Yesterday I made Stollen from The Bread Baker's Apprentice For the fruit I used KAF Fruitcake fruit blend that I had soaked in rum for 3 days. I subbed walnut oil for all but 1 tablespoon of butter.

On Monday, I baked my oil variation of my eggnog cake which is posted here at Nebraska Kitchen:

I had bought two Nordic Ware nutcracker cakelet pans from Williams Sonoma two years ago. Each pan holds 6 cups and makes 4 nutcrackers. KAF is selling these (on sale now) on their website and gives the bakeable capacity as 4 cups, so I knew this recipe, which fits an 8-9 cup pan would work. I baked them for 30 minutes on the slightly above center rack, I used the grease on the pans, and it worked well, although there are always those hard to clean crevices when the time comes to wash the pan. The little nutcrackers are cute.

While I was doing the eggnog cakelets, I was also baking Len’s Rye/Semolina/Whole Wheat recipe (substituting in some buttermilk and adding 2 Tbs. special dry milk) as an 8x4 loaf, since my husband casually remarked after dinner that we were nearly out of bread. He and his faithful canine lunchtime companion ate after I did, and they devoured more than I had expected. I used the Zo bread machine, so that I could have the hands-off time to work on the cakelets. Early on, I realized that the dough seemed a bit dry, so I added an additional tablespoon of buttermilk and reset the bread machine to the start of the dough cycle, since it does not mix in additional liquids well once it moves to kneading. The rising times were better than what I have been experiencing, which I attribute to warmer weather here and the fact that last Friday, we had additional insulation put in over the kitchen.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.

On Tuesday night, I baked a pumpkin pie, using the last of the "peanut" pumpkin puree that I’d frozen in November. I realized as I was assembling my ingredients that I had only 2% evaporated milk instead of full fat. At 8:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve in a small town, I either had to use the 2% or not bake the pie (traditional for my husband at Christmas), so I used it. The pie did set up, so I hope it will be fine when we cut it for Christmas dinner dessert.

I had another issue as well that came up when I baked the pie at Thanksgiving, That was with the full-fat evaporated milk, so it would not be related to this other issue. A spot develops in the filling where it bubbles up—not the entire pie, just that one spot. At Thanksgiving it was a 1-inch slit on the left side close to the side, only in that one spot. It didn’t affect the taste, but I’m used to nice smooth tops. This time, I baked the pie one rack higher, thinking maybe the lower shelf was too hot. The pie developed a circular area, about the size of a quarter, where the filling was bubbling. Again, it was along the side. I’ll need to figure out if I’ve altered how I do the recipe, without realizing it, or if somehow this new oven encourages a “break out” with this pie.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.

On Thursday, I made dough for my Healthy Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. I’ll bake them next week.

How lovely to share the baking with your granddaughters, Joan.

At lunch on Friday, I realized we were nearly out of bread, so I baked a single loaf of the basic bread that I baked frequently last year when we were residing in the apt. over the garage during renovation (and no, I don’t feel nostalgic). It mixes up well in a bread machine. I used barley flakes for the rolled grains and used half whole wheat flour. I cut back the honey from 2 Tbs. to 1 ½ Tbs. and increased the oil from 1 ½ to 2 Tbs.

I made sandwich buns today, topped with Everything Bagel topping.