What are you Baking the week of December 8, 2019?

[BakerAunt]

Thanks for the suggestion about UPS, Mike. There is no UPS in our little town. There is one in the town thirty minutes north of here where we do our major grocery shopping. I don't know if I'll have the baking finished before our next grocery trip, which coincides with a talk at the county historical society.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by BakerAunt.

[skeptic7]

Mike;
The Semolina bread looks beautiful

Baker Aunt;
I went to read about your Pumpkin Rye bread and found the ryebaker's blog. Rye flour looks so confusing. Is your pumpkin bread at all sweet? Does it rise high? It looks like an interesting recipe, I think in volume measurements so I can't evaluate if this is a wet loaf or a dry or anything else about it.

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--It's a wet dough. The bread has no added sugar, although I used a pinch to get my active yeast started. There is a bit of sweetness from the pie pumpkin. Part of the trick to shaping the loaf, which I learned here at Nebraska Kitchen from Aaron and Mike's discussions, is to flour the Silpat mat liberally (I use white rye for that) before putting the dough on it to shape. This loaf is about 3 inches tall at its highest point. I think that I shaped the Thanksgiving one a little better, and slashed it a little better, as it had slightly more height and a bit less spread. However, I'm eating a buttered (well, Land' o Lakes light butter-canola spread) and the taste is as wonderful as I remember it from the Thanksgiving bake.

This is probably a good bread to get started on with rye, as it is more whole wheat than rye, but the rye flavor is dominant.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

I have a buttermilk rye recipe that I developed posted here, it makes a very good bread for reubens. The last several times I made rye bread, though, I made Peter Reinhart's marbled rye bread in BBA, it is as close to a foolproof rye recipe as you'll find. I increase the proportion of rye to wheat flour from 30/70 to 40/60 and I use a coarse pumpernickel flour that I got from a Mennonite store in TN a year ago, I haven't found a direct local or online replacement for it so I'm not sure what I'll do when I run out.

I may try to contact the store in TN and see if they'll tell me who they bulk order from or if they'll ship it. (I'm also thinking about the possibility of driving to Asheville NC for the 2020 Asheville Bread Festival in May, which would take me right past the Mennonite store.)

When you get the percentage of rye flour to 50% or higher, you are more likely to have to deal with rye flour's tendency to produce a gummy dough.

I'm going to be trying some of Stanley Ginsberg's rye recipes after the holidays, but I may have to order the rye flours he calls for, the ONLY rye flour I can find locally these days is Bob's Red Mill organic dark rye, and I want some other options. I stopped at the locally owned 'gourmet' grocery store in Lincoln earlier today, they didn't even have that. I will check Whole Foods next time I'm in that part of town, but I don't seem to recall a lot of interesting flour choices there. The local co-op seems to have fewer flours than they used to, too.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA, you might try online UPS shippingonline UPS shippingonline UPS shipping and see if you can schedule a pickup for your town.

Skeptic, the ricotta/cranberry pizza sounds great and Mike your bread looks fantastic.

I had baking planned but other things intervened... Only thing I've made this week is gingerbread pancakes. My daughter asked for them as I was making the Sunday morning pancakes so I mixed in some ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and molasses. The pancakes tasted pretty good but it turns out what my daughter wanted was regular pancakes with chunks of gingerbread cookies mixed in!

I was thinking of making a mix of gingerbread spices since I use it a lot this time of year. Has anyone ever used powdered molasses before I buy some?

[Mike Nolan]

I've never had pancakes with pieces of gingerbread cookies in them, sounds like something you'd get at a Disney restaurant.

Aaron, have you ordered anything from NY Bakers? I'm looking at getting a selection of rye flours from them to start my rye experiments. 3 pounds each of several types of rye flours should get me through the first few months, then I may start ordering in bulk, since my local options are pretty much nil.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--I tried to schedule a pick-up from UPS last year when I had to return a duplicate book to Barnes & Noble (free shipping label for return). I was told that pick-up was not available. Living in a more rural area is not always convenient.

I have seen the Bob's Red Mill Dark Rye in grocery stores in this area. For medium rye, I've ordered it from King Arthur, although it is pricy. They have pumpernickel (also pricy) as well. I try to take advantage of specials. I bought the white rye from them for a scone recipe that I will now never bake, and I didn't realize that it is not considered wholegrain. I was wondering how to use it up, so dusting the Silpat mat works.

I'll take a look at those rye recipes, Mike. The Asheville Bread Festival sounds like fun.

[Mike Nolan]

I heard back from Jeffrey Hamelman, the error in the sugar in the semolina bread recipe was fixed in the 2nd edition of his book.

Fixing errors in print is an author's nightmare. I remember when my wife got her copies of the book she co-authored, she found a grammatical error on the first page.

With cookbooks there are just too many little things that can get messed up.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Sorry BA. Guess that is why the USPS still exists.

Mike, I have used NY Bakers a couple of times and have been happy with their prices and their service. I bought first clear flour from them and it was about $9 for a 5 pound bag as opposed to KAF which is about $10 for 3 pounds.

I have not heard of gingerbread cookie pancakes either. I think my daughter was inspired by a food show she was watching...

[BakerAunt]

Ideally, I would have baked Lucia Buns for breakfast on Friday morning, but it was late afternoon before I could start them. I adapted my recipe to use less butter and some whole grains. I put the details in a separate thread titled "Baking a Healthier Swedish Lucia Bun."

[chocomouse]

I started baking cookies for my cookie tray today, but realized as I started this post that my first cookie of the season was non-baked! I'm calling it "baking" anyway! I made Buckeye Bars and they will be the first to disappear from the cookie trays. I put most of them into the freezer, but if my husband discovers them, they will disappear before they even make it onto the trays!

[RiversideLen]

I made Oatmeal Coconut cookie dough and Chewy Maple cookie dough. I portioned them out and froze them. I'll be baking them as needed.

[Author]

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