Search Results for '("C'

[BakerAunt]

This loaf of Climate Blend sandwich bread has a good texture and crumb. The taste is excellent, as it was the first time I baked it. My husband also says it is much better than the first loaf. If I were to bake it again, I would follow the changes that I made this time.

At the moment, King Arthur does not have the Climate Blend flour (unavailable). I'm not convinced that it is worth paying $5.95 for a 2 lb. bag of flour, which will make just two loaves, but if they have the flour again, I might buy another bag for experimenting.

[BakerAunt]

With the new tariffs (more accurately, consumer taxes) going into effect, we can expect higher prices on a lot of food. Someone at the farmers market today told me that a lot of the seed comes from Mexico, not just fruits and vegetables.

[BakerAunt]

One of the secrets I've learned from you Len is that oil as an ingredient helps keep bread fresher longer. I made the connection with how well your Rye, Semolina, and Whole Wheat buns hold up. I've actually increased the oil a bit in some breads I bake and noticed the same result. Of course, I'm also using buttermilk, but the additional oil helps.

On Saturday, I baked Oatmeal Date Muffins for breakfast. It is a recipe that I adapted from The Los Angeles Times food section which printed it probably over 35 years ago.

In the afternoon, I decided to try the Climate Blend Sandwich Bread again and see if I could improve over my last attempt. I'm giving a detailed description, since I know Chocomouse has some of the climate blend flour to use.

I was going to use just 3 ¼ cups of the Climate Blend flour, which at 426 g would still be over the weight that King Arthur has for 3 ½ cups (402 g). However, I had roughly 3 Tbs. left, so I went ahead and used it for a total of 446 g. (Last time, I used 456 g.) I increased the water from ¼ cup (2 oz.) to 3 oz. (I know, I use grams for dry ingredients and volume measurements for liquids.) As I did last time, I replaced a cup of water with buttermilk. However, this time, I proofed the yeast in the water with about 1 Tbs of the honey, then added it with the cup of buttermilk and the remaining honey to the flour. I mixed it with a dough whisk, kneading a bit at the end, then let it rest for 15 minutes. In the original recipe, the liquid is added to the flour, then instant yeast is added after the hydration with the rest of the ingredients.

At the end of the rest time, I put the soft dough, in chunks, into the bread machine. jI sprinkled the salt (cut from 1 ¼ to 1 tsp.) over it, then started the dough cycle. I drizzled 2 Tbs. of avocado oil into the dough as it mixed. I checked the dough during the kneading cycle, and it had a softer, slightly stickier texture than the first loaf that I made, which is positive. After the kneading cycle finished, I transferred it to a 2-qt. dough bucket to rise, which it did within an hour. The second rise took slightly under an hour. Both rises were much better than when I baked the bread a couple of weeks ago. The bread needed just 35 minutes to bake. It smells wonderful, but it does have a couple air bubbles on the top, as well as one very large bubble.

I will add a note tomorrow on this thread, after we slice the bread at lunch, to report on taste and texture.

[cwcdesign]

Last night I made a tortellini dish that I had been wanting to try. It was basically an Alfredo sauce with mushrooms and tortellini (2 packages), that after you put it all together put under the broiler for a few minutes. I substituted a package of baby spinach for one of the packages of pasta. It was disappointing to say the least - the pasta`was from Trader Joe's and the worst I've ever had from them - texture, flavor, etc. the sauce never really came together and I couldn't taste the mushrooms. Oh, and my pan was hard to clean - hah. Anyway, I wasn't going to throw it away, so tonight I baked a dish of it in my toaster oven. It was an improvement but the pasta itself still had issues.

[BakerAunt]

I've been sticking to Vitacost for flour. I wait until they have a 20% off sale, then order enough items for the free shipping. My sources of vanilla are Ross, Marshall's, as well as TJ Max and the Home Store (when I can get to the two latter, which does not happen often). I like the Nieman-Massey vanilla.

