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

[cwcdesign]

Love the cartoon BA - your flatbread sounds delicious!

Joan, glad you enjoyed your pie, AND that it has a place to go so you’re not tempted. I hoped you enjoyed your visit with your niece.

[Joan Simpson]

I baked a coconut pie today and it turned out well. Flaky crispy pie crust now I'll be sharing this one too with someone.

Cwcdesign I really enjoyed my visit with my niece,she is like a little sister to me.Her mother was my sister that died and 13 years older and like a second mother to me.We had a good visit and enjoyed the day.

[BakerAunt]

Pie is always better when there are people with whom we can share it!

[chocomouse]

Yesterday I made raspberry chocolate cheesecake, in two 7" springforms so that I could freeze one. They turned out pretty well, considering I didn't have a recipe. I had to use regular graham crackers with 3 tablespoon of cocoa powder added, since I have not been able to find chocolate grahams in the stores for over 2 years. I put in a layer of cheesecake batter that had raspberry liquor stirred in, then a layer of flash-frozen raspberries, drizzled with melted chocolate. Then the remaining cheesecake batter and topped it all with chocolate ganache. I added 1/2 cup of sour cream to the batter, because my normal batter is very dense and I wanted something lighter for this. The cheesecake turned out a little too loose, too soft, perhaps due to the sour cream or perhaps the raspberries released excess liquid as they thawed. It is delicious, and I would make it again, omitting the sour cream.

[Joan Simpson]

Raspberry chocolate cheesecake sounds so good Chocomouse.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The bread looks great. At this point I don't make any KABC bread recipes. Mike's glass bread looks good so I may try that.

Netflix has a kids' version of the Great British Baking Show called "Jr. Baking Show". It is so much better at then the adult show at this point. There is none of the snarkiness. It's shorter too as there is only a technical and a showstopper. And, of course, Violet loves to watch it with me so that is fun.

I made scones this week. We came home from Maine this past weekend. No bakeries where we were staying but great views of the ocean! My in-laws stayed over at our house Saturday so I had scones for them Sunday morning before they took off. I was out of raisins so I used chocolate chips. I think it was a little too sweet but my kids loved it. My father-in-law introduced his grandchildren to "breakfast chocolate" when the boys were little!

I had big plans for other baking but things happen. I took Sam back to school and one look at the bags he meant to take on the train told me I needed to drive him all the way in so that was an extra three hours. An hour and a half of that was with my son so it was well worth it.

Then I went to donate blood another day and I was giving platelets instead of blood. That involves lying on my back with tubes in each arm for two hours while they draw the blood, take out the platelets, and put the blood back in. It was a three hour session with everything. So maybe I'll get to do something today or tomorrow.

[BakerAunt]

My first chocolate for breakfast was a chocolate cinnamon roll recipe. I think longingly of it, but I can only bake it now if I have enough people to eat almost all of it after I have a single roll.

Friday's baking plans were derailed at the crack of dawn when my husband awoke me with the words: "We have problems. The pump won't shut off." In our area, the houses have wells. We have a call into the plumber to diagnose the problem, which could range from the simple to the very expensive. For now, my husband has shut it off, so activity that generates a pile of dirty dishes is not viable.

[Mike Nolan]

BA, your chocolate cinnamon rolls would probably freeze well, if you have freezer space for them. When I make a batch of cinnamon rolls I freeze most of them in bags of 2, I do the same for burger buns and banana nut mini-muffins. (We reuse the bags.) Most of the time I cut the rolls into 1" segments for baking, we like them small. The batch I made for my neighbor I cut into 2" segments, though. I think I'll need to make another batch of them next week, that's when I'll test the cheese slicer method.

Our latest house problem is that my garage door opener has a bracket above the door that pulled loose. It still works but I'm trying to avoid opening it, as I don't know how much stress that is putting on the door or the other brackets.

