What are You Baking the Week of February 2, 2020?

[RiversideLen]

I made focaccia using the recipe on the bag of KAF Italian style flour. I have never made it before. It seemed simple and straightforward. It didn't rise up as much as I thought it should. It's OK but not great. I won't be making it again.

[Italiancook]

Thanks for the info, Mike, on the cake. I think your modification of coating pan in cocoa is much better than using flour. I used flour. When I cut two pieces for neighbors, I had to cut off the floury edge before I could take it to them. I compared my stepmother's recipe to the one you use. There are some differences. Below is beloved stepmother's recipe. I don't know where it's from or how old.

TEXAS CHOCOLATE CAKE

2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 sticks oleo
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup water
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla

Blend sugar & flour & set aside. Bring to a boil, oleo, cocoa & butter. Pour over flour & sugar mixture. Add buttermilk, eggs, cinnamon, baking soda & vanilla. Mix well with mixer. Pour into a greased and floured pan. Bake at 360 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes. The last few minutes of baking, prepare the frosting.

As a separate note, she says the pan size should be 17 x 9 x 2", but she always made it in my grandmother's cake pan, which is what I used. It measures 8-1/2 x 13 x 1-1/4". I had just enough frosting for it without it being too thick. I'm thinking, but don't know for sure, that for the larger sized pan, a double batch of frosting may be needed, but that may be too much. Maybe 1-1/2 batch.

TEXAS CAKE FROSTING

Bring to a boil:

4 tablespoons cocoa
1 stick oleo
6 tablespoons milk (she used regular milk, not buttermilk)

Remove from heat and add 3 cups confectioner's sugar. Beat with a mixer. Add 1 tablespoon vanilla & a heaping 1 cup of chopped nuts.

Remove cake from oven and pour the hot icing over the hot cake. If this is too thick to spread, add a little more milk.

[Mike Nolan]

I don't remember where I read about using cocoa instead of flour for a chocolate cake, I've been doing it for years, I like that it doesn't mess with the color and it adds just a hint of dark unsweetened cocoa taste to the cake, which helps cut through all the sugar in the frosting. A similar concept is to use sugar instead of flour for a white cake, I think Cass mentioned that back on the old KAF forum some time back.

There are a couple of gluten-free people at my wife's office, so I will often make a larger Texas Chocolate sheet cake (at least 9 x 13) using wheat flour and a smaller one using gluten-free flour, usually with a little xanthan gum. The same frosting goes on both. It is hard to tell the difference between the two just by taste. I think the GF one needs to be baked a few minutes longer.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making Rye Bites from Ginsberg's book today. This has to be the fastest recipe in the book, less than two hours start to finish. They're pretty small, 42 grams each before baking. I'll be interested to see how much they rise and how soft they are with so little time for the yeast to grow.

[BakerAunt]

I baked that recipe last year and liked it, but I did not heed his point about baking them in the upper part of the oven, so I burned them on the bottom. I need to try this recipe again.

[skeptic7]

Mike, Riverside Len;
Thanks for the recipe. At the moment I am a volume baker but when I finally break down and invest in an accurate scale, I will try one of those recipes.

Friday I made a whole wheat bread with hunks of cheddar cheese for a party. This is the same recipe that I have done before and it came out very well. I baked it in a slow cooker on high for about 3 1/2 hours to 190 degrees.

[skeptic7]

I just baked a savory pie, which is based on a missmash of various recipes, especially the "Savory Winter Vegetable Pie" by PJ Hamel, with was printed in one of the King Arthur Flour baking sheets.
This is canned salmon, and cabbage and spinach bound together by egg and ricotta cheese. Oh and also some sweet potato for color and contrast.

Peel and slice up enough sweet potato thinly to cover the bottom of a 10 inch frying pan. This was fairly thin slices so I had three layers. Place in 350 degree oven to cook and dry out a bit.
Take the remainder of a cone headed cabbage and slice the whole thing into thin slices, trying to discard the core. Shake the slices to seperate them and place in a large tray in the oven. Microwave 1/2 16oz package of frozen spinach and seperate and place on top of the cabbage. I'm baking the vegetables to get them cooked and remove excess liquid. Bake until cabbage is cooked and spinach is drier. Mix cabbage and spinach together.

Take one pizza style pie crust -- this is the all whole wheat version of a yeasted pie crust that I currently use for all my medium pizzas and roll very thinly. Line a 10 inch frying pan
Remove the sweet potato from the frying pan and place it in a bowl. I needed to use that particular frying pan. Cut one large onion up in thin slices and fry on low until completely cooked and limp and mild tasting. This is just done to improve the flavor
Mix about 1 cup ricotta cheese -- more or less -- this is the remainder of a 1 lb whole milk ricotta container after I made ricotta cheese and cranberry sauce pizza last week, with 2 eggs. A teaspoon fine herbs, some pepper and some thyme. Drain 1 can salmon and break apart the spine. Flake the salmon and it to the cheese mixture. Stir in the cooked onions. Blend in the cabbage mixture.
Line the pizza pie crust with the cooked sweet potato. Pile on the cheese and cabbage mixture. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees until brown. Crust turns out relatively thin as it wasn't given much time to rise.
This is slightly boring in flavor. Eat with fresh pickle relish. I like this but it could use more flavor maybe sprinkle with red pepper when I warm up a slice for lunch. This is my second cone head cabbage and I will get more next time I see it at the farmers market. I had maybe 4 cups of sliced cabbage/

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by skeptic7.

[RiversideLen]

I made my burger/sandwich buns yesterday.

[chocomouse]

I made Date Nut Coffee Cake, an old favorite recipe from my husband's family resort.

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