What are You Baking the Week of August 13, 2017?

[BakerAunt]

For breakfast on Thursday, I baked the Basic Muffin recipe from the KAF website. I had done a search for berry muffins in their recipes, and this one came up. I used the variation that is 1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour and 1 cup oats. I reduced the sugar from 1/2 to 1/3 cup. (One-third cup for me is a muffin; 1/2 cup or more verges toward cupcake.) I used buttermilk instead of regular milk, so I reduced the baking powder to 2 tsp. and added 1/4 tsp. baking soda. I used the scant 1/4 cup of blackberries from the bushes on our terrace (we got here too late for the major crop) and diced three leftover strawberries. I made the recipe as six large muffins, so I baked them for 18 minutes. They are very good, and the berries did not sink (mixed them in with the dry ingredients), so I will use this recipe for non-blueberry muffins.

[BakerAunt]

Thanks for the recipe recommendations, Mike. I will try puff pastry--but not until the kitchen has been remodeled. Right now, it is challenging, because we have not organized from our move, since we know that everything is going to be moved out. We do not have a start date yet, since our contractor is tied up right now on another project.

I have a beautiful maple rolling pin with handles that I bought years ago from Williams-Sonoma. However, I only use it for rolling out sweet roll dough. I stopped using it for bread because I think it was contributing to the blow-outs in the loaves. I now pat the bread out with my hands and shape it. I have a Joseph Joseph rolling pin where rings are screwed in on either end for the width. It's a Canadian company, so the rings are in metric with approximate English measurements. There is no 1/8th, I seem to recall. It works well for rolling out cookie dough. Otherwise I use the long straight rolling pin without handles or any tapering that came with my dobard (sp?) that I bought from KAF years ago. I use the pin all the time, but I find adjusting the board for different heights is not worth the effort, as it is too small for most of the doughs I want to roll out. I use that straight pin with a set of pastry wands that I bought from an independent place after it was mentioned on RLB's blog. I love them for rolling out crackers and pie crust.

[Mike Nolan]

Good luck on your kitchen remodeling project, they always take longer than you want them to. The house across the street from us was recently bought by a young couple and they're redoing the kitchen and a bunch of other things. (The house was built in the 60's and nearly every room on first floor has a step up or step down from another room, they have--or will soon have--little kids so all those steps have to go.) They were hoping to be done by the end of July, but I think the contractor is still working on stuff. And now the house next to theirs is apparently undergoing some changes. (Both the owners have passed away in the past year and the house needs a lot of updating, plus it may have termite issues, several of the houses in this neighborhood do.)

[BakerAunt]

Our first phase of remodeling on the house took longer than expected, so I'm anticipating this one will as well, especially since we also plan to have the front bedroom extended over the front of the house, and will be taking part of the downstairs bedroom closet for the kitchen. The front part of the house is original, built in 1907, but it had some not great 1960s remodeling decisions (in one case a major structural one, and there were also electrical issues). We did a first phase of remodeling almost four years ago. The back part of the house was added on in the 1960s at the same time as the remodeling, and it had more issues than the 1907 part.

I may start a thread on kitchen remodeling thoughts. I do not have it pinned down yet.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

Tonight I made a double batch of dough for my Sourdough Cheese Crackers. (There is no such thing as "discard" sourdough in my kitchen.) I'll let it refrigerate for a few days, then bake it.

[Mike Nolan]

I'd welcome some threads on kitchen design, there were some good ones back on the KAFBC.

We spent a lot of time designing our kitchen. The counters and cabinets are all deeper than the standard, the top drawer under each counter has a pull-out so there's expandable work surface area, there are multiple types of surfaces (butcher block, granite and marble) at several different heights. (I could use an even higher counter for some tasks, I've been tempted to buy a 24x36 butcher block that is at least five inches thick to build up an area for my baking work, as I'm 5 inches taller than my wife, but it'd cost at least $500 and would weigh at least 40 pounds.)

One thing I wish we had added is some kind of stainless steel surface next to a sink for easy cleanup after doing something like cutting up a chicken.

