What are you Baking the Week of April 2, 2023?

[Mike Nolan]

I'm going to make more peanut butter cookies later today.

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[BakerAunt]

I started Sunday by making Cornmeal Pumpernickel Waffles. My waffle iron, which I bought in 1990, has developed some sticking issues, but brushing it with canola oil before each waffle does the trick.

I also baked a new recipe on Sunday, "Cinnamon Roll Baby Bunny Cakes," which came from the Nordic Ware site, and which is designed to use their 6-well bunny pan. I made changes by using half barley flour and half King Arthur AP and adding 2 tsp. Bob's Red Mill milk powder. I replaced the ½ cup of butter with 1/3 cup canola oil. Since the butter is melted for the recipe, I knew the oil would work. I replaced regular milk with buttermilk and added 1/16th tsp. baking soda to balance it. For the filling, I used the Penzey's Chinese cinnamon, which is a little stronger than my regular cinnamon. The cakes took 23 minutes to bake and came out beautifully, thanks to The Grease. I was particularly pleased at the definition. Although we should have waited, we did split one this evening. I do need to do a better job getting the cinnamon filling more toward the middle. I am not a great judge of how much batter I have put in, particularly with more decorative pans.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA - is there a noticeable difference between the BRM and the KAB milk powder? Thanks

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--My understanding is that the King Arthur milk is heat treated so as not to interfere with yeast bread rise.

I have a hazy memory that the BRM milk powder is not so treated. I know that the one time I mixed the BRM into my yogurt AFTER I had heated the milk to between 180-190F, and kept it there for the required ten minutes, that the yogurt was runny. That suggests to me that the BRM is not the same. That is my one-time observation; others may have a different experience. I cannot use the KA special dry milk for yogurt because it needs to be mixed in with dry ingredients as it does not reconstitute.

I keep both the KA and the BRM milk powder in my cupboard, but I reserve the first for yeast bread (mostly to add additional calcium even if I am using buttermilk) and the second for non-yeast baking and yogurt.

[chocomouse]

BakerAunt, sorry about the delay responding to your question about canning maple syrup. Yes, I would use a good quality pan to heat it, stainless or enamel would be good. Bring it to 185* and turn off the heat. Put it in mason jars immediately, leaving a little space for it to expand if you are going to freeze it. It will keep "forever" in the freezer. It will keep for a long time, generally they say about a year, stored in a cool, dark place.

Thanks for the recipe for the buttermilk bread, I don't recall having made that, but it is very similar to my go-to bread. I'll make this one, with all your changes, next time I make bread. I'm having some vision issues, so reading recipes and computer screens is challenging at this time. Hopefully a new med will help.

[Mike Nolan]

KAB baker's special powdered milk has been heat-treated to disable enzymes. The heat treatment also makes it so that you can't reconstitute the powdered milk and drink it. (We sometimes drank reconstituted powdered milk when I was young, I still can't stand the taste!)

There are other companies that also sell heat-treated powdered milk online, my guess is that King Arthur has one of those companies produce the packages of it they sell.

As I understand it, the BRM powdered milk is not heat-treated and can be reconstituted for drinking, or mixed with the water in a recipe.

[chocomouse]

Cheesesteaks for dinner tonight, with fresh hoagie buns.

[BakerAunt]

After a morning of thunderstorm and tornado watches on Wednesday ended, I celebrated the quiet afternoon by baking a double recipe of Almond Date Breakfast Bars from Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, by Deb Perelman. I made two minor changes by halving the salt and adding 2 Tbs. Bob's Red Mill milk powder. I baked them in a parchment-lined 11x11" pan for 25 minutes. I cut them into 32 bars. My husband had two at dinner and was much more favorable than in the past. I had not baked the recipe since before we moved here nearly six years ago. I think that using the 11x11 pan rather than a 13x9 pan works better. The recipe is for an 8x8 pan, so that area would be 128, and the 11x11 pan gets closer than the 13x9. The zest from a Cara Cara orange that I used this time gives a lovely flavor superior to the typical Navel orange. We will not be eating them for breakfast but with tea in the afternoon.

I hope that everyone in tornado areas is staying safe.

[Mike Nolan]

Tomorrow I will be making my annual batches of Hot Cross Buns for Good Friday. We'll give most of them away, a family tradition started by my grandmother decades ago.

[chocomouse]

I made dinner rolls, using a basic bread recipe to which I added a generous helping of Herbes de Provence. I shaped 12 rolls with 80 grams of dough in each, and rolled the tops in KAF's Artisan Bread Topping seeds. 80 grams makes a fairly large roll, good to have with a bowl of soup; but it is more bread than I want to eat with a "dinner" meal.

[Joan Simpson]

We had takeout taco's from a local Mexican Restaurant.

Sorry...posted in wrong spot.

[BakerAunt]

I baked my Pumpkin Snacking Cake on Thursday, using a cup of frozen "peanut" pumpkin puree. I sprinkled multi-colored nonpareils on top to give a hint of spring to the autumn flavor. Due to its wholegrain content (buckwheat, spelt), I do not bake this cake when the weather gets warm. Right now, that is not a problem.

[Mike Nolan]

I made semolina bread using some BRM semolina, which is not whole grain. Much tastier than the whole grain stuff. Now I have to figure out what to do with about 20 pounds of whole grain durum flour.

[chocomouse]

The dinner rolls I made yesterday are delicious! I'll be making these again.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making a third batch of Hot Cross buns today.

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