I hope it will be a good strawberry season locally this year. They have spoiled me, and I now ignore those in the store.

I made dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers on Monday. It will rest in the refrigerator and be rolled and baked next week.

I also baked cornbread muffins in my two Nordic Ware heart pans to go with the soup I made for dinner.

On Tuesday, I baked Lime-Pecan Biscotti, an oil-based recipe that I have been developing from a butter-based one that appeared years ago in Bon Appetit for Lemon-Walnut Biscotti. I continued tweaking it, this time by making it 2/3 white whole wheat, slightly reducing the sugar, and cutting the salt. I also increased the lime juice to offset the wholegrain. The limes I used did not have good skin for zesting. The biscotti are good, and my husband enjoys them, but they would be better with the zest.

I had seven remaining Winesap apples that needed to be used, so Wednesday morning, I was checked out “apple cake” at Smitten Kitchen and found “Mom’s Apple Cake.”

Although it calls for six apples, I decided that seven small Winesaps would work. I do not peel my apples, and that usually works well in cakes, so I did not peel these. I tweaked the recipe slightly by substituting 1/3 barley flour, by weight, for that much AP flour. I used King Arthur as the AP flour, since the gluten would take a hit from the barley substitution. I also added 2 Tbs. Bob’s Red Mill Powder to the flour mixture. Deb Perelman says her family never uses the walnuts (her Mom cut this recipe out of a woman’s magazine a long time ago), but I like walnuts with apples and knew it would give the cake some texture. I have a dark, heavy one-piece tube pan, so I reduced the temperature to 325F. I baked it on the second rack up in my oven—the usual position for breads and large Bundt cake pans—and baked for 90 minutes. As the recipe states, I let it cool completely in the pan before running a spatula around the edges and inverting it onto a plate. (It came out cleanly. The trick is not to let any of the apple coated sugar-cinnamon pieces touch the sides of the pan when assembling the cake for baking.) We each had a slice for dessert tonight, and it is excellent. I'll definitely bake it again next apple season.

I finished the doggy safe hot cross buns. It made 28 buns, good rise, nice texture tasty. I am very pleased with these. This one had everything to make it keep longer -- potato flour, tangzou paste, and it started with a poolish to add flavor and save on yeast. The next regular batch will be buttermilk based. If you can't tell I am making up for lost time with a splurge of Easter baking. I might be overly ambitious.
I'll have to start the whole wheat versions soon -- I like the fruity ones and I have a very plain version almost not worthy of the name for a diabetic friend.

I baked another adaptation of Ellen’s Buns on Saturday so that we could have sandwiches with some of the leftover roast chicken. I realized that it has been over a year since I pulled out this recipe, probably because it is my go-to recipe for when we travel, which we have not done in this continuing time of pandemic. My changes involve working toward at least half whole wheat flour (1 ½ cups), incorporating flax meal, replacing the butter with olive oil, and replacing ¾ cup of the water with buttermilk. I increased the buttermilk by 2 Tbs. (to 7 oz.) to account for the increased whole wheat flour. I replaced the 2 Tbs. sugar with 1 Tbs. honey, and of course I reduced the salt by 25%. I used just 2 tsp. yeast. The taste is excellent, and they have the soft bun texture we prefer.