What are you Baking the week of November 24, 2019?

[BakerAunt]

I usually am not in the kitchen the day after Thanksgiving, preferring to munch on delicious leftovers and bask in the holiday afterglow, but the supply of Healthier Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers has been dwindling, and I expect we will run out by late next week. I went ahead and made up the dough for the crackers. It’s best if it can sit, divided into four equal amounts, in the refrigerator for about four days before I roll out, cut, and bake the crackers.

[Italiancook]

I'm headed to the kitchen to make my grandmother's banana bread. It calls for Crisco, but I'm going to use light olive oil. Internet says I can sub one for one, but it'll make bread more dense and less cake-like. I like dense sweets, so I think I'll be okay.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making cinnamon rolls to go with chili today. I'm going to try making 9 smaller ones from the recipe that usually makes 4 larger rolls.
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[Italiancook]

After my dinner last night, Mike, I know this: If anyone ever invites me over for chili and cinnamon rolls, I'm in! Please let us know how it turns out making 9 smaller rolls instead of the 4 large ones. I have that recipe, and if 9 smaller works for you, that's what I'll try. But I have to first buy a 6" or 7" pan. But if you make 9, wouldn't you need a larger pan?

[Italiancook]

I cut, froze, and ate some of the banana bread made with oil instead of Crisco. I can't tell any difference. If I had to say something, it might be that it's a little spongier with the oil. I like it, and will use light olive oil in the recipe from now on.

Now, I'm going to make Banana Muffins. I'm trying to use up bananas past their prime.

[Mike Nolan]

I wound up making 6 rolls rather than 9, in a 5x7 pan.

[RiversideLen]

All this talk about cinnamon rolls has me yearning. When I make them I use a 9x9 brownie pan.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hello. Mike - those challahs are beautiful. I found a YouTube video of making them and it looks like something I could manage with a little practice.

I've been reading about all your various baking and I'm envious. Business picked up like mad on Monday and Tuesday (and even a little Wednesday morning) so I was way behind where I wanted to be.

BA - your doctor may not allow you to read this as I started Wednesday evening with 10 lbs. of butter and was down to two by Saturday evening.

I made my usual pumpkin, pecan, and chocolate hazelnut pies. My crusts were not ugly this time. Instead of subbing heavy cream for water I used water and had no shrinkage on the pumpkin pie which was not blind baked and only a little on the blind baked pecan. For blind baking I dropped the temp when I put the crust in the oven and only blind baked it for a short time. I also had it resting in the freezer before I put it in the oven. I noticed the butter started to ooze out so I still to need to work on that but my crusts looked not bad and the pies tasted good. I wanted to bake them Wednesday as they taste better the next day but it just didn't work this year.

I also made two dozen English muffin rolls and those were pretty good. I used the leftover dough to make English muffins.

Friday I made scones for my in-laws and family for breakfast and cookies for the cross country team for their meet on Saturday. I made molasses cookies (which my mom always called ginger snaps) but they did not spread right. I was rushing and I wanted to make a recipe-and-a-half so I must have added too little butter or too much flour or something. They tasted good and had the right spice taste.

Saturday was my middle's birthday and party. The night before when it was too late to order he requested an ice cream cake. So Saturday I was up early and made yellow cake cupcakes from the Cake Bible. Pretty tasty. I also made what seems to have been dubbed American buttercream.

Saturday night I made pizza. I was going to make a chocolate chip cookie birthday cake for my middle but we had leftover cupcakes and I was out of eggs. So maybe I'll make that today.

[Mike Nolan]

I found several different descriptions of how to do a single strand braid, including a YouTube video that may be the same one you found. (It has you make a letter 'e'.) I found the instructions in Bernard Clayton's Breads of France book were the easiest for me to understand and follow. It is a bread shape I will definitely use again, I used about six ounces of dough per loaf, which makes a nice size loaf for the two of us.

I think I actually managed to get too much cinnamon in the filling for the cinnamon rolls yesterday, but we're eating them anyway. I made a compound butter with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. I rolled the dough out to about 36 cm wide, spread on the compound butter and cut it into 6 pieces using a straight edge before rolling them up. (I got that idea from the Epicurous video about making cinnamon rolls, I find it works easier than trying to cut them after rolling it up.) Next time I may try making 9 pieces, these seemed a bit ungainly tall though they spread out nicely in the pan.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--I'm glad that you are supporting the butter industry, now that I no longer can. I used 1 1/2 Tbs. butter in my pumpkin pie, and 1 Tbs. butter in the mashed potatoes. Ah, how the butter devotee has fallen!

I'm also craving cinnamon rolls now. Maybe I'll make some pumpkin ones next weekend.

[Mike Nolan]

I think the theory on butter crusts is that you want a relatively high starting temperature to encourage the water in the butter to flash to steam. I'm not quite sure what happens to the fat in the butter when that occurs, though.

[skeptic7]

On Saturday I did my version of whole wheat scones with cranberry and candied orange peel. I was sort of tired of pumpkin at that time but still wanted to cook something seasonal. It was tasty and rather sweet.

[chocomouse]

That sounds really good, Skeptic -- a nice combination of flavors.

[Mike Nolan]

It's now been a week since Thanksgiving. The left over cheese grissini don't taste nearly as good as they did a week ago and some of them got incredibly hard. But the regular ones still taste great, possibly better than they did a week ago. I've never thought of staleness as something that could improve flavor.

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