Our local grocery store had a dozen eggs for $4.99. I try to catch the specials. With the spread of bird flu, I do not expect the price of eggs to go down any time soon. Indeed, the price will likely increase.

[Mike Nolan]

I am making a big pot (10 quarts or so) of vegetable beef soup today. We'll eat it for several days and freeze a bunch of it, too.

[navlys]

Crab cakes (with lots of lump crab) were on sale and since they required little prep I purchased them for dinner last evening. I served them with broccoli slaw and some french fries. I don't think our house will ever find peace. We hired the worst contractor in hopes of getting everything done quickly. Big Mistake!

[cwcdesign]

I forgot to post that I made an olive oil lemon cake from the New York Times last Sunday (as Joan can attest, it's been a long week here in Georgia). I had Meyer Lemons from my neighbor that I wanted to use - I still have more. It called for almond flour and AP. They didn't have almond flour so I bought some sliced almonds and ground them in the food processor and I ended up with almond meal since there was still skin on the slices - it added a nice texture. The recipe called for white chocolate which gets melted and mixed with the olive oil before you add any other ingredients. You couldn't taste the white chocolate. I also used some of the Domino golden sugar which was on sale so I bought it. The appeal to me is that it is less processed and I'm not using a lot of sugar these days. We really like this cake - the Meyer lemons give it a subtle flavor. It clledcfor both zest and juice. We talked about how to amp up the lemon flavor a little. Obviously using regular lemons would do it, but I thought maybe adding some lemon juice powder in with the dry ingredients would add flavor without changing the texture which was really nice. Any thoughts?

[BakerAunt]

On Thursday, I baked Whole Wheat Julekake, from Ken Haedrich's Home for the Holidays: Festive Baking with Whole Grains (pp. 178-179). I first tried the recipe about two years ago and made the error of trying to cook it as one loaf in a bread bowl rather than as two loaves on a baking sheet. The result then was an undercooked center and a burnt outside. I wanted to follow the recipe more diligently than I did two years ago but trying to avoid problems.

My changes were replacing the water with buttermilk and replacing another cup of AP flour with whole wheat, using bread flour, reducing the salt to 1 ½ tsp. from 2 tsp. and adding 2 Tbs. special dry milk. I replaced 4 Tbs. butter with 4 Tbs. avocado oil. I used an orange that I brought back from Florida, using just half. The recipe calls for using a food processor to combine the half orange and ¼ cup sugar. I cut the orange into smaller pieces rather than quarters this time, which worked much better. The recipe specifies a ¼ oz. package of active dry yeast or 1 Tbs. That is confusing, as a packet of yeast contains 2 ¼ tsp. yeast. I used 2 ¼ tsp. but I used the special Gold since the sugar content is high. I had trouble with the rise. It was cool in the house until my husband got the fire going in the woodstove, but the dough took more than two hours to almost double. I hate to think what the result might have been with regular yeast. The second rise took about an hour and 45 minutes. The loaves needed the 55 minute-baking time, although I checked them 10 minutes early. I'm not happy that they are burnt on the bottom, and a little darker than I would like on the top. I will let them rest overnight and slice into one at breakfast.

In writing up my experience, I realize that I omitted ¼ cup of water by accident. For various reasons, it was hectic in the kitchen, and I missed that ingredient. That might account for the slow rise, although I ended up adding 2 Tbs. less flour. However, I think the temperature is too high for the sugar content of the bread, which has 1/3 cup honey, ¼ cup sugar, and the half orange with peel. I expect the bread will be edible, although I may have to cut off part of the bottom crust, but I am disappointed.

