What are You Baking the Week of April 19, 2020?

[RiversideLen]

One thing I don't like about bagels is they go stale fast. But when they are fresh, they are great. There was a bagel restaurant neat work, they had a wide variety of freshly baked bagels, 3 different kinds of cream cheese (plain, raisin and veggie). Used to love that place.

On Monday I made a batch of sandwich buns. This morning I made a cake using BRM gluten free vanilla mix. I seasoned it with a teaspoon of cake spice and topped with a ganache made from Ghirardelli semi sweet chips and milk. The taste is good but the cake came out a little tough.

[Mike Nolan]

Gluten-free cakes are challenging, though I've made Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake with KAF's GF flour and it was excellent. I could tell the difference between it and one made with wheat flour, but both were well received.

[Mike Nolan]

Bagels freeze fairly well, and toasting them helps, I find they're usually good for 3-4 days, so that's why I seldom make more than 9 smaller bagels (3.5 ounces each) at a time.

[RiversideLen]

I think I overmixed the batter. It said to mix for one minute, which I did using a timer. Maybe 45 seconds would be better. The batter comes out thick, almost like a thin bread batter, you have to smooth it out in the pan because it will retain whatever shaped it had when it's dropped in the pan. I get the mix in packs of 4 from Amazon because I like to have something on hand, so I'll be making it again. I'll get it right one of these days.

[Mike Nolan]

Gluten-free mixes usually have something like xanthan gum in them, it thickens very quickly. You generally need to mix a cake mix long enough to get the flour mostly if not fully hydrated. With the GF mixes and recipes I've tried, that's always a bit of a challenge, I often wind up leveling it out with a spatula. When I make a GF recipe from scratch, I wait until it has mixed for a while before I add the xanthan gum, assuming it isn't already in the GF flour.

[kimbob]

Well, today I made a loaf of whole wheat which I haven't baked in a while. Lately I've been making an overnight no knead cranberry pecan bread that I tweaked to my satisfaction after buying it at an artisan bread shop for 7 bucks for a small loaf! Glad I can make it now that we're all stuck at home. Had a kaf eggnog bundt cake mix from the holidays, made that on the weekend and it was pretty darn good. Wish I had bought more than one! 99% of the time I bake from scratch but I have a some kaf mixes here just in case.😁 made garlic croutons today, too.
Wanted to say hi to everyone from the old baking circle!!
Kimbob

[chocomouse]

Hi Kimbob! Glad to see you here, and I hope you will stay a while. It sounds like you've been baking up a storm!

[S_Wirth]

Kimbob! So great to see you here! I placed all of your recipes from the oldBC here. You had so many really nice ones.

Hope you and family are well and safe. Visit us more often.

[Mike Nolan]

We're delighted to see you here, kimbob. We really miss the BC crowd who haven't come over here. A few have probably passed on by now, I haven't heard from Grizzlybiscuits in a very long time. KidPizza is still around, though he doesn't post much, sure hope he's OK, he's in a limited care facility these days and those haven't been the best places to be with COVID-19.

[kimbob]

Hey, chocomouse and swirth!! Wow! Happy to hear from you. Swirth, you put my recipes here? Woman, you sure were busy. How long ago was the old baking circle? Seems like a lifetime ago. You know, I made moomies buns the other day because I wanted to make hamburgers for dinner and couldn't face putting on a mask and going to the store. Sigh So I was thinking about the old baking circle and found this site today. I was so excited. Thank God I always have enough flour and yeast to bake with. Lol. You all keep safe, too. Don't know how much longer we have to hunker down but this is getting old.
Kim

[kimbob]

And nice to see you, too, Mike. I was typing while you were posting. I know mrsm is still around because I emailed her a couple yrs ago about one of her recipes. I think I googled and found her. Lol Google is an amazing tool. Stay safe!

[Mike Nolan]

As I recall, KAF shut down their 2nd version of the BC in May of 2016. Swirth and a few others were saving recipes furiously during the month or so that KAF gave us to save stuff.

Zen set up a site, too, but it didn't get a lot of traffic and it looks like it hasn't had any activity since 2017. She supposedly downloaded all the recipes that people had posted on the KAF BC but I don't think she ever posted them to her site. I've emailed her a few times asking if she'd send them to me, but I never got a response. (I'm sure I could have figured out a way to process them and load them here.)

I think there were over 6000 recipes there, we've got about 2400 of them here.

Deb Wink was one of the more active posters on the first version of the KAF BC, most of that before I joined there. (I think I discovered it in 2005.) I've had a few email discussions with her lately, on sourdough, of course. I was hoping to take her sourdough class in March, but it got cancelled due to COVID-19.

[Mike Nolan]

We used up the last of the hot dog buns for supper tonight, I'll have to make some more soon, they were very good for hot dogs and made great hamburger buns. (This is the Hamelman 'soft butter rolls' recipe.)

I'm getting ready to take on another of the Ginsberg rye recipes, because I think my new rye starter is about ready for use, the pH was down to 4.65 this afternoon.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Kimbob, nice to meet you.

BA, I love Elizabeth Alston's book and made my variation of the raisin scones this week. It was my wife's birthday. I subbed in chocolate chips as I didn't know we had raisins.

I made another loaf of Stella Park's 100% whole wheat sandwich bread. I've done it four times now and it is consistently too soft to rise above the edge of the pan. It just kind of overflows it. I will start to add a little more flour and a little less liquid. But my family likes it.

I am on day four of my starter. I moved it to a warmer spot and I have a little more activity. My daughter wants to know when it will be ready to use in bread. I think it's on day nine. Have to admit I am anxious too.

[BakerAunt]

I don't know if we met, Kimbob. I joined when there was a new Baking Circle. Welcome, and please post often!

Aaron, I looked up what I did when I baked the 100% Whole Wheat Bread:

What are You Baking the Week of April 14, 2019?

I didn't have the side problem, but there was a slight sinking in the center. What I see from my post is that I reduced the amount of salt. I also added the oil later. Cass told me once that the yeast needs to get going before adding the oil, so I put it in through the feed tube as the processor was running.

I'm glad to hear that your starter is bubbling along.

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