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

[RiversideLen]

I have a KA "Professional 5 plus" model, it's a 5 quart and has the spiral kneading hook. That's one of the reasons why I bought it. I had a KA "Heavy Duty" before that has the old C hook. When I bought it, it was a close out model and I got it at a nice price. I still have it, wrapped in plastic sitting on a basement shelve. I bought the other one because I wanted a blue one, my older one is white, and as I said above, I wanted the spiral hook.

Today I made a chocolate cake from my regular recipe. While the recipe calls for a cup and a quarter of oil, I used only 5 ounces (by volume) and a 5.3 ounce container of Greek yogurt. I won't slice into it until tomorrow but it baked up nicely. I was planning to use a white chocolate ganache as a frosting. I followed a recipe from KAF that calls for bittersweet chocolate (which I have made before, it's in their chocolate fudge birthday cake recipe) but apparently white chocolate is not a one for one substitute in ganache. It came out pretty thin so I put it in the fridge and when it reached 45 degrees it was still far too thin to use as a frosting. So I added a half cup of bittersweet chocolate chips and nuked it to melt it. It has thickened up and tastes pretty good. I put it back in the fridge but if it doesn't look suitable to use as a frosting tomorrow I will not invest any more chocolate in it, I'll use it as a sauce for ice cream, maybe pancakes etc. and frost the cake with coconut pecan frosting from a can.

[Mike Nolan]

I made Vienna bread on Friday. I made 2 large loaves, cut them into thirds and froze all but one of them. I'm hoping having them a little smaller will mean we'll eat most of a segment before it goes bad.

[BakerAunt]

Len--That's good to know about the white chocolate. I've used it in a frosting, but it is paired with butter and cream cheese, perhaps because it does not hold together the way dark chocolate does. I need to look at Shirley C's book and see what she says.

[RiversideLen]

I removed it from the fridge this morning, let it come close to room temperature and whipped it so I could use it a spreadable frosting. It was perfect in texture and it tastes great. While it isn't the white frosting I was shooting for, I'm pleased with it.

I watched some youtube videos last night and found out what was wrong. With regular chocolate you would use a 2 to 1 ratio (by weight, 2 parts chocolate to one part cream or milk) white chocolate requires a 3 to 1 ratio. Of course, if you are making a dipping sauce, you can use a 1 to 1 ratio for dark or milk chocolate, not sure what it would be for white. I also learned that milk can be used instead of cream but the appearance won't be as shiny. You can also use just about any liquid, such as coffee. I think I've learned a lot about it now. I think next time I'll try some fresh brewed decaf and see how that works out.

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[Mike Nolan]

It's possible to make white chocolate ganache, but you need a recipe tailored to that, because there are factors such as balancing the fat contents that enter into a ganache recipe. (And it helps to know the specifics of your white chocolate, which isn't always readily available.)

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