On Tuesday morning, I experimented with a biscotti recipe to see if I could substitute 1/3 cup canola oil for ½ cup butter. The recipe is Double Ginger biscotti with Pistachios, and it originally appeared in the Bon Appetit “RSVP” column. I had made it once or twice, before I had to change my way of eating, so I’d made some changes. I do not use orange zest but ½ tsp. lemon extract, and I used an equal weight of almond flour to the whole almonds which the original recipe toasts then grinds, and I add 1/2 cup crystalized ginger. Without butter, I thought the biscotti might not brown as well, so this time I added 2 Tbs. Bob’s Red Mill powdered milk (and increasing calcium is always good for me). The dough was rather dry, so I added 2 Tbs. water. I deleted the resting period, since I did not need to let any butter in the dough become firm in the refrigerator. I don't do an egg wash, but I spritz the logs with water and sprinkle with demerara sugar. After the first bake, I cooled the pan on a rack for 25 minutes, then spritzed the logs with water. (I got this technique from KAF, for their Cinnamon Biscotti, and I always use it, as it prevents crumbling.) Five minutes later, I sliced them, then baked them standing on edge for 20 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through the time. I have sampled an end piece, and I am pleased with taste and texture.
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This reply was modified 7 years ago by
BakerAunt.
Turnips ruined my Easter dinner. I decided to make The Neely's (Food Network) Mashed Turnips with Sage. First of all, either I cut the turnips too large, or turnips just take longer than potatoes to boil soft. By the time the turnips were soft, the ham and the roasted mushrooms were over-cooked. They were done before the turnips turned soft, and I should have removed them from the oven, but I thought I'd let them stay warm in the turned-off oven. Mistake! When I finally had the turnips and the lone potato mashed, the mushrooms were crispy and the ham dry. It was a ham steak, not a whole ham.
Now, I know better how to time making mashed turnips. I mashed them by hand, since the last time, they were a runny disaster when I whipped them with the mixer. After these two forays in mashed turnips, I have decided turnips absorb a lot of water when boiled. Both times, the finished product was runny. I used only a little butter and milk and still had a problem. The pan had been well-drained. It's the turnips. Before I try mashed turnips again, I'm going to search online for hints on how to do this. Otherwise, the turnip mashed tasted fine.
No baking here today either. I had hoped to do a lamb cake for Easter this year (and that would have been in last week's thread for Saturday) by trying out an oil-based Bundt cake recipe (the lime cake recipe I created) in the mold, but I did not grab the lamb mold when I saw it in a box last fall because I assumed that we would be done with remodeling by now. The mold is somewhere inaccessible in the shed. Next year there will be lamb cake!
Hash brown potatoes are sometimes made this way, though most of the time what gets called hash browns are just fried slices of potatoes, usually with some onions. (An improvement on this is Lyonnaise potatoes.)
My mother's favorite post-Thanksgiving meal was potato pancakes made with left-over mashed potatoes and covered with gravy.
King Arthur now has a Grandma style pizza pan (11x11) as well as a Detroit Style pizza pan. Both of these pans are quite dark.
Most recently I've been making pan pizza using sourdough starter in a light metal half-sheet pan because my husband likes that kind of crust better than the thin roll-out kind that I had been making (and still like a lot). I use the KAF hint of first spraying the pan with non-stick spray (Crisco olive) then drizzling it with olive oil--no sticking and a crispy crust.
We had this frequently when we lived in Germany. When we returned to the US, I made it but haven't had it for years. I put thin sliced onion in with the potatoes. Heavily butter a 7" cast iron skillet, and put the potato into that, patting it down firmly with a spatula. Let it cook, on the burner, about 10 minutes or so (can't remember exactly). Flip it out of the skillet onto a plate, put a lot more butter into the skillet (no wonder it is so good!) then slide the potatoes off the plate back into the skillet to finish cooking. It should be brown and crispy on the outside, but buttery soft in the middle. Serve with schnitzel and salat. I see this on my menu for next week! Thanks, Mike!
Creme fraiche is kind of like sour cream, but a bit smoother and less likely to curdle. It's rather pricey.
My wife has a 'Christmas Coffee Cake' recipe that calls for sour cream that was her grandmother's Christmas treat. We've made it a few times but my wife was always disappointed with the taste. Her grandmother was a farm wife and I think she used real sour cream, not that cultured stuff they sell these days.
I've thought about either trying to sour some fresh cream, make some creme fraiche (I've got a recipe for it) or buy some at the store and try that in the recipe, I think it might come closer to what she remembers, although some remembered tastes may be more memory than taste.
I've got marbled rye bread planned for tomorrow (so we can have it with Easter ham), but I want to make another loaf of this bread soon, it makes great toast for peanut butter. Next time I think I'll cut it into 2 parts and freeze half, though, it goes bad fairly quickly.
I find having more than 2 kinds of fresh bread on hand tends to lead to at least one of them going bad, the two of just don't eat that much bread these days. So I tend to cut loaves in half and freeze most of a batch.
On Friday, I baked a batch of Hot Cross Buns using my own recipe, but I used white whole wheat flour this time and increased the whole grains. They came out well, but I think that I will increase the cinnamon from 1 to 1 ½ tsp. next time. I do a full frosting of the tops rather than make crosses, but some day, I may do a frosting cross on top of the frosting.
On Friday I also baked, for the first time, Stella Parks’ recipe for 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread. I was unable to find a listing on my Cuisinart Food Processor for how many cups it holds, and the recipe calls for a 14-cup processor. I have the DLC-7 Super Pro. In looking through the manual (yes, I still have it 30 years after I received it), I read that the processor can handle 8 cup bread recipes with regular flour or 5 cup recipes with whole wheat flour. As this recipe uses 3 ½ cups whole wheat, I decided that I could knead the dough in one batch, and that is what I did. I reduced the salt slightly to 10 grams. I do not have instant yeast, so after I put the dough into the food processor, I put in the brown sugar, then put the salt on one side. I proofed my yeast with the water and a bit of the reserved brown sugar, then poured that on the other side. Next time, I might drizzle it in through the feed tube. After I did the 75 second processing, I poured the oil in through the feed tube while processing. It was a somewhat sticky dough, and I did not enjoy getting the processor blade cleaned off, but the dough did come out of the bowl relatively easily. I did two pre-shapes of the loaf; next time, I’ll just do one. The loaf baked well, with only a slight bit of sinking along the center after it came out. I’ll report on taste tomorrow.
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This reply was modified 7 years ago by BakerAunt.
I just finished shaping a 2nd batch of Hot Cross Buns (4 pans of 8 rolls each.)
Mike, I believe parsnips are a starch, but I have no idea if I'm right. I have considered using them as a potato substitute, but I don't think I like them. Raw, I do not, although cooked, I might. Now that you've brought this up, I'll plan on buying some and roasting them.
A while back, I tried making mashed turnips, in the same way I would mashed potatoes. They were too watery. The Neely's (Food Network) have a recipe for mashed turnips that use 1 potato, also. I guess that's so the starch from the potato will hold the turnips together in the mash.
The roasted turnips from yesterday were good overall. I roasted with skins on, and I don't think I like the taste of the skins. Next time, I'll peel them. The roasted mushrooms were scrumptious, & there are more roasted mushrooms in my future.
For Thursday night's dinner, I made my healthier version of my mother's hamburger stroganoff, which we had over a mix of brown and a mixed rice blend (a combination that Bob's Red Mill does not appear to sell anymore.) We had microwaved fresh broccoli as the side dish.
I had a leftover zucchini, so I used half of it to try a new recipe on Thursday: KAF’s Zucchini Chocolate Chip Pecan Bars. The batter is made in the food processor, and chunks of zucchini are processed with an egg and oil to make a smooth concoction before adding the rest of the ingredients. I used KAF’s option of white whole wheat flour. I added 2 Tbs. Flax meal and 2 Tbs. Bob’s Red Mill powdered milk. I cut the salt form ¾ to ½ tsp. and did not sprinkle any on top. I used 6 oz. rather than 5 oz. zucchini. My major change was to cut the chocolate chips from 2 cups to about ¾ cup (120g), in order to reduce the saturated fat from that source. I used Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips (3.5 g saturated fat per 15 grams of weight.) As dark chocolate can be overwhelming, cutting it down worked for taste as well as cutting saturated fat. We each had a slice for dessert tonight, and the recipe is a keeper—especially when zucchini season comes around.
YES! Skeptic, and I'd love to meet you! It is Ellenshalfpintfarm (Ellen is my sister). We are in a new space this year, across the aisle from our spot for the last umpteen years - we'll be in A12 (or maybe it's A11, I forget) in the Main Exhibition Hall -- if you come in the main door, it's about 1/3 of the way up the lefthand side, along the wall. Do you have any idea when you might be there - day, morning, afternoon? We'll be setting up two weeks from today! I love this show!
I wrote a blog post a while back on velouté (one of the five 'mother' sauces) and its similarity to gravy:
Veloué and Gravy post
