What are you Baking the Week of November 16, 2025?

[Mike Nolan]

Don't know that I'll be doing any baking today,

I do need to make some more Banh Mi rolls this week, Diane wants them a little smaller so I'm going to change them from 64 grams each to either 48 or 42 grams each.

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[skeptic7]

I had a Banh Mi sandwich locally which was very good. Now that I have refamiliarized myself with the sandwich, I understand why you are devoting your time to it. Are you making the pate and headcheese found in a traditional sandwich? I've made the pickled carrots and radishes before but I have to buy the first two ingredients. I think I've only ever bought the Banh Mi sandwiches, but I've used the pickled vegetables with roast pork sandwiches.

[RiversideLen]

I made a batch of burger/sandwich buns this afternoon.

[Mike Nolan]

I did make 18 small Banh Mi rolls (42.5 grams dough weight each, about 32 grams baked) today

[BakerAunt]

I baked Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers on Monday from dough I made last week.

[Mike Nolan]

I've got pickled carrots and daikon radish that I made, and I've been using a variety of meat and cheese fillings, not the traditional Vietnamese ones. The best Banh Mi in town are way up north, a long trip in lunchtime traffic, but I've been there a few times when I was on that side of town at midday. There are a couple of shops on the SW side of town where we are, but they're more into pho than Banh Mi, and shops really need to specialize in one or the other.

My wife likes them with some peanut butter on them.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi. It's been crazy! Hope you all are doing well.

Never had a banh mi with headcheese. I don't think I would have tried it. Headcheese creeps me out.

I've started to tinker with gluten free. I volunteer for a place and all the people who run it are GF and craving sourdough. I've been using KAB GF bread flour. It's several different starches. The exec chef there tried it and said it didn't have the big, airy feel with holes but the crust was great. Some how none of my bread (GF or regular) have those big airy holes. Not sure what I am doing wrong. My ciabatta, for example, has a tighter crumb than typical ciabatta. I might need to let it rise at room temp longer after taking it out of the fridge.

I'm experimenting with hand pies. I have good recipes for dough and for fruit filling. I may use it for Thanksgiving pies. Not sure how to put pumpkin or pecan pie filling into hand pies but maybe I'll put the pie dough in muffin tins and make individual pies. It uses sour cream for the liquid and it's pretty extensible and it has really nice layers.

My challah program has its second client now. It is remarkably hard to give away bread! I have a 20 quart Vevor stand mixer which does a nice job with the dough. I'm up to about 20lbs and not sure how much more I can make. But I get better kneading after 20 minutes in the mixer than 45 minutes by hand. My challah finally has the right texture. I finally used up my SAF red so I'm going to try some sample loaves this week with SAF gold. And Violet - my baby - is helping me as part of her bat mitzvah project. I cannot believe my baby will be bat mitzvah in July. No wonder I am too old to knead 20lbs of dough by hand.

[BakerAunt]

It is good to hear from you again, Aaron. I was wondering how your baking is going, since you had not posted for a while. Yes, mixers do a better job kneading dough. I was a holdout until about 15 years ago when I got my stand mixer, and suddenly, my bread rose higher and was lighter, and I made less of a mess in the kitchen. That's why, before we lived here, I bought the used bread machine for kneading while the stand mixer was at home. Then I discovered the bread machine was great for the small kneading jobs my mixer was not so good at. So, one discovery leads to another.

That is great that Violet is still baking with you.

[BakerAunt]

On Tuesday, I baked another recipe from Sarah Leah Chase's Year Around Cookbook (Nantucket Open House Cookbook, which is one of the two included in this joint volume), Cranberry Harvest Muffins. I replaced AP flour with whole wheat flour and 1 cup of melted butter with ½ cup of canola oil. I added 2 Tbs. milk powder and 2 Tbs. flax meal. I replaced the milk with buttermilk. I halved the white and brown sugars. I did not use her spices, which were 1 Tbs. cinnamon and 2 tsp. ground ginger. Instead, I used 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1 tsp. allspice, and ¼ tsp. cloves. I could not find dried Calimyrna figs, so I followed an online suggestion to use dried Turkish figs instead. I am pleased with how the recipe turned out. The spices are just right, nicely complementing the fruit. I made one unintentional change. I planned to reduce the baking powder from 1 Tbs. to 2 tsp. However, I accidentally put in 2 tsp. of baking soda because I was thinking about something other than the task at hand. The baking soda was already in the flour, so I had to proceed. I put in ½ tsp. of baking powder (which should have been the baking soda amount) and deleted the salt. The muffins came out fine, but next time I will do it the right way. The recipe said it yields 20 muffins. I made 6 large muffins and 10 small muffins. I think it would make close to two dozen. I will freeze the large muffins for future breakfasts. Even Scott, who is not a cranberry fan likes the muffins.

[BakerAunt]

I love my intricate Bundt pans, but even with The Grease, they can be hard to clean. I found that I was not using my specialty pans as much, but I want to use them, so I broke down and bought the Vegalene spray that King Arthur sells, and which is used on lots of baking shows. On Thursday, I pulled out my intricate Nordic Ware autumn wreath pan and baked my adaptation of their recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Swirl Cake. My version replaces butter with avocado oil and uses part whole wheat pastry flour, with the addition of flax meal and milk powder. The cake came right out of the pan, and the clean-up was a breeze. Vegalene spray is much better than the sprays sold in grocery stores. The cake will rest overnight, and we will begin slicing it for dessert tomorrow night.

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[cwcdesign]

BakerAunt - that's good to know about the Vegalene - I used it for a while and always liked it, but I didn't replace it when I ran out - maybe on my next order

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi BA. Not only is Violet still baking but my oldest son is as well. He is working for a place called BagelUp in NYC as a side gig and is making bagels, assisting teaching classes, and helping out. He is having a great time. He starts his first, real job in Feb so I am glad he is having as much fun as he can now.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--Did your older son graduate? Time is flying! It's so nice to have a baking family.

Baking bagels is on my list of baking projects, but probably not until after the New Year.

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