Great height, Len.
I'm making the Old Milwaukee Rye bread from TRB today. (No, it doesn't use beer.)
On Tuesday, I made my Spaghetti Squash-Ground Turkey Casserole [Lasagna]. I made my own sauce using 3 (14 oz.) cans diced tomatoes, and adding garlic, dried onion (my husband is still avoiding fresh onion); Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset, tomato paste, sugar, black pepper, a bit of leftover red wine, and Worcestershire sauce. We had it with microwaved fresh broccoli.
There's a whole class of recipes for very soft rolls, often called pillow rolls. I used to eat at a Ryan's Steakhouse in TN when I was there for work, they had these really soft (and quite tasty) pillow rolls that had a honey-butter glaze on them.
As I understand it, the rennet is extracted from both the stomach and upper intestines (ruminants have stomachs that have several sections, so the distinction between stomach and upper intestines is different in ruminants than in humans), so I don't see the Wikipedia article as being that different. Vegetable rennet comes from a variety of sources, maybe that'll be another quiz question some day.
I started the process of making the sauerkraut rye from TRB last night, and am continuing it today with the soaker. Not sure my rye sour is active enough, as I'm not seeing much bubbling, but it's got a nice sour smell. This recipe includes some commercial yeast, so I'm less worried about the strength of the rye sour. It strikes me that the preferment isn't as wet as the starter (80% vs 100%), I don't know if that is having an impact or not.
I hope it comes out well, the plan is to use this bread for supper tonight.
That's an ambitious project, Mike! I'll be reading avidly. Maybe it will tempt me to consider making a rye starter. I wish that I had tried the crispbread recipe before I learned that I have cholesterol issues. Sigh.
On Monday, I baked Yogurt Rye (Chleb Misezany) from Stanley Ginsberg’s The Rye Baker (pp.293-294), a recipe from Poland. I do not have regular yogurt in the house, so I used an equal weight of buttermilk. The recipe is for a single loaf, and as has been the case for small recipes that use rye, my 7-qt. Cuisinart dough hook tends to drill down into the dough, which sticks to the sides of the bowl, and I must keep stopping the mixer and repositioning it to assure even kneading. When kneading for a long time, as these recipes require, that gets old quickly. If we like this bread, I plan to try the dough in the bread machine (the Zo) next time. Instructions for the second rise are to let it rise “well over the top” of the 8x4-inch loaf pan. Sigh—I do not find such instructions all that useful. In the end, it was about 3 ¾ inches above when I put it into the oven, and as I suspected with this kind of bread, there is not much if any oven spring. The bread needed the full 50 minutes to bake. There is an unusual direction to let the bread cool completely in the pan before removing it to cut. (In checking the internal temperature, I put the thermometer in from the side instead of in the bottom of the loaf as I usually do.) The aroma is very nice, so I look forward to slicing into it tomorrow.
On Monday, I baked Yogurt Rye (Chleb Misezany) from Stanley Ginsberg’s The Rye Baker (pp.293-294). I'll put the details on Mike's Coming Through the Rye thread.
As bread was baking, I began rolling out the dough I had in the refrigerator for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. That way I was able to take advantage of the already hot oven (after turning it up another 45F) to bake the crackers.
Yep, that's it. It does a pretty good job browning the bottom crust for apple and cherry pies, the time I made a pecan pie I par-baked the crust first. I don't like a soggy pie crust, either.
Let the pie cool completely, give the pan a twist and it comes free (if it was stuck at all) and you can transfer it to another pie plate. But do it carefully, one time it nearly slid right into and out of the other pie plate and off the countertop!
There's a post on the BBGA forum today that mentions Canadian butter tarts, so of course my mind has been tasting butter tarts all afternoon. (Even the ones in the grocery store in Ottawa were good.) I might have to make some tomorrow, possibly using a sable breton crust. I might make some pastry cream as well, the mousseline tarts (shown at the bottom of this page) were excellent.
