What are you Baking the week of December 20, 2020?

[Joan Simpson]

BakerAunt you're right, the taste of the cookies are better today.

Today I baked two lemon supreme pound cakes from the Duncan Hines box,one for a neighbor and one for a friend down the road.

[RiversideLen]

Yesterday I baked the Noel Nut Balls. Today I made 2 loaves of stollen. I have frozen chocolate chip cookie dough that I will bake tomorrow and then that's it for now.

[cwcdesign]

A note on the Maple Apple upside down cake - the flavor is really good - I definitely want to make it in a sealed pan as I think the lost maple syrup was definitely needed. The cake was a little dense - could have been due to my mixing and I think I may have over baked it by about 5 minutes. We definitely want to make it again however.

I wonder if it might work in a 9" pan instead of the 10" - the cake would be taller but the syrup more concentrated . . .

[chocomouse]

I made that Maple Apple upside down cake a couple months ago, and it was excellent. I don't remember what pan I used, I'm thinking maybe a tart pan, which would be 12" diameter. But, maybe it was a 9 or 10" cake pan. So Monday I bought more apples to make another one, except they didn't have any Granny Smith, so I bought Juci. I've never eaten those before, but I suspect they lack the tartness of a Granny, and won't be as good in a baked item. We'll see. Got to get rid of the Christmas cookies first!

[Joan Simpson]

I made two loaves of banana bread today one to my SIL that lives next to me.

[Mike Nolan]

I made the sweet potato pie today, we won't cut into it until tomorrow. My wife also made a trifle. So we're covered for desserts for the holiday. 🙂

[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday, I baked two loaves of Len’s Rye/Semolina/Whole Wheat Bread (the buns recipe, doubled for two loaves). I made my usual tweaks of mostly buttermilk in place of the water and added some special dried milk. I also preheated the oven to 400F, then turned it down to 375 after putting in the loaves. We will slice one loaf tomorrow, and the other will go into the freezer

[Mike Nolan]

Here's my sweet potato pie, haven't tasted it yet. (I'm not a big fan of pumpkin pie, and don't eat a lot of sweet potato, either, but I'll probably try a piece tomorrow.)

The crust was getting too dark (I think I had the oven too hot), so I put a pie shield on it, and the pie rose up to the point where it touched the shield, so that's why there's a ring about a half inch from the edge.

The recipe was sort of an amalgam of the recipe on this site and two other recipes, we baked the sweet potato rather than boil it, I used some cream, some milk and lots of butter. I only used about a third of a cup of brown sugar. The spices were cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and a pinch of clove.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Mike Nolan]

Here's a shot of my wife holding her trifle.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike, VERY NICE!

I made my sourdough sandwich bread. I'd been trying a bunch of different things but too many things at once so I went back to the basics. I added some Penzy's Greek spice mix and it gave it a nice added taste.

Violet and I will make more molasses cookies and shortbread cookies today.

I know some of you have used toasted sugar. What's the difference between toasted sugar and brown sugar is taste? I've been using brown sugar in my shortbread for a while but I read a recipe that uses toasted sugar.

[BakerAunt]

Mike's dessert table is ready for Christmas Eve!

[Mike Nolan]

Brown sugar is sugar with molasses in it, toasted sugar is sugar that has been slowly baked to partially caramelize the sugar but without destroying the crystalline structure.

See Toasted Sugar

I've never made or used it, so I can't speak to its taste or other aspects, but it might be interesting to sprinkle some on an apple pie.

[chocomouse]

Today I made a pecan pie for Christmas dinner, and cornbread to go with our chili tonight.

[BakerAunt]

Christmas Eve was a busy day in the kitchen. I baked another batch of maple granola. I baked the Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from the dough I made last week.

I am about to bake a pumpkin pie to serve for dessert on Christmas Day.

The temperature has been in the teens all day, going down rather than the predicted gaining of a few degrees. There have been little spits of snow. Possibly we may have some overnight.

[Mike Nolan]

The sweet potato pie was good, my wife says we may never make pumpkin pie again. It has the spice flavors of a pumpkin pie but without the pumpkin taste. Maybe a touch more cinnamon next time.

I made this one using 1/2 cup of cream, which I don't always have on hand, and 1 cup of 1% milk, plus a full stick of butter and about a third of a cup of light brown sugar. Next time I might increase the sugar to a half cup, the brown sugar and the butter combine to add a butterscotch-like flavor. I might also try dark brown sugar.

[Author]

Posts