What are You Baking the Week of March 1, 2020?

[BakerAunt]

Report on the Earl Grey Yogurt Cake: We cut some for dessert last night. I’m not sorry that I tried this cake, but it does not wow me or my husband. If I were to make it again, I’d use the entire 2 tsp. vanilla, but even that is unlikely to change my verdict. The texture is good, so I do not regret cutting the oil in half or using half whole wheat pastry flour. I think that those changes improved the recipe. Although the Earl Grey and the vanilla flavors are nice, it is a rather bland cake, which is not overly sweet, that would likely go best with afternoon tea. I don't plan to bake it again.

[Mike Nolan]

I've never been a fan of Earl Grey tea, but bergamot oil is available separately.

I had a green tea custard at Nobu in NYC when it first opened, it was part of a flight of 3 custards on the dessert menu. It was interesting but not something I'd ever make.

[Mike Nolan]

My wife says the triticale breads are going over very well, several people have come back for more pieces. (She did take in some butter this time.)

The professor who gave us the triticale liked it, too, and interestingly enough he'd not had anything made with triticale before.

[chocomouse]

Back home after a week away and happy to be baking! This morning I made a blueberry crisp, using up 5 cups of blueberries from the freezer. The kitchen has smelled wonderful all day, but we haven't cut into it yet.

[Mike Nolan]

The only loaf that came home intact was the Auvergnat, because nobody wanted to cut into the lion. Just small pieces of some of them left, others were gone.

My wife said she had people coming in her office all day to get a little more bread. She was having fun as they sampled different loaves asking them if they noticed a difference in flavor, and when they said they did, then they were surprised to find out they all came from the same dough. Steve, the wheat breeder, was one of the few who knew shape impacts flavor.

Triticale pasta is next to try, probably Friday evening so that if it doesn't work, we have time for plan B.

[BakerAunt]

Welcome back, Chocomouse!

On Wednesday, I made another batch of Wholegrain Maple Granola. (My husband is snacking on it a lot.)

I also made up dough for another batch of his favorite snack foods, my lower-saturated fat Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. These, however, won't be baked for 4-5 days, which improves the flavor of the dough.

My third baking project on Monday was to bake Barley Crispbread for a second time, using as its basis Jan Hedh’s recipe—with my guesses as to what the flours should be. With barley and rye, topped with sunflower seeds and sesame seeds, it is very tasty and mostly wholegrain. I cut the salt back from 18 to 10g this time, as when I first baked it, my husband and I both disliked how overly salty it was. I also changed the mixing directions a bit, so it wasn't quite as bad to knead, although I was still stopping the mixer and adjusting the dough over the 15-minute period.

I also roll each dough half to 40x36 inches, as I do not have a baking sheet or an oven would accommodate a depth of 40 inches. The 40-inch length of the pan just fits.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I'm going to have to try some shaping experiments. I never realized that shape impacts flavor.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike, bravo on the epis! Those are not easy. Actually I am amazed at how tricky baguettes can be. They all look great.

I took some pizza pictures this week.

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[Mike Nolan]

That's a lot of pizza, they look great, too!

Epis are fun to make and eat, and in some ways easier than baguettes, my baguette slashes need work, I'm not sure if it is a dough issue, a tool issue or a technique issue. Maybe I'll get a chance to take a baguette class some day. (I was scheduled to take one the weekend ahead of my pastry course at SFBI but it was cancelled, probably insufficient registrations.)

With epis you need to cut about 3/4 of the way through, so they are still connected but not by a lot of dough. A challenge with epis is they have to be far enough apart on the baking sheet that the 'grains' on adjacent loaves don't touch each other.

When I took my pastry class at SFBI, the production staff invited me to come roll out some baguettes during a lunch break, I wasn't as fast as they were but I think mine looked pretty close to theirs. Their pre-shape technique was different than mine. I flatten the dough into an oval, fold the bottom up to the middle, fold the top down to the middle then fold the bottom up to the top and seal. They flatten, then fold the bottom up to the top 3 times, then seal.

Getting a baguette that is pretty uniform in diameter down the length is the real challenge, you don't want one that looks like a snake that swallowed several mice.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--it looks like you're running a pizza parlor!

On Thursday, I baked our favorite cornbread to go with soup for dinner. I again used two Nordic Ward heart muffin pans, coated with the Grease for a perfect release.

[Joan Simpson]

Aaron your pizza's look awesome!Nice!

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks. Believe it or not I made three more pizzas! Two cheese and one veggie with red onions, olives, mushrooms, orange peppers, and grilled artichokes. My oldest came home at 9 and - despite having had a big dinner during rehearsal including pizza - he polished off a pizza. I still had enough left for lunches on Monday.

I was never allowed to make the epis at the bakery. I did make a few snake baguettes though before I made them consistently. Our shift lead wouldn't allow anyone other than himself to slash the baguettes or cut the epis.

[Mike Nolan]

Too bad. When I had staff to supervise, I had to constantly remind myself that even though I often thought I could do it better, it was part of my job to work on improving the skills of the others.

[aaronatthedoublef]

You're right. When I worked for the bakery in Seattle making pastry the chef gave me all sorts of tasks to stretch my abilities, build my speed, and challenge me.

One time she had me making flowers for a wedding cake and gave me much encouragement as well as correction only to redo much of my work after I left. But I slowly became competent this way.

Not sure why the shift lead in Hartford was like this but he was not a great teacher.

[Mike Nolan]

I've tried making flowers a couple times, they look terrible. I'm an engineer by training, and not very artistic, I used to tell people I couldn't draw a straight line without a t-square, now I tell people I couldn't draw a straight line without shift-drag.

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