What are you Baking the week of February 24, 2019?

[Mike Nolan]

Here's a thread for your baking.

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[BakerAunt]

I baked a new recipe on Monday morning: "Pear Spice Muffins," by Ellie Krieger. It appeared in The Washington Post. I’d post the link, except that it would count against any free views that I might have left. These muffins use date sugar and whole wheat pastry flour. I chose the walnut option for nuts. My only change was not to peel the Bosc pear that I used. The batter, which uses buttermilk and applesauce, was very puffy. It filled the muffin cups, but that was fine, as the muffins have a lower dome. We each had one at lunch, and again as dessert at dinner. They have a somewhat spongy texture. I like the cinnamon, ginger, and clove spice mixture. Saturated fat is less than 1g per muffin. Although I’m glad that I tried the recipe, I don’t think that I would go to the trouble of getting date sugar to bake them again, as I like a muffin with a firmer texture.

[Joan Simpson]

BakerAunt I've never heard of date sugar.
Today I baked the blueberry buckle recipe from KAF and it turned out really well.It called for two cups of blueberries and I used one and a half cups which was plenty for me,the batter was thick and my berries were frozen.It looked just like the picture and wasn't too sweet and very moist for a coffee cake.It has a streusel topping which was more on it than I like but was good,maybe next time I might do half that and maybe add in a few chopped pecans.If you like coffee cakes this was a good one not too big only an 8x8.

[chocomouse]

Joan, if you like blueberries, lemon, and coffeecake (! and who doesn't?) you might like to look at KAF recipes for:
1. Blueberry Lemon Coffeecake. I've made this many times, but with a change to the streusel. I use lemon juice powder in place of all the lemon zest, oil, etc. And, I like the flavor best without any brown sugar. I've only seen it at KAF, it is a little expensive, and I haven't found a substitute for it. But, if you want lemon flavor -- this is it! And it's perfect with blueberries.
2. Lemon Streusel Coffeecake. This recipe uses the lemon juice powder in the streusel, but it is made with brown sugar, and I prefer white sugar. But it does give you a sense of using the lemon juice powder.

I'm going to take a peek at the buckle you made.

[Mike Nolan]

Date sugar is an ingredient you're more likely to see at a store that specializes in mid-eastern or Indian foods, although Bob's Red Mill also sells it. (But they sell a lot of products that most stores don't stock.)

I saw an online article yesterday about cooking with maple syrup or maple sugar, it had one recipe that used a cup and a half of maple sugar!

[BakerAunt]

Yes, my date sugar came from Bob's Red Mill. I added it to an order, especially for trying this recipe. I may have another recipe for it in my stash as well. Although the package says that date sugar can be substituted in recipes for date sugar, Ellie Krieger says it behaves more like flour (it isn't really "sugar") and suggests increasing the flour in her recipe by 1/2 cup and decreasing the applesauce by 1/2 cup if replacing it with an equal amount of brown sugar.

Bob's Red Mill has discounts for purchases by the case. I usually order their flours, grains, seeds, beans, powdered milk by the case. They have various email promotions with discounts as well. Orders over $59 ship free. (You don't want to know what regular shipping would cost!)

Joan--I find that King Arthur tends to overdo the streusel, so I usually cut back, especially now that I have to watch saturated fat intake.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Joan Simpson]

BakerAunt I agree about streusel topping ,next time I may omit it and just do a light drizzle on top.

I can't imagine baking enough to buy by the case (Big smiley face) of anything,but y'all bake alot more than I do.I do love to bake but for the two of us it's not very much.

Chocomouse both coffee cakes looks like something I'd like.

[chocomouse]

I'm back in the kitchen and baking! For many years I've been saying "No, I'm not going to start making bagels; I don't need bagels, etc" So, my sister suggested we take a bagel class at KAF, wouldn't I like to do that?" Hahaha! I said "Sure, I'd love to. But we should really try making some on our own first, so we know what to look for and what questions to ask in class." On my way home from Maine, I stopped at KAF and bought nondiastatic malt powder. Today I made the bagels, using the Water Bagels recipe on the KAF website. I made half the dough into cinnamon=raisin, by kneading them into the dough just before shaping. The other half I sprinkled with seeds, onions, garlic, salt just before baking. I shaped half of them as suggested in the recipe (make a ball of dough, poke your finger through and sort of twirl and stretch) and half of them I patted out the dough and cut with a doughnut cutter. They smelled wonderful, but look terrible! Both varieties taste great. I need to work on the shaping; it will get better I know. The insides are dense but not tough chewy. The outside is very chewy, too chewy for my preference, I'd like to keep my teeth a few more years! I'll do some research on line to see what I can do to soften the outside. I used bread flour, so I know I could lower the protein by using AP. But I don't want to lose the denseness and chew of the inside. Maybe use less of the malt powder in the boil, or maybe bake for less than 20 minutes. I might also call the KAF chat line and ask. It will be a couple of months before they have a bagel class. Anyone here make bagels? Novice or expert help would be fine!

Baker Aunt - I neglected to tell Joan that she should consider cutting the streusel amount in half! I usually make the full recipe, but freeze half for the next bake. So thanks for sharing that information!

[Mike Nolan]

I've made bagels dozens of times. I generally use one of Peter Reinhart's recipes, either the one in BBA or in ABED.

I have only made cinnamon-raisin bagels a few times, but they didn't seem tougher or denser than 'plain' bagels.

