What are you Baking the Week of July 26, 2020?

[BakerAunt]

On Monday, I used my food processor, for the first time since replacing the work bowl, to grate zucchini. Some of it went into the meat loaf I made for dinner, two cups are frozen for future baking, a little bit leftover will go into some kind of frittata, and two cups went into a rift on The Shipyard Galley’s Zucchini Muffins (recipe at KABC--sounds like a TV station!). I meant to bake a half recipe, but accidentally put in the full amount of baking powder and baking soda, so I shifted and baked 12 large “Texas”-sized muffins. I reduced the sugar to 1 cup, and I used ½ cup oil and ½ cup buttermilk. I cut the salt in half and used half whole wheat pastry flour and half KAF AP. I did not add the nuts and I deleted the vanilla. However, I did add ½ cup cinnamon chips, as I have a supply that needs to be used up, and I figure two tsp. per muffin will keep the saturated fat somewhat in check. I sprinkled with some demerara sugar before baking.

I will freeze six of these (baked without paper wrapper). I have some large cupcake liners that I want to use, so I put the other six in those. We will eat these over the next couple of days. I was glad that I was able to fit both large muffin pans onto a shelf in my oven. The ones in the old Bakers Secret pan, with the paper liners, look nicer than the six that baked in the greased with Crisco USA pan. Those peaked up, while the others have a smooth domed top.

[BakerAunt]

Mike--I edited my post (and unchecked the keep a reply box) and it disappeared when I tried to submit it. Is it in the spam file?

[Mike Nolan]

Looks like that was the problem.

In addition to the laptop problem, our upstairs SubZero freezer isn't cooling properly. I was thinking of doing it anyway, following the lead of another poster, but I went out and bought a 7 cubic foot freezer today and am transferring the important stuff out of the upstairs freezer to it. The repairman will be here Thursday, hopefully it'll be an easy fix, but most of the time it takes a week or more to order parts.

Eventually I plan to use this new small freezer to store mostly flours and related baking items.

[skeptic7]

I was torn between making cornbread and gingerbread, then I looked around on the internet and found a recipe for a cornmeal gingerbread. Its like having a Yankee style cornbread only with molasses and ginger. I converted my favorite cornbread recipe and added candied ginger and fresh ginger as well as dried ginger. I cooked this for 3 hours in the crockpot and it was wonderful!.

[chocomouse]

Skeptic, I can smell that now - wonderful. Is the texture like gingerbread or more like cornbread? I think it would be great with baked beans!

[skeptic7]

The texture is more like gingerbread. It is slightly more crumbly than a all wheat gingerbread but I don't get any of that subtle crunch I expect out of a cornbread. I have some baked beans and will try it together.
I wonder what Boston Brown Bread would be like with a little ginger added? The lack of rye flour is making this test currently impossible.

[BakerAunt]

Your bread sounds tasty, Skeptic.

It is time for another blueberry dessert. I have a recipe from an old issue of Bon Appetit (back when they were doing features with recipes for whole meals) for Fresh Blueberry Tart. I decided to try it, using a ¾ recipe of my oil pie crust rather than what looks like a delicious butter shortbread crust. (sigh) The recipe specifies a 10-inch tart pan, but of course what I have are 11-inch and 9 ½ inch, so I used the smaller one. I blind baked the crust, then cooled it.

The filling, with 2 cups of the blueberries mashed, is cooked on the stove top, then mixed with the other 4 cups of fresh blueberries before being put into the tart shell and refrigerated for at least an hour. The ring came off nicely from around the tart, and I was able to slide a very large “cake mover” underneath to get it off the tart pan bottom and onto a platter. It cuts nicely and makes for a nice presentation. I like the fresh flavor of the four cups of uncooked blueberries give it; my husband says he prefers the blueberries cooked, as in a regular pie, but he still ate all of his slice.

[BakerAunt]

Here's a follow-up to last night's blueberry tart recipe.

