Thanks for posting this thread. I will be trying the Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting (posted by bookbag). It seems to be similar to the Pumpkin Roll I make at Thanksgiving without all the fuss!
I made small meatballs (about an ounce each) with brown gravy and had it with rice.
I've only made Boston brown bread a couple of times, both times it came out pretty solid and easy to slice. (I made it in a ring mold, not in a mason jar, though.) I would think adding flour might make it more crumbly, but it might have been undercooked.
Today I made steamed Boston Brown Bread. I put the mixture into three pint size mason jars, about 3/4 full, and covered each tightly with aluminum foil. Then, into the slow cooker and added water about half way up the sides of the jars. Add the cover, and cooked on high for 2 hours. I used a skewer to test for doneness, and decided to steam them another 15 minutes. The flavor was excellent. But the texture was "loose", crubmly, soft, not at all dry, had to be eaten with a fork, not in your fingers. I'm not sure what to do to fix that. Bake it longer? Add more flour? I followed the recipe exactly (I haven't made it for years, so almost like a new recipe for me). Anyone have any suggestions, thoughts? We ate it with leftover baked beans from the freezer and steamed hot dogs.
On Sunday afternoon, I baked Low-Fat Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from the dough I made on Friday evening. I think the taste is better, in this non-butter version, with only letting the dough rest two days in the refrigerator. The special dried milk that I added may have helped as well.
On Sunday evening, I baked a new recipe, “Bittersweet Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies,” from a magazine I saw at the store, “America’s Best Pumpkin Recipes, published by Centennial Kitchen (p. 34). I’ve never heard of this company, but what persuaded me to buy the magazine is the nice selection of pumpkin recipes that use oil rather than butter. These cookies are one of those. However, I had to substantially reduce the 2 cups of bittersweet chocolate chips specified. 15g of chips has 3g saturated fat. I used 60g—and that is approximately 1/3 cup. I also replaced half the oil with buttermilk (thanks Riverside Len for that tip!), and for good measure mixed in 1 cup of quick oats. I thought that the oats would stabilize the cookies, since I was deleting 5/6 of the chocolate chips. I also cut the salt from ½ to ¼ tsp. The cookies did not flatten as much as the ones in the picture, so probably ½ cup would have been enough, or next time, I could flatten them. I also used white whole wheat flour. I ended up with 40 cookies; each is .45825g saturated fat.
I have an oat-pumpkin-chocolate chip cookie recipe from KAF that makes large cookies that are then glazed, and which I often would bake in the fall. I’m avoiding them this year, so these cookies should provide some of the same flavor profile with much less saturated fat.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by
BakerAunt.
Dinner on Friday night featured chunks of Purple Viking Potatoes (farmers’ market) rubbed with olive oil and roasted at 400F for 50 minutes, salmon patties, and peas.
My sourdough starter was punchy after being fed yesterday, so on Friday, I decided to use it. I chose “Rustic Sourdough,” from Sift (Spring 2016), p. 65. I’m sure it’s on the website, and I am also pretty sure that I’ve baked versions of this recipe before. It calls for 5 cups KAF AP flour in addition to the starter. I mixed together 2 cups Irish Wholemeal flour, ½ cup dark rye flour, and 2 Tbs. flax meal. I added that to the yeast, sugar, sourdough mixture, mixed, then let rest 15 minutes. I added 2 ½ cups KAF AP with 1 ¾ tsp. salt (reduced from 2 ½ tsp.). The dough was not quite right, so I added ¼ cup whole wheat flour. I kneaded on 3 (Cuisinart Stand Mixer) for 4 minutes, then for an additional minute. I put it into a dough bucket to rise.
The first rise was an hour. I de-gassed the dough, preshaped it, waited 5 minutes, then shaped into one loaf, which I put into my hearth pan (not sure if KAF still sells these, but others do). I let it rise 50 minutes, slashed it, sprayed it with water, and put it into a 400F oven. After 5 minutes, I sprayed it again, and I did that again after another 5 minutes. I then baked for 28 minutes, until it reached 201F.
I'll add a note to this post tomorrow about taste and texture.
Promised Note: The Irish Wholemeal flour gives this bread a great flavor. The hearth pan was just the right size for a nice sandwich loaf.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.
Thank you Nancy for letting us know. I'll be emailing you for the address.
Pmiker taught us all a lot about bread baking, mixers, and allergies (he had to avoid oats and eggs). If you do a search here, using "pmiker" you will find three of his recipes that I posted from the Baking Circle. I only wish that it had been possible to save the threads that he accompanied with pictures and great narration. I think that I saved his thread on mixers but I'm not sure.
I'm passing along this message from the Facebook "Around Our Kitchen Table" group:
"Dear baking friends, many of you may remember our baking friend Mike Rodgers from the former Baking Circle. Mike is dealing with a serious, progressive, incurable illness. We believe, through communicating with a friend of his who is able to visit him, that he may be unable to use his computer. Those of us on the FaceBook page for former BC’ers have his snail mail address if anyone would like to send him cards to let him know we are all thinking of him. (We’d recommend staying away from “get well” cards because of the nature of his illness.)"
