What are you Baking the Week of January 12, 2025?

[Mike Nolan]

Not sure I'll bake anything today.

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[BakerAunt]

On a cold morning, with more light snow, I made Cornmeal-Pumpernickel Waffles for a later breakfast. Of course we had them with maple syrup. I cut the salt by another ¼ tsp. I noted a slight difference, but my husband did not. I froze the six remaining waffles for future quick breakfasts.

[Mike Nolan]

Posted in wrong thread.

[RiversideLen]

I'm making a batch of semolina/rye/wheat buns. Just waiting for them to rise and then into the oven.

[BakerAunt]

I baked Whole Wheat Apple Muffins in the afternoon on Tuesday. I adapted this recipe from King Arthur's defunct magazine, Sift (Fall 2019), p. 24. It uses all whole wheat flour. I replaced 8 Tbs. butter with ¼ cup of canola oil, cut the salt in half, added ¼ cup Bob's Red Mill milk powder, and added 2 Tbs. flax meal. I used double the chopped apple, omitted ½ cup raisins, and reduced the walnuts from ¾ to ½ cup. I sprinkled the top with Penzey's Cinnamon Sugar, which has a bit of vanilla in it. As I was using some of my leftover homemade sweetened applesauce, I cut the sugar in half. I added 1 Tbs. of King Arthur's boiled cider rather than 2. I did not have any in the refrigerator, but I had an unopened bottle in the pantry, so I pulled it out to use. While it has a best by date of 2022, I used it anyway. We had a lot of snow this morning, although we were still able to make our local grocery run. My husband has been shoveling snow, so he was happy to have a freshly baked muffin with his afternoon tea, and Annie, our dog, was happy to get some pieces from it.

I am working on using my Winesap apples. For some reason, the ones we got this year are not lasting as well as previous year's crops. Late last week, when I baked the Swedish Apple Pie, I found four rotted ones in the bag. I now have them on a large half sheet pan and will make baking with them a priority.

[RiversideLen]

I made a vanilla cake from a box mix. I subbed milk for the water, Greek yogurt for half of the oil and added a rounded tablespoon of flax seed meal (hydrated in an ounce of water) to give it a little fiber (that makes it a health food). I was going to make a simple chocolate frosting but found all my powdered sugar was very much past it's best use by date (I had 2 bags, one older than the other). But I have plenty of chocolate chips on hand so I made a chocolate ganache from some semi sweet chips, added a pinch of instant (decaf) coffee crystals to it. Topped it with shredded coconut. It all came out pretty good.

[chocomouse]

I made two loaves of maple oatmeal bread.

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[BakerAunt]

Those are lovely loaves, Chocomouse!

[Joan Simpson]

Chocomouse your breads looked great!

Len I had no idea that powder sugar would go bad.

[Mike Nolan]

Can't say I've ever noticed powdered sugar that went bad, and I've had some get buried on a back shelf for a couple of years. I will say there's a big difference between brands, the cheaper ones probably use more cornstarch and you can taste that, so maybe that affects the taste over time. My younger son wouldn't eat anything made with powdered sugar because the cornstarch taste bothered him.

Finding decorator's sugar (no cornstarch) is challenging unless you want to buy 50 pounds of it or pay $3 a pound.

I know pastry chefs who will only use powdered cane sugar, not beet sugar, but I've not found much difference between them.

[RiversideLen]

Great looking loaves, Chocomouse!

I tend to pay attention to best use by dates. Maybe I'm being scammed by it, I dunno, but I figure better safe than sorry.

[BakerAunt]

I baked two loaves of Pumpkin Mixed Grains Bread on Wednesday. One goes into the freezer, and the other we will begin slicing for lunches tomorrow. The recipe started as a Jane Brody recipe for Pumpkin Rye Bread, but I have made so many changes, it is now my recipe.

I also have not noticed any problems with powdered sugar after the "best by" dates. I'm still using up some of the glazing sugar I bought from King Arthur (almost done!), and they haven't sold it in years. I liked it because it dried clear. I recently ordered some confectioners sugar from Vitacost (they had a 20% off sale) called Wholesome powdered confectioners sugar It uses cane sugar and tapioca starch. When I get around to using it, I'll report back. I am hoping it will dry clear, which I like for some glaze recipes.

[Joan Simpson]

Today I baked a birthday cake for the poker game ♣️♦️♠️❤️ two of our players had birthday's this week. The recipe is from Sugar Spun Run The Best Vanilla Cake it's my favorite.

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[RiversideLen]

That's a real nice looking cake, Joan!

[BakerAunt]

Len, I'm sure that Joan's cake tasted just as good as it looked!

I had hoped that the two small fairy tale pumpkins would produce enough for a pie, but the amount was about 100 grams short. That gave me the idea to try making a recipe, "Walnut Pumpkin Squares," attributed to Joan Drake in the Los Angeles Times food section, probably over thirty-five years ago. It was an occasional favorite of mine, although I always replaced walnuts with pecans. As I used my own pumpkin puree, I reduced and eventually eliminated the 1 cup hot water the recipe specifies. I have not made it in a long time because it calls for butter in the nut-flour crust, as well as 4 oz. cream cheese and a can of sweetened condensed milk, none of which fits current dietary parameters. However, I had a can of sweetened condensed milk in the pantry, so I decided that I might as well use it and see if I could improve on the nutritional value of the recipe.

I replaced AP flour with white whole wheat flour. As has been my practice in the past, when making the crust, I replaced ½ cup of finely chopped nuts with 1/3 cup pecan meal. This time, I replaced 1/3 cup butter with 4 Tbs. avocado oil, with enough buttermilk added to make 1/3 cup. For the filling, I googled replacements for cream cheese. Even if I wanted to go to the store today, which I do not, I know that they only have 8 oz. bricks, and they do not have a low-fat variety. Several sites said that Greek yogurt could be used in its place; although they strongly suggested it include fat, I only have nonfat Chobani Greek yogurt in the house, and the local store only carries nonfat. I followed the rest of the recipe. The bars are baked in an 8 x 8-inch dish. I used a decorated Fire King dish that was my grandmother's. I baked it for 38 minutes, but I probably should have stuck with the 35 minutes that I have done in the past, as it would likely have been set by then. We each had a piece for dinner tonight. I thought that the spices were a bit understated, but that might be because it has not yet rested overnight. The texture does not have the density that cream cheese would give it, but it is still quite nice.

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