What are you Baking the Week of December 3, 2023?

[Mike Nolan]

No baking planned for today here.

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[BakerAunt]

Scott wants to go tomorrow to get our Christmas tree, so I rearranged what I had planned in the kitchen for Sunday, so I will not be behind. I made some modifications to my no-butter maple cookie recipe, and I was pleased to get a crunchier cookie that held the Nordic Ware snowflake stamp imprint well. My husband and I were also pleased with the taste. They were crunchier because I reduced the baking powder by half. I used avocado oil rather than canola, and I added 1 Tbs. milk powder. I think that I may have accidentally reduced the maple syrup from 3 Tbs. to 2 Tbs. My husband was talking to me while I was silently changing the recipe in my head. I will need to bake it again to check.

My second baking project was Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from the dough I made early last week. My husband noted, as he sampled a few, that the cheese flavor is strongest when they are first baked but gradually mellows out.

My final project was the Sugar-Coated Apple Cobbler that was a "Bake of the Week," for King Arthur in October. I modified the recipe by replacing the butter with 1/3 cup canola oil, using white whole wheat flour, halving the salt, and adding 2 tsp. milk powder. I also halved the vanilla, since I am convinced that King Arthur uses it like it is not expensive in order to sell more. I also cut the sugar in the topping. I used about ¼ rather than ½ cup. I also left my Winsap apples unpeeled and cut them into pieces rather than slices, just as I do for pie. I baked it in a glass 8x8 dish, since I have found apples take the finish off of the USA pans. It needed the full 40 minutes to bake. We waited patiently for it to cool and settle for 30 minutes, and then we ate some for dessert. It is delicious, although I think the boiled cider overwhelms the apples. I will reduce the amount from 2 Tbs. to 1 Tbs. next time, and there will be a next time this season. The sweetness, with the sugar reduction, is just right. Half the amount on top still produced a wonderful crackly "crust."

[navlys]

Every year I make the German stolen that my German neighbor Gerta introduced me to 43 years ago. I actually watched her make it but I could never duplicate hers! I used to search far and wide for the farmers cheese she used, I purchased the Dr Oetker essences and I hunted down lard at the local supermarket. My husband insists I make it anyway and now it is a tradition. Every year it comes out differently. This year I replaced the farmers cheese with cottage cheese. I also substituted extra butter for the lard. I couldn't find the Dr Oetker baking powder so I used my regular baking powder. ( I also discovered that the German baking powder in the packet wasn't the same as our baking powder)! I didn't have the essences either so I substituted extracts. Well this year I did not overbake the loaves but they spread out like never before. The non crunchy part tastes good. Oh well there's always next year.

[BakerAunt]

Navlys--Well, live and learn! You may need to find some mail order places for the special ingredients.

We were out of bread, so on Monday afternoon I baked a loaf of my adaptation of the Pompanoosuc Porridge Bread recipe from King Arthur. I bake it uncovered in the bottom of my Emile Henry long baker. I still have a supply of the Pompanoosuc porridge that King Arthur does not sell anymore, so I will keep baking this bread until I run out of the porridge.

Note: last night's cobbler warmed up nicely in individual dishes at 300F for ten minutes in the countertop convection oven. The recipe is definitely a keeper.

[Mike Nolan]

It looks like the Pompanoosuc porridge mix had just 3 ingredients:
Wheat Bulgur
Steel Cut Oats (Irish style oats)
Flaxseed

[BakerAunt]

Thanks, Mike. It should not be hard to replicate. I do not see flax seeds, so perhaps they were milled or cracked?

[Mike Nolan]

This is what The Fresh Loaf had to say about replicating the mixture:

The blend itself is mostly steel cut oats, some bulgur and a small amount of flax seeds, golden or brown. You can use 3:2:1 proportions if you wish: 3 Tbsp oats, 2 Tbsp bulgur and 1 Tbsp flaxseed (whole) in the mix.

[BakerAunt]

Thanks for posting the proportions, Mike. I looked at the King Arthur bag, and yes, those are the ingredients. When I look at the mixture, the flax seed is so small, it is hard to see, which is why I missed it. I would probably use some flax meal instead, since humans cannot digest the seeds to reap the nutritional benefits.

[RiversideLen]

My open container of SAF Gold is just about done so I went rummaging through my chest freezer and came up with a pound that has an expiration date of June 2022. I figure it should be good so I opened it and used a 1/4 teaspoon to make a pizza yesterday (just one pizza, 160 grams of flour). As I expected, the yeast is fine (SAF Gold is a trooper!).

I changed up my dough recipe a little, I normally use equal amounts of AP, Whole Wheat, Semolina and sometimes Rye. Yesterday I used 50% Semolina, 25% each of Rye and Whole Wheat. It came out great although I noticed a little more of the whole wheat flavor than normal. I formed the crust by hand, very easy, and toppings were sliced chicken meatballs and mushrooms. I sliced fresh mushrooms and roasted them until the liquid they gave up was all gone. The result was golden brown with a very nice flavor.

[jacobsonjf]

It will be +50f here in Minneapolis Thursday, so I made up a couple balls of a new pizza dough yesterday. Thursday I'll fire up the backyard pizza oven and bake a pizza - one for dinner, one for a neighbor.

[chocomouse]

I made two large and one small loaf of the Maple Oatmeal Wheat bread this morning.

[BakerAunt]

I baked brownies using olive oil and Greek yogurt on Wednesday afternoon. It was my usual recipe, but this time I put it in a 12x7 glass baking dish instead of lining a metal 9x9 with parchment, so that I could cut them in the dish. It worked well, and I will do it again. Before baking, I added a mixture of red, green, and white sprinkles for a bit of Christmas spirit.

[BakerAunt]

I am craving sugar cookies. Instead of giving in and baking my lovely butter ones (I'm saving my butter splurge for the Pfeffernusse), I googled oil sugar cookies and looked at the top three. I liked one but decided to look further. It turned out the one that I liked was taken directly from the Betty Crocker website. I read the comments and thought about the two oil-based cookies that I do bake--Big Lake Judy's molasses cookies and King Arthur's spiced rye cookies. I also considered the oil-based maple cookie that I am developing. Some commentators found the cookies too oily, bland, or tasting of baking powder.

I set to work. I used half white whole wheat flour, so that I can claim some nutritional value. I added 2 Tbs. of milk powder, since it seems to help with taste and texture in cakes, and again, it upped the nutritional profile. I cut the oil from 2/3 to 1/3 cup. The recipe stated vegetable oil; I used avocado. I also cut the baking powder from 2 tsp. to 1 tsp. I added ¼ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg to the wet ingredients. I made sure to beat the oil and sugar together well, then added the eggs, the vanilla, and the nutmeg. I mixed the baking powder with the dry ingredients and added half to mix before adding the other half. I used a #30 scoop and got 17 cookies, which I put on two parchment lined baking sheets. First, however, I dropped each cookie in red and green sugar. I pressed them down a bit. I lowered the baking temperature from 400F to 375F. I baked the first tray for 12 minutes, which got them a bit browner on the bottoms than I like, so I did the second for 11 minutes. The result is a very nice, slightly cakey cookie to go with tea!

[Joan Simpson]

The sugar cookies sounds nice BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

Thank you, Joan. Let me know if you want me to post my working copy of the recipe, and I will do so.

We used up the bread on Saturday, so I baked two loaves of my version of Grape Nuts bread. I have been trying to make it more whole grain, but the whole wheat flour was covering up the malt flavor, so this time, I used white whole wheat flour and increased the malt by a tablespoon. I hope it will hit the taste and texture of past loaves. Otherwise, I may have to go back to more of the regular flour.

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