[cwcdesign]

Joan didn't get the ice storm but we did! The news said that Glynn County got hit the hardest. I will post a pic of our camellia tree tomorrow. We were without power from 5 yesterday morning until 10:15 this morning. Had to shower at a friends house before work. It was cold! And remember I'm from New England. We had so many layers and so many blankets but managed to stay warm enough. Our neighbors have a small generator and offered let us plug in an extension cord (I have 2 exterior ones we used). We were able to use the tea kettle and the toaster oven which really helped. Thank goodness for my hot water bottle! To top it all off - next week is going to be in the 60's! It will feel like a heat wave😂

Will cooked our leftover chicken soup on the grill using the baking steel to make it easier.

[BakerAunt]

Did you end up getting snow, Joan?

I needed to use up the spaghetti squash that I roasted a few days ago, so for lunch on Wednesday, I used it in a variation of my Spaghetti Squash Lasagna/Casserole. As it was only a 1 lb. spaghetti squash, I used a deep 7 x 7-inch ceramic dish. In place of the tomato sauce, I used a can of Del Monte petite diced tomatoes with Hatch chilis (Clearly, my husband is not going to eat this casserole!), which I added to sautéed chopped onion, celery, and garlic. I added one of the containers of white beans that I cooked and froze a month or so ago and a teaspoon of Penzey's Fajita seasoning, which I got as a free sample. I layered this mixture with the spaghetti squash strings. It is delicious and fulfills my desire for a little food spiciness. I have enough for three more lunches.

For dinner tonight, we had more of the turkey, gravy, and mashed potatoes. We microwaved the last of the fresh broccoli.

[RiversideLen]

Flour measurements can drive a person batty. KAF says a cup weighs 4.25 oz, America's Test Kitchen says 5 ounces. If you're an experienced bread maker and making bread it doesn't matter, you can adjust by sight and feel. But if your making a quick bread, cake, cookies etc it's not so easy. The thing is, you don't know what weight was used in developing the recipe.

Today I made a batch of wheat/semolina/rye buns (measured by weight!). Since it's so cold outside, I thought the next couple of days would be good pizza days so I'm in the process of making a small batch of pizza dough. It's about 470 grams and I'm undecided whether to divide it into 2 or 3 pizzas. I have time to figure it out.

[chocomouse]

I made Irish Apple Cream Scones from onehotoven.com with the change of heavy cream to half and half, and the addition of cinnamon bits. I made dropped/scooped scones instead of my usual version baked in the KAF mini-scone pan (much easier and quicker to make "drops"). They are excellent and I will use that recipe again.

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--Trader Joe's prices tend to be high. However, I noticed that Aldi's egg prices have increased lately--more than at my local supermarket. I try to keep an eye out for good deals. Eggs last pretty well, even past the so-called expiration date.

On Tuesday, we paid $4.89 for a carton of 18 eggs from Eggland's Best at our local grocery, which is a good price. I had been buying Eggland's cage-free eggs (1 dozen) for $4, because, ironically, they were cheaper than those from other companies. Our local farmers market was selling a dozen eggs for $4 when I last went three weeks ago. Some of the eggs are smaller than standard eggs.

So, I would say, look around. In the meantime, there are lots of bread recipes that do not require eggs. Cookie recipes are another matter! However, using an egg or two in a recipe is still not a bad deal.

We are in for a long-haul, especially if bird flu persists.

[BakerAunt]

I baked two loaves of Pumpkin Mixed Grains Bread on Wednesday. One goes into the freezer, and the other we will begin slicing for lunches tomorrow. The recipe started as a Jane Brody recipe for Pumpkin Rye Bread, but I have made so many changes, it is now my recipe.

I also have not noticed any problems with powdered sugar after the "best by" dates. I'm still using up some of the glazing sugar I bought from King Arthur (almost done!), and they haven't sold it in years. I liked it because it dried clear. I recently ordered some confectioners sugar from Vitacost (they had a 20% off sale) called Wholesome powdered confectioners sugar It uses cane sugar and tapioca starch. When I get around to using it, I'll report back. I am hoping it will dry clear, which I like for some glaze recipes.