What are you Baking the week of January 26, 2020?

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made pizza dough for tonight and next week. I forgot to add the yeast. I don't remember who did that a few weeks back and then added the yeast in later but thanks for recounting that here. I realized the dough wasn't rising after a couple hours, dumped it out, and kneaded in about a tablespoon of yeast. It is rising. Not as high as normal, not quite doubled, but it is definitely higher.

Has anyone ever done a double-rise pizza dough? Nobody seems to but I may try it some time.

In my "Secrets of a Jewish Baker" for several different deli ryes They mist the bread before they put it into the oven AND pour some water into a hot pan to have a burst of steam as you say Mike. They may do this several times over the course of a bake. Commercial ovens have steam injectors. The hot pan/add water method is to try and simulate the steam injectors.

I made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies this morning. Track meet and math competition for my kids.

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

[skeptic7]

I just did a cranberry and ricotta cheese pizza. Makes a nice breakfast.

I've make double rise pizza doughs before but it was by accident. I had gotten distracted between punching the dough down the first time and forming it into pizzas. It doesn't make much difference.

[Mike Nolan]

Based on the recipes I've made over the years, several of which have you mist the loaves just before baking them, that has a somewhat different effect than steaming them. I'm pretty sure misting them keeps the surface cooler so it extends oven spring, I'm not sure steam does that, though in both cases I think the moisture helps gelatinize the starch on the crust.

[chocomouse]

Today I made bagels! My first time! I've resisted for years, I don't even like bagels -- they are hard and chewy and my teeth hurt when I eat them. But I gave in - competition with my sister. They are delicious - crispy on the outside, chewy but soft on the inside. Delicious with cream cheese and assorted savory seeds. They don't look much like bagels -- lumpy, creased, wrinkled, puffy but shriveled, not at all smooth like ones you buy at the coffee shop or grocery store. I'm sure practice will help, but meanwhile, any tips? I could take a class at nearby KAF, but I've not found their classes to be very helpful, and certainly not worth $80.

[Italiancook]

Congratulations, chocomuse! You've accomplished a great deal making bagels. Food Network hosts would call your "rustic." The taste is what counts.

[Italiancook]

Mike, I've enjoyed reading about your 2020 challenge to yourself. I tried rye bread when a newlywed. Don't recall where the recipe came from. Either the recipe was wrong or I was wrong, because we disliked the bread. Never again tried rye.

I find the discussions about steaming and misting interesting, too. I've never done either, but I have a couple of recipes that suggest it. I don't like hard crusts, so I don't go in search of the perfect crust. Probably would make a couple of my breads better overall, though.

I baked a yellow cake today. I used half butter and half extra virgin olive oil. I'm somewhat surprised I can't tell the difference. Can't even taste the EVOO.

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

[BakerAunt]

On Saturday afternoon, I baked a new recipe, “Buckwheat Cake with Yogurt-Espresso Frosting,” by Chris Morocco at Bon Appetit (November 2016):

https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/buckwheat-banana-cake-with-yogurt-espresso-frosting

I made three changes: I added 2 tbs. Bob’s Red Mill powdered milk, reduced the salt from 1 tsp to 1/2 tsp., and I used a 5.3 oz. carton of Chobani Greek yogurt in place of the sour cream. The 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 pan I used is a little small for this recipe. I used one of my nonstick ones, and clearly the volume is not quite the same, as the cake is in the oven and has risen above the sides of the pan. I'm hoping that it will be ok. I'll post back later with results.

I used the grease rather than a spray on the pan and did not use parchment for a sling.

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

[BakerAunt]

Chocomouse--last fall when I was talking to Cass about bagels, he told me that most recipes say to leave them in the water too long. I'm trying to remember, but he may have said 30 seconds for each side.

I'm hoping to give bagels a try sometime this winter, now that my kitchen is more organized.

[Mike Nolan]

The Frisian rye bread is out, but it needs to sit for 24 hours before cutting. The top is a bit darker,than the rest of it but it is called a black rye bread. I'll have a report on it tomorrow in the rye project thread. Probably won't get it posted until after the Super Bowl.

The pies just went in.

[Mike Nolan]

The pies came out great, they're already loose in the Norpro pans, I'll transfer them to other pie pans for cutting (one of them is going to Omaha for a baby shower) once they've cooled a bit. Since going to pastry school I've been using the convection cycle in my oven for pies, I did these for 25 minutes at 385F convection, then dropped the temp to 340F non-convection for another 20 minutes. I'll see if I can get a shot of the bottom of one of them to show how it looks.

Waiting until tomorrow afternoon to cut into the Frisian black bread is going to be a long wait, it smells very interesting. I get strong notes of molasses, though there's no molasses in it. Just a little honey.

[Mike Nolan]

It is so hard to find rye flour in the stores that I wouldn't be surprised to learn few people make rye bread at home any more. It's also one of the areas where packaged breads are usually decent, certainly better than the cheap white breads.

I was looking through the 74 recipes I haven't made yet, trying to decide one or two to try next; some of them will require finding a few ingredients I don't normally have on hand, like plum jam.

[chocomouse]

Thanks for the encouragement, ItalianCook. They sure do taste good! And I'd like to suggest that you should give rye bread another try. It's my favorite. I've read that rye bread can be challenging, but I've not had much trouble, and have made a lot of really good textured and tasting rye. Try one of the simple ryes on the KAF website, like the Sandwich Rye.

[BakerAunt]

That Buckwheat Banana Cake is fantastic! I didn't frost it, and frankly, frosting would be overkill. It was so dark that I thought I'd overbaked it, but there is no "burn" taste. The buckwheat gives it the darker color. I should mention that I made one additional change in that I used light brown sugar rather than dark, which I haven't used in years. I don't tasted the olive oil either. I think that olive oil works well in cakes that have fruit, at leas that seems to be true for apples, oranges, and bananas.

When I first baked rye, Italian Cook, the flavor didn't impress me. I now think that was because the standard bag of rye in the stores--yes they once stocked run of the mill rye flour--was not that great. When I tried Bob's Red Mill dark rye in my Limpa bread, I suddenly realized what good rye could be.

Rye dough does have a different texture from wheat dough, so it takes some getting used to.

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

[Mike Nolan]

If you have Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice, the marbled rye bread recipe in it isn't a really strong rye (30/70 blend of rye/white flour, though I currently do 40/60 using a coarse pumpernickel flour) but I've never had it go gummy on me.

[Mike Nolan]

Here's a picture of the bottom of one of the apple pies I baked in a Norpro non-stick pie pan and then transferred to a glass pie pan for cutting.

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