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

[Mike Nolan]

I did make bagels today, but they didn't rise as much as normal, I might have dumped the yeast on top of the salt. They did float after a few seconds in the boiling water and they're a little smaller than normal, but I think they'll still be OK for supper, maybe a little denser than usual.

[RiversideLen]

On Monday I baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies to take to my neighbors. I used half mini chocolate chips and half chocolate chunks. My neighbors are starting a 2 week self quarantine because they are expecting a new grandchild in early January and want to be available to help with things.

[BakerAunt]

Chocomouse--the Cosco and the Sam's are as far away as the Gordon's Food Services. When I last bought a 2 lb. bag of yeast--in December 2019 at GFS, it was 50 cents less than the KABC price.

I envy people who live close to the discount stores.

[Mike Nolan]

I've been buying Fleischmann's IDY yeast in 2 pound lots (2 one-pound packages) at Sams, but they've switched to another brand, which I may try once I run out. I've still got a pound of Fleischmann's yeast unopened, I don't use it as fast these days with just two of us.

I think Costco has Red Star IDY.

[chocomouse]

Today I made Harvest Grain rolls, using a new bag I bought at the KABC sale this week. The recipe is on the back of the bag. I made 16 small (40 gram) dinner rolls and 8 (55 gram) slider buns. We ate a couple of those with our corn chowder. The Harvest Grains blend is one of my favorite things to add to most any bread recipe.

[BakerAunt]

I agree about the Harvest Grains, Chocomouse. They are delicious in breads and rolls. I am also a fan of the malted wheat flakes.

[Italiancook]

I made a loaf of Italian/French Bread. The recipe calls it French bread, and the crumb I attained is French bread quality. The shorter length and plumpness of the loaf make it Italian bread. Before posting this, I checked online to find out the difference between French and Italian Bread. Italian bread has a denser crumb.

I tried something different in the oven. The recipe says to put a pan of boiling water on the bottom rack. The recipe for the Portuguese Bread says to start with ice water during the preheat. Then, remove the water 10 minutes before bread finished. It says this will make it crustier. So I started with boiling water, but removed it after I gave the bread it's last egg white wash at 30 minutes, fifteen minutes before the bread was done. This did, indeed, make the crust crispier, even though the bread had 3 layers of egg white wash. My husband commented happily on the crispy crust when I sliced it. He's more into that than I am.

The bread looked so beautiful that I served it with the Portuguese olive oil tonight. I've learned to trust the descriptions of the oil. This olive oil was exactly like the description, and I dislike it. Too spicy for me. Hubby likes it, so he's inheriting it for his morning eggs.

I'm still going to make the Portuguese Bread Christmas Eve morning. I want to see if that bread makes the olive oil taste better to me -- I don't think so, but I may be surprised.

[Mike Nolan]

I always want to make sure any water in the oven is used up or removed 10 or at most 15 minutes into the bake. With my steam tube I can control that fairly precisely.

[Italiancook]

Why do you want the water gone so soon in the bake, Mike. The wording of my bread recipes make it sound like the water should stay in for the entire bake . . . the Portuguese Bread recipe being the exception. But then, none of the bread I make is complex or difficult.

[BakerAunt]

post moved (inadvertently posted in wrong thread)

[Mike Nolan]

The instructions for baking in a commercial steam injection oven almost always say to open the vents, removing the steam, after about 10 minutes of baking.

My understanding is the impact steam has on the crust, delaying it from setting, needs to give way to completing the process of baking the bread.

Peter Reinhart's instructions for adding steam in a home oven also say to take the pan out after about 10 minutes.

I'm using about a 6 inch cast iron skillet with my steam tube, what I'd really like is a much larger cast iron pan of some kind, maybe a griddle, but the bigger ones tend to have handles that get in the way. (The steam tube has to be fairly near a front corner of the bottom rack, because it falls out if you try to have the pan more centered in the oven, and you really don't want to be dumping water onto the lower heating element.)

[BakerAunt]

A covered clay or pottery baker keeps the steam inside, but the instructions say to remove the lid part way through the baking--usually about 10 minutes before the end. Doing so produces a crisper outside crust and softer interior.

[Mike Nolan]

Bread needs to dry out as it bakes, unlike something like Boston Brown Bread, which is steamed.

[cwcdesign]

Here’s the pan of your dreams, Mike a big cast iron pan with two smaller handles. It really is a dream with a price tag to match. This is a company we sell in the store. The company is in Charleston, SC and the use traditional methods for polishing the cast iron for non-stick. These pans are beautiful, heavy and expensive, but the people who use them say they are incredible.
https://smithey.com/collections/castiron/products/no-14-dual-handle-skillet The 10” or 12” flat top griddles are nice griddles, too

[Mike Nolan]

I have to admit to having given some thought to buying a Lodge square pan and have the handle cut off one side.

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