First, I found a link to it:
https://www.encoreclubofnewcanaan.org/resources/Documents/Recipes/Fresh%20Blueberry%20Tart.pdf

Second, the tart is best if refrigerated overnight. My husband, who had cut himself a smaller piece, went back for more. I agree that the flavor is deeper the next day. So, I will be keeping this refreshing tart in my repertoire. It is delicious, even with the oil crust.

[chocomouse]

Today I used a KAF mix!! It's the Goodness mix for sour cream cinnamon streusel coffee cake. I've made it before, and it is very good. Someone gave me this for Christmas, and I'm trying to use up older things in my pantry.

[skeptic7]

It was almost miraculously cool yesterday. The whole day was in a very light drizzle and completely overcast and the high temperature only reached about 77 degrees. It would have been a nearly perfect day to cook.
I baked the "Wacky Cake" or "One- Pan Cake" in chocolate for a friend's birthday. I wanted to present her a beautiful if tiny frosted cake, but needed to run the cake over to her soon after it was baked. She got the cake, and a small jar of Nutella so she could frost it herself. I haven't heard back on how it tasted and if the center was cooked. It had a decided dip in the middle and I gave it an extra 5 minutes in the oven. A knife test and a thermometer seem to show it was cooked.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA - it's interesting. The more I bake the more it seems that many things are not best fresh out of the oven. I have two cookie recipes that should site for at least a day (one is best at three days old). My brownies need at least 24 hours to mature. Rye bread needs 12-24 hours out of the oven. And I am always amazed at the baking competitions where people make pastry cream that has great flavor in an hour. I've never found a pastry cream that didn't need at least four or five hours of solid chilling and was definitely better the next day.

This week I made what has become known as BA's crackers and a loaf of sourdough bread. I have a second batch of BA crackers in the fridge and another loaf of bread rising in the pan before it bakes. It seems I am the only one eating the whole wheat bread now but I think I'll keep making it. The desiccant seems to prevent mold so I am saving them from my medicine bottles.

Last weekend I made yeast doughnuts but apparently I'd misunderstood and Violet wanted chocolate baked doughnuts (much easier). I promised those last weekend so I made those this morning. It makes enough that I made a dozen and then put the rest of the batter in the freezer so I'll have at least another dozen. I used disposable piping bags because I'd always wanted to try one. They're so easy and nice but it feels very wasteful (yet liberating) to just toss it in the trash with no cleaning. Not sure I'll buy more when these are gone.

[aaronatthedoublef]

One more thing... I subbed out half the white flour for whole wheat and cut the butter in half. And there are three left of the dozen I made so no one is complaining.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making a loaf of bread today, using the Austrian Malt Bread recipe but with 50% semolina and 50% AP.

[Mike Nolan]

The semolina/malt bread came out really dense, it almost looks like it had been baked in a pullman pan. Slices really thin as a result, very good with Cardinal Preserves.

[BakerAunt]

I have been craving English Muffins, specifically the Easy Buckwheat Oat English Muffins (recipe here at Nebraska Kitchen), on which to use the jam left over from canning. On Saturday, I made them, but I am out of practice, and so these will not win any prizes on appearance. I hope that the taste will at least be good.

I used the bread machine this time, and I think it works better than the stand mixer for this recipe. I replaced the milk with buttermilk, except for ¼ cup which I replaced with water to proof the yeast. I added 2 Tbs. of flax meal, and I replaced the 2 Tbs. sugar with honey. These are changes I have made before. I replaced 3 Tbs. butter with 2 1/2 Tbs. canola oil. I added an additional tablespoon of bread flour as it was mixing.

This dough is always hard to handle, as it is very slack, and it is hard to form it into circles, and even harder to move those circles onto the griddle pans on the stove top. What I may do next time is use my new Zeroll 10 scoop and just plop balls of it down, let it rest the 20 minutes, then move those to the griddle and slightly flatten. I used a Stuab 11-inch crepe pan and a cast iron 10-inch skillets. The Staub pan works much better. The lowest flame on the burners seems to work best. Even with two pans, I still need to do the muffins in two batches, with three on each pan.

I got them too large and too flat. We will have some for breakfast tomorrow, but most of these I will freeze, since my experience is that buckwheat breads get moldy quickly, especially when the weather is warmer.

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