What are you Baking the week of January 5, 2020?

[Italiancook]

That's it, rottiedogs! I'm glad you found it. I sliced my loaf of this Snickerdoodle Bread for the freezer. Of course, I had to taste test one slice. I like it. Good and cinnamony. I didn't top it with the sugar/cinnamon mixture. I don't like crunchy things falling off while I eat. The bread is AOK without the topping. Currently, I'm out of cream cheese, but plan to buy some before I defrost any of the slices. I think the bread would be good with plain cream cheese on top.

[BakerAunt]

Once again, Rottiedogs to the rescue! I looked at the recipe and decided to make a copy. I didn't see a Print function, so I had to copy and paste. It's in my future "to bake" pile, although I may have to cut back on the cinnamon chips.

[BakerAunt]

On Saturday, I baked cornbread to go with the rest of the stew. I used two pans, each with five hearts arranged in a ring. With the Grease, they popped right out. These are the pans I used. I bought them from King Arthur, years ago, but I didn't pay anywhere near the now advertised price:

https://shop.kingarthurflour.com/items/mini-heart-pan-set-of-2

I also baked blueberry tartlets on Saturday afternoon. I had 1 cup of my homemade blueberry pie filling left from when I’d made sweet rolls for New Year’s. I pulled out another pint jar and combined them, along with 1/8 tsp. allspice. I have two Chicago Metallic tart pans. Each pan has four wells, each with a removeable bottom. I used my oil pie crust recipe, which I've posted here at Nebraska Kitchen. After bringing the dough together, I divided it into eight equal parts, then rolled each out to 13cm (metric is so much easier), using a little rolling pin that came with my ravioli form, and fit them into the pans. After refrigeration for an hour, I blind-baked the crusts for 10 minutes at 400F, using 4-cup coffee filters that I’d bought a while back for this purpose and filled with beans. I used slightly more than 1/3 cup of filling for each tart. I sprinkled with a half-recipe of the streusel I use for blueberry pie, then baked for 10 minutes at 400F before checking. I let them go another 4 minutes until bubbling, then removed them from the oven to a rack. We each had one for dinner, and they are delicious and look elegant.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The snickerdoodle bread looks great! And it might be a good alternative to coffeecake as it has canola oil instead of butter!

BA, is the extra baking soda with buttermilk for lift or for acid taming? Buttermilk has more acid than milk and the lifting power of baking soda tends to dissipate quickly. In my pancakes it gives some rise for the first couple of batches and then appears gone.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--It does "tame" the flavor in small amounts and is often used that way. However, it also creates lift. (I wish Cass were here to explain if acidity and lift are related.) I recall that RLB in The Cake Bible recommended with cakes that if you could not bake the entire batch at once, hold back the baking soda from the batch that needs to wait, then add it when you are ready to do so.

I make only small batches of pancakes, as I don't have the breakfast crowd that you do at your house. You might need to make two separate batches of batter--and remember to stir in the baking soda to the waiting one before proceeding.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA, baking soda and acid definitely add lift. Most kids first science experiment it mixing baking soda and vinegar and it's that same reaction in baking.

I just make one big batch of pancakes. They all are eaten. Sometimes I wonder if they are in my sons' mouths long enough for them to taste them.

Thanks

[skeptic7]

I found buttermilk pancakes are thicker and fluffier than the ones made with milk even if I add extra baking powder to compensate for the lack of acid- baking soda lift. I do taste a pancake but its a back ground flavor to the real maple syrup, or butter and jam , or fruit piled on top.

I made chocolate orange quick bread on Friday night. This was my normal recipe except I used dark Karo corn syrup instead of honey, and half and half instead of buttermilk. I also use 4 teaspoons of baking powder instead of 2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda since none of the liquid ingredients were acidic. It rose fine, and the batter had the right consistency; but it didn't taste as sweet. Is honey sweeter than corn syrup? I wanted to use up the dark corn syrup which I had bought for a chocolate cake so I thought I'd see what would happen in a quick bread recipe.

[Mike Nolan]

Some years ago we were at a pancake place in Indianapolis and they add a little orange juice to their batter. It adds an interesting flavor and the acid probably helps create a bit more fluffy pancake.

[Mike Nolan]

It sort of depends on which website you trust. Of the natural sugar types, fructose has the highest sweetness index, various sources give it a sweetness index between 1.1 and 1.7. Sucrose, which is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose, is assigned an index of 1. Glucose is around 0.75.

Honey has more fructose than glucose in it, so it is slightly sweeter than sucrose. Ordinary corn syrup has a lot of glucose in it, so it is slightly less sweet than sucrose. HFCS is sweeter because it has a higher amount of fructose in it.

[BakerAunt]

I don't know about dark corn syrup, but I know that when I replaced honey with maple syrup in a recipe, I had to change the amounts.

[Mike Nolan]

Maple syrup isn't as sweet as sugar, and depending on how thick it is, there's more water and less sugar per cup, so I would expect it to take a bit more. The challenge is that the maple flavor can become overpowering, although I find that to be more of a problem with artificial maple flavoring.

[skeptic7]

My problem with maple syrup is always that the maple flavor seemed too subtle. I was thinking of getting maple flavoring seperately but was too lazy.

[Mike Nolan]

That's why I prefer grade B maple syrup (not sure what they call it these days.) It is harvested later in the season, is much darker, and has more solids and IMHO a lot more flavor.

[BakerAunt]

I also prefer the dark maple syrup. When I experimented with a cookie recipe last October, I replaced honey with dark maple syrup and maple sugar. They were pretty good, but my next experiment will attempt to increase the maple flavor. I do have the maple extract that KAF sells and have used it in a couple of other recipes, such as the KAF maple scones (back when I could eat scones), but it's best to keep the amount added low (1/8th or 1/4 tsp., depending on the rest of the ingredients).

[aaronatthedoublef]

I went to the Dakin Farms website. I used to buy my syrup there and they had grade A and B. They no longer carry a grade B. They have grade A amber and grade A dark. Dark is what used to be grade B according to the folks on the chat line.

FYI, their syrup is great but pretty expensive. That's why I stopped buying it.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.

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