What are You Baking the Week of August 11, 2019?

[BakerAunt]

I consider pancakes on a griddle as "baking," since not all bakers had access to ovens and relied on griddles.

For Sunday’s breakfast, I made the Bob’s red Mill recipe for Cornmeal Pancakes that uses BRM coarse cornmeal. My only changes are to use white whole wheat in place of AP flour, reduce the baking powder from 3 tsp. to 2 ½ tsp., and reduce the salt from 1 tsp. to ½ tsp. This is the first time I’ve made pancakes on my new range, and I love having a gas cook top again. The Calphalon griddle also heated more evenly, and the pancakes came out well. We had them with a bit of maple syrup and the blueberry sauce leftover from when I baked that pie a couple of weeks ago. It was a delicious way to start our Sunday.

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[Mike Nolan]

My plan is to make several pans of lasagna this afternoon, one for supper, one for the freezer and one for my wife to take to a friend in Omaha tomorrow.

[BakerAunt]

On Monday morning, I baked my adaptation of King Arthur’s Lemon Blueberry Cornmeal Cakes. Although I saw the recipe in a recent catalog, I also checked it onsite, where they give directions on baking it in an 8 1/2x4 1/2-inch loaf pan. I decided to use my 6-cup mini-Bundt pan. I replaced the AP flour with white whole wheat flour. I added ¼ cup Bob’s Red Mill milk powder and 2 Tbs. flax meal. I used ¾ cup buttermilk and ¼ cup oil (original recipe uses ½ cup each). I don’t have lemon paste, so I used the zest of one lemon, and I doubled the lemon juice from 1 to 2 Tbs. I did use the lemon oil. I baked it at 350F for 30 minutes, tested it and decided to give it another 5 minutes. It came out of the pan beautifully, thanks to THE Grease.

[BakerAunt]

Well, we did not like the taste of the cake. Next time I would omit the lemon oil. We will probably use some of that leftover blueberry sauce on subsequent slices.

[Mike Nolan]

You made so many changes, I'm not sure you've given the original recipe much of a test. 🙂

[BakerAunt]

Well, I never said it was the original recipe....

[BakerAunt]

On Tuesday afternoon, I am baking Len's Rye/Semolina/Whole Wheat Buns recipe, but I am experimenting with baking it as two 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaves. I 3/4 cup buttermilk for that much water in the original recipe, so I did that again. I decided to try, in my doubled recipe 1 and 1 1/2 scant Tbs. molasses instead of honey, and I'm using canola rather than olive oil. I'm using 3 tsp. yeast and 1 1/4 tsp. salt and only one egg. (I'm remembering Paddy's bread recipe where she specified that when doubling the recipe, do not double the egg.) My only other change was to add 1/4 cup special dry milk. I'll report back on the final result.

Note: The bread baked nicely, although I let it over rise a bit the second time. Thirty minutes would have been enough. I'm looking forward to cutting into it tomorrow.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

My riff on Len's bread turned out very tasty, with good crumb. What I did to double the recipe worked. The molasses gives just a hint of its flavor, which is the way I prefer it in bread. When mixing this bread, the temptation would be to add flour, as it initially appears too wet. I found that stopping the mixer a couple of times, and using a bowl scraper to turn the sticky dough over, helped it come together, but that may be my particular mixer.

[RiversideLen]

"When mixing this bread, the temptation would be to add flour, as it initially appears too wet. I found that stopping the mixer a couple of times, and using a bowl scraper to turn the sticky dough over, helped it come together........"

BakerAunt, that's what I have to do too. At first it appears too wet and if you add more flour it will be dry. And once the dough no longer appears too wet, I actually add a little water because otherwise it might be too dry. It takes a little getting used to.

Today I made a batch of buns with it. I normally bake them at 375 degrees but today I forgot to adjust the oven temp. With my oven I can simply press "bake" and "start" and 350 if the default setting. I bake 8 buns and my pans have only 6 wells (you know the one, from KAF) so I bake 2 batches of 4 each. After the timer went off, 14 minutes, I pulled them out and realized the oven temp wasn't right. The color of the buns was a little lighter but I temped them and it looked right, a tad over 200 degrees. So I reset the oven to 375 and put the second batch in. I was thinking about my error and how the buns appear to be good anyway and I forgot to set the timer. I realized it on time and took the buns out when the color looked right, temped them and they appeared to be spot on again. I won't slice into one until tomorrow but I think they'll be fine.

[Mike Nolan]

It's fairly typical for rye breads to start out looking like there's too much water in the dough, rye flour apparently is slower to hydrate than wheat flour. The trick is not to over-knead while the hydration takes place, as rye flour will turn gummy and when that happens its hard to get it back to a good dough texture without adding more flour and then, probably, more water.

[BakerAunt]

That's good to know, as I plan to bake even more rye breads.

I did the mixing a bit differently from Len. I use active rather than instant yeast, so I proofed it with the molasses, then mixed in the buttermilk and egg. I added the whole grains, mixed to incorporate, then allowed it to rest 10 minutes. I then mixed in the oil (I used canola), then the bread flour and salt. I let it rest for another 10 minutes, then I moved to the kneading spiral on speed 2, stopping and adjusting until it was coming together. I then kneaded on speed 3 for 5 minutes. (Remember, I have the Cuisinart; your times will differ.) I didn't need to add water.

[Italiancook]

How do you like the kneading spiral, BakerAunt? Kitchenaid comes with the kneading hook, but last time I checked, they sold the spiral. I've been debating whether to buy it. Do you think it does a substantially better job?

[Italiancook]

I baked a Lemon Loaf Cake from Cook-Ahead Cookery. I've made this many times but I goofed at the end. When cake comes out of oven, a syrup of lemon juice & sugar is poured over it. Then it sits in the syrup for 15 minutes before being removed from the pan. Today, for the first time, I poured the syrup over the cake when the syrup was piping hot. Result was that it boiled around the edges of the hot pan. Consequently, the boiling burned the edges of the cake.

I made this for the freezer, for dessert for a friend who's coming to lunch next week. I had planned on serving it cut into a shape, instead of as a slice. So I'll be okay -- the edges will be cut off anyhow. I just hope the burnt edges don't adversely affect the interior of the cake.

Later today, I'm making 2 boules of "Cuban Bread" from The Complete Tightwad Gazette. For the freezer. One will be for the luncheon next week.

[BakerAunt]

Italian Cook--I've never used a kneading hook, as my mixer came with the spiral. The spiral was one reason that the Cuisinart briefly replaced Kitchen Aid for America's Test Kitchen. Once KA added the spiral, ATK noted that as one reason to prefer it again over the Cuisinart.

[Mike Nolan]

I thought the KA spiral was only available on the 6 quart model.

I've used a spiral on a commercial mixer (20 quarts, I think), it seemed to work faster.

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