What are you Baking the Week of March 5, 2023?

[Mike Nolan]

I need to make semolina bread today, I'm still tinkering with the recipe to adjust to having whole grain durum flour instead of mostly-endosperm semolina. Last time I think I underproofed/underbaked them a little.

Spread the word

      

  

  

[aaronatthedoublef]

I had biscuit dough in my freezer and needed to free up space so I turned it into cinnamon buns.

My family said "too buttery". Of course they have eaten this dough many times in other forms. I used turbinado sugar instead of white and I needed more of it. It lacked sweet.

The layers looks pretty good and they survived in the freezer pretty well too.

Have any of you ever tried mixing maple syrup with cinnamon and using that?

Thanks

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Mike Nolan]

I've used maple syrup to help stick down the cinnamon sugar a few times, but these days I think making a compound butter and spreading it on is better, a lot less sugar/cinnamon leakage when you cut them.

[BakerAunt]

I sprinkle the cinnamon sugar directly on the dough, then spritz it with water. The King Arthur Wholegrain Baking Book has a recipe where the cinnamon sugar is mixed with egg white before being spread on the dough.

[Joan Simpson]

I made a half recipe of my sour cream pound cake toady and baked it in a 9x5 pan and it worked well.

[BakerAunt]

Wednesday does not usually arrive without my having baked something, but so it is this week.

I baked my Pumpkin Pecan Loaf recipe as a 6-cup Bundt cake on Wednesday, using some of the pumpkin puree from yesterday. These smaller cakes work much better for just the two of us.

For dinner, I made my Sourdough Pan Pizza, once again replacing the King Arthur AP with barley flour and adding 2 Tbs. more water. I think that I now have a winning combination of semolina, durum, dark rye, barley, and still a small amount of the AP from the starter.

[Mike Nolan]

I made more chewy peanut butter cookies today.

[BakerAunt]

On Friday, I made dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. I will bake them next week.

Late in the evening, I made the levain for the Honey Spelt Sourdough bread that I plan to bake tomorrow.

[aaronatthedoublef]

First, thanks for all your wise counsel and for being my sounding board as I embark down this path. I cannot tell you how much it means to me.

I made challah. Six loaves and no rolls this time. I'm getting the process down and my braiding is getting better but it is still not where I want it.

I tried raw honey from Costco to replace the local honey I use normally. It's not as good but my testers didn't notice the difference. I do but I suspect that is because I know it is different. The local stuff is four or five times as expensive and food costs start to add up. I'll need between 8-10 lbs of flour a week. Even if I buy BRM bread flour from Vitacost which has the best price around here, that's still $12 just for flour. I'll use 10-11 eggs and we all know about that. I need to setup a 501c3 and that will help me contain some of those costs.

My distribution is shaping up too. I have people who will pick up the bread at our temple and deliver it.

If you're wondering why I'm doing this with challah (aside from the obvious) is that we have some very generous bakeries here who donate day old bread. And with many of their loaves the flavor actually peaks probably 12 to 24 hours after it comes out of the oven. So day-old may actually be a better product.

But challah on Saturday is too late. So if I can get this to people before sun down Friday they can have challah for the Sabbath.

[Mike Nolan]

There's a lot of variance in food prices around the country, some of it is due to regional supplier availability, but Californians have to deal with an increasing number of regulations on food, some of which are affecting national trends.

Eggs were $1.92 a dozen at Aldi the other day, and they had a good supply of them.

It doesn't appear flour prices are going to go down much any time soon, though. Costco has 25 pound bags of Ardent Mills bleached flour for $10.99, but I think 12 pound bags of KAF AP went up a little, though they're still under $10.

I didn't look at the sugar prices at Aldi, but I did see someone loading what looked like several dozen bags of sugar into her car, along with numerous bottles of oil.

Have you checked the restaurant suppliers to see if you can place a will-call order? You may need a tax permit or NFP determination letter from the IRS.

The semolina/durum flour I have is from Azure Standard. I've made 3 batches of bread with it so far, and the last one came out pretty good, but I can still taste some bitterness from the bran. (Maybe that's like your situation with honey, I can taste it because I know it's there.)

I haven't tried their other flours yet, but I think they're mostly whole-grain flours. Their prices on rye berries and tapioca flour were both quite good. Their freight charges are much lower due to their delivery method (you pick them up at a nearby drop site, most likely a shopping center parking lot), it's about 4.5% for freight to here, and I got 40 pounds of stuff for under $5 shipping. I think to the east coast it is more like 8.5%, but that may still beat most shippers.

[BakerAunt]

On Saturday, I baked Honey Spelt Sourdough, a recipe that came from King Arthur. I do not have the Emile Henry 9x5 covered loaf pan, so I use my Emile Henry long baker to make a longer, shorter loaf. I used 2 Tbs. of my bubbly starter last night in the levain, rather than the 1 Tbs. specified, since I have a goopier starter. I added ¼ cup of special dry milk and cut the salt to 1 tsp. I have baked this bread several times, and have had it sag in the middle, so I replaced the King Arthur AP with Bob's Red Mill bread flour and used 1 ¼ cups. I replaced the 2 Tbs. butter with 2 Tbs. avocado oil. After the second rise in the long baker, I slashed it down the center, as the recipe specifies, rather than my usual side cuts, and baked it for 30 minutes before removing the top for five more minutes. That put it at over 200F for the interior temperature, about 10 degrees hotter than specified. It is a lovely looking loaf, with no center sagging. I look forward to slicing it tomorrow for lunch.

I also baked another recipe of oatcakes, as we were out of cookies to have with afternoon tea. The oatcake recipe goes together quickly. Tomorrow, I will see about baking more biscotti.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--that is a huge project that you have undertaken. What a wonderful way to reach out to the members of your temple.

Your discussion about your Challah reminded me of Roban Woban from the King Arthur Baking Circle. She once recounted that as she was standing in a very long line at a Jewish bakery before one of the holidays, she suddenly thought, I can bake my own, and from that point she did. Perhaps some people will be inspired to learn to bake Challah from your efforts.

[chocomouse]

I made Date-Nut coffee cake, an old recipe passed on in my husband's family.

[BakerAunt]

I am very happy about the Honey Spelt Sourdough Bread I baked yesterday. It has a more open crumb, and the spelt has a milder, sweeter taste than whole wheat flour. Using 1 1/4 cups BRM bread flour gave the bread enough gluten to hold its shape.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks BA. My parents bought some challahs (the actual plural is "challot") but most of them were made by my mom sometimes with a little help from me.

To your point about inspiring others, we're starting with a dozen to see if we can make the logistics work. But if this is successful and the delivery folks can handle it I think I can make 24 on my own provided I can find an oven to handle that. If I can inspire some people and this grows then I can rope some people to come in at 4:00 am to shape. Or if I can just convince people to make their own and make an extra loaf to give away, this will have been a success.

I want to try your oatcakes but I need to find Scottish oats. All I can find here is steel cut and rolled. I may try to order some or I could probably grind some steel cut in the blender.

Matt used spelt a lot in the bakery. For a while it was really inexpensive. He was always switching around trying to keep good flavor and margins without raising his prices.

Mike - You are right. I need an NFP. The I can buy wholesale and there are a number of places to do that around here. Back when my restaraunt friends bought bread flour for $15 for 50 lbs. they would give me bags. But now it is just too expensive.

[Author]

Posts