My wife helped her mother make apple strudel dough during the preparation of the Nebraska Centennial Cookbook, which her mother edited, testing nearly every recipe. She said they used the largest table in the house and the dough nearly reached the floor anyway.
The recipe I'm planning to use (from Lil Vienna) uses just 1 cup of flour, vs the 2 1/2 cups in the recipes in Centennial Cookbook, and based on the pictures it looks like it should fit on my work table.
I made another batch of yogurt today.
For tonight's dinner, I've whipped up Penzey's Ensalada de Quinoa--a double recipe, except for the Feta, as I only have one container of it. I had to leave out the red onion, due to my husband's sensitivity, and alas, I'm out of green onion. I put in the remaining dried Penzey's chives (about 1 tsp.), 3/4 tsp. Penzey's dried roasted onion powder, and some of Penzey's Mural of Flavor to try to compensate. I always omit the cilantro.
I'll serve it with my Turkey and Zucchini Meatloaf with Peach-Dijon Mustard glaze that I will start in about 40 minutes so that we can eat around 6 p.m.
Every year, my high school German club held an Apfelstrudel Social fundraiser. Frau Hodjera, who was from Germany, had us peeling and slicing apples. When the time came to make the dough, we had a sheet on a large table, and people would be distributed around the table to pull the dough out as thin as possible before the apples, sugar, and cinnamon(?) were put in and the the dough shaped as a horse shoe. We also made homemade vanilla ice cream to go with it. We sold it by the slice--with one to be auctioned off. Frau Hodjera ALWAYS bid the highest and took it home with her.
The had some new crop Jonagolds at the store today, they're supposed to be a good cooking apple if they're fresh (they get mushy when stored), so I may be trying something, possibly strudel dough, tomorrow.
I found a strudel recipe that looks like it will fit on my new work table.
I'm having some vision issues lately (difficulty focusing on close-up items, like books or recipes), so if I'm working from a recipe it is sometimes more of a work (and eye-strain headache) than I'm up for. I've got an eye doctor appointment scheduled, it may be time for me to have cataract surgery.
This new computer does a better job zooming in on things so I can read them, but the touchpad is so sensitive I wind up clicking on things I didn't mean to click on. I've lost a few posts that way already, and had to retype them.
Pate Fermentee sort of falls in between the cracks here. Sometimes called 'old dough', it varies from other preferments in that it often has most of the ingredients in the final dough, most notably some salt.
Salt is the friendly enemy of yeast, use enough of it and it will pretty much kill off the yeast. Salt is hygroscopic so it sucks up water that the yeast can't use to grow. (So does sugar.) But slowing down the yeast a bit can be a good thing if it allow more time for enzyme action, which breaks the complex starch in the wheat down into simpler sugars, generally maltose.
Peter Reinhart and others have written about the trade-off decisions bakers, especially commercial bakers who have a production schedule to meet, have to make, preferments trade a bit more time for more flavor. (A full-fledged sourdough starter is the ultimate preferment.)
Chad Robertson's Tartine Bakery books talk about acid balance in a sourdough, referring to the balance of lactic acid producing bacteria (LAB) and acetic acid producing bacteria (AAB). The AAB prefer colder temperatures, so if you refrigerate your starter, as most home bakers do in between baking sessions that may be a week or more apart, your sourdough is going to have more AAB and less LAB. (I have a tendency to get this backwards, but the LAB prefer higher temperatures.) Acetic acid produces a harsher more assertive sour flavor in bread.
One way around this is to prepare a young or immature starter by using only a very small amount of the mother starter culture (Robertson uses 5%) when making the levain for a batch of bread that is kept at room temperature. This way the LAB have their preferred growing conditions.
