Search Results for '("C'

[Mike Nolan]

I'm an active poster on the BBGA forum, and I've learned a lot there. Many of the people there are professionals in all the best senses of the word. I consider myself a persistent amateur or in BBGA terminology a 'serious home baker'.

I am kind of curious as to how my name came up, though.

I'm glad you found a place to develop your skills in a working environment.

There are a number of bakeries in Lincoln but I'm the only BBGA member here, there are only 4 in all of Nebraska. A lot of BBGA programming has historically been aimed at people on the east or west coast and occasionally in Chicago (like WheatStalk), that may be a factor in their low membership here.

[navlys]

My husband loves brownie brittle. I found a Betty Crocker mix at Dollar tree. You had to mix it by hand and press it into a pan. It was a pain to make but it turned out amazing. I believe it has been discontinued but I found more at another DT. Finally I realized that I could use my mixer with the paddle. It was now a piece of cake (brittle) to make. I don't know what kind of cocoa was used but I did read that the mix contained some GMO ingredients. The expiration date is November something but that doesn't matter to me. This brownie brittle is much better than Sheila's.

[navlys]

I love(d) imported swiss cheese. The brand I liked in Florida suddenly tasted bland??? Maybe it was me thought I. Then recently my favorite brand here in Pa. lost it's sweet and nutty taste. It so happens I had some of the same brand from 2 different delis and even my husband tasted the difference. Putting on my detective hat I discovered my delicious "imported" swiss cheese is now being made in the US. Also the real imported cheese is made with unpasteurized milk which I guess is a no no here. How one deli had the real thing is a mystery to me and you can imagine how knowledgeable the deli manager was when I spoke with her. All she could talk about was the shortage problem. I'm now stepping off my soap box.

[BakerAunt]

On Tuesday, I baked my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from the dough I made up last week.

I also baked an adaptation of Jane Brody’s Pumpkin-Rye Bread from Jane Brody’s Good Food Gourmet (1990), pp. 416-417. I recall baking this bread back in the 1990s, when I kneaded it by hand--and that is a lot of dough as it makes three loaves. I liked it a lot. My adaptation is an effort to make the bread more wholegrain, since the original recipe uses 3 cups rye and 6 1/2 cup AP flour. I also needed to replace the butter.

I replaced the milk with buttermilk and the 4 Tbs. butter with 3 Tbs. olive oil. I used 4 ½ tsp. yeast, which is the equivalent to two packets, although she states that would be a scant 2 Tbs. I reduced the molasses slightly from ½ cup to 1/3 cup. I used Bob’s Red Mill dark rye flour (she says wholegrain rye flour). I replaced 3 cups of the AP flour with BRM whole wheat flour and used 3 ¼ cups BRM artisan bread flour. For the pumpkin, I used 2 cups of puree from the hybrid pumpkin I roasted yesterday. (She used canned pumpkin and said if using puree to drain the water, but I left it.) My rising times were longer, which is to be expected with my changes. I baked the three loaves at 400F, as stated; mine needed 35 rather than 30 minutes. They smell good but are a bit overly dark; next time I would reduce the heat after starting to 375F. The bread did not have much oven spring. I will evaluate taste and texture tomorrow. I will try the recipe again, as I have another 2 cups of the hybrid pumpkin puree. I might only use 2 cups of the dark rye next time and 4 cups of whole wheat flour.

[BakerAunt]

Italian Cook makes an excellent point. That was how I ended up with that odd package of fish rather than salmon. Of course, it doesn't help that the packaging is so similar.

Dinner on Tuesday was black-eyed peas with brown rice and diced ham (also sauteed celery and the last two yellow, long bell peppers picked a while back when green, parsley, and dehydrated onion. We have enough for another two dinners.

[BakerAunt]

On Monday, I roasted one of the hybrid pumpkins (spaghetti squash-pumpkin) from our garden. In the spring, Scott had planted seed from a spaghetti squash I bought at the farmer’s market last year, but as they grew, we knew we did not have a spaghetti squash on our hands but what looked like a tall, narrow pumpkin. When I cut it open, the inside texture was definitely pumpkin. It took about 1 hour and 45 minutes to roast and soften. I pureed it in the food processor and ended up with a scant 4 cups. It reminds me of the pumpkin I used to cook before I knew about pie pumpkins. I froze half of it and plan to use the other two cups in a Jane Brody recipe for Pumpkin Rye Bread that I will adapt to make more whole grain. That will be a project for tomorrow

For dinner, I roasted cubed sweet potatoes and used toasted panko to coat chicken cutlets that I roasted as well. We had microwaved fresh broccoli—the last of the organic broccoli that I got at the farmer’s market over a week ago.

