Joan--my prayers are with your aunt and her family at this difficult time.
Today I baked a version of the KAF "Irish Cream Scones" (see thread about missing cappuccino chips).
I also baked a pumpkin pie in honor of Pi day tomorrow.
I have done it several times, including twice when I was testing recipes for Peter Reinhart, another time when I ordered a miche from the Poilane Bakery in France. (I saved the paper bag the miche came in and made the starter inside that bag, in the hopes that it had some French wild yeast strains in it.)
I've been tempted to try a grape skin starter, grapes attract several strains of wild yeast. But if I did that, I'd probably follow the Tartine Bakery book method of producing a starter that isn't SOUR.
Over the years King Arthur has discontinued a lot of items. Some probably got dropped because they didn't sell enough, a few got dropped because the supplier stopped making them (the salt-rising-bread starter comes to mind here), and quite a few got dropped because KAF decided not to carry certain types of ingredients. That's why they discontinued the consumer version of their bleached cake flour, though I think they still sell it in 50 pound bags to bakeries.
That's also why the lemon chips went away, I think they could not find a supplier who didn't use trans fats in them. That might possibly be an issue with the cappuccino chips as well.
I found nearly a dozen sites offering cappuccino chips, including several offering the Guittard chips. I couldn't tell if they were all out of stock, some of them I probably would have had to try to order them to find that out. (I HATE sites that do that!)
As far as I can tell, Guittard still makes them, but they may only make them one or twice a year. (Kraft tried to discontinue the Roka Blue jar cheese, but so many people wrote Kraft about it that they now make it just ahead of Christmas every year.)
I can't find cinnamon chips any place local now, although Hershey's cinnamon chips are listed as stocked in several of the grocery stores (and the clerks/stockers have no idea why there are none on the shelves or in the warehouse). But I did find a recipe for how to make your own cinnamon chips. I wonder if that could be adapted to make cappuccino? I'll see if I can find the recipe. Or, you could google "DIY cinnamon chips". Also, I was in the KAF store this afternoon, and looked again for their cinnamon chips -- not to be found. I didn't ask, although I was the only person in the store, aside from the three clerks. There was a nor'easter blowing around outside - the best time to shop!
I want to bake the KAF recipe for Irish Cream Scones:
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/irish-cream-scones-recipe
Some of you will recall that these used to be called Cappuccino Scones--until KAF stopped carrying the cappuccino chips. I did some looking on line, and other places list cappuccino chips as "out of stock," so that appears to be a trend. I miss those cappuccino chips, both in this recipe and in the cappuccino biscotti recipe KAF has (but has likely renamed). So, the question is: What substitution would work best?
I'm not so sure about the butterscotch option that KAF is now using. When I last baked this recipe--and used up my remaining cappuccino chips (sob, sob), I added 1/2 tsp. espresso powder (maybe was in the original recipe). I'm considering upping that to 1 tsp. I'll use heavy cream rather than Bailey's, with 1/4-1/2 tsp of the LorAnn Irish cream flavoring. For the chips, I'm thinking of using white chocolate.
I also have Coffee Extract from Nielsen-Massey, so maybe 1/4 tsp Irish Cream and 1/4 tsp Coffee extract instead? Cappuccino's flavor comes from coffee and milk.
If anyone has other suggestions, please comment. I hope to bake these for tomorrow, and I will report back on the results.
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This topic was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by
BakerAunt.
My husband is roasting a turkey for tonight's dinner (following in Chocomouse's footsteps from yesterday). I will make mashed potatoes with some Yukon gold potatoes, and we will have steamed broccoli.
We get a list of national food days from Culinary so we can highlight something on our menus. When I went to see if pi day was on it (it was not - potato chip day was). I mentioned it to our chef and she didn’t know about it (different home country)so I explained it. She liked the idea, but I don’t think we can do anything this year - whoever made the list probably didnt connect pi with pie - maybe next year.
Tonight I baked the KAF recipe for Fresh Apple-Cinnamon Scones. I've baked it once before, and they were excellent--but only when fresh out of the oven. The apple tended to make them soggy after they had cooled, and even re-heating them did not equal the original flavor. My experiment tonight is to use chopped dried apple from Bob's Red Mill. I used 1/2 cup and rehydrated them with 2 Tbs. water in a dish covered with saran in the microwave. I then let them sit for a couple of hours. I'm hoping that tomorrow morning, when I've "sprung forward," and would not want to be baking, that these will be good at room temperature.
Although the recipe claims you can freeze them and then pull them out to bake as needed, I've never had any luck with that technique. Instead, the butter melted all over the place, and I had a mess to clean up. So, either I bake them in the morning--not going to happen with springing forward--or I bake them the night before.
My other changes to the recipe is that I used 2 cups KAF flour, then mostly a 3/4 cup of barley flour that I wanted to use up, with whole wheat pastry flour filling it the rest of the way. I reduced the salt from 3/4 to 1/2 tsp.; I also deleted the 1 tsp. of vanilla extract because I want the apple (recipe includes 1/2 cup applesauce as well) and the butter to take center stage. I sprinkled them with the KAF sparkling white sugar but not with cinnamon.
As the recipe specifies, I froze them for 30 minutes before putting them into a hot oven. Because the refrigerator is a side-by-side, I cut the parchment paper diagonally, then put each round on a small baking sheet that would fit into that space. I moved them back to the large baking sheet before putting them in the oven.
I'll add a note to this post tomorrow about how my experiment works. They do smell lovely.
Additional Note: These are delicious and the texture is scone perfect. I will definitely be baking these, with my changes, as one of my regular scone recipes.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by BakerAunt.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by BakerAunt.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by BakerAunt.
Well, the good part about being towards the western end of the time zone (as we are in Lincoln) is that sunset can be as late as 9PM in the summer.
Tonight, home made sloppy joe's (can't stand Manwich) on home made hamburger buns, with potato salad and calico beans.
March 14th is Pi Day (Wednesday, 3/14). What are you planning to do to celebrate it?
I'm probably going to both a savory and a sweet pie.
The bread has a chewy crust, a firm yet soft interior, and a moderate open crumb. I see why Bernard Clayton recommends it for open-faced sandwiches. I like the overall flavor, except that I find the molasses somewhat strong. I'll bake this bread again, but I will probably cut back the molasses from 1/4 cup to either 2 or 3 Tbs. I had the bread for lunch with a one-egg omelet (flavored with Penzey's Mural Seasoning and some sautéed onion) on top of a slice. It pairs well with the more savory filling. I like the grain mix, and except for 1 1/2 cups bread flour, it is completely whole grain.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by BakerAunt.
My bad. I made cinnamon rolls from a Krusteaz mix. We’re in Florida and I don’t have my normal pantry supplies (excuses,excuses). They were very good!
I realized this afternoon that we are almost out of bread, so tonight I baked Dark Grains Bread from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads (pp. 223-225). The loaves look very nice. See complete details under the thread, "Mixers and Bernard Clayton's Bread Book."
Tonight I baked the Dark Grains Bread. My only changes were to substitute in 1 cup of buttermilk for a cup of the water and to use 2 Tbs. butter rather than shortening. My 7-quart Cuisinart handled the dough easily, with only a bit of "climbing" on the spiral dough hook. (I just stop the mixer, clean it off, and start it again.) I did let the dough set for 15 minutes after mixing in the whole grains before adding the salt and the bread flour. I needed the entire 1 1/2 cups bread flour. I kneaded the dough for 5 minutes (he said 8 minutes by hand) on speed 3, which is the speed my mixer recommends for rye breads, which I thought might be a good idea with the heavy amount of whole grains. I did stop the mixer at times to make sure the flour was incorporated or to add that last 1/2 cup of flour, 1/4 cup at a time. Baking time was 50 minutes, but I took it out a couple of minutes early when the temperature registered 205F. Bernard Clayton, and the rest of we home bakers, were still using the "thump" test back in 1987, so I guessed that a wholegrain bread should bake to 205F. It's not a super high rising bread, but the 8x4 inch loaves are respectable loaves. I'll post tomorrow about taste and texture after we have some of the bread at lunch.
