What are you Baking the week of November 22, 2020?

[Mike Nolan]

I'll be making an apple pie later this week, no baking plans for today.

Spread the word

      

  

  

[BakerAunt]

On Sunday, I fed my starter and made dough for another batch of my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. I will bake them after Thanksgiving.

[kimbob]

Made the kaf maple cornbread. Light, moist with a subtle maple flavor. Went well with the chili and I'll be using some in the Thanksgiving stuffing.
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/maple-cornbread-recipe

[cwcdesign]

Will’s going to try his hand at making a pumpkin pie with the crust from scratch - he’s decided on Ina’s crust, a recommendation from a friend who was going to be on Master Chef but when she got there and they were telling her she had to play a role - she said No thanks

[BakerAunt]

That's exactly why I chose to stop watching Master Chef. I prefer cooking and baking programs that are actually about cooking and baking.

Monday has been a busy day in the kitchen. I started by making another batch of Maple Granola.

I realized we were almost out of bread, at lunch, so I used the bread machine to knead and then baked my significant adaptation of King Arthur’s Oat Toasting Bread. Mine uses 2 cups whole wheat flour, flax meal, Bob’s Red Mill rolled five-grains, oat bran, buttermilk, less salt and less yeast. I used oil and honey. I also bake it at 375 rather than 350 for 38 minutes.

My final baking project on Monday was Pear Spice Muffins, a recipe by Ellie Krieger. I had baked the recipe last year, but the muffins were a bit spongy. This time, I reduced the oil from 1/3 to ¼ cup and used homemade apple sauce. I baked them in Fall cupcake papers, sprayed with cooking oil, and I sprinkled fall colored sugar on top before baking.

[Mike Nolan]

I made a batch of bagels today.

What shows are currently in production that actually feature cooking and baking these days? Not many of them on The Food Network, they're mostly staged competitions or travelogues. (I can't say I've ever learned ONE thing about cooking from Guy Fieri.)

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi. Been a crazy few weeks at work and home. I made apple pie w/my daughter. First time making apple pie and making pie outside of Thanksgiving. I used tartlet pans to make mini pies. The crust was too small so it did not fit the sides snuggly. But the pie tasted good and I used the leftover filling on pancakes the next day.

I went looking for chocolate cookie wafers and none were to be had so I made my own this morning. Not sure they came out well but my family keeps trying to eat them and I keep saying I need them to make the tarte crust. May have to make another batch. I used black cocoa and they are so black they are blue (but I am color blind so it may be my eyes.

I heard Nathan Myhrvold interviewed and he is coming out with a pizza book. He says it's not the heat from the oven but the infrared rays in the oven that cook the pizza. Not sure I believe him but if his pizza book is like his "Modernist" cook books then it will be too expensive for my blood. Still, my oven has a infrared broiler so I tried that. It did not seem to make a difference and a couple times I forgot to turn the boiler off when I move a pizza onto the top pizza stone. I thought the pizzas were too burned to eat but my sons disagreed. Thinking of writing a parody of "What the Dog Ate" called "What the Boys Ate".

Making lots of bread and crackers each week. I was experimenting with the crackers and made them a little thicker. This was not popular. I've also discovered if I salt them and let them sit with the salt on them they are crisper. I don't put oil on them before I salt them so this also makes the salt stick better.

Sadly we're having out smallest Thanksgiving ever. My in-laws are not coming up and our friends are not coming over. We were talking about having dessert together outside but that is not happening. All the kids want pie. No turkey since no one really wants that. My wife is making butternut squash lasagna. I'll make the chocolate tart and a pumpkin pie.

[BakerAunt]

Ah, yes, Aaron--chocolate cookie wafers! I have a favorite recipe, from a small Hershey's cookbook that was my go-to for the crust on my chocolate cheesecake. (I really long for the day when I can have a lot of people over, and so can bake those kind of recipes again, knowing that I will only need to eat a little bit.)

Chocolate tart and pumpkin pie--sounds like a balanced Thanksgiving to me! I'd miss the turkey, however. Even when I was single and celebrating Thanksgiving alone, I always made a turkey. Usually, I'd freeze some of it and also freeze some casseroles from it for quick dinners.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Made my pie dough this morning. I'll make the pumpkin pie with Violet tonight. Speaking of which, does anyone know any good kids baking books? It will be something she can read and it will teach her fractions (which they have not taught in school yet).

I bought some local flour from a small mill about an hour away in MA.

I've opened the whole wheat so far and it's very nice. I can see the wheat. I'm going to make a 100% whole wheat loaf this weekend to see how it is. I also have a bolted bread flour and I need to use the bread flour in my container first. I'm curious about the pastry flour because the website says it 13% protein. When I asked about a lower protein flour (under 10) they replied that the 2020 pastry flour was 9 so I'll try it with pancakes. And I am craving biscuits lately.

[Mike Nolan]

I got some pie dough out of the freezer yesterday, and got Jonagold apple pie filling out on Monday, as I'm planning to make an apple pie today for Thanksgiving dinner.

[kimbob]

Baked a pumpkin pie and more cornbread since we ate the other one. 😱

[chocomouse]

I made a two-crust cream pie with cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg for our dinner tomorrow.

[rottiedogs]

I made sweet potato pie earlier today. It stills needs to cool off more before I put in the refrigerator. I like pumpkin pie but I am outvoted in favor of sweet potato pie. it's been that way ever since I got the recipe from a woman I worked with years ago. I was newly married and my husband mentioned he really liked the sweet potato pie he got from someone he worked with. We were talking about holiday pies at work and I mentioned that I had never heard of sweet potato pie before and I was trying to figure out how to make it. The next day one of women came in with a handwritten recipe for it and I've been making it ever since. I still have the old beat up piece of paper she gave me all those years ago. For safety's sake I finally scanned it into the computer.

[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday, I baked Spiced Pumpkin Bread from Stanley Ginsberg’s The Rye Baker blog (not in his rye baking book). I have baked it four times previously, so I had some notes to follow, including mixing with the paddle rather than the dough hook initially, holding back the oil until after the first rest, and adding a bit more flour (3 Tbs. this time). I may have added a bit too much flour, as the dough was not as slack as usual. That did make shaping easier, and it held its shape nicely when baked. I will see how the texture is tomorrow. I have not ruled out using the bread machine for it next time, as my 7-qt. mixer has trouble kneading this particular dough. It sticks to the bowl and the kneading spiral just makes an indentation in it, so that I have to keep stopping the mixer and re-positioning the dough, which for 8-10 minutes of kneading is a pain, and probably not great for the mixer. I also did not knock the dough down with the mixer after the first rise but kneaded it a bit by hand. I found that it baked in 55 minutes, not an hour.

I baked my signature pumpkin pie, which is my variation on my Mom’s, using my oil crust.

[Mike Nolan]

I really hear you on the differences between cooking for a group and cooking for just two people.

I can think of a lot of things I'd love to make, but we'd be eating them for a month! Even a pot roast lasts us over a week.

And I think some recipes just work better in larger sizes. Cheesecake is definitely one of them. Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake will work in an 8x8 or 10x0 pan (half recipe), the last couple of times I've made it I've made one of each size and froze one. Even then eating the 10x10 one seems like too much cake, we sent half of the last one home with some friends who were visiting (outside).

About the only thing I've made in quantity lately are soups, where we can freeze it in meal-sized portions. Tupperware makes an 8 1/2 cup container that is just about perfect for that. They're usually only sold as part of sets, but I managed to find about a half dozen of them for sale online, so I've got plenty of them these days.

[Author]

Posts