sure to thoroughly lubricate the gloves with neutral-taste vegetable oil).
The flavoring is put directly on the semi-liquid isomalt, and folded in from the perimeter, to the inside of the melt.
Then, take the candy in your hands, and pull it, fold it, pull it, until it is cool enough to be portioned into candy pieces. Can be a bit hot, but never mind. Once the right temperature/viscosity is reached, timing is everything! Now things have to happen quickly!
Using a strong pair of scissors, with some vegetable oil applied, cut the candy into pieces of adequate size. Rush!
Best use some non-stick paper, and let the candies cool down.
The final step – put them into some nice metal containers for storage. I never store too many in a single container, because they will lose favor more quickly, with a large container being opened all the time to take out a few candies only.
The result of a single batch – you can handle up to 250 g of isomalt in one batch with some practice.
