What are You Baking the Week of February 11, 2018?

[RiversideLen]

That recipe is called Beautiful Burger Buns in the KAF Bakers Companion book, and they give credit to Ellen Dill.

Mike, certainly you can make burgers on your sodium restricted diet?

[Italiancook]

Thanks, Swirth for the link. I'm definitely going to make a loaf of bread from this dough now that I've read that suggestion. When I do, I'll post how it turned out.

[wonky]

Aaron and others...I don't know where you live, but I know different apples are available in different areas of the country. Here in the Midwest we have many to choose from, as there are many, many orchards. I like to mix several varieties ...my favorite's would be Honey Crisp, and Cortland. Granny Smith. and Gala would be another great choice. Hope you enjoy your dessert, no matter what you choose.

[Mike Nolan]

Unlike restaurants, I generally don't salt burger meat anyway, but the toppings and the bun are where the salt comes in, pickles, cheese, catsup and mustard all have salt in them. Hot dogs, like all sausages, have a fair amount of salt in them. I haven't tried making lowered sodium buns yet, but that'll happen at some point. (I cut the salt in our regular breads by 50% or more.)

With a 1500 mg daily limit, yeah, I can have a burger or a dog from time to time, but probably just one. Sandwiches are going to be a bigger challenge, deli meats are all heavy on salt.

Most days I've been well under my sodium limit. I'm sure I'm eating healthier and also eating less, and as a result I'm down about 20 pounds since late December, most of that in the first two weeks, so it was mostly water weight.

[chocomouse]

Mike, a favorite of mine is a ground turkey burger with home-made salsa or tzatziki sauce. No salt. And I eat a lot of chicken salad, made with grapes, for sandwiches in the summer. And check out Penzey's salt-free mixes; they are a good salt substitute. I happen to not like beef very much. I could never give up those favorite salty burger toppings on a beef burger, but switching in the turkey makes it easy. It sounds like you're doing a great job giving up your salt and getting results.

[Italiancook]

We are really sold on Moomie's burger buns now that we've eaten them. I had a medium-sized one with BBQ Hamburger, and it was delicious. This evening, my husband used a large one for a fried egg & capacola sandwich. He waxed enthusiastically about the taste and texture of the bun.

[Mike Nolan]

There are ways to vary the Moomies recipe, too. For example you can add a little whole wheat flour or rye flour.

[BakerAunt]

For Valentine's Dinner, I made the KAF Ultra-Thin Crust Pizza, and we each topped it according to taste.

I also baked the Vanilla Pound Cake from KAF's Whole Grain Baking (pp. 384-385). (I reduced the salt to 3/4 tsp.) As I do not have access to my 12-cup Bundt Pan, I tried baking it in one of the Quartet pans and a 3 cup Kaiser Pan. I may have overbaked it a bit. (I've had this recipe test done before and not be done.) We cut up one of the little cakes into small slices, then had sugared strawberries over it and vanilla ice cream. I had planned to bake Valentine's Sugar Cookies, but we did our shopping run to the larger town north today, and Aldi's had lovely strawberries at a great price.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

Mrs. Cindy persuaded me to try Ellen's buns when I needed rolls to take on our Thanksgiving trip back in 2015. We loved them--particularly with turkey sandwiches. I usually make a dozen rolls in a 10x10 inch pan for when we travel.

My variation on the recipe:

Use 3/4 cup buttermilk and 1/4 cup water
Use 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour and 2 cups KAF AP
Add 2 Tbs. flax meal.
I use 2 Tbs. honey in place of the 1/4 cup sugar
I reduce the salt to 3/4 tsp.
I use 2 tsp. yeast.

[Joan Simpson]

Today I baked 2 loaves of Banana Bread.

Mike sounds like you're making great progress!Congratulations!

[Italiancook]

I baked KAF's Banana Cupcakes. I'll frost them with their recipe for Peanut Butter Icing -- it's part of the recipe. The recipe makes 12.

[skeptic7]

Mike, congratulations on your success!

[BakerAunt]

This afternoon, I baked a new recipe, "Bob's Delicious Chocolate Chip Muesli Cookies," because I have a large container of muesli left over from a disastrous banana yeast bread recipe (thank you, Paul Hollywood) I tried a while back. If you are looking for this muesli, they now call it "Old Country Style Muesli." I had hoped to post a link to the recipe on the Bob's website, but the recipe is not there. It is on the muesli bag, which is where I got it.

I followed the recipe, which is pretty much a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe, with the addition of muesli and chocolate chips. I used dark chocolate chips. It made 26 cookies, and I taste-tested three of them warm. (Taste testing is part of the Baker's Oath.) I like the flavor and texture that the muesli gives the cookies. I may try using it in my standard chocolate chip oatmeal cookie recipe in place of the oatmeal.

Bob's Red Mill is now an employee owned company, as Bob, now 89, wanted to preserve the company's mill and values and make sure that it would be run well after he dies. They have free shipping for orders over $50 (no 25 pound bags). The free shipping includes cases, which contain three or four units, at a reduced price. They have internet specials, and if you are fortunate to live near where they sell Bob's products (I once was, sigh), you can even print up to two $1 off coupons per month. Their website is a bit frustrating until you get used to it, and I wish that they had a search engine.

[skeptic7]

I baked a batch of Hot Cross Buns. The original recipe was from a friend who had it from another friend. They were a little underdone. I'm going to reheat in the oven to get rid of some of the gumminess. It can't be any worse than brown and serve rolls. This made a half sheet pan, which I think is a perfect size.
It took a while to knead by hand. Could I use a KitchenAid Mixer on 7 cups of flour, about 4 lbs of dough?

[Mike Nolan]

What size Kitchen-Aid do you have? That'd probably be more than a 4 1/2 quart mixer could handle, but probably OK in the larger models.

I like the Hot Cross Buns recipe in the KAF Whole Wheat book, I make the rolls smaller than the recipe calls for and put them in four 6" round pans.

[Author]

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