If you have a FB account you can PM Cindy Holle for Mike's address. If not, send me an email and I will send it to you: ncgnet(at)comcast(dot)net
A rainy, cool Wednesday afternoon was the perfect time to try a new recipe, Ginger Pumpkin Braid, that I pulled out of the KAF catalog last year. (Yes, I also bought the mat that shows how to do a six-strand braid.) I began by proofing the Gold yeast in the warmed 15 oz. pumpkin puree that I had defrosted, along with some of the sugar. I then mixed in the eggs, then nearly ½ cup of diced candied ginger. I had decided to add whole grain flour, and I like to add flour in two stages, with the whole grains first. I substituted 2 cups white whole wheat flour (Bob’s Red Mill Ivory flour) and added the rest of the sugar; I then added ¼ cup flax meal and 1/3 cup special dried milk (getting in the calcium!). I mixed those in, then let the dough sit for 15 minutes. I replaced the 4 Tbs. of butter with 4 Tbs. of canola oil, which I mixed in. Then I mixed in the remaining bread flour (from BRM) with the salt (reduced to 1 ¼ tsp. from 1 ½ tsp.) and spices. (I used 1 ½ tsp. cinnamon, ½ tsp. ginger, and ½ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg, which is my pumpkin spice blend.) At that point, I switched to the dough hook. I had read the comments on the KAF site, which noted that a lot of people needed to add flour. I expected to do so, since I use homemade pumpkin puree. In the end, I needed an additional cup of bread flour. I kneaded for 5 minutes at speed 3 on my Cuisinart stand mixer. I let it rise in a greased dough bucket. It took about 50 minutes.
I decided to try the six-strand braid and make a large loaf. I have the KAF mat that includes directions for a six-strand braid. It took me four tries, but I did get it braided. It was a very thick loaf. I let it rise 45 minutes, then brushed it with the egg-water glaze and baked. It took about 33 minutes. My husband and I had a couple of slices this evening. It’s a lovely, barely sweet bread. I might use more crystalized ginger next time. (I omitted the optional raisins.) I might also use three instead of two cups of white whole wheat flour, since I’m likely to need to add a cup of flour anyway.
To go with leftover pork chops and leftover roasted potatoes for Wednesday dinner, I made Green Beans and Tomato Sauce, a recipe from Betty Crocker International Cookbook (at least 30 years old and full of great recipes), using green beans and tomatoes from our garden and onion and garlic from the farmers’ market. I omitted the basil, since my husband does not care for that herb.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.
I know this will be anathema to the New Englanders, but what about substituting maple syrup, rather than honey, for the molasses? Would it go with the rye flour? I can't do a beans and hot dogs dinner because my husband will not eat most dried and then cooked beans (lentil, lima beans, and black-eyed peas seem to be the exception), and currently I'm staying away from hot dogs (saturated fat and sodium). I'd still like to try steaming bread on the wood stove.
Wonky--Take care of yourself! You may be a "medical person," but you are not indestructible, and you have been under a lot of stress these past few months, so it is no wonder your resistance is low. (If you read my thread on lowering saturated fat, you will find that, although I am not a "medical person," I, too, will question my doctor about treatment. 🙂 That's not a bad thing.) I need my baking sister to inspire me!
Joan--I was thinking of you and Bev today with the news about the hurricane and the expected rain. Stay safe. And if there are other members and readers of this site in the danger zones, please take care.
Skeptic, New Englanders generally don't eat anything else with that meal (except maybe a pie), just the beans, hot dogs, and brown bread. Not what we today would call a healthy meal! During the winter years ago, their vegetables were those that stored well, such as potatoes, winter squash, turnips, rutabaga, kohlrabi, carrots, and then later on they canned lots of vegetables and fruits. Today, of course, many people in New England no longer eat that meal, but "mature" people often continue the tradition. Until about 10-15 years ago, the local VA hospital's Saturday night menu was beans and hot dogs, and the older veterans, who made up the majority of the hospital's patients, looked forward to that meal all week!
Oh, yeah, few things will tick off New Yorkers as much as being told their pizza isn't the best. (The Yankees losing badly to Boston, like they did last night, comes close, though.)
I've found that, for me, a little molasses goes a long way. When I baked Bernard Clayton's Dark Grains Bread for the first time, the 1/4 cup molasses came front and center--even with 70% whole grains. My husband didn't mind it, but for me it was overwhelming, although after a couple of days it mellowed. I switched it out with honey after that time, and I prefer it.
I have a steamed bread mold that I bought from KAF a couple of years ago. My idea is to try it in a pot on the wood stove. I have a recipe (somewhere) that came out of the catalog. It's probably this one (out of several) on the KAF site:
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/traditional-boston-brown-bread-recipe
I'm pretty sure that 3/4 cups of molasses would be far too much for me. One person who commented on the recipe replaced half the molasses with honey for that reason.
There is also a crock pot recipe at the KAF site for Boston Brown Bread baked in four 1-pint canning jars.
