Len--I'm fond of pasta in shapes. Think of the alphabet ones, but these are little Christmas trees, santas, and shooting starts. This particular brand is Riese, and it is made in Germany. I've bought similar pasta that was shaped like pumpkins and leaves for fall, and once I found bunny rabbits for Easter. It's the kind of ingredient that I would usually pick up at T.J. Maxx or Tuesday morning seasonally. I suspect that Cost Plus (does it still exist?) and some other stores might carry it as well.
The issue with flax is that the hull is not digestible, so it needs to be ground. Soaking it doesn't appear to work, doing a mash (ie, heating the soaker) might be better, cracking the flax might work, too, but I've never tried that so I don't know how easy it is to do.
I know my nutrimill specifically says not to try to run flax or any other oily seed through it.
I do not keep flax seed to use in baking since dieticians agree that humans cannot digest them whole. I do use flax meal. As I was looking through Living Bread, a new baking book I bought, I found a recipe for Leinsamenbrot, which means Flaxseed Bread. The recipe, which looks like one that I could pull off (although I also need rye flakes and whole wheat flakes) calls for 40 g of flax seed in the soaker.
What I am wondering, and Google is not particularly helpful, is if soaking the seeds makes it possible for the human body to absorb their nutrients, or if they need to be cracked. I don't think it would work to substitute flax meal for the unground seeds in the soaker, as that would make a gelatinous mess. I could buy some and coarsely grind them.
My husband has some issues with sesame seed, so I think that whole flax seeds would not work for him. Unless I can find a workaround, I will have to forgo baking this recipe.
Every now and then, I miss having moderately spicy food, which my husband cannot eat. For lunch on Saturday, I made soup, using chopped red onion that I needed to use up, a chopped small stalk of celery, 2 chopped carrots, a chopped bell pepper, and 2 large cloves of garlic. I cooked those in some olive oil, before adding a can of chopped tomatoes with hatch chilis (mild). I used about a cup of turkey renderings that I accidentally thawed, 3 ½ cups of frozen broth from last year’s Christmas turkey, and 1 ¼ cups of cooked black beans that I’d frozen. (The beans were what I thought I was grabbing from the freezer last night instead of the turkey renderings.) I seasoned with ½ tsp. Penzey’s chili powder and a couple dashes of cayenne (old so not so hot). My final addition was Christmas shaped pasta. It is just what I was craving, and I have enough for lunches into next week.
Yeah, I've got a few books that are on 'healthy' baking/cooking and they seem to assume that ANY bad stuff (fat, cholesterol, carbs, meat proteins, refined sugars, etc) is verboten, even when updated science says some of it may not really be bad at all, much less dealing with moderate amounts of them.
I've got a whole grains book that literally spends at least the first third of the book preaching the benefits of whole grains (mostly in terms of science from the 1970's). Anybody who reads beyond that point to find the first actual recipe was either already converted or is a masochist!
I've baked that sourdough chocolate cake, CWCdesign. It is delicious.
I agree with Mike that the King Arthur baking books are good, and I have baked more than a few recipes from those books-. The Whole Grain baking book is a favorite; I also find the 200th anniversary cookbook very good.
When I started the low-saturated fat way of eating, I looked in vain for a cookbook that would be useful. Searching on line was also frustrating. What I found are "low fat" cookbooks and online recipes that assume all fat is bad (the old message before healthy fats were understood) or recipes that are vegan, which since I keep milk and eggs in my diet, are not useful for me. I've been putting together my own recipes in separate binders--in part so that I don't have to look at recipes that I can only bake when I have more people around to eat them.
On Thursday, I baked my Cinnamon Apple Barley Quick Bread to use the last two Jonathan apples. I adapted this recipe from a Bob’s Red Mill one that was gluten free. I am irritated with myself that I forgot to sprinkle the second layer of apples with the cinnamon sugar, which I only noticed after it was in the oven, although even then it would have been too late, as I had put the batter atop the apples. I sprinkled the top with red and green crystal sugar, so it made a festive presentation. I may adjust the baking powder and baking soda in the recipe, as I think the baking soda loses too much of its oomph as I am layering in the apples and cinnamon sugar.
Aaron--You might check the weight vs. volume measurement for the ingredients in that recipe. I have found in some of the KABC recipes that they must have done a formula conversion from volume, and it is not necessarily accurate. It was why the Spelt bread I made from their recipe always worked with volume but was a disaster when I used their weights. Once I weighed the volume amounts, I realized the difference was substantial. (And yes, I do stir the flour and use a spoon to put it into the measuring cup.)
