What are you Baking the Week of April 11, 2021?

[Mike Nolan]

I'll be baking Challah later today, we'll be making 3 different braids in the class. I need to go make about 5 pounds of dough this morning.

Spread the word

      

  

  

[Mike Nolan]

I baked some more of the cinnamon/maple fan tan rolls today, this time in individual silicone muffin cups. That worked pretty good. I think the butter paste ones were better today, maybe those were just ones that got more filling.

[BakerAunt]

We ate the last of the rye bread on Sunday, and as I had planned a dinner that requires the oven, I decided to bake a single loaf that I could do in the morning and early afternoon. I had bought some Six-Grain Blend from KABC, so I decided to try the recipe on the bag. I read the reviews on the website before starting. I made a few changes in that I used 2 cups of white whole wheat flour and substituted Bob’s Red Mill Artisan bread flour for the remaining 1 cup of AP. I replaced 1 Tbs. vital wheat gluten with 1 Tbs. First Clear flour, and I added 2 Tbs. special dry milk. I replaced 1 cup of the water with buttermilk and soaked the grains in it before starting. I replaced the sugar with 2 Tbs. maple syrup (and cleaned out an empty jar with the water in which I proofed the yeast). I used canola oil. I found that I needed about ¼ cup more water, perhaps because the grains absorb the buttermilk but also because I used more wholegrain flour. I mixed in the bread machine. The dough rose both times in about an hour. I baked for 35 minutes, then needed about 3 minutes more. It looks nice and smells delicious. We will cut into it tomorrow at lunch.

[cwcdesign]

Will's birthday was Sunday. On Saturday, I made the brown butter cream cheese frosting from Dessert Person to frost the carrot cake I had frozen the Sunday before. The frosting is delicious - you just need time to make the brown butter and then bring it back to the right consisitency. Claire had said to frost the layers while frozen - I was concerned because they wouldn't sit flat and I thought I had put too much frosting on the edges between the layers to fill the gaps. She also suggested that you frost the frozen cake and let it sit in the fridge for 24 hours before serving.

I shouldn't have worried. This was by far the best carrot cake I have made (sorry KABC) not too sweet - carrots soaked in buttermilk, toasted pecans and no other additions. Spices were grated fresh ginger, cinnamon, dried ginger and a tiny bit of clove. The cake rehydrated and with the frosting was just right.

[Joan Simpson]

The Carrot cake sounds wonderful Cwdesign!I bet Will was happy!

[chocomouse]

Now I know I'm going to be making carrot cake. So I added pineapple to my grocery list. Thanks for the nudge, cwcdesign!

[Mike Nolan]

I don't think I've made carrot cake with pineapple in it, but it sounds better (at least to my wife) than one with coconut in it. (She really doesn't like coconut.)

[cwcdesign]

This one I just made doesn’t have pineapple in it. The KABC kitchen sink recipe does. The first carrot cake I made and the recipe I used for years was from my best friend’s mom, but it had way too much sugar in it.

Glad I could help chocomouse 😁

[BakerAunt]

I'm also of the no pineapple in carrot cake persuasion (also no cocnout). My recipe came with a Wilton round cake pan. I haven't baked it in a couple of years, probably because I need to avoid that divine cream cheese frosting. The frosting Cwcdesign describes sounds even better.

[Mike Nolan]

Brown butter cream cheese frosting is something I would like to try. What's the ratio of cream cheese to brown butter?

The usual ratio for cream cheese frosting is 2 parts cream cheese and 1 part butter, but the last time I made it (for my Hot Cross Buns) I used 2 ounces of butter to 8 ounces of cream cheese, and we liked that very much

Update: Based on the copy of her recipe on the WaPo site, it looks like she's starting with a standard 2-1 ratio.

[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday morning, I tried adapting the Flapjacks recipe that was in the weekly Smitten Kitchen email. I replaced the ½ cup of butter, which is melted, with 1 Tbs. butter and 3 Tbs. canola oil. That means an 8x8-inch pan would have 10 Tbs. saturated fat instead of 56g. I am not going to use the optional melted chocolate topping. The sugar is still high, with ½ cup light brown and 4 Tbs. Lyle’s Golden Syrup. They baked about 34 minutes. I waited to cut them until cool, and it took some force to push a large knife down to cut them apart, but they did not crumble. We each had a bar for dessert at dinner and agreed that I will bake the recipe again. I like the flavor, which is slightly caramel and probably would be more so with all butter.

Chocomouse--You might want to try these for a crunchy oatmeal bar cookie without add-ins.

[chocomouse]

BakerAunt, I get her weekly email and saw that recipe, and I will try it. Today I made the Oatmeal Bars, using my homemade marmalade instead of apricot jam. They are good. They are almost gone - they left the house to go to a potluck, and I doubt any will return home.

[cwcdesign]

Yes, Mike - 8 oz butter to 16 oz cream cheese. She says Philly cream cheese is the only one to use. I happen to agree.

Here’s the link to her video

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by cwcdesign.

[BakerAunt]

My other baking project on Wednesday was pita chips. I used the recipe on the KABC website, which is the same as one that I cut out of one of the KAF catalogues to try. The recipe for the pitas is not hard, although the directions are a little sparse (“mix and knead to form a smooth dough”). I mixed initially with the paddle, holding the oil back until the rest was incorporated, added it and mixed, then used the dough hook for 2 minutes. That worked. Rolling out the balls of dough to 6-inch circles was not difficult, as I used my little wooden rolling pin that came with the ravioli mold (and no, I have never made ravioli with it). I rolled a ball on a small square of parchment paper, with saran on top. To get them off the parchment, it helped to turn them over onto the Silpat mat, peel off the parchment, and then lift them and move them to the hot stone in the oven. I need to work a bit on the drop onto the stone. I did well with the one in the far back corner, but I had some issues dropping the one in the front left corner perfectly flat. Five of the eight have nice puffs, and the others are salvageable.

After the pitas cooled, I cut four of them in half. I used kitchen scissors after starting each with a knife and used the knife at the end if I needed to cut through any of the center. The top parts are thin, and the bottom parts are thick. I decided to bake the chips made from the top ones separately from those I would make with the thicker bottom parts. Each half gets cut into eight wedges. The recipe calls for them to be brushed first with olive oil and sprinkled with salt. However, I used the kitchen scissors to cut them into wedges, then brushed them with olive oil. I did not add any additional salt. (The recipe already has 1 ½ tsp.) I baked on the convection setting, third rack up, but left the temperature the same. I did the thick ones first, with 10 minutes on one side and about six on the other. The thin ones I did for about 5 minutes, then 3 minutes.

I was hoping to use these with humus for a visitor on Friday, but I am not sure they are impressive or good enough. I will try them out tomorrow. I reserved four of the pitas, in part because my husband is excited about trying them for sandwiches, but also because they did not come out as chips as well as I had hoped--and certainly not like the picture from the catalogue.

[chocomouse]

I made bagels today. I used half AP and half bread flour - except after I scooped out the bread flour, I realized it looked "odd". It was light brown, not white, and it was not as fine grained as I would expect. As I kneaded, it seemed more like whole wheat, and needed more water (it rained all last night and was snowing most of the day - plenty of moisture in the air). I think, at some point, I must have refilled the kitchen bread flour jar with whole wheat flour from the pantry. It's funny, but also OK, since I often do use half whole wheat. And - the bagels are good.

[Author]

Posts