What are You Baking the Week of May 7, 2017?

[BakerAunt]

For Sunday breakfast, I baked Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins, a recipe from Home for the Holidays: Festive Baking with Whole Grains, by Ken Haedrich (p. 23). I made a couple of changes, in that I used buttermilk instead of regular milk, and adjusted the baking powder from 2 tsps. to 1 tsp. plus 1/4 tsp. baking soda. I also used 3 Tbs. of lemon juice in place of that much buttermilk, and I reduced the brown sugar from 1/2 cup to 1/3 cup, and I sprinkled coarse sugar on top.

I will probably not do the lemon juice substitution again, as it really did not make the muffins that lemony. I only tried it because I have lots of recipes that call for lemon zest, but then I have the juice left over. Maybe dipping the muffins into lemon juice and sugar once they have baked might be a more lemony option if I am going to reduce the sugar in the recipe.

I still have a lot of poppy seed in the freezer that I need to use up.

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[RiversideLen]

Sounds delicious Baker Aunt.
I often buy lemons and zest them and freeze the zest for those times I want a nice lemony zing to some baked goods, such as turning a vanilla cake mix into a lemon cake. I then do a squeeze and freeze for the juice. I freeze the juice in an ice tray. After it is frozen, I take the lemon cubes and transfer them to an airtight container in the freezer. When I need lemon juice, it's always at the ready.

[BakerAunt]

Hi, Len. The problem is that I have a lot of lemon juice in the freezer. I do not seem to have recipes for using much of it at one time.

[cwcdesign]

BakerAunt I can't remember if I posted about the KAF orange pound cake
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/orange-pound-cake-with-bourbon-glaze-recipe
It uses 3/4 cup of orange juice. I made an orange glaze instead of a bourbon glaze. Then I made it with lemon juice - I really like it as a recipe - you could make a lemon glaze too. It might be a good way to use up your lemon juice.

I had planned to write Cindy and MaryAnn about the recipe since they were/are such big lemon fans ?

[BakerAunt]

Thanks, Cwcdesign. That cake is perfect for using up a lot of my frozen lemon juice. I'll likely delete the glaze.

Yes, Cindy would have liked baking it. I seem to recall that Michael likes the taste of bourbon, which is why she tested out that one bread recipe--which did not turn out so well, so she saved all of us trying it. I miss her intrepid experimentation in the kitchen. It was always so fun to read her accounts, and I learned a lot, too.

I wish that Marianne would pop in here sometime. My variation of her Grape Nuts Bread has become my husband's favorite bread.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.

[RiversideLen]

I'm working on a batch of rye dough. I haven't decided if it's going to be buns or I might try a braided loaf.

[BakerAunt]

On Tuesday, I baked a new recipe, "Glazed Pumpkin-Pecan Cakes," from a Better Homes and Gardens special publication, 100 Best Pumpkin Recipes (p. 12), that I picked up in Barnes & Noble last fall. I baked them in two Nordic Ware swirl mini-Bundt pans. I made two changes: I added 1 Tbs. of flax meal, and in place of 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice, I used 1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. nutmeg, 1/4 tsp. ginger, and 1/8 tsp. cloves. I used the orange juice glaze. We liked them a lot--although I realized after baking that I'd left out the 1/4 cup of oil. Oops. The texture is still surprisingly good. I will make them again--and use the oil, but I may cut back on the water by 1/4 cup, since I make and freeze my own pumpkin puree.

[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday, I made the KAF Ultra Thin Crust Pizza. I'm glad that the weather has had days cool enough for pizza baking. May weather is always uncertain here.

[RiversideLen]

Hot dog and hamburger buns today.

[Mike Nolan]

Made another semolina loaf today, I didn't braid this one but it came out quite nice, I took some pictures, I'll try to get them posted on Sunday.

[BakerAunt]

On Saturday, I tried a new recipe, a Bundt cake from KAF, titled "Orange Pound Cake with Bourbon Glaze." Cwcdesign had suggested that I could make it with lemon juice instead (I have a lot of frozen lemon juice), so I tried that suggestion. Although the recipe said a 10-cup Bundt pan, that seemed small to me for the amount of batter, so I used my older 12-cup one, and I'm glad that I did because the cake filled it. I will not glaze it. I also baked my favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The Bundt cake and cookies are for after service snacks at church tomorrow.

Next Day Update: The lemon cake is on the tart side, which is fine for me, but anyone looking for a sweeter cake might want to increase the sugar a bit, being careful not to unbalance the cake. I suspect that because the original recipe used orange juice, which is sweeter than lemon juice, this cake is naturally more tart. People at church did like it. I'm going to serve the remaining slices for our family dinner this evening with strawberry shortcake topping (we found lovely strawberries at the store) and Stonyfield frozen nonfat vanilla yogurt.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt. Reason: update on lemon cake added

[navlys]

I made brownies and topped them off with andies crunchy mint candies when they came out of the oven. The candy really ups the game.

[cwcdesign]

Baker Aunt, I'm glad people liked the lemon pound cake. I had used Meyer lemons so the flavor wasn't as pronounced as I would have liked. I prefer a tart lemon flavor as well, but the lemon glaze could add just enough sweetness plus a little more lemon.

Sounds yummy navlys.

[Mike Nolan]

Here are some photos of my sesame-semolina bread:

The loaf size is about 10x6x3 inches. As you can see, it has a very open crumb, almost like a baguette. There are more sesame seeds in the bread (from the soaker) than on it, I forgot to refill the shaker.

[RiversideLen]

That bread looks fine, Mike. I bet it would make good French Toast.

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