As for toppings, my wife likes them with poppy seeds (and sometimes some sesame seeds too), I tend to prefer them topped with a 4 cheese blend or plain.

I generally use the 'poke a hole in the middle' method, I find that works better than the traditional 'wrap around your hand' method, especially since I prefer bagels made with 3 ounces of dough per bagel rather than the 4 or 4.5 ounces many recipes use, and I have pretty big hands.

You need to do a good job of rolling the bagels into compact balls. I then let them rest for a few minutes. I flatten them into discs, let those rest for another minute or two and then poke the hole in the middle and stretch them a bit, making sure the dough is fairly even all the way around. (When our granddaughter is visiting, she loves doing this part.) By then they're ready for their bath.

I really prefer using barley syrup to using nondiastatic malt powder, and sometimes I put a little barley syrup in the boiling water, too.

[chocomouse]

Thanks Mike! I have both of those books, so will read over what he has written and probably try both recipes. My plain bagels look a lot better than the raisin-cinnamon version -- there are lumpy raisins sticking out all around the bagel! I made 18 bagels instead of the 12 the recipe called for, since we want them smaller than the usual bakery bagels. I shaped the dough into balls (for once, I let go of my OCD and just eye-balled the dividing instead of using the scale) and let it rest, then flattened and did not let it rest again. I guess maybe I need to be more particular when I poke and twirl. I did use the malt powder in the water bath, as the recipe called for it. I'm pretty sure I have some barley syrup in the pantry, although I don't know why, so I'll try that at some point, too. So you sometimes use just plain water for the boil?

[Mike Nolan]

No, I always use baking soda in the water bath, but sometimes I also put in some honey or barley syrup too.

One of these days I'm going to bake a tray full of baking soda to make sodium carbonate as suggested by a NY Times article some years back. This produces a stronger alkaline solution than sodium bicarbonate, but not nearly as strong as lye, which is not easy to find in stores and requires careful handling.

Sodium bicarbonate is interesting, because according to Quora the pH is going to be around 8.35 regardless of how much you add to the water. (That's usually not the case.) The practical use of that information is that you don't have to add a lot of sodium bicarbonate to your poaching liquid for bagels to get full effect.

By comparison, the pH of a sodium carbonate solution will probably be somewhere between 11 and 12, since for sodium carbonate the pH does vary depending on how much you add to the water. And the pH of a solution of lye in water can be as high as 13, which is why it needs to be handled carefully. (I would probably handle a sodium carbonate solution more carefully than one made with sodium bicarbonate, too.)

The major difference between the bagel recipes in BBA and ABED is that the one in BBA produces about 1.5 times as much dough. I usually make the ABED one these days, since there are just 2 of us.

[Italiancook]

I baked the Chocolate Chip Loaf Cake from jennycancook.com. It turned out a little dry, probably because I didn't use the nuts called for in the recipe. I didn't check on it when I smelled chocolate burning. It wasn't burnt, but it was more brown than I would have preferred. So I'm blaming the dryness on the baker, not the recipe.

[BakerAunt]

On Tuesday evening, I baked another version of that bread recipe with which I've been experimenting. This tie I made Rolled Barley-Whole Wheat-Buttermilk Bread, and I used the bread machine. I decided to decrease the honey by 1 Tbs. and add 2 Tbs. malted milk powder, along with 2 Tbs. special dried milk. It was a more compact loaf than I expected, but the taste is good, and my husband particularly liked it. I will be glad when I have the freezer space again to be able to bake two loaves and freeze one.

I spent Wednesday afternoon baking the Lower-Fat, Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers, using the dough I made up a week ago. I cut the baking time by one minute, which works better for the oven we have in the apartment. These have particularly good flavor, so perhaps it is good to let this dough sit longer.

I know what you mean, Chocomouse about resisting baking bagels. However, I did buy some barley malt syrup (like you, I don't know WHY, but it must have seemed a good idea at the time). I'll be interested in your bagel experiments, and I'll come back here to read Mike's advice. I will not be making the bagel attempt, however, until I have my new kitchen in which to bake. It's a little too snug in the garage apt. kitchen.

Italian Cook--I like the jennycancook.com site also. I'll have to look at that recipe.

[Joan Simpson]

I like Jennycancook also.I've made the spice cake and it's good and the right size for us.

[BakerAunt]

I baked a new recipe on Thursday morning: “Apple-Maple Snack Cake,” from Better Homes and Gardens Cut the Sugar, the third re-issue of a special interest magazine first published in 2017. I looked at the magazine carefully before buying it, and most of the recipes are also low in saturated fat, or can be made with an oil substitution, as was the case with this one (p. 85).

Like Wonky, my baking sister, I can never leave a recipe alone. I replaced the 4 Tbs. butter with 3 Tbs. canola oil; I added 1 Tbs. flax meal and 2 Tbs. Bob’s Red Mill powdered milk. I deleted 2 tsp. vanilla and replaced it with ¼ tsp. maple extract. (Why would I want to cover up the maple syrup in the cake with an expensive 2 tsp. vanilla?) I used two unpeeled Winesaps; I deleted the almonds used to top it and used Swedish Pearl Sugar instead, and it baked up very prettily.

I'll add a note to this post after we have it for dessert tonight.

Note: We like the cake! It has a definite maple flavor that pairs nicely with the apple. I will bake it again.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt. Reason: added follow-up

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