Every year I make the German stolen that my German neighbor Gerta introduced me to 43 years ago. I actually watched her make it but I could never duplicate hers! I used to search far and wide for the farmers cheese she used, I purchased the Dr Oetker essences and I hunted down lard at the local supermarket. My husband insists I make it anyway and now it is a tradition. Every year it comes out differently. This year I replaced the farmers cheese with cottage cheese. I also substituted extra butter for the lard. I couldn't find the Dr Oetker baking powder so I used my regular baking powder. ( I also discovered that the German baking powder in the packet wasn't the same as our baking powder)! I didn't have the essences either so I substituted extracts. Well this year I did not overbake the loaves but they spread out like never before. The non crunchy part tastes good. Oh well there's always next year.

My open container of SAF Gold is just about done so I went rummaging through my chest freezer and came up with a pound that has an expiration date of June 2022. I figure it should be good so I opened it and used a 1/4 teaspoon to make a pizza yesterday (just one pizza, 160 grams of flour). As I expected, the yeast is fine (SAF Gold is a trooper!).

I changed up my dough recipe a little, I normally use equal amounts of AP, Whole Wheat, Semolina and sometimes Rye. Yesterday I used 50% Semolina, 25% each of Rye and Whole Wheat. It came out great although I noticed a little more of the whole wheat flavor than normal. I formed the crust by hand, very easy, and toppings were sliced chicken meatballs and mushrooms. I sliced fresh mushrooms and roasted them until the liquid they gave up was all gone. The result was golden brown with a very nice flavor.

I made two large and one small loaf of the Maple Oatmeal Wheat bread this morning.

I am craving sugar cookies. Instead of giving in and baking my lovely butter ones (I'm saving my butter splurge for the Pfeffernusse), I googled oil sugar cookies and looked at the top three. I liked one but decided to look further. It turned out the one that I liked was taken directly from the Betty Crocker website. I read the comments and thought about the two oil-based cookies that I do bake--Big Lake Judy's molasses cookies and King Arthur's spiced rye cookies. I also considered the oil-based maple cookie that I am developing. Some commentators found the cookies too oily, bland, or tasting of baking powder.

I set to work. I used half white whole wheat flour, so that I can claim some nutritional value. I added 2 Tbs. of milk powder, since it seems to help with taste and texture in cakes, and again, it upped the nutritional profile. I cut the oil from 2/3 to 1/3 cup. The recipe stated vegetable oil; I used avocado. I also cut the baking powder from 2 tsp. to 1 tsp. I added ¼ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg to the wet ingredients. I made sure to beat the oil and sugar together well, then added the eggs, the vanilla, and the nutmeg. I mixed the baking powder with the dry ingredients and added half to mix before adding the other half. I used a #30 scoop and got 17 cookies, which I put on two parchment lined baking sheets. First, however, I dropped each cookie in red and green sugar. I pressed them down a bit. I lowered the baking temperature from 400F to 375F. I baked the first tray for 12 minutes, which got them a bit browner on the bottoms than I like, so I did the second for 11 minutes. The result is a very nice, slightly cakey cookie to go with tea!

Thank you, Joan. Let me know if you want me to post my working copy of the recipe, and I will do so.

We used up the bread on Saturday, so I baked two loaves of my version of Grape Nuts bread. I have been trying to make it more whole grain, but the whole wheat flour was covering up the malt flavor, so this time, I used white whole wheat flour and increased the malt by a tablespoon. I hope it will hit the taste and texture of past loaves. Otherwise, I may have to go back to more of the regular flour.