What are you Baking the Week of April 16, 2023?

[aaronatthedoublef]

I am doing research now of gophers and peanut butter. I do know the exterminator had me bait our mouse traps with it, so it may be the sort of thing where the peanut butter attracts the gopher and then something else kills it.

Busy end of week baking. Thursday I made the dough for 14 loaves of challah and put it to rise in the basement fridge. It took my two biggest bowls and two rising buckets. It was a lot of dough! Violet and I also made "coconut" cake for Kate for her birthday which was pretty un-coconutty. I tried something new after my last one. I had a good recipe but somehow I lost it so I am back on the hunt. This was basically a white cake subbing coconut cream for the milk. It called for five egg whites and one egg. I used two eggs and four whites to give it a little more structure.

Then I was up at 2 Friday morning to shape and bake and make Kate birthday scones. After the initial shaping I put together the scone ingredients.

I went from four strands to three because it takes less time but I may switch back at some point. I braided the challahs (technically it is challot) and put them aside to rise. I mixed, shaped, and baked the scones while the challahs were rising.

I can bake four loaves at a time because one of our ovens is broken. I think some of my loaves might have been a bit overproofed waiting to bake. But they looked good, smelled good, and tasted good.

By 5:45 I had a dozen scones cooling and 14 loaves of bread!

Friday afternoon Violet and I decorated Kate's cake which tasted good and looked good too which is unusual for our cakes.

I still need to make sandwich bread for next week but I am not sure when I will do that as we have stuff this weekend.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--back when I was baking cakes for office birthday parties, I made a coconut cake from King Arthur. I cannot recall if it was on their site or in Sift magazine, although I think that all the Sift recipes are now on their website. I think that was back around the time that King Arthur announced that it was going to close the Baking Circle.

It was a wonderful cake, which of course I can no longer eat due to dietary restrictions. I would need a lot of people to help me consume it. I do recall that it used coconut milk because I had some left over, which I then used in place of eggnog in a Bundt cake.

[Mike Nolan]

I use peanut butter in mouse traps as well. They also like chocolate.

[Mike Nolan]

You may already be doing this, but I'd divide the dough into the amount needed for 4 loaves ahead of the retarded bulk rise, then you can have dough being shaped, rising and baking at the same time, assuming you've got sufficient space. (A small portable rack, like a speed rack, might help, if I launch my subscription bread service, that'll be on my shopping list, I'll just put it in another room on non-baking days. The trick will be to not fill it up with other stuff.)

[Mike Nolan]

I also made semolina bread today.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. I had to make this divided because the biggest bowl I have is 8 qts which will only make about 9 lbs of dough. I made two batches of about 7.5lbs each and put it in two buckets which each hold about 8-9lbs of dough. So I already did that out of necessity. But, next time, if I understand correctly, I'll do one big batch at the mix (I just ordered a 20qt bowl), divide it, then shape one batch and preheat the oven while rising, then shape the second batch. I like doing it all at once for the assembly line aspect. Do one task, finish, and move on to the next. If our second oven were working I could bake eight loaves at once but...

As for speed racks, that would be great but it would never be tolerated. Our kitchen is for show not for go.

[BakerAunt]

Yep, show not go seems to rule these days. Not only do we have open concept, but a "slot" house because of the narrow lot. While the front door faces the lake, the reality is that everyone comes in the back door and right into the kitchen area. My husband had show ideas, but he has realized the kitchen will never get beyond go, and he likes what comes out of the oven.

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