On Tuesday, I worked with the sourdough whole wheat bread recipe that started as the Whole Wheat Sourdough Pan Bread recipe in Sunset’s Bread (1st edition). I baked my first variation on May 20, and, as those first loaves were slightly dry, I further altered when I baked it again on September 18. Those loaves were not dry and were delicious. I made one additional change this time by adding 1/3 cup flax meal. It was a bit cool in the house, but my husband warmed it up with the wood stove. When it was time to bake, I had the oven set at 400F, but I reduced it to 375F after putting in the loaves. Doing so gives my sourdough breads better oven spring, and this one is no exception. The two loaves are now cooling, and I look forward to slicing one at lunch tomorrow.
Dinner on Monday was stir-fry, made with leftover pork, soba noodles, green onion, carrots, celery, red bell pepper (from our garden), mushrooms, broccoli, and the deglazing from when the pork was cooked. We have enough left over for dinner tomorrow.
For a special Sunday breakfast, I made Cornmeal-Rye Waffles (a half recipe) from the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking book. I highly recommend it. I do cut the salt in half and replace the melted butter with canola oil--about 2 1/2 Tbs. for a half recipe. I had to use 2 Tbs. AP flour, as I was short on cornmeal.
Our weather has been warmer as well, with one day near 80F but most days with a high in the 70s and lows in the mid to upper 50s. I'm hoping the large green peppers will start turning red, so that we can pick them before the first freeze. Our drought continues. We need the lake level to rise from a good week of rain so that we can get the boat off the lift and put away for the winter.
Nothing planned here supposed to be fairly hot today (87) but by Thursday we may hit the 20's. So I probably won't bake anything today.
On Saturday, I pulled more pumpkin out of the freezer and baked a pumpkin cake in my Nordic Ware Baby Pumpkin Cake pan. My starting point was the recipe that came with the pan, but I made some changes. I replaced 2/3 of the AP flour with whole wheat pastry flour. I reduced the sugar from 1 1/3 cups to 1 cup plus 2 Tbs. I reduced the salt from ¾ to ½ tsp. I replaced 1/3 cup butter with ¼ cup canola oil plus enough buttermilk to make 1/3 cup. I added 2 Tbs. BRM milk powder and 1 Tbs. flax meal. Since I was using homemade pumpkin puree, I deleted 1/3 cup water. I also omitted the pecans. I also changed the mixing directions, since if an oil cake is beaten as much as a butter cake would be, it tends to be tougher and drier. I baked it on the third rack up (above center) in my oven.
Instead of 28 minutes, my cake took 45 minutes. That is likely due to the pumpkin puree being more watery, so leaving out the additional water was a good call. The two halves domed a bit more than I would like. I might consider reducing the baking soda from 1 tsp. to ¾ tsp. next time. I cut off the domes and we each had one for dessert tonight. There is plenty of sweetness, so I might further cut the sugar to 1 cup next time. The only spice is cinnamon, so there is just a hint of it, and the pumpkin stars. I will make a glaze and “glue” the top and bottom of the pumpkin together with it for a festive cake for tomorrow’s dessert.
I like the idea behind the approachable load. But is a 2 KG loaf really approachable?
How many people have a mixer that will fit that much dough. My five quart KA will hold and mix about 1 KG if I push it. Then engine is fine if the hydration is high enough but the dough hook and bowl overflow. For mean this would be hand mixed (almost all of my bread is hand mixed now).
Also this is very high hydration which can make it a little hard to handle.
Is this really meant for home bakers?
We had creamed tuna on some croissants we bought at the farmer's market on Sunday. (Biscuits would have been better, we both agreed.)
I made the Apple Bundt Cake recipe from I am Baker. It is delicious, although next time I would add another teaspoon of cinnamon. The caramel glaze adds to the flavor, and I poured it on shortly after the cake came out of the oven so it was very hot and the glaze soaked in nicely. It made a medium size bundt and 4 small one (the size that comes 6 'holes' in the pan). The larger one stuck a little in one spot, but that's OK -- Baker's taste test! I would make this again.
One more thing - webstaurantstore.com has 55 lbs. of Caputo 00 flour for $35+$12 shipping (to Hartford). YMMV.
