What are You Baking the Week of March 4, 2018?

[BakerAunt]

This Sunday afternoon, I'm baking a new recipe, Oregon Trail Cookies, that was on the back of a bag of Bob's Red Mill Whole Wheat flour. It's also posted on their website:

Oregon Trail Cookies

I made two changes: I added 2 tsp. flax meal. I also replaced the 2 Tbs. flax seeds with 2 Tbs. chia seeds, because a) humans cannot break down flax seeds in their digestive system, so there is no nutritional advantage, and b) I have chia seed left over from a recipe I baked in the fall. It made 21 thick cookies.

Added Note: These are very good, dense cookie. They would be good for hiking or traveling. One or two are all you need.

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• This topic was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

This morning I'm baking the Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers (recipe on this site) from the double recipe of dough I made up last week. With my baking production of various kind of crackers, we have stopped buying them at the grocery store.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by BakerAunt.

[wonky]

I am baking soft peanut butter cookies, something I have not made in quite some time.

[chocomouse]

I baked chewy molasses cookies.

[cwcdesign]

On Sunday, I made MrsCindy’s Irish oatmeal bread again. This time I had all the ingredients and paid attention to the rising time. It was much better. I made it as a sharing loaf and froze half. I think next time I will reduce the honey as I thought it was a little sweet.

[BakerAunt]

This afternoon, I baked the Brown Sugar Sour Cream Pound Cake from the KAF site. It's a favorite that I have baked before, and we will have it with fresh strawberries mixed with sugar and drizzled on a slice. I made two changes in the recipe: I cut the salt from 1 tsp. to 1/2 tsp. (With the sour cream, I figure it will not be missed.) I also substituted in 1/2 Cup whole wheat pastry flour for 1/2 cup of the KAF flour. I used the Bundt Vintage Star pan (10 cups). As it is a deeper rather than a wider Bundt pan, I baked the cake for the full 60 minutes.

With this cake I used the "grease" for the first time. I used 1/2 cup each of Crisco, Pillsbury unbleached flour, and canola oil. I used my immersion blender to blend it in the tall cup container that came with the blender. It mixed up very nicely. I used a silicone pastry brush to coat the pan; think of it as a paint brush and paint. I have stored the remainder in a container with a tight lid. (I have a lot left, as I intended, so that I can use it for other baking projects.) The cake baked nicely and released beautifully. I did not have the overbrowning that seems to happen with the Baker's Joy spray I've been using. The grease is also very inexpensive to make, and it allows me to reduce waste by never buying those spray cans again.

Thanks to S. Wirth who first wrote about the grease on the old Baking Circle. Thanks also to Mrs. Cindy who wrote about it with evangelistic fervor in a memorable thread from the second Baking Circle that now likely exists only in my head.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by BakerAunt. Reason: comma error

[Mike Nolan]

My wife thinks Baker's Joy leaves a bitter taste on the surface of the cake.

The Pfeiffer (French Pastry School) book uses a butter/flour mixture to grease the pan for cakes, 3 tablespoons of European style butter to 4 teaspoons of pastry flour. I may have to try that for cakes, the KAF pan grease sometimes seems a bit heavy on the tongue on cakes, though not a bitter one.

When I make Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake I grease the pan with butter and coat it with cocoa instead of flour.

I do miss Mrs. Cindy, and I still have a few of her huge Meyer lemons in the freezer. Sometimes I wonder if her tree survived the Houston flooding.

[wonky]

Mike and BakerAunt...I love using the pan grease. I do find that I have to remix it every now and then, as the oil will separate and settle on the bottom of the container you are using.

I usually use it very sparingly, as a little goes a long way. I also NEVER wash my bread pans. I let them cool, and wipe with a paper towel. I have separate pans for things like batter breads etc. My newest pans are from Amazon they are USA Pan...they have a corrugated appearance, and I love them. When I got them, I washed them in warm soapy water, dried, and rubbed a small amt. of pan grease in each one. Since then, I have never greased them, and the breads pop right out. I would highly recommend them. the bread really has a nice appearance, as the corrugated sides and bottom really make the loaf like nice.

I have had my customers ask how I get them to look so pretty...and I always tell them that is my SECRET!! Then I tell them the truth.

[Joan Simpson]

I love the pan grease too.Wonky I have to remix mine sometimes also.Usually when I wash my bread pans it's just with hot water and those are the ones I have baked banana bread in they kinda get gooey.If I bake a regular loaf of bread I do like Wonky,just wipe them out.That's what I do with all my cast iron also.I never wash them with soap only hot water when baking corn bread or biscuits I just wipe those out with a paper towel.

