What are you Baking the week of November 3, 2019?

[Mike Nolan]

Wow, it's November already. I still haven't made Vienna bread, but I found some more in the freezer so we're not out yet, but that'll have to be on the list some time this week.

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[Joan Simpson]

Only thing I baked was a pizza,made the dough up around lunch time and kept punching it down 4 or 5 times till I made the pizza,turned out very good.

[BakerAunt]

On Sunday evening, I pulled out my pumpkin oat bran muffin recipe, but instead of pumpkin, I used 1 cup of butternut squash that I found in the freezer. I used cinnamon and nutmeg and ginger, but I decided not to use the cloves this time. I baked these as six large muffins. I will freeze most of them. They make a good alternative to oatmeal for those mornings when I need a quicker breakfast.

[S_Wirth]

My husband loves steel cut oats for breakfast and they take a long time to get done. DL from the BC gave us a tip long ago for doing them overnight. She put the oats, boiling water and maybe a dab of salt in a thermos and lets them 'cook' overnight in the thermos.

I place 1 cup of Bob's Red Mill steel cut oats in a wide mouth thermos, add 3 cups of boiling water from the microwave and a little salt in the thermos, seal and it is ready when we get up. We each have a nice serving and some are left for the next morning. I make this almost every night until I get enough ahead to skip a day or two.

I order groceries and other items each week from Walmart.com and get a 54 oz. pouch of steel cut oats for $ 4.98 from BRM. I get free NextDay delivery by FedEx with a $ 35.00 order on almost all that I buy. It is a great deal for us as Walmart is a 50 mi. round trip.

[RiversideLen]

Joan, next time you make pizza dough early in the day, consider reducing the yeast (by a lot), that way you won't have to watch it and punch it down. When I make pizza dough, I only use a rounded 1/4 teaspoon. I also use cold water. Not only won't you have to punch it down, the crust won't bubble up when it's baking. This is a technique I got from America's Test Kitchen when they were doing NY style pizza.

[BakerAunt]

I also use an overnight method for my steel-cut oats. I bring a cup of water to boil in a sauce pan, add 1/4 cup steel-cut oats (Bob's Red Mill, of course), cover, and turn off the heat. The next morning, I add 1/4 cup milk and 1 Tbs. dates. I then bring it to a low boil and cook until it's the thickness I like. I cover it and allow it to sit while I make my French press coffee. Then I put it in a bowl and add 1/4 tsp. maple sugar and some chopped walnuts on top.

[Joan