What are you Baking the Week of December 12, 2021?

[Mike Nolan]

Any Christmas baking going on?

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[chocomouse]

Not quite, but today is cookie dough day at my house! I'll mix up several doughs for the freezer to be baked off next week. Some I will shape into a cylinder for slice and bake cookies, and others I'll use a cookie scoop. I focus on taste, not looks -- I am not the fancy decorator type! What kind of cookies do you make?

[Mike Nolan]

I'm more of a chocolate chip cookie person, not very Christmasy, though lately I've made chocolate pecan meringue cookies the most, mostly because we've been making things that use egg yolks and I have left over egg whites to use up. My wife likes making her chocolate 'mushroom' cookies, the recipe is posted here. Neither of us do much cookie decoration. I'm not very artistic and she's got an inherited tremor that makes it difficult to do piping or precise decoration work.

[cwcdesign]

I made a quick appetizer for a neighborhood open house last night - the invitation said “if you are not vaccinated, we will miss you” - that I found on a favorite website. It’s probably from the 60’s or 70’s and consisted of butter, refrigerator biscuits and blue cheese. Melt the butter in a glass pie pan, cut the biscuits in quarters, sprinkle on the blue cheese and bake. It was well received. I made a half batch for home.

[cwcdesign]

I just tried a new biscotti recipe from KABC - the malted brownie biscotti. I thought the dough was way too wet, even though they said it would be sticky and that you should use up to a ¼ cup flour to heLp shape. Because of the stickiness I lost some of the dough from the total. I ended up wetting my hands for shaping like PJ always recommended. Next time I might chill the dough before shaping. Even though I put it in the freezer as directed for about 40 minutes, it still spread quite a bit.

However, I like the flavor and the texture, but I might add more malt next time. The recipe called for natural cocoa powder and baking soda, so I used the KAF triple blend which they say can be used in either dutch process or natural recipes. If I wanted to use Double Dutch instead would I use baking powder? Most of the other biscotti recipes call for baking powder and I wonder if that would help with the spreading. It might need a little espresso powder, too.

[BakerAunt]

CWCdesign--sometimes I find that a sheet of saran wrap--put over the dough I am trying to shape--lets me shape the log from the sides, then move to the end to shape the ends.

Baking soda, as Cass would remind us, has 4x the rising power of baking powder. So, 1/4 tsp. baking soda would be replaced with 1 tsp. baking powder.

My thought is that baking soda or baking powder would NOT make a difference in the spread. More flour might help.

I would definitely add the espresso powder--probably at least a teaspoon.

I just looked at the recipe: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/malted-brownie-biscotti-recipe

I might see if I can engineer an oil version.

[cwcdesign]

Just a quick one - Does baking powder have more rising power? (You have baking soda twice in the sentence - hah) I remembered that KABC had an article about cocoa powder and baking soda/baking powder. Here's what I found at the very end of the article

"If a recipe calls for natural cocoa and baking soda, and you want to use Dutch-process cocoa, substitute an equal amount of Dutch process cocoa but replace the soda with twice the amount of baking powder, leaving the remaining ingredients the same.

If a recipe calls for Dutch-process cocoa and baking powder, and you want to use natural cocoa, substitute an equal amount of natural cocoa but replace the baking powder with half the amount of baking soda, leaving the remaining ingredients the same."

[BakerAunt]

Sorry, I mistyped. It should be that baking soda has 4x the rising power of baking powder. I have corrected the original post. Baking soda, however, does not have the lasting power of baking powder, so once it is wet, the item needs to get to the oven and not sit around. I also meant to write that replacing baking soda with baking powder would NOT make much difference in the rise. I've corrected that error as well. (I hate doing my typing in an open concept room with a dog and a husband asking for attention.)

I have substituted dutch process cocoa for natural and I follow the directions from Cass and replace the baking soda with 4x the baking powder. I'm not sure if dutched cocoa needs to be treated differently.

[Mike Nolan]

I am baking a sweet potato pie this morning. No real change from the last few, except that I made the filling last night, refrigerated it overnight, and used a stick blender on it this morning to smooth out lumps.

I think I may have over-baked it a bit, it cracked all the way around about a third of the way from the rim, but this filling is pretty stiff (I'm using heavy cream in it) and I may need to tinker with the baking time/temp.

I'm sure it'll still taste great, though.

[chocomouse]

I made molasses ginger cookies for the Christmas Eve cookie tray, and a double batch of savory Chex Mix for gifts.

[BakerAunt]

On Tuesday, I baked my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from the dough I made up last week.

I also baked an adaptation of Jane Brody’s Pumpkin-Rye Bread from Jane Brody’s Good Food Gourmet (1990), pp. 416-417. I recall baking this bread back in the 1990s, when I kneaded it by hand--and that is a lot of dough as it makes three loaves. I liked it a lot. My adaptation is an effort to make the bread more wholegrain, since the original recipe uses 3 cups rye and 6 1/2 cup AP flour. I also needed to replace the butter.

I replaced the milk with buttermilk and the 4 Tbs. butter with 3 Tbs. olive oil. I used 4 ½ tsp. yeast, which is the equivalent to two packets, although she states that would be a scant 2 Tbs. I reduced the molasses slightly from ½ cup to 1/3 cup. I used Bob’s Red Mill dark rye flour (she says wholegrain rye flour). I replaced 3 cups of the AP flour with BRM whole wheat flour and used 3 ¼ cups BRM artisan bread flour. For the pumpkin, I used 2 cups of puree from the hybrid pumpkin I roasted yesterday. (She used canned pumpkin and said if using puree to drain the water, but I left it.) My rising times were longer, which is to be expected with my changes. I baked the three loaves at 400F, as stated; mine needed 35 rather than 30 minutes. They smell good but are a bit overly dark; next time I would reduce the heat after starting to 375F. The bread did not have much oven spring. I will evaluate taste and texture tomorrow. I will try the recipe again, as I have another 2 cups of the hybrid pumpkin puree. I might only use 2 cups of the dark rye next time and 4 cups of whole wheat flour.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I've been baking a lot. I found a neat little bakery/cafe in Sandy Hook CT. The owner is a really decent person and a genuinely good teacher. I am almost to the point where I can handle Sunday morning production. I am still slow but I am becoming faster and more consistent. Everything is done by hand except the mixing.

Both the pastry chef and the owner are BBGA members and asked me if I've ever read posts by "Mike Nolan" ;-).

It is a lot of work but a lot of fun.

[Joan Simpson]

Glad to see you posting Aaron and happy for your accomplishments. Nice to know our Mike is well known!

[navlys]

My husband loves brownie brittle. I found a Betty Crocker mix at Dollar tree. You had to mix it by hand and press it into a pan. It was a pain to make but it turned out amazing. I believe it has been discontinued but I found more at another DT. Finally I realized that I could use my mixer with the paddle. It was now a piece of cake (brittle) to make. I don't know what kind of cocoa was used but I did read that the mix contained some GMO ingredients. The expiration date is November something but that doesn't matter to me. This brownie brittle is much better than Sheila's.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm an active poster on the BBGA forum, and I've learned a lot there. Many of the people there are professionals in all the best senses of the word. I consider myself a persistent amateur or in BBGA terminology a 'serious home baker'.

I am kind of curious as to how my name came up, though.

I'm glad you found a place to develop your skills in a working environment.

There are a number of bakeries in Lincoln but I'm the only BBGA member here, there are only 4 in all of Nebraska. A lot of BBGA programming has historically been aimed at people on the east or west coast and occasionally in Chicago (like WheatStalk), that may be a factor in their low membership here.

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