Tag: Super Powers

Baking, Breads

Advantium Rolls

by Wendi10 Comments on Advantium Rolls
not my actual roll...for illustrative purposes only.

You may recall that I spent Christmas 2010 with Rose Levy Berenbaum’s Bread Bible recipes for dutch baby and dinner rolls.  Both recipes were so successful and made the day feel like a holiday should that I decided that Rose should be part of Christmas 2011.  Specifically, I wanted to make a batch of cloverleaf dinner rolls so that I could give the Proof setting on the Advantium a whirl.

I was hoping for a Christmas miracle to be honest.  My luck with getting bread dough to rise is spotty.  I follow directions, I use water that is neither too hot nor too cold, I use high quality yeast, and I try my best to surrender my fears to the bread gods.  Maybe our house is a bit on the chilly side.  Or maybe I have evil spirits in the air taking all the mojo out of the yeast.  Or maybe I just needed the Advantium to banish those evil spirits and unleash my bread baking super power.

The first rise of the dough was glorious.  When I took it out of the Advantium, it had grown as though any other outcome was simply inconceivable.  I deflated the dough, gave it a turn or two, and set it back in the Advantium on Proof for the second rise expecting that my good fortune with the first rise must have been a fluke.

Not so.  The second rise was as perfectly executed as the first.  I then portioned the dough, rolled each portion into balls, and set three dough balls into each cup of a muffin tin.  While the big oven heated, the dough went back into the Advantium for the final rise.

Once the dough had achieved about 3/4 of the final rise, my impatience got the best of me.  I brushed melted butter on the top of the rolls, gave them a generous dusting of kosher salt, and set them in the oven to fulfill their cloverleaf destiny.  If I had a been just a bit more patient on the final rise, my rolls would have achieved maximum lift when they hit the intense heat of the oven.  But I wasn’t.  And they didn’t.  And in spite of that, they still emerged golden brown and I eagerly pulled one apart to enjoy its salted, buttery deliciousness.

Is there anything better than bread, still warm from the oven?  The correct answer is no.

The rolls that we didn’t eat with Christmas dinner were carefully wrapped in plastic and stashed in the freezer.  I think they lasted all of two weeks before we had picked the last one off.  Which means that I am long overdue to set a bowl of flour, yeast, and water in my Advantium and harness the super power of the Proof setting.

Want the recipe that I used?  Click here to jump back in time.  The only thing I did differently this year, besides proofing the dough in the Advantium, was letting the starter develop in the refrigerator overnight.  Yes, it added even more time to an already lengthy recipe but it wasn’t like I was doing any more work.

Disclaimer:  As part of my partnership with GE, I received an Advantium oven.  All opinions posted about my Advantium experience are my own.

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Tenderloin Filet a la Advantium

by Wendi20 Comments on Tenderloin Filet a la Advantium

So as I talked about earlier, I am the proud new owner of a GE Advantium oven.  And as part of my collaboration with GE, I’m going to go on an adventure to see how this new technology can help me do more in the kitchen and share what I learn here on BAH.

The first thing I learned is that my kitchen is now smarter than I am.  But I mean that in a good way.  The Advantium comes with over 175 preset cooking programs for everything from bagel bites to tenderloin filets.  With the press of a button and the turn of the knob, you can set it and forget it until the Advantium lets you know that you need to do something…like flip your filet or get to eating.

Through the various cooking modes you can:

  • Microwave
  • Convection Bake
  • Speedcook
  • Warm
  • Proof dough
  • Broil
  • Toast

All that in a single appliance.  I swear, I am not making this up.  It’s as though a bit of Jetson’s technology is living in my kitchen.  And that’s good news for me because the Advantium solves some of my big problems.

First, I’m terrified of my broiler.  I avoid it at all costs which means that I forgo things like sizzling hot steaks.  I think my fear has a lot to do with not being able to keep a close eye on what’s happening under that flame.  With Broil, I can see through the window and monitor what’s happening to my steak.

Second, there is no room on my counter for a toaster.  It lives in the cabinet above the stove which means I have to find the step stool, get it out of the cabinet, and clean up whatever crumbs spill out of it each and every time I want to make some toast.  Then I have to wait for it to cool off, shake out the latest batch of crumbs, and climb back on the step stool to put it away.  As you might imagine, there has been a prolonged toast shortage here at BAH.  Thank you Toast setting for allowing me to reunite with toasted nooks and crannies.

Third, I don’t have a good spot to set bread dough to rise.  The kitchen is drafty and inside the big oven is where the pots and pans live.  Every time I set about making bread or rolls, it’s a crap shoot whether my dough is even going to rise.  I can see myself making good friends with Proof.

And maybe most exciting of all is how Speedcook will make things like roast chicken a viable weeknight meal option.  Monday through Friday, I don’t have 90 minutes for dinner to cook.  But I can carve out the 45 minutes Speedcook needs to roast a 5 pound whole chicken while I do something like speedwatch the episodes of Modern Family that have accumulated on my Tivo.  Speedcook, I see you as my newly acquired super power.

So the Advantium wasn’t even out of the box before I was plotting what to make in it first.  Flipping through the cookbook that came with it, I spied Steak au Poivre.  This is the dish that I had seen demo’d down at GE in the spring.  And I knew that’s how I would christen my Advantium because it’s the kind of recipe that I would be too intimidated to try either on top of the stove or under the broiler.

The filet was prepped and ready and went into the oven using the Speedcook preset for 1 filet cooked to Medium.  And without a single moment of preheating, it was done in 16 minutes.  Hell, it would take my big oven that long just to heat to 500 degrees.  Not only did it cook in less time than the entire process would have taken in my traditional oven, I also didn’t have the wasted energy of the big oven heating to an incredibly high temperature before I could begin to cook.

So what’s my verdict?  The tenderloin filet came out of the Advantium sizzling hot and was cooked to a perfect medium.  Being that I’m more of a medium rare girl, I’m going to take advantage of the ability to add custom cooking programs and set myself up with a Medium Rare preset.  Which means that next time I’m only going to have to wait about 12 minutes for my sizzling steak needs to be met.

Yes, I think Advantium is going to make me a Super Hero in my kitchen.

Disclaimer:  As part of my partnership with GE, I received an Advantium oven.  All opinions posted about my Advantium experience are my own.