The floor surface is another area where I MIGHT have done something different. We put in a slate surface tile, because we were concerned that a smooth surface tile might get too slippery. The problem is that the surface has lots of little places where dirt collects. A steam cleaner seems to be the best solution for keeping the tile clean. I've considered ordering commercial kitchen mats a few times.

The overall kitchen dimensions are 17 x 18 feet, with a center island that has a prep sink on one side and an electric cooktop on the other. There's also a dual fuel 48" range on one wall.

The home kitchen design 'experts' spend a a lot of time talking about the 'work triangle' but commercial kitchens follow different rules, as one of their goals is to have multiple work areas so several people can be working at once. (If you do a good job with mise en place, it doesn't matter whether the refrigerator and freezer are 2 steps away or 10.) We once hosted a party with 3 professional chefs doing the catering, they loved our kitchen!

[BakerAunt]

Friday morning I tried a new recipe, "Peach Oatmeal Bread," from KAF's Whole Grain Baking, p. 57, since I had the rest of the peaches to use up, and I feel that I have not used this baking book enough, although I've probably baked more of its recipes than from my other KAF baking books. I followed the recipe except that I substituted in buttermilk and adjusted the baking powder and baking soda accordingly. I also reduced the salt from 1/2 to 1/4 tsp., since I had increased the baking soda by 1/4 tsp. Instead of using a 9x5-inch loaf pan, I used two 7 1/4 x3 1/2 loaf pans. (I found them years ago and bought them for an apple-cheese bread recipe I have.) The breads are now cooling on a rack. One I will freeze, and the other will be for desserts and tea/coffee time the rest of the week.

[Rascals1]

I've never tried making crackers it just seemed like to much trouble.

[Italiancook]

Rascals, I always thought that, too. But I recently read KAF's blog & found an article about how to make homemade crackers. It was still there a couple of seconds ago. I'm thinking I might try the cheese cracker recipe they have. Just to say I've made crackers once.

[Italiancook]

Yesterday, I baked Almond Fruit Bars from Martha Stewart's website. After they were in the oven, I wondered what I was thinking. I couldn't understand why I'd make a recipe that has 2 types of sugar and store-bought jam that has 2 types of corn syrup -- so much sweet. I ended up throwing them in the trash after baked and cooled . . . but not before having 3 servings. They're delicious!

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Italiancook.

[Mike Nolan]

I have made crackers a few times, never thought they were worth the effort it took. A sourdough cracker sounds interesting, but with my wife's problems with sourdough, I don't have a starter to work with.

[BakerAunt]

I will post my variation on the KAF recipe Sourdough Cracker recipe. I don't recall if I posted my variation on the rye crackers in the KAF 200th Anniversary Baking Book. I'll have to look.

I find that some of the KAF cracker recipes are over complicated. Instead of rolling all the dough out, as some of the recipes state, I've found that dividing it and working with a smaller amount at a time is easier. As for moving the crackers individually to a cookie sheet--it's not going to happen. I cut them on the parchment, slide the whole sheet onto the cookie sheet and bake.

Mrs. Cindy advocated using a pasta machine to get nicely thin crackers, but I don't have one, so I've not tried it.

If you think that the ingredients in store-bought bread are scary, try reading the ingredients in store-bought crackers!

[Mike Nolan]

I have used the pasta roller attachment for my KA mixer once or twice to make cracker dough, it worked reasonably well. It isn't very wide but for crackers that's not an issue.

[BakerAunt]

Here's the Rye Crisps recipe:

Rye Crisps

I'll get the sourdough one posted this weekend.

[Italiancook]

Thanks for this recipe, BakerAunt. First, I'm going to try KAF Vermont Cheese Crackers. I just need cheese powder. This recipe uses KAF Italian-style flour. I have a lot of that, and I need to use it all soon. Their blog, as I recall, says the Italian-style flour is good for crackers. It makes it easier to roll the dough thin. Have you ever used Italian-style for any of your crackers?

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Italiancook.

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