My rye sour starter is starting to smell decidedly sour, not sure how much wild yeast it has picked up, though. I'm saving the discards and will be using it for some of the first few breads I try, because at $3 or so a pound for rye flour I'm not just throwing it away!
My plan is to see if I can make all the recipes in Ginsberg's The Rye Baker during 2020. (Not counting variants and add-ins I think there are 78 recipes.) Trying to figure out how much of the discards I can use up will likely influence the order in which I do the first few breads, I'll start with ones that either use commercial yeast or a combination of rye sour and commercial yeast.
I'm going to start on the sauerkraut rye bread first, by popular choice here.
Joan, yeah, that foil pan did a pretty good job. The only thing is with it being rather shallow, it didn't support the high fluted edge I made on the crust, so that melted down in the oven. Good thing I had it on a sheet pan. The pie turned out pretty good except I put in just a little too much thickener (tapioca), I'll have to measure more carefully next time.
Last year, I pulled out a recipe that I had printed from a now defunct website: Mini Apple Bundt Cakes with Marscapone [sic] Bourbon Cream,” by Brooke Jackson. I thought that I was baking six (1-cup) Bundt cake, but the recipe made a LOT more batter than that, and I was grabbing extra small pans left and right. I baked the recipe again, and this time used a Nordic Ware “Quartet” pan, that makes four small cakes and holds about 8-9 cups of batter. It worked perfectly. I made some changes by substituting ¾ cup barley flour for that much AP and reduced the sugar by ¼ cup. I add 2 Tbs. each of Bob's Red Mill milk powder and flax meal. I probably used more than 3 cups grated apple (about four apples). I wasn’t sure about ¾ cup olive oil. Last year I used ¼ buttermilk, ¼ olive oil, and ¼ cup canola. I don’t use the mascarpone cream topping when serving, which is not needed, but I’m sure would be delicious. The cakes bake 45 minutes in the Quartet Bundt pan.
I baked the recipe again on Sunday. I kept all my changes except that I used ½ cup olive oil and ¼ cup buttermilk. I used Jonathan apples this year. It’s a wonderful cake, and I’m looking forward to having a slice for dessert tonight, even though I should probably let them mellow overnight. At least, with the quartet pan, I only cut into one. I’ll probably freeze at least two cakes. Using the typo in the title (which is why I’ve left it here), Rottiedogs was able to find the old website last year and post a link here at Nebraska Kitchen to the recipe.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by
BakerAunt.
I have some roll out pie dough in the fridge that's a few days past it's best by date so I decided to make a small blueberry pie (one pint) because that's what I had on hand. I made it in a foil pie plate, the kind you usually get when you buy a store pie. I just took it out of the oven, it should be cooled down for tonight's dinner.
BakerAunt, I always mix in some oats (old fashioned) when I make pancakes or waffles, whether I use a mix or make from scratch.
On Saturday, I made pancakes or breakfast, using a free mix that Bob’s Red Mill sent me. (Can you tell that I’m a good customer?) It’s an all-in-one mix that includes powdered egg and milk, so all it needs is water. It would be good for camping, or even for quick morning breakfasts for busy people. It makes light fluffy pancakes, which a lot of people prefer. We, however, prefer pancakes with substance, so next time, I’ll probably stir in some quick oats and flax meal
It's not exactly cooking, but I'm starting the week by culturing buttermilk. As it is cold outside (4F when we awoke and 11F when I went to the store this morning), my husband started a fire in the woodstove this morning, so I can set my quart jar near the warm stove, as I did two years ago. I had tried last year to make it on the counter in the garage apt. where we lived during reno, but it needs the consistent warmth.
My local grocery only sells quart bottles of buttermilk--when they even have it--and for the same price I pay for a half gallon in the larger town where we do our major grocery shopping. Weather will determine when we make our next grocery run, so I want to be sure not to run out of what is a staple ingredient in my baking.
