What are you Baking the Week of March 19, 2023?

[Mike Nolan]

I made some rye pretzel dough and I'm going to test rolling it out for rye crackers using the Brod & Taylor sheeter this afternoon.

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[Mike Nolan]

The Brod and Taylor sheeter appears to do a very good job sheeting dough for crackers. I took them down to the '1' setting, which I think is 1mm. I'm hoping that's not too thick.

There's a '0' setting but it seems to be really thin, it'll hold a piece of parchment paper. If I need them a little thinner than the '1' setting, I could put them on one or more layers of parchment paper, I did that with one batch of laminated dough as a test, and it worked reasonably well.

The thickness of the dough seems pretty uniform, which is what a sheeter is supposed to do.

I tried a couple of ways of squaring off the dough, folding it over like you would a laminated dough seems to work OK, but you have to set the thickness setting back a few notches and work back down. Folding the edges over to produce a rectangle and pressing them down a little seems to work just about as well, and is faster because you don't have to back off on the thickness as far, if at all. I also tried just stretching the corners so they were more square before moving down to the next thickness setting. That seemed to work fairly well, too.

But it might just be easier to trim off the scraps to get a rectangle and roll the scraps back out again. That's what I did for a second smaller tray of crackers.

After they were cut, I brushed them with some egg wash. Some of them I sprinkled pretzel salt on, some I left plain, and some I left plain but docked with a fork.

It might also be possible to brush the egg yolk on before cutting them, then flip it over so you get both sides coated. (I've seen that suggested as a way of brushing pretzel crackers with a baking soda solution, though the author warns that it is a bit messy.)

I separated them on the baking sheet, I'm not sure if that's really necessary. It might be enough just to cut them and leave them in place. Worth trying, I guess.

I'll post some pictures once they're out of the oven, but they smell good so far. I used the whole wheat pretzel recipe in the KAF Whole Grains book, but substituted some coarse rye meal for about 2/3 of the whole wheat flour.

I baked them for a total of about 15 minutes at 425, but the ones in the upper left corner look a little darker, I think that's the hot spot in this oven. If I like them well enough to do another batch, I may try the convection oven setting at 400.

My digital micrometer (from a beadworking store) says they're about 6mm thick after baking, but this is a yeasted dough, so I'm not surprised. The interior seems good, not dense but not really open, either. They're a bit crisper at the edges than in the middle, that may change as they cool.

They're about 1.75 inch (45mm) squares.

[Mike Nolan]

Dough after rolling out and cutting

Dough after egg wash and salt

Crackers after baking

Edge of cracker to show thickness and crumb

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[Mike Nolan]

Here's the second tray (scraps rolled out a second time) before and after baking.

These are a bit thicker than the previous batch, averaging around 7.5 mm, but they sat for 20 minutes while the first batch baked, so they had some time to rise.

I don't think the docking made much difference.

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[BakerAunt]

Thanks for doing this experiment with the sheeter, Mike. The pictures are great. I'm impressed with the crackers--and thinking how many different varieties I could make if I had a sheeter to reduce the drudgery of rolling them out. The sheeter would certainly be great for that. I am baking the cheese crackers almost every two weeks, and my husband goes through them fast. In keeping him supplied, I do not get to bake some of my other cracker recipes.

I usually roll my whole wheat sourdough cheese crackers 1/16th inch thick, using my set of guides. This recipe has no yeast, just the sourdough, so rise is not an issue.

Coincidentally, on Sunday, I also baked my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers (aka Baker Aunt's Crackers) from dough I made last week.

[BakerAunt]

On Saturday evening, I made dough for a vegan Cinnamon Roll recipe, shaped the rolls, then refrigerated them overnight and baked them Sunday Morning. The base recipe comes from a blog, Love & Lemons:

https://www.loveandlemons.com/cinnamon-rolls/

My problem with most vegan recipes trying to imitate non-vegan recipes, and this one is no exception, is that the nutritional content is usually low. I tried to fix that by using a bit more than half whole wheat flour for that much AP, reducing the cane sugar from 1/3 cup to ¼ cup, replacing the almond milk with oat milk (increasing it by ¼ cup and reducing water by that much), cutting the salt by 25%, and replacing the 1/3 cup melted coconut oil with 3 Tbs. avocado oil. For the filling, I kept the ½ cup brown sugar but reduced the cinnamon from 1 ½ Tbs. to 1 Tbs.

