I baked a new recipe on Monday morning: "Pear Spice Muffins," by Ellie Krieger. It appeared in The Washington Post. I’d post the link, except that it would count against any free views that I might have left. These muffins use date sugar and whole wheat pastry flour. I chose the walnut option for nuts. My only change was not to peel the Bosc pear that I used. The batter, which uses buttermilk and applesauce, was very puffy. It filled the muffin cups, but that was fine, as the muffins have a lower dome. We each had one at lunch, and again as dessert at dinner. They have a somewhat spongy texture. I like the cinnamon, ginger, and clove spice mixture. Saturated fat is less than 1g per muffin. Although I’m glad that I tried the recipe, I don’t think that I would go to the trouble of getting date sugar to bake them again, as I like a muffin with a firmer texture.

Joan, if you like blueberries, lemon, and coffeecake (! and who doesn't?) you might like to look at KAF recipes for:
1. Blueberry Lemon Coffeecake. I've made this many times, but with a change to the streusel. I use lemon juice powder in place of all the lemon zest, oil, etc. And, I like the flavor best without any brown sugar. I've only seen it at KAF, it is a little expensive, and I haven't found a substitute for it. But, if you want lemon flavor -- this is it! And it's perfect with blueberries.
2. Lemon Streusel Coffeecake. This recipe uses the lemon juice powder in the streusel, but it is made with brown sugar, and I prefer white sugar. But it does give you a sense of using the lemon juice powder.

I'm going to take a peek at the buckle you made.

Yes, my date sugar came from Bob's Red Mill. I added it to an order, especially for trying this recipe. I may have another recipe for it in my stash as well. Although the package says that date sugar can be substituted in recipes for date sugar, Ellie Krieger says it behaves more like flour (it isn't really "sugar") and suggests increasing the flour in her recipe by 1/2 cup and decreasing the applesauce by 1/2 cup if replacing it with an equal amount of brown sugar.

Bob's Red Mill has discounts for purchases by the case. I usually order their flours, grains, seeds, beans, powdered milk by the case. They have various email promotions with discounts as well. Orders over $59 ship free. (You don't want to know what regular shipping would cost!)

Joan--I find that King Arthur tends to overdo the streusel, so I usually cut back, especially now that I have to watch saturated fat intake.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by BakerAunt.

I'm back in the kitchen and baking! For many years I've been saying "No, I'm not going to start making bagels; I don't need bagels, etc" So, my sister suggested we take a bagel class at KAF, wouldn't I like to do that?" Hahaha! I said "Sure, I'd love to. But we should really try making some on our own first, so we know what to look for and what questions to ask in class." On my way home from Maine, I stopped at KAF and bought nondiastatic malt powder. Today I made the bagels, using the Water Bagels recipe on the KAF website. I made half the dough into cinnamon=raisin, by kneading them into the dough just before shaping. The other half I sprinkled with seeds, onions, garlic, salt just before baking. I shaped half of them as suggested in the recipe (make a ball of dough, poke your finger through and sort of twirl and stretch) and half of them I patted out the dough and cut with a doughnut cutter. They smelled wonderful, but look terrible! Both varieties taste great. I need to work on the shaping; it will get better I know. The insides are dense but not tough chewy. The outside is very chewy, too chewy for my preference, I'd like to keep my teeth a few more years! I'll do some research on line to see what I can do to soften the outside. I used bread flour, so I know I could lower the protein by using AP. But I don't want to lose the denseness and chew of the inside. Maybe use less of the malt powder in the boil, or maybe bake for less than 20 minutes. I might also call the KAF chat line and ask. It will be a couple of months before they have a bagel class. Anyone here make bagels? Novice or expert help would be fine!

Baker Aunt - I neglected to tell Joan that she should consider cutting the streusel amount in half! I usually make the full recipe, but freeze half for the next bake. So thanks for sharing that information!

Thanks Mike! I have both of those books, so will read over what he has written and probably try both recipes. My plain bagels look a lot better than the raisin-cinnamon version -- there are lumpy raisins sticking out all around the bagel! I made 18 bagels instead of the 12 the recipe called for, since we want them smaller than the usual bakery bagels. I shaped the dough into balls (for once, I let go of my OCD and just eye-balled the dividing instead of using the scale) and let it rest, then flattened and did not let it rest again. I guess maybe I need to be more particular when I poke and twirl. I did use the malt powder in the water bath, as the recipe called for it. I'm pretty sure I have some barley syrup in the pantry, although I don't know why, so I'll try that at some point, too. So you sometimes use just plain water for the boil?

I baked the Chocolate Chip Loaf Cake from jennycancook.com. It turned out a little dry, probably because I didn't use the nuts called for in the recipe. I didn't check on it when I smelled chocolate burning. It wasn't burnt, but it was more brown than I would have preferred. So I'm blaming the dryness on the baker, not the recipe.

I like Jennycancook also.I've made the spice cake and it's good and the right size for us.