What are you Baking the Week of December 10, 2023?

[Mike Nolan]

I will be making peanut butter cookies and semolina bread today.

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[chocomouse]

I made cookies today, an experiment. These were drop cookies, made with 3 tablespoons of Tang drink mix for the orange flavoring, plus about 1/2 cup of orange peels I had candied, and about 1/3 cup of cinnamon chips that I made and had in the freezer for a couple of months. The cinnamon chips did not stand up well to be stirred into the stiff cookie dough. They crumbled, although not quite as fine as powdered cinnamon. The flavor is really good, but I'd prefer the impact of small cinnamon chips scattered throughout. I do think the home-made chips would be fine in a muffin or sweet bread batter, which is not as stiff and likely to crumble the chips.

[RiversideLen]

I'm making a batch of burger/sandwich buns. They're all made up and waiting for them to raise up and then into the oven.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Choco -Tang! Cool. I haven't seen that in years.

I over-proofed my ciabatta rolls so they are very flat. It will be hard to use them for sandwiches but I'll figure out something.

I made a double batch of my molasses cookies to take to my volunteer gig on Wednesday. This was a solo effort and it reminded me, again, of why I hate KitchenAid. My mixer, which was rated by KA for nine cups of flour, was almost overflowing. I had to "utz" it as my mom would have said. I had four cups of flour, two cups of sugar, one cup of butter and two eggs. COME ON!

This is a challah week so I'll make the dough Wednesday and the loaves Thursday.

I need to make pizza dough and more ciabatta too.

[Mike Nolan]

Aaron, in one of the BBGA classes I took online, I learned the trick of taking parchment paper or a towel and wrapping it around the top of the mixer to keep the flour from spilling out during the first part of the mixing, before the flour is hydrated.

That won't help with a recipe that produces more dough than the mixer can handle, though. My 50 year old 4.5 quart KA struggles with one of the Challah recipes I use and with the Clonmel Kitchens Double Crusty Bread recipe, both wind up climbing the hook. It's making funny noises again, and my wife was looking at an Anksarsrum over the weekend. (I'd probably see if I could get the KA repaired or buy an inexpensive KA just to have it for egg whites and the pasta attachment.)

[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday, I made dough for Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers that I can bake early next week.

[chocomouse]

Tomorrow King Arthur Flour is having their once a year Friends and Family sale! 20% off most everything (not appliances and a few other things, like my Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad wholesale flours, etc) I have a very short list. Fromaggi Italiano which I have never tried, the Lemon Crumbles (I think that's the name) that I do like. I'll probably get some Harvest Grains or 6 Grain flour, maybe some other mixed grains. Their whole grain flour now seems to be around $16.95- $18.95 for 3 pounds. This is my only chance all year to shop their sale, but I really don't need much of anything, my pantry is pretty well stocked.

[Mike Nolan]

I made the detrempte for croissants last night and did the first two turns today. I'll do the third turn in the morning, then final rollout and make chocolatines with most of the dough for a Christmas party Friday afternoon.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made 14 1lb challot. They are becoming less wonky and adding a thermometer to the oven helped keep them from overbaking. Amazon had a 4 probe Thermopro for $25 so I bought it.

I was going to bring home two but a nice lady who was rehearsing for an organ recital smelled the bread and came back to the kitchen and asked if she could buy one. I told her "no" and gave her one. I brought one home and the other dozen are being delivered Friday morning.

We need to recruit some more drivers.

[Mike Nolan]

I made two sizes of chocolatines today, I think I like the smaller ones better. They were rolled out to 2 mm and cut in 2.5 x 5 rectangles, the bigger ones were rolled out to 3 mm and cut in 3 x 6 rectangles.

I need to work on keeping them from unrolling in the oven.

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[chocomouse]

Those look really good, Mike!

[RiversideLen]

Some of them may have unrolled a little but I bet they are delicious.

[Mike Nolan]

They went over very well, as usual.

They smelled so good baking (the dough and butter) that I think I'll make a batch of regular croissants over the holidays while our son and granddaughter are here. And bagels, since my granddaughter LOVES bagels.

[BakerAunt]

Ah, such yummy baking from Aaron and Mike!

It has been a slow baking week for me, so I needed to do something about that today. On Friday, I baked Eggnog Barley cake in my Christmas wreath Nordic Ware Bundt pan. I replaced 1 ¼ cups of the AP flour with barley flour. I found a high quality "low-fat" (still 3.5 g saturated fat per half cup) eggnog (Organic Valley Reduced Fat Eggnog) when we were at Kroger earlier this week. The Kroger brand was lower in saturated fat, but it used high fructose corn syrup. The cake is excellent, as we each had a slice for dinner.

My husband's mouth is still somewhat sore, so I baked a double batch of my new recipe for Drop Sugar Cookies that use avocado oil rather than butter. I did two-thirds of the cookies by rolling them in combined red and green sugar and rolling the remaining one-third in red, green, and white sprinkles. It is nice to have a sugar cookie for Christmas again, especially for afternoon teatime.

[Joan Simpson]

All y'alls baking sounds great!Mike those chocolatines looked good to me yummy!

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