For the glaze, I reduced the powdered sugar from 1 ¼ cup to ¾ cup, used oat milk in place of almond milk. (I used the oat milk because I did not find a healthy almond milk in any of the stores here. The oat milk at least had a good calcium content and fewer additives. The brand I used was Oatly.) I reduced the vanilla from 1//2 to ¼ tsp.

Essentially, I re-wrote the recipe. The resulting small, dozen sweet rolls, which made an 8x11 dish, are ok but will never live up to my recipe that uses buttermilk and eggs. My thought is that the blog recipe tries to make up for a not very good bread base with a ridiculous amount of glaze and strong cinnamon. Of course, replacing that coconut oil may have contributed to the bread base being underwhelming.

I might try the recipe again with white whole wheat rather than regular whole wheat. However, I will keep searching for a better recipe. At last year's family reunion, my husband's brother, who is vegan, was disappointed that the cinnamon rolls (made from an aunt's recipe that everyone loves) were not vegan, so I would like to find a recipe that would taste great AND has nutritional value that I could bake for him, along with the regular rolls for the rest of us.

[Mike Nolan]

The crackers are a little hard now that they've cooled, not sure if that's because they're just too thick or if it is a recipe issue. The ones from the second tray that had risen some are better, maybe I should just let them go through a final rise.

I think this was a successful test of the sheeter's ability to roll out cracker dough, now I just need to start playing around with more interesting recipes.

I should have tried to measure the thickness of the unbaked dough. Next time.

[Mike Nolan]

I didn't bother to keep the underside of the cracker dough floured, so the dough stuck to the sheeter board, but I just rolled it up, like a cinnamon roll, and then unrolled it on the cutting surface. Easy-peasy.

[Mike Nolan]

Vegan baking is very challenging, gluten-free vegan baking is even harder.

[Mike Nolan]

The crackers are still a bit tough to chew today. Some of the ones that were thinner seemed easier, so perhaps this is just a question of getting them thinner, although allowing them to rise more so that they were airier inside might also help.

BakerAunt, what's been your experience?

[BakerAunt]

Mike--it probably depends on the cracker recipe. The Whole Wheat Sourdough crackers are not tough. I do not use yeast in that recipe and roll it 1/16 inch thick.

My Rye Barley Crispbread do have yeast but lots of rye and barley, as well as some bread flour. These rise slightly, although I use a Swedish rolling pin to indent them. They have an egg wash on top and seeds. I roll the dough as thin as I can get it.

My other cracker recipe uses the King Arthur Italian Style flour, and it is mostly the KABC recipe. These crackers have yeast as well. I roll them about 1/16th inch. These crackers sit in the cooling oven overnight to get their crisp.

I have a flatbread recipe that makes a thin, cracker-like crust. I'm thinking of trying it as crackers.

[Mike Nolan]

I want to try carta di musica using the sheeter, for that the '0' setting might be best.

[Joan Simpson]

Tonight I made a small peach cobbler, we had some warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, so good.

[BakerAunt]

I was looking up a recipe in the first edition of Bernard Clayton, Jr.'s The Complete Book of Breads (a recipe that is not in the second edition), when I came across a quick bread recipe: "Orange Oatmeal Bread" (pp. 247-248). As I have some lovely Cara Cara oranges, I decided to bake the recipe on Monday. I made a few changes in that I used half barley flour and replaced the 2 Tbs. melted butter with avocado oil. I added 2 Tbs. BRM milk powder. I reduced the baking powder from 4 ½ tsp. to 4 tsp., as I use the baking powder that King Arthur sells, and I find that it tends to be a bit stronger than what I used to buy at the store. I chose the option of baking it in three small loaf pans rather than a 9x5. The loaves were done in 40 minutes and possibly could have baked a few minutes less. They are flat on top, which is probably due to the combination of my using half barley flour and reducing the baking powder.

I'll slice one for tea time tomorrow and report on taste and texture.

[BakerAunt]

I'm not impressed with the Orange Oat Bread. I do not think that my changes made that much difference. The orange overpowers the bread. If I were to make it again, I would use only half an orange, and I would also use quick rather than old-fashioned oats.

Update: the orange oat bread is actually better after two days. The orange flavor mellows.

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