What are you Baking the week of January 12, 2020?

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making Semolina bread today.

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[chocomouse]

I made whole wheat English muffins this morning, and have pizza dough rising now for supper.

[Joan Simpson]

I baked two loaves of Banana bread today.

[BakerAunt]

On Monday, I mixed up dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. I’ll bake them near the end of the week.

[skeptic7]

I have found a brand new method to mess up pie dough. I normally use an oil based recipe. For a whole pie the recipe is
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup oil
1 teaspoon vinager
1 egg
water to make a good dough;
I do this all the time, and it is hard to handle but turns out very well. Its a short crust but crisp and crunchy.

If I do a partial recipe I keep the same portions of oil and flour but normally leave out the egg.

So for some pot pies I had 2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 cup oil
When I mixed this together the pie dough was moist enough and handled fairly well so I didn't add any water.

I made a turkey pot pie filling with carrots and celery and onions and parsnips and green beans. The green beans were a nod to Thanksgiving. I had this boiling hot and in 4 2 cup corning dishes, then I rolled out the pie dough and placed it on top. I baked this at 350 for 30 minutes until the filling was boiling. The pie dough top never got crisp. It always remained soft and mushy.
I reheated one pie in the microwave yesterday and it still never hardened up. I didn't think there was such a thing as too much oil in a pie crust but I seemed to have achieved it. My conclusion is that water is a necessary ingredient in a crust. Anyone else have an opinion of what went wrong? I was nibbling on some crackers as I ate the pie which was very tasty and filling, in order to have something crunchy.

[Mike Nolan]

I've used Susan Purdy's hot water crust for large pot pies, it would probably work for smaller ones as well. The last few times I made pot pies I didn't bother with a bottom crust and I used a circle of laminated dough as the top. I froze them after baking them in muffin tins, they reheat nicely in the microwave.

[skeptic7]

These were top crust only. I prefer having a true pie crust to biscuit or batter bread on my pot pies.

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--perhaps 350F is too low of a temperature? Maybe try 400F?

[Mike Nolan]

Without water, there probably wasn't much gluten development or starch conversion. You probably don't need a lot of water for a pot pie crust, but I think you need some.

[BakerAunt]

On Tuesday evening, I baked Pumpkin Biscotti, using the recipe that Skeptic so kindly posted at Nebraska Kitchen. I make a few changes, one of which is to use white whole wheat flour. I also used slightly more pumpkin this time; it was frozen leftover from the last time I made pumpkin puree. I look forward to munching one tomorrow with tea.

[skeptic7]

Mike;
I think I made Hot Water Pastry once. I used Crisco as the fat. What fat did you use with this? I think this was before I wanted to try oil based pie crusts.

[Mike Nolan]

I used a combination of butter and Crisco. Looking at Susan Purdy's recipe, I see she uses butter and margarine, so I'm not sure if it was her recipe I was using. (It's been a couple of years since I've made it.)

[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday I baked brownies. My base recipe is the Deep Dark Brownies that I got from KAF over ten years ago. I wanted to reduce the saturated fat, so I made some changes. I deleted the optional chocolate chips (sigh). I replaced one of the three eggs with 1 Tbs. flax meal combined with 3 Tbs. water. I used half the canola oil (1/4 cup) and replaced the other half with buttermilk. I always bake these in a 10x10 ceramic pan that came from KAF; the larger size works better than the 9x9 where it is hard to get the center done without burning the edges. I replaced the 2 Tbs. of coffee with water, because while I can get the espresso powder past my husband, coffee is another matter. I sprinkled the top with some snowflake sprinkles. It baked for 30 minutes on the third rack (slightly above center of oven). Not counting the optional chocolate chips, I reduced the saturated fat from 24g to 18.

I'll add a note to this post after we try them for dinner, although this recipe is usually better the day after.

Added note: These are fudgy and delicious. I wouldn't hesitate to bake them again this way.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

[skeptic7]

Baker Aunt; congratulations on a successful brownie adaption! I don't like chocolate chips in brownies but I love nuts.

Mike; I went to look at Susan Purdy's pie cookbook again and she has a lot of different pie crust recipes, the potato recipe was very appealing too.

[Mike Nolan]

Yes, she has a lot of pie crust recipes, and I don't think I'll come close to testing them all.

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