[Mike Nolan]

King Arthur has been sending out emails on their new 'pizza school' lately. I don't have their pizza flour, but I'm going to try making pizza on the grill Saturday, using a blend of AP and pastry flour.

[BakerAunt]

On Friday, I made the Rye Tortillas recipe from the King Arthur site. I followed their recipe except for reducing the salt by a third. I chose to use avocado oil. The recipe is simple, although it is a bit of work rolling them out. I rolled on parchment with saran on the top, then flipped over, peeled off the parchment, peeled the tortilla off the plastic then put it on the iron griddle. I cooked them for 2 minutes 40 seconds per side. The taste is good, but they harden quickly, and I was not able to soften them much in the microwave. I am not sure whether to cook them a little less next time or perhaps add another tablespoon of oil. Any suggestions?

Does anyone here use a tortilla press? The rolling is a lot of work, but I have not justified in my mind spending the money on a press.

I used the volume measurements. I was going to weigh, but when I weighed the flour, it came out heavier--and yes, I did fluff it up first and spoon it into the measuring cups. I find that is typical with King Arthur's recipes. I think they develop them in volume, then convert into grams, and I think something gets lost in the conversion.

[Joan Simpson]

I baked the one layer chocolate cake and chocolate icing.

[chocomouse]

BakerAunt, I have a tortilla press. My first one was plastic (?) and the handle broke off after a few uses, so I bought a metal press. For a while I was making tortillas, but for several years I've been buying them instead. I've never been able to make great tortillas. It's a lot of frustration, using parchment and saran, and peeling the pressed dough off, only to get a misshapen roundish thing that, after cooking, is pale with charred blotches on it. And they don't taste any better than most of the store-bought tortillas. My suggestion - buy them! I prefer the spinach or tomato flavored ones, they make great wraps and quesadillas. Sorry I'm no help to you!

[Mike Nolan]

I made the pizzas on the grill tonight, one regular one with mushrooms, artichoke hearts, tomato chunks and cheese and one dessert one with bananas, chocolate, marshmallows, cinnamon and brown sugar. Both are about 10 inches in diameter. They were both great!

The crust is the recipe King Arthur sent out with their first Pizza School email two weeks ago, except that instead of using their 00 pizza flour I used a blend of AP and pastry flour. It is a good crust, very different from what I've been making and not like any take-out pizza I've had. How much of that is the dough recipe and how much of it is cooking it on a grill is hard to say.

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[BakerAunt]

Congratulations on the grilled pizza, Mike. It looks delicious.

Chocomouse--Thanks for the insight about the tortilla press. I will continue without one. Good tortillas for a reasonable price are not to be found in our town's single grocery store. I will look around when we do the big grocery run in a week or so and see what is available in the larger town to the northeast.

We liked the flavor of the rye tortilla, even though they stayed hard or quickly returned to hard after microwaving when spritzed with water. Perhaps steaming would work? I also saw Mike's suggestion in the cooking thread about layering them with wet paper towels.

I rolled them out on parchment with saran over the top, flipped them over, peeled off the parchment, turned it over, and carefully peeled off the saran. This recipe held its shape fairly well.

I think these would make good individual "pizzas.? I also think they would be good "chips" for dips or my beloved salsa.

[Mike Nolan]

I was looking at a tortilla press last year, not for making tortillas but for making empanadas and possibly even thin pizzas.

I don't think a 6" press would be big enough for pizzas, though it'd be fine for empanadas.

There's a burrito place in town that has a really big press that flattens and cooks their flour tortillas in about a minute. I've seen a similar press at Blaze Pizza for making their pizzas, which are somewhere around 10" in diameter. It doesn't cook the dough, and it leaves a rim like you would want on a pizza.

We prefer hard corn shells for tacos, and I'm happy buying the stand-n-stuff ones in the store. Our younger son preferred flour tortillas but he's in San Fran now. (In January it will be 10 years since he moved there.)

Anyway, the reviews on the metal presses were a mixed bag, apparently the handle that applies the pressure is the weak link, literally.

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