The Ikea catalog, one of the last of the big 'wish books', will be discontinued after the 2020 edition.
It not only sold Ikea products, it also sold the Ikea lifestyle to yuppies, in a way that the Sears catalog sold products to people during most of the 20th century. (I remember when the Sears Christmas catalog came out each year, my brothers and I would DEVOUR it for toy 'suggestions'.)
Back in March, at the start of the Covid shutdown, I was planning to go to Dallas for a BBGA course Deb and another person were running on sourdoughs, but it got cancelled. I only hope some day they can resume in-person instruction and reschedule it. (So many of the BBGA courses are on the east or west coast, I was glad to see one in the central US.) Deb lives in Columbia MO, so a central US course may be easier on her travel schedule.
BBGA is doing a bunch of online courses, but I'm really more of a hands-on learner.
My guess is that the bread flour, because of its gluten, would produce a less tender scone. I have substituted half whole wheat pastry flour (stone ground from Bob's Red Mill) with good results. Also, using half of the KABC Irish wholemeal flour produces a tender scone.
I stopped using KABC whole wheat flour in favor of Bob's Red Mill because the stone grinding seems to me to improve the taste. It also has those specks of bran.
Thanks Mike. It is, indeed, Deb Wink. I love her site.
I know what you mean about Rose Levy Beranbaum. The white velvet cake recipe my family loves calls for 4.5 large egg whites. That's annoying (and the extra half doesn't hurt). At the same time her buttercream recipe leaves out some important timing. I had two batches break on me before I called my cake boss in a panic as I was making it for a friend's wedding cake. She told me to wait longer before adding the butter and that the color would change... And it's worked ever since even though I rarely make real buttercream. So she is fussy where it is not helpful and omits an extra sentence where it could desperately be used.
I am not going to buy myself any books any more. I just started reading "Sourdough: or Lois and Her Adventures in the Underground Market" and it turns out my wife bought me a copy as a present not knowing I had it...
I've made white velvet cake from the Cake Bible for my son's birthday. We had white icing. Sadly Violet was in a funk (and may even have been mad at me) and did not want to help. It was less fun but went faster.
I made scones for my family and another family whose dad was celebrating his 50th. I used the new bread flour I'd ordered from the small local place and my wife noticed the difference and did not like it. The bread flour is bolted but I have not looked up what that means yet and they do not explain it well on the site. My wife said the scones were too wheaty and less luxurious.
I made a batch of KAF potato buns for the first time. The recipe seems to not have enough liquid. By the time I added the flour and potato flakes (couldn't potato flour except on order) and dry milk the recipe is about 50% hydration. I either need to add more liquid or mix it in my mixer or both. Using my hands did not get it done so I need to do a better job mixing. They were not bun like at all and did not rise very well.
I made a batch of BAs crackers. I really like the whole wheat. I am not sure if it is because it is stone ground or because of the milling process but I can see bit of bran compared to the KAF whole wheat.
I have my sourdough loaf rising in the pans and will bake that later.
Saturday is Donut Day - a made up Jewish holiday that I started when before Violet was born and the boys were little. The first Saturday of Hanukkah is Donut Day. Now though, they want me to make them and they cannot agree on baked, yeasted, or cake. I have created a monster!
I have a couple of Rose Levy Beranbaum books, I seldom look at them. I find her instructions too fussy, sort of like ATK recipes but without the 'you must do it THIS way' attitude, and I've had more out and out fails from her recipes than any other author.
Clayton's books could stand some updating, most of them were written in the 70's (he died in 2011), but he was pretty meticulous and his recipes tend to come out decently, though I think he assumes 5 (or more) ounces of flour per cup.
I generally don't buy multiple editions of a cookbook (The Joy of Cooking is an exception, I collect editions published before 1960), but I may have to buy the 3rd edition of Hamelman's book when it comes out.
I may stop buying Peter Reinhart's books, though, his last pizza book was a major disappointment, too few recipes and too many pictures. I suspect his editors are leading him astray, though.
We haven’t started Christmas baking either, but we’ve started talking about what we want to make.
This weekend I’m going to make some maple pecan (instead of walnut) biscotti to take to some friend who lent me a book several years ago and I just finished it Sunday.
I'm guessing that would be article(s) by Deb Wink, though Emily Buehler's book "Bread Science" is pretty good, too, but neither are light reading material.
I have not seen the book "Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast" but I've seen some positive reviews about it.
Here's a list someone posted of the 5 best books on sourdough. I've got the Tartine book and the first edition of Hamelman (3rd edition is due out next year), neither are beginner books.
sourdough books list