[cwcdesign]

I actually bought a can of Vegalene from KAF last fall for my bundt pans. I figured that if they used it in all the kitchens at the resort, it was worth trying. It is non-gmo and contains sunflower oil, sunflower lecithin, natural flavor & propellant - no silicone which is what would make the pans sticky. I got it from KAF because it was cheaper than Amazon. So far so good, very light but sure did work on my bundt pans and cleans off easily.

I, too, minimally wash my USA pans and I love them

[BakerAunt]

That is interesting about people's washing technique on USA pans. I've always washed mine with hot water and Dawn dish soap, then dried them well--sometimes putting them in to a still-warm oven. I've always greased the pan with Crisco when I've baked yeast breads. When I bake bar cookies, I've taken to lining the pans with parchment so that I can lift the cooled cookies out, then cut them without damaging the pan. (Plastic cutters only go so far if you want a nice clean cut.)

I did notice that with the new finish on Nordic Ware Bundt pans, the company advises you not to let the pans soak very long, as it will damage the finish. I was pleased at how well the pan grease allowed for a quick clean up; I always had issues getting the fine spots cleaned out when I used Baker's Joy.

[Mike Nolan]

I always thought it was the lecithin that created a residue buildup on your pans. I haven't tried Vegalene, though I've seen it at the local restaurant supply house.

I"m not sure what the propellant is, it could be something flammable, so make sure you don't use it near an open flame.

[BakerAunt]

This morning, I baked Oatmeal Crackers (Hafrakex)--an Icelandic recipe from Beatrice Ojakangas' The Great Scandinavian Baking Book (p. 63). I've tried this recipe once before, early in my cracker baking experiments, and I was going to link the thread, but after searching, I realized that my discussion of it was likely on the KAF Baking Circle and so has dissipated into the electronic void. 🙁 Indeed, I have a note on the recipe that I first baked them on February 4, 2016, and it was in April of that year that KAF announced the shutdown.

What I recall from my previous attempt is that they were not crispy, and that neither my husband nor I cared for the 2 tsp. of crushed anise seed. I had substituted buttermilk for regular milk, and I adjusted the baking powder and baking soda accordingly. I also recall that I did not have my pastry wands at the time, and so had some difficulty getting them rolled evenly.

On this attempt at the recipe, I again made the buttermilk substitution, as well as the baking powder-baking soda adjustment. (I know that I did that correctly, because Cass confirmed it.) I deleted the anise, and I cut the sugar from 1/4 cup to 2 Tbs. I baked them for the maximum 12 minutes--turning the baking sheets half-way through (baked one at a time). When I take them out of the oven, I slide them off the parchment onto the hot cookie sheet and allow them to cool down on it.

The finished product seems to be more chewy than crispy, with a nice mild taste (grains are oats, medium rye flour, and regular flour), with a hint of sweetness. They are puffy in spots, as the instructions do not say to dock the dough.

What I would like to know: Are Hafrakex supposed to be chewy or crispy? The recipe just says to bake until "golden." I tried googling it, but I'm just getting all this Pinterest stuff. I wish that she had said what the texture is supposed to be. Maybe it should be more a cookie than a cracker?

According to Beatrice Ojakangas, all Scandinavian countries have some form of Oatmeal Crackers. I looked at two other recipes--an Oatmeal Flatbread (pp. 107-108) and a Swedish Oatmeal Cracker (pp. 115-116) in Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Small Breads. Both have a lot more butter (and the second has a butter-shortening mix) of 3/4 cups as opposed to 1/4 Cup butter in the Hafrakex recipe, and these other recipes say that the resulting product is crisp--I am guessing because of the amount of fat. Clayton's first recipe does not dock the dough, but the second one does. He also cut the sugar in the second recipe from 1/2 cup to 3 Tbs.

I have tried googling Oatmeal crispbread, but I keep running into the same two or three recipes posted under different sites.

[skeptic7]

I had lost power due to the great windstorm on Friday and Saturday, so when Sunday came around and with it power and refrigeration, I decided to use up as much milk as possible. I chose a Hot Cross Bun recipe that used a lot of fresh milk and started in on it. These were baked Monday with two types of pastry cross and some plain as controls. I also made candied lemon peel -- its so good having electricity. I'll write more about the Hot Cross Bun crosses. The baked on cross is a cute idea, and travels much better than the frosting version -- if only it would be pretty and tasty and have a nice texture.

[Mike Nolan]

I wonder if some of the techniques used for Mexican conchas which color some of the dough, might work for making hot cross buns?

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