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[aaronatthedoublef]

BA - thanks for the pointer to the gingerbread cookie cutters. They're pretty neat and along the lines of what I want but a little small. But I can search for bigger ones now.

If you all were using something like this would you want plastic or metal?

Pretty cool Navlys. I wonder how often people run into the things you ran into and give up. How many people does that turn off from baking.

Attached is a picture of my biscuits. No leakage! Based on advice from you all and Solveig (the recipe creator) I used my pastry cutter and cut the butter in instead of just tossing it. This is a big recipe and even cutting it back by 60% I still have a lot of dough left over after making two dozen midsize biscuits. Even better, Violet and Kate who both "don't like biscuits" like these! I may also use some for pizza crust this weekend if I make pizza.

The bad news is Violet tested positive for COVID so one more Christmas without Nana and Gramps. We're trying to make this as special for the kids as possible and doing last minute things - like getting a tree - that we had not planned on doing.

I added a picture of Violet's elf, Daisy, who spent a couple days on our gingerbread house. She has been very mischievous this year and has been taking cookies and candy.

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[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday, I baked my Pumpkin Pecan Loaf recipe (6 cups) in a Nordic Ware mini-holiday loaf pan that has 8 wells. It was a perfect fit. I shortened the baking time to 25 minutes, which was just right.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron: Here's a place to start:

https://www.fancyflours.com/product/Christmas-Village-Cookie-Cutter-Set/cookie-cutters-a-to-z

I also think that amid my myriad of cookie cutters I have some that are stamp for making small gingerbread houses. When I get a chance, I will check, although the upshot of our renovation projects (finally finished this month!) is that I have not found some items yet.

Williams Sonoma, back when they were also catering to serious bakers, once had a cast iron set for making a gingerbread house, but it does not have one on the current website. However, they may still exist somewhere out there.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I have biscuit dough chilling in the refrigerator. I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet. I also need to make some bread. We were going to leave for VA today or tomorrow but now Violet has covid and Henry may so we're staying put again. At least we had Thanksgiving. And we may try to head down for New Year's.

I gave Violet a Duff Goldman cookie cookbook for Hanukkah so whatever cookies I was planning are on hold (unless I sneak them in). She has already read through the book twice and is deciding on what to make.

Has anyone seen a set of cookie cutters for cutting out the parts of a gingerbread house? I have some friends who have a maker space - they have tools and knowledge to help you make things. It might be cool to give some people gingerbread house kits that are slabs of pre-baked gingerbread. I'll make them if I cannot find what I want.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike - like you, I am not much of a decorator. I have done it a few times in my life (like my infamous rollercoaster cake). Violet, on the other hand loves this. She could not and did not wait for me to finish putting the house together but began as soon as there was a structure to work on. we even had to remove some of her decorations to allow me to finish putting the roof on. I wish I had some pictures of that process.

Thanks Joan. This is something my nine-year-old clearly loves to do with me and I'm going to keep on hoping it survives her becoming a surly teenager. 🙂

I have been using Grandma's unsulfured molasses. Whole Foods has some black strap but it is hugely expensive and Big Y has big jars of Grandma's on sale so I bought two bottles. I have used it in other cookies but didn't notice the bitter taste.

I think the molasses helps keep things pliable. But I also noticed the gingerbread needs to cure for about 12 hours otherwise it is very soft. So trim the edges right out of the oved then let it sit for a day or so (not in a plastic bag).

BA, I thought gingerbread was actually a cake/quick bread and that the flavors were adopted for cookies like the pumpkin spice-ification of everything this time of year. I also used Crisco instead of butter to reduce the spread and this spreads more on silpats than on parchment which wasn't necessarily bad. I suppose if I were making cookies for eating I would cut back on the molasses, up the sugar a little, and chill them before they went in the oven. Maybe upping the flour some would help them hold their shape too.

[BakerAunt]

For lunch on Monday, and for the next two days, I made Lentils with turnip greens and tomatoes with Hatch chilis. I cooked 2/3 cup mostly brown, and a few red lentils in 2 cups of turkey broth for 30 minutes, while I sauteed onion and celery, then the turnip greens, and onion in another pan in olive oil. I added the garlic, then a can of tomatoes with Hatch chilis, Penzey's Arizona blend, and a bit of chili powder, pepper, ½ tsp. sugar, and ½ tsp. cider vinegar. I added the cooked lentils and simmered briefly. I am working to incorporate more beans and pulses into my diet to see if that helps my cholesterol numbers. I have had to start taking a statin, but I want it to be a low dose. Having beans and pulses as part of my lunch a couple of times a week allows me to do so, since my husband's digestive system cannot tolerate most beans.

On Monday afternoon, I made a chunky tomato sauce using the rest of the tomatoes that were picked green and have turned red on the enclosed porch. I also had some green peppers that were picked before the freeze, and some of them were trying hard to turn red even though off the plant. I sauteed the green pepper with the onion in olive oil, added the garlic, then the tomatoes and cooked until the tomatoes were broken down. I added some rosemary, oregano, and basil, a bit too much Worcestershire sauce (oops), some sugar, and tomato paste from a tube. It is tasty. I will freeze it for future lunches for me.

Leftovers are great, CWCdesign. We had the rest of the beef stew tonight, and I have leftovers from last night for the next two nights.

[Mike Nolan]

What kind of molasses did you use?

I find the decorating the part I'm worst at.

When Necco wafers were discontinued (thankfully only temporarily), I think it was the fans of gingerbread houses who raised the biggest fuss and helped get them back into production.

[BakerAunt]

It is always nice to have more people for whom to bake!

