When the dough doesn’t come right: a few tips to get out from the impasse

Let’s get to the point now: dough that doesn’t torque. I faced this problem last week, when preparing the dough for colomba, the Italian Easter’s cake. I have been preparing complex dough, like that of panettone or colomba, since two years and I never got in trouble with torquing, till the other day. I was in the first step of preparation, when the fats haven’t been added yet, but the dough didn’t torque. Level of anxiety was rising, along with panic and desperation…did you get with mood? How that happened? It never occurred to me! What I was going to post on Thursday? “Sorry, folks, but my dough didn’t come right. Forget about colomba this year, we will talk about that next Easter” :P

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Colomba Easter cake: 5 tricks to get it right

Easter is in the air! As any celebration, it is accompanied by traditional recipes to make our feast more enjoyable. In Canada, hot cross buns, probably an English legacy, are a must for Easter. In Italy, we have many traditional recipes, which differ from region to region. Pizza di Pasqua and Easter’s pie are typical in central part of Italy, but the most popular cake is definitely Colomba.

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Fruit jams: quick preparation with the aid of pectin

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If you never used pectins for preparing your jams, give them a chance: they will make your life so much easier. Not that making a jam is such a complex task, but, doubtlessly, you have to stay home for half a day, at least. On the other hand, you can get your jam ready in a couple of minutes by using pectins. Not to mention that color and flavour of the fruit will be preserved.

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Pectins in the kitchen: tips and tricks

Pectins are complex carbohydrates, namely long-chain sugars. Together with celluloses, pectins form the wall of vegetable cells. People who commonly prepare home-made jams might use pectins to help the jam to set. One of the main properties of pectines is, indeed, to be a jellifying agent (I told you that discussion on gels was far from being completed :)).

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