What are you Baking the Week of July 3, 2022?

[Mike Nolan]

Eggs are 74% water, and the content difference between a large and an extra large egg is about 3/4 of a tablespoon. I never have XL eggs on hand, if a recipe calls for an XL egg I just add 2 teaspoons of water.

[Joan Simpson]

Good to know about the adding 2 tsp. water to make up for xl egg Mike.

Cookies sound good BakerAunt.

[chocomouse]

Yesterday I tried making crackers, first time ever. They were a lot easier to make than I expected, even though the directions seemed complicated. They came out OK, but with room for improvement. They were crispy - at first, but within an hour they became chewy. However, this morning, they were crispy again. I think I need to roll the dough out a little thinner, maybe even dig out my pasta machine and use that. I estimate that I rolled mine about 1/8" thick, so I will shoot for 1/16 next time. Does that sound about right, BakerAunt? I used my Everything Bagel seed mix for the topping, and next time I will shake it on twice as thick.

[BakerAunt]

What recipe were you using, Chocomouse? Some work better than others. After I bake my crackers, I make sure that none are connected (cut apart with knife if needed), then slide them off the parchment and let them cool on the hot baking sheet. Make sure that none of them are touching each other, since a King Arthur tip once said that prevents their staying crisp.

I roll my sourdough crackers to 1/16th inch thickness.

[chocomouse]

BakerAunt, Thank you for your comments. I used the recipe "Motzah Everything Crackers" from Food52.com. The dough was wonderful to handle and I didn't need to add any water. But I followed PJ's directions for rolling it on parchment, adding seeds, and baking, as she wrote on the KAF blog "Crunchy Crackers" back in 2011. That worked great, also. I did separate the crackers on my baking sheet, perhaps by roughly 1/4". Most all of them were separated from each other after baking, although I did have to break a few of them. I have noticed, while crunchy on some, that my edge pieces got rolled thinner on the edge side, and are crispy where they are thinner. I think that's going to be the key to crispy crackers. I'm spending the next week or so on the beach in Maine, so I won't be making my next batch for a while.

[BakerAunt]

Zucchini has arrived at the farmers' market! On Saturday, I made my adaptation of the squash oatmeal quick bread in Ken Haedrich's The Harvest Baker. I baked it in a 4-well Bundt loaf pan. I will freeze two loaves and let the other two rest overnight for Sunday and Monday desserts.

[chocomouse]

Today I made 2 loaves of my standard but adapted maple oatmeal bread, but use Harvest Grains in place of the cup of oatmeal.

[BakerAunt]

Another thought on your crackers, Chocomouse: If your oven has a convection setting, use that when you bake crackers. In my oven it helps them bake more evenly.

[Mike Nolan]

I saw eggplant at one of the fruit stands today but not zucchini or other summer squash. The sweet corn she had was really tiny, but that's often the case with the early varieties. I'll buy some at the farmer's market tomorrow, the half-dozen we got there last week was very good.

We bought one tomato to have on our burgers tonight, and also some plums, but the plums weren't local. They were out of cantaloupe, as was the other stand near us.

[Joan Simpson]

The cherry pie I baked was very good and the crusts was flaky.I normally bake in aluminum pie tins but decided I'd try a glass pyrex pie pan but I think I like the pie tins better.The bottom didn't bake as well as they usually do.We had cherry pie ala mode.

The pie crust recipe I make I usually cut the shortening in with a pie dough mixer or cutter ,well I was in a hurry and decided to mix it all together with my hands and it did as well as all the cutting in..They rolled out well and I was pleased.I have two more in the freezer.

[Mike Nolan]

I use my mixer to cut in the butter into pie dough, plus I borrow an idea from Kenji Lopez-Alt and reserve about 1/5 of the flour to be put in after the butter has been cut in, just a quick spin or two to mix it together. He goes much further, taking the butter/flour to a paste before putting the reserved flour in, I've tried that a few times, I like my way better.

[Joan Simpson]

Thanks for the information Mike on the pie crusts making.

[Mike Nolan]

When I make Irish Apple Cake, I work the butter into the flour by hand. (Darina Allen calls it 'rubbing the butter into the flour', a pretty accurate description.)

[chocomouse]

I do not have convection in my big oven, which is where I baked the crackers on a cookie sheet. I do have it in my countertop Breville, which I didn't use since it is smaller, so the big cookie sheet doesn't fit. But I will try that next time. Thanks, BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

I haven't made crackers in a while, and I've been experimenting with the convection oven setting on my big oven more lately, so I may have to try them again, but not when it's 95 outside!

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