Hacker News Reader

Comment by gregoryl | Hacker News Reader

My time to shine!

Hazelnut Choc Chip cookies, designed for Aquafaba.

NB. You can switch out more of the hazelnut/almond meal to adjust the taste, but don't go much below 1/2 cup of almond!

    1 & 1/4 cup almond meal
    1 & 1/4 cup hazelnut meal
    1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
    2/3 cup flour (gluten free blend works fine)
    2/3 cup raw sugar
    1 tsp baking powder
    1/2 tsp salt (ideally fine)
    
    Mix above together, set aside.
    
    1/2 cup aquafaba
    
    Separately, whisk aquafaba until fluffy
    
    6 tbsp coconut oil (liquid)
    1 tsp vanilla extract
    
    Add to aquafaba, whisk until combined
    Add dry ingredients from above
    Mix until tacky dough forms
    Place in fridge for 30 minutes
    
    Preheat oven to 190C
    
    Form a ball from about 1.5 tablespoons of dough.
    Place ball onto baking paper lined tray.
    Bake in oven for about 15 minutes.

View on HN

All comments about measuring solids by volume should go under here.

I want to see everything in grams!

It's largely ratio based, so adjust the units as you see fit. I've made batches 4x the listed size, keep under that or it gets super unwieldy.

The ingredients do not have the same density, therefore it will not work to go from a volume-based to a mass-based measurement system by simply replacing the unit.

It's a convention for baking I think. The choc chips will vary in size (I just smash up a block of cooking chocolate), but unless you go to extreme piece sizes, it won't have an impact on the chemistry if you're a little heavy/light (I vote heavy!)

Its an American convention. Europe mostly uses weights.

Pretty sure professional US bakers also work by weight. It’s much simpler and more reliable, especially when you have to deal with aerable dry goods (flours, powdered sugar, cocoa powder) or solids (butter).

Only considering that:

- some recipes can be very finicky regarding ratios,

- e.g. different flour types can vary quite drastically in density

- you can e.g. easily reduce the volume of a flour batch by at least 15% by pouring differently (or simply bumping the container a few times)

going by volume alone still works for most recipes and is quite frankly as easy as it gets.

Going by weight alone also is not entirely scientific though (e.g. moisture of raw ingredients is usually not exact/controlled). And flour can behave differently, based on batch or type, even if you get the weight perfectly right.

So most bakers have their recipes "dialed in", i.e. they have a feel for the right texture, how the dough behaves, how to adjust resting times, etc.

I always wonder how much half a cup actually is, since cups are not standardized (I think). Googling for "cup size" didn't clarify anything either.

Cup is a standard size for measuring liquids: 8 fl oz. It's only a problem for flour, because how much you can fit in a cup varies depending on humidity and how much you pack it.

Except one cup in metric is 250 ml, not the ~236ml that a US cup is.

Thanks! Didn't know that.

To add to this, there are at least 3 "cup" sizes for liquid: metric (~250ml), the US version (above, ~236ml) and an imperial cup (~284ml).

A metric cup is exactly 250ml though, not approximately, right?

Also the Japanese cup [1], which is 200 mL. I (American) have come across it twice (a rice cooker, and a dandan recipe).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup_%28unit%29#Japanese_cup

> Googling for "cup size" didn't clarify anything either.

Is that because most results are in regards to bras?

If all ingredients are measured in cups, it doesn't actually matter much, since you'd still get good proportions by using any of your cups.

It's problematic if some ingredients are specified by volume, others by weight.

Specifying by volume is also a problem for compressable things like flour, chopped hazelnuts etc.

The ambiguity can be solved by specifying "heaping" units. One heaping tablespoon, or 1/2 heaping cup, etc.

For reference, this recipe is fairly tolerant, assuming you stay reasonable (don't use some sort of machine press to get your flour into the cup hey?)

I made a tool that converts recipes from different volumes and weights to Grams, perhaps it would be useful here: https://charlesworth.github.io/recipe-slicer/

Cool, thanks! Can you add whole wheat flour?

sure thing, I just added it, enjoy!

I use Frink to convert all my ingredients to mass before starting a recipe. It has different units for { sifted, scooped, spooned } x { cake, bread, all-purpose } flour. Different sugar types, etc.

It’s always my first step before baking a recipe the first time.

https://frinklang.org

Isnt it a UI/UX question? Most people have measuring cups in their kitchen. Not everyone has a scale.

Most kitchens I know have a scale, but not measuring cups. I mean, why would you need measuring cups, unless you're sent a recipe from somewhere foreign?

We have buckets of measuring cups. It's a particular frustration. They lose their painted markings fairly quickly and it can be hard to tell the 1/4c of one set from the 1/3c of another set, or the 2/3c from the 1c or the 1c from the 1-1/2c. Why is there even a 1-1/2c? Uugh! Melt a 1/4c cup? Guess it's time to buy a fifth set of all the cups all over again so we can have at least one 1/4c. Don't toss any of the old ones just in case the 1/3c goes through the disposal.

We have two kitchen scales. I never get them confused. They're interchangeable.

Maybe get some metal measuring cups if the plastic ones keep failing on you? My metal cups have etched markings so they won't wear off

Thank you! I can't believe you have been here all along, hiding this.

Greg’s been holding out on us

Ok- so... when I don't wash the aquafaba off of the beans in cooking, I get- let's say- "bloated".

I can only imagine eating these could result in a rough approximation of the decibel level of the Dragon taking off from Launch Pad 39A.

Likewise. My brother drinks it (he also drinks the water from when you boil cabbages, hes a strange unit.). I don't get that effect from the cookies, likely because its a fairly small amount across a lot of cookies.

Monospace font for a recipe - a nice touch for the HN crowd.

Those look really good -- how would it taste different if you used egg white instead of aquafaba?

I don't know, I haven't made them with egg whites. Suspect they would work ok, possibly be too heavy/sticky. Give the aquafaba a try, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

In my experience taste is not as good.

> don't go much below 1/2 cup of almond

Is this just for taste reasons?

Texture and cost. The hazelnut meal tends to be a bit coarser, and is significantly more expensive, so you end up with gritty cookies that don't taste significantly more like hazelnut for more $$.

Waw, i'm surprised almonds are more expensive than hazelnuts where you are! I didn't check but i believe that in france hazelnuts are cheaper. What is sure is that the tree is far more common (in personal gardens).

Child labor on hazelnut farms in Turkey: https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/articles/addressing-chil...

They said hazelnut is more expensive than almonds. Did you make a typo?

Melbourne, Australia. I'd love cheap hazelnut meal, its roughly 5 times more expensive than almond.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com