Years ago, King Arthur had an eggnog cake recipe for an odd mold the company was selling. I took that recipe, made major changes, and perfected my eggnog cake, which now uses no butter and also has a cup of barley flour. I had a one-cup container of frozen nonfat eggnog, so on Sunday, I baked the eggnog cake using my two Nordic Ware nutcracker pans (four nutcrackers per pan). They look quite nice. We will start eating them tomorrow, since it is best to let them rest overnight.

[Mike Nolan]

Last week I was on a forum where they were talking about artichokes. I tried growing them from seed several years ago, I did get 2 or 3 tiny artichokes in October just before the frost hit. With the grow lights we have now, I might be able to get them a bit further along before transplanting them outdoors.

They're kind of an interesting looking plant, though I wouldn't call them pretty, they are thistles, after all. (But the other site, a photography forum, had some nice pictures of artichokes in full bloom, BIG purple flowers.)

There was a vendor at the Sunday farmer's market a couple of years ago that was trying to grow enough artichokes to sell them. They had a small basket of them toward the end of market season. They were hoping to mulch them to keep them from dying off when it froze, but they didn't have any artichokes the next year so I'm guessing that didn't work, and that they weren't productive enough to be profitable.

Some people grow them in a large planter, which could be brought in when cold weather arrives, but the plant gets pretty big and I'm not sure where I'd keep them over the winter.

I looked at the possibility of growing them hydroponically, but they need 2-3 weeks of sub-50 but not freezing temperatures to vernalize or they won't produce fruit the next season, and a plant is only good for 5-6 seasons. (And they're so big they'd be a challenge to grow hydroponically at home.)

[BakerAunt]

That is why I bake a gingerbread cake in Nordic Ware molds!

I baked another batch of the Cinnamon Stars (Zimtsterne) on Saturday. I will hide them for a couple of days as they improve with age. I also hope to put a couple on a cookie platter I want to do for neighbors. I had refrigerated the topping that I used the first time and mixed it up and brushed it on. I noticed that it is not as sticky, nor as shiny as the first time.

[Mike Nolan]

The chocolate cream pie is one of the pies we made at SFBI pastry school. The recipe calls for semi-sweet chocolate, I tried 25% milk chocolate this time, and may try 50% next time.

I'm getting more comfortable with using the hand-cranked laminator, I made 700 grams of dough this time, that was enough that I was able to get in 3 letter-fold turns which gives me 55 layers. I split it in half for final roll-out.

It looks like for planning purposes 700 grams of dough will make about 16 chocolatines, as I think they shouldn't be too big. Croissants come in a wider range of sizes, though we prefer small or medium ones rather than the 90-120 gram big ones that are common at bakeries. I need to see if there's a way to reduce the butter leakage, though.

I want to try making a kringle. I might try the O&H recipe that's on the food network site (https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/kringle-recipe0-1941189), it uses egg and lemon extract in the dough. The raw dough has a pronounced lemon odor but by the time it is baked it is much more subtle. I may need to play around with scaling it down. The butterscotch filling that is part of that recipe is great, I've used it to fill Danish.

[BakerAunt]

In my quest for more cookie variety that fits a low-saturated fat way of eating, on Thursday I baked Biscotti al Cioccolato, a recipe from a small cookbook, Biscotti, by Lou Seibert Pappas (pp 26-27). I probably picked up this book from the marked down rack at Barnes & Noble some years ago. These chocolate-hazelnut biscotti do not require added fat, just three eggs, and the recipe uses natural cocoa, which I have but do not use enough. I made two slight changes. I replaced ¾ unbleached AP flour with that much white whole wheat and used the King Arthur AP for the rest. Instead of 1 Tbs. powdered coffee, I used 1 tsp. of the King Arthur espresso powder, which I think is stronger than instant coffee. With slightly damp hands, the dough was easy to form into logs. I have tasted some of the crumbs and think these will go well with either milk or coffee. My husband is not overly fond of them; he does not appear to be a hazelnut fan, but I doubt that will stop him from eating them.

I also made dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers on Thursday. I will bake them sometime next week.

[Mike Nolan]

The only veal I could find for dinner tomorrow (veal marsala) was a bone-in loin chop, so I took it off the bone and am making some veal stock with the bones, I'll use that in the sauce tomorrow. It won't quite be demi-glace, but it'll be good.

[BakerAunt]

Specialty ingredients always disappear when you need them, Aaron! I look forward to pictures of the gingerbread house.

I baked an apple pie on Wednesday with a crumb topping.

I also baked a new recipe, "Seeded Squash Breadsticks," from The Healthy Baker, an ad-free magazine I picked up in CVS last week. It seems to be assembled by Food to Love, a company that carries some specialty and organic grains and flours. What caught my eye is that the recipes do seem to be healthy and not fads.

This recipe was almost half whole wheat and used butternut squash puree. I cut the salt from a tablespoon of sea salt flakes (I assume they meant kosher salt) to 1 tsp. regular sea salt. I used the bread machine to mix the dough. After I shaped the dough, I put on the egg wash before the rise and pressed on some pumpkin seeds, although the instructions were to let them rise, brush with egg wash, then sprinkle with pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and poppy seeds. However, since there were sunflower seeds in the dough, and poppy seed does not go well with my husband, I left out the last two. Rather than breadsticks, these are more like six small, narrow loaves of bread. The dough did shrink back from the 12-inch ropes to about 10 ½ inches. Possibly, a rest period before shaping would help since bread flour is used. We split a warm one with our stew. They were good, so I expect they will be even better when properly cooled.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Violet and I started a gingerbread house a couple weeks ago. The recipe was too small (and my first attempts at cut outs were wonky). I made a double recipe yesterday and will cut it and bake it with V tomorrow. I need to make some royal icing. I found a recipe that works with pasteurized egg whites. I had some meringue powder but cannot find it. The recipe I have is for flooding cookies so I think I'll need to add some powdered sugar to it to stiffen it up for mortar.