[BakerAunt]

On this Monday afternoon, I am experimenting by roasting one of the two spaghetti squash-pumpkin hybrids from our garden (see this year's gardening thread). The final fruit looked like a narrower than tall, small pumpkin. I cut it in half, and the interior, my husband agrees, certainly looks more like pumpkin than the spaghetti squash interior. Thus, I am roasting it cut side down, as I do with pumpkins. After it bakes, I will see if it is worth pureeing for baking use. Stay tuned.

[Mike Nolan]

I am baking a sweet potato pie this morning. No real change from the last few, except that I made the filling last night, refrigerated it overnight, and used a stick blender on it this morning to smooth out lumps.

I think I may have over-baked it a bit, it cracked all the way around about a third of the way from the rim, but this filling is pretty stiff (I'm using heavy cream in it) and I may need to tinker with the baking time/temp.

I'm sure it'll still taste great, though.

[BakerAunt]

Sorry, I mistyped. It should be that baking soda has 4x the rising power of baking powder. I have corrected the original post. Baking soda, however, does not have the lasting power of baking powder, so once it is wet, the item needs to get to the oven and not sit around. I also meant to write that replacing baking soda with baking powder would NOT make much difference in the rise. I've corrected that error as well. (I hate doing my typing in an open concept room with a dog and a husband asking for attention.)

I have substituted dutch process cocoa for natural and I follow the directions from Cass and replace the baking soda with 4x the baking powder. I'm not sure if dutched cocoa needs to be treated differently.

[cwcdesign]

Just a quick one - Does baking powder have more rising power? (You have baking soda twice in the sentence - hah) I remembered that KABC had an article about cocoa powder and baking soda/baking powder. Here's what I found at the very end of the article

"If a recipe calls for natural cocoa and baking soda, and you want to use Dutch-process cocoa, substitute an equal amount of Dutch process cocoa but replace the soda with twice the amount of baking powder, leaving the remaining ingredients the same.

If a recipe calls for Dutch-process cocoa and baking powder, and you want to use natural cocoa, substitute an equal amount of natural cocoa but replace the baking powder with half the amount of baking soda, leaving the remaining ingredients the same."

[navlys]

I made steak and ale soup from cuisine at home. I found it to be very bitter (I assume from the ale)and it was tasteless. So I threw in some poultry seasoning, some various Penzey medleys and finally a tablespoon of sugar did the trick. It turned out delicious but I could never duplicate it.

[cwcdesign]

We’re going to have turkey soup from the freezer and the rest of the blue cheese bites (see Baking 12/12) for dinner tonight

[Mike Nolan]

We use white vinegar in the laundry room and for most cooking but use apple cider vinegar (the real stuff not the 'apple cider flavored' stuff) for dealing with calcium build-up.

The higher concentrate stuff is hard to find here, and trickier to use. 20% can be used (with masks and gloves) as a weed-killer spray, it'll kill the foliage but not the roots, so it can regrow.

[BakerAunt]

A while ago, I bought some ginger syrup from King Arthur but was unsure how I would use it. (Hey, I like ginger.) KABC had a recipe for Soft Ginger-Molasses Cookies, but of course it used butter. On Saturday, I used that recipe as a starting point to develop my own oil-based cookie. I made a half recipe just in case it did not work out. I used white whole wheat flour and added 2 Tbs. milk powder (BRM). I used ¼ cup avocado oil plus 2 Tbs. water in place of a stick of butter. As oil cookies tend not to flatten out, I used a drinking glass to flatten the dough slightly after scooping them out with a # 30 scoop and rolling each ball in coarse white sugar. My cookies baked well, and the texture is soft although not quite as light as a butter cookie would be. They are about the same size as the original recipe’s cookies, and I ended up with 15 (half of original recipe claims that would be 21). The spice flavor is mild, which my husband likes, and I like that they go well with a cup of tea. It’s possible that the spice may become more pronounced after a day.

[BakerAunt]

I have not tried the self-cleaning on my Wolf oven of 1 1/2 years ownership. It has the high-heat oven self-clean, so I am wary. I will have to try that vinegar trick. I also recall using a baking soda paste (with water) to clean my Thermador after getting the control panel repaired, although I was cautious with the self-clean before that, perhaps using it once a year, and not doing it for the recommended three hours, which was not needed.

We had some turkey liquid drip off the foil onto the oven bottom, but after I later made pizza, I was able to wipe it off.

One of the busiest times of the holiday season for oven repair is the Thanksgiving-Christmas period. According to a salesperson at the appliance store, she saw many ovens, of various brands, where the locking mechanism, which kicks in when the self-clean is on, would then not unlock.