What are you Baking the Week of August 14, 2022?

[Mike Nolan]

No baking plans here yet, though I keep looking at glass bread recipes, wondering if that might be part of the secret to the dinner rolls I've been trying to reproduce for 30 years. The outside was like an eggshell, the inside soft like a pillow.

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[cwcdesign]

Sounds like a plan, Mike - I'm fascinated by the glass bread too - might have to wait until The Market closes on Mondays, too, in October - then I'd have 2 days back to back.

I made my first loaf of bread in my Emile Henry long baker today - it's the No-Knead Harvest Bread from KABC. There were no golden raisins at HT, so I got dried apricots and chopped them up - I thought regular raisins were too close to the dried cranberries.

A couple of comments mentioned mixing in the stand mixer, which I did and was done fairly quickly. I put it in the bowl to proof overnight and it had risen very nicely. I sort of shaped into a loaf and put it in the pan which I lightly greased with butter. The recipe said let it rise about 2 hours - at 1 hour 20 minutes it looked pretty high so I went ahead and baked it - it was over proofed on the second rise as it fell during baking. It's still cooling.

Two changes I intend to make next time - I had to place an order with KABC so I added red SAF yeast - I think the gold I have is amping up the proofing time and it's usually warm here too - Barb at KABC - I had to call as I had forgotten the last shipment had gone to Will in Texas and I hadn't changed the address back - I mentioned it to her and she said she had found the same thing with the gold yeast - I guess I'll have to try a sweet dough sometime to see how it works then.

The other change is that the recipe said to score it, but PJ's blog post did not - I tried to score it but next time I won't. Will report back on taste and texture later.

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[BakerAunt]

It still looks like a great loaf, CWCdesign. I find that most of the KABC recipes have much longer proofing times than my dough needs, particularly in the summer.

I use the gold yeast mostly for sweet doughs. I use a combination for my Grape Nuts Bread, which seems to rise better with some of the special gold added. However, I seem to recall that Len uses the special gold for all his breads. Perhaps he can weigh in on the issue.

I used the last of the blueberries on Sunday to bake my adaptation of that oatmeal blueberry muffin recipe I baked a couple of weeks ago for breakfast this morning. Next time I may reduce the brown sugar from a half cup to a third cup, but I will go ahead and type my version for my recipe binder.

[Joan Simpson]

I made a Cherry pie for my niece that is coming tomorrow, her favorite.

Cwcdesign your bread looks good to me.

[chocomouse]

That bread looks delicious, with all the pieces of fruits showing.

[cwcdesign]

I've had several slices of the bread - it is good, especially toasted, but I feel like it's a little bland. I followed the recipe using AP and WWW instead of Whole Wheat as that is what I had on hand - the recipe called for organic flour, but I wasn't going there. I'll probably use more WWW next time and maybe some sourdough starter - Will will be home on Thursday - I haven't fed the starter he left since he's been gone. I will make it again and experiment with it.

I'll probably toast the pecans the next time, too.

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[Mike Nolan]

I definitely recommend toasting nuts before using them in a bread.

[BakerAunt]

On Sunday afternoon, I baked Chocolate Zucchini Bundt Cake, a recipe from an email that Williams Sonoma recently sent. I baked it as four small Bundt cakes, using my Nordic Ware 9-cup pan that makes four small ones, and the batter fit perfectly. I decided to weigh ingredients using the metric measurements. I replaced the AP flour with barley flour, after researching it online and finding a lot of chocolate cakes that exclusively use barley flour. I halved the salt since I was not using kosher salt. I added 2 Tbs. of Bob’s Red Mill milk powder. I used the canola oil option. I used light brown sugar rather than dark, as that is what I have. I reduced it from 280g to 224 (20%), and I also reduced the granulated sugar slightly from 125 g to 109g. I used the fine grating disc for my food processor to achieve the finely grated zucchini. I had a bit more than needed but added all of it. I baked for slightly less than 45 minutes, cooled in the pan for 15 minutes, then turned them out with no sticking. (I used The Grease.) I will let them rest overnight. One will be sliced at dessert after dinner on Monday. I will freeze at least two of the others for dessert emergencies.

I will add a note to this post tomorrow about taste and texture.

Promised Note: The flavor is good, and I can even taste a bit of the 1/2 tsp. of cinnamon. Next time, I would use avocado oil instead of canola, because it needs a bit more fat. I might also bake it for a few minutes less.

[chocomouse]

I'm curious about using barley flour in chocolate cakes! I wonder why? Why barley? and why chocolate?

[Mike Nolan]

I've seen barley flour in 'flourless' cakes, it doesn't have much gluten so it doesn't add a lot of structure. Every time I look at the 'Katharine Hepburn Brownie' recipe, which uses maybe a 1/4 cup of flour, I wonder if you could make it with a non-wheat flour like barley flour. (It wouldn't be gluten-free, though.)

Barley syrup is sometimes used with chocolate candies, it adds a sweetness that complements chocolate well. It has a nuttiness to it, too.

[BakerAunt]

It also may have health benefits if, as thought, it lowers cholesterol, helps with blood pressure, and improves blood sugar.

I regularly use half barley flour in many of my cakes. I had planned to use half barley in this one, but as I checked some internet sites to make sure barley and chocolate go together, I read that barley can be substituted for AP flour and decided to experiment. There was a warning to substitute by weight not volume.

The sources did state not to use too much of it in yeast breads because of its low gluten content.

[Mike Nolan]

Barley has historically been the peasant's grain, that was true in biblical times and in medieval times. They ate it as a cooked grain gruel, used it to thicken soups and made bread with it. It was also used for brewing beer, of course.

It isn't clear when bakers started using the yeast byproducts of beer making in their bread, many historians think that practice dates back to the Egyptians but it may be much older than that. Barley doesn't have enough gluten to support a high rising bread, so it would have been more of a flatbread or quick bread.

[BakerAunt]

Ken Haedrich has a recipe in The Harvest Baker for Roasted Beet, Spinach, and Feta Cheese Flatbread, which I tried last year and liked. I decided to bake it for lunch on Monday, with leftovers for the week.

Our farmers' market is currently in a spinach lull, but the golden beets I bought had lovely tops, so I cleaned them well and used them instead of spinach. The kind of onion is not specified; I chose red onion. The recipe calls for 2 cups feta cheese. I bought a 4 oz. log of goat cheese and cut it up to use as the topping.

I used his crust recipe--well, sort of used it. He has a variation where a cup of whole wheat flour can be substituted for AP flour. I did that, but I used King Arthur's Italian-Style Flour rather than AP, and for the extra 2 Tbs., I used semolina. I also use water rather than milk but add 2 Tbs. special dry milk. My other alteration was unintentional. I noticed that the dough was rather dry as it was kneading in the bread machine, so I added 2 tsp. water. I only realized when the dough had risen that I had forgotten to add the egg, which was still sitting on my counter. Mise en place only works if the counter is not cluttered. 🙂

Instead of making two separate flatbreads, I made one big one that I rolled out and put on my 1 and 2/3 sheet pan. I baked for 24 minutes. The result was a thin, crisp, cracker crust. The topping is superb. Given how well the crust turned out, I will not bother with the egg but instead use 2-3 tsp. water when I make the recipe again.

[BakerAunt]

A bit of humor on bread baking:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/comics/mt-pleasant-by-rick-mckee-and-kent-sligh/ss-AA10GqyG?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=c90885b16a5e4cf1e4c698100590e0bb#image=1

[Joan Simpson]

Amazon huh lol!

My Cherry pie turned out well and my niece took most of it home.

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