What are you Baking the Week of January 29, 2023?

[Mike Nolan]

I will probably make those peanut butter cookies later today.

Spread the word

      

  

  

[Mike Nolan]

I did make the peanut butter cookies, I used a #60 scoop and it yielded 35 cookies about 2 3/4 inches in diameter. That works out to under 10 grams of carbs per cookie.

I've made my notes on the recipe and it will go in the 3 ring binder where I keep the recipes we use frequently.

[Joan Simpson]

I'm glad you liked the cookies Mike, they were really good to me.

[cwcdesign]

I never did report in about the Lemon Meyer Bundt Cake - Life got in the way. It is a really good cake, but I think I over mixed it. Claire used a hand mixer but I only have my stand mixer - it was denser than I'd like and a little dry - I think I would also use a skewer next time instead of a toothpick - the glaze didn't sink in very far - all very doable fixes. I did use olive oil, might try avocado as well, but I discovered yesterday that I need to toss my current avocado oil as it has gone rancid - I've had it a while so not surprised.

The day before I left for Atlanta, I woke up to a text from Will that said the washer was leaking - so I had to scramble to find neighbors who'd let me use their machines - I have wonderful neighbors! Our new one arrived on Friday - it's an LG stacked front loading washer dryer in green (my choice) - it's really nice. We've been catching up on doing the laundry we didn't want to impose on our neighbors - they let us do 4 loads over the course of 2 weeks.

Friday morning, I made jalapeño corn muffins from a mix we carry in the store. It's a pancake waffle mix and I didn't know until I saw the vendor in Atlanta that you could make muffins from it. They weren't bad, but perhaps a bit dense probably due to the mixing. I think if you're used to packaged mixes you would not notice.

[BakerAunt]

CWCdesign--It sounds like the Meyer Lemon Cake is an oil-based cake. If that is correct, you might want to stir in the flour mixture by hand. I picked up this tip from either a Bon Appetit or Epicurious email (before they started charging for access), and it has been a game changer for the oil-based cakes I now bake, in that it gives them a light texture.

[Mike Nolan]

Over-mixing when adding the flour for almost any cake will result in it being dense.

[BakerAunt]

On Monday, I baked my more than 50% wholegrain version of King Arthur's Crusty Cloche Bread, using the cloche I bought from Skeptic in the autumn of 2021. The loaf is one of my best shaping jobs yet. I look forward to cutting it tomorrow at lunch.

[RiversideLen]

I made a white cake from a box mix. I added cake spice to it and made a ganache and sprinkled it with shredded coconut. I reduced the eggs from 3 to 2. It's a little crumbly but it tastes good.

[BakerAunt]

On Tuesday, I made dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. I plan to bake the crackers at the end of the week.

[BakerAunt]

I baked Pumpkin Snacking Cake on Thursday. I used snowflake decorations sprinkled over the top.

[Mike Nolan]

I am making Jeffrey Hamelman's Semolina Bread today.

I was out of semolina so I ordered a 25 pound bag of semolina flour from Azure Standard. They're a service out of Oregon that delivers by truck to Lincoln once or twice a month, the truck goes to a shopping center parking lot and the customers help unload the truck. This order was originally supposed to be here yesterday, but the truck was delayed by the snows in Wyoming.

The delivery fee was very small compared to what it would cost to have a 25 pound bag of flour sent via any of the package services. I ordered about 40 pounds of stuff, including tapioca and rye berries, and the delivery charge was $4.43. I'll be ordering from them again.

It would probably be more accurate to call it durum flour than semolina, because it is finely ground, but it should still make good bread.

[Mike Nolan]

Tonight's semolina bread has some differences from the past, which I'm attributing to using the new semolina/durum flour.

The interior of the loaf is a bit more yellow and the taste is, well, different. I may have to fiddle with the recipe a bit. :sigh:

[Mike Nolan]

I think I've figured out why the semolina bread is different. Looking closely at the label it says it is whole grain semolina flour, so most of the bran and germ are included, not just endosperm. That would explain the slight bitterness as well as the darker interior color. It also darkened faster on the surface, and that's typical of breads made with whole grain flour.

Adjusting the ratio of durum to AP flour might lighten it a bit, and there are several things that can be done to lessen the bitterness of bran, like adding some orange juice or honey.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Just catching up. Butter cakes, too, can suffer from over mixing. It will make them dense and dry if you beat too much air into the butter.

Mike - which semolina did you use and which did you switch to?

I used some Whole Foods whole wheat and it definitely changed the taste of my pizza dough. I'm using BRM right now but I think my favorite is still KAB white. But the price is out of site now. Over $10/5lbs.

[Mike Nolan]

I've used several different semolinas over the years. I used to buy either Bobs Red Mill or Hodgson Mill, the latter brand seems to have vanished completely from stores here. Then I was buying it in bulk at the coop, so I don't really know whose it was.

A few years ago I bought a 50 pound bag of it (ardent mills or bay state, probably) and in the last year or so I've bought two 25 pound bags of Bobs Red Mill. All of these were typical semolina, almost granular and mostly endosperm.

I currently use 5-8 pounds of semolina a month for bread and pasta, less pasta in the summer but more bread.

The most recent purchase was from Azure Standard, and unlike the other semolinas this is much more finely ground and also includes most of the bran and germ. (The details on their website says they filter out the large bran particles, removing about 12% of the bran.)

It would probably be most accurate to call it a (nearly) whole grain durum flour rather than semolina. I've baked enough with whole grain flours that I'm familiar with the differences, and this one definitely handled and baked like a whole grain flour, and we can taste the bran. (It's not a bad taste, it just is a different taste. My wife calls it more nutty, I would call it more bitter.)

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to look for another source for 'real' semolina, I may try tinkering with the recipe first. I'm sure I can find uses for 25 pounds of whole wheat durum flour over the next year or so anyway. I'm curious to see how whole grain durum affects pasta.

I've been trying to set up an account with Sysco, but they don't like dealing with serious home bakers or home-based cottage industry bakers. (You can't even look at their price catalog unless you have an account, which makes doing a detailed business plan for a home-based bread subscription service difficult.) Restaurant Depot in Omaha also prohibits retail customers.

Webstaurant has 50 pound bags of semolina for $31.99 but the shipping to Nebraska is $36.42.

KAB AP is $8.99 for a 12 pound bag at Costco here as of a few days ago. But it was $5.99 for a 12 pound bag a year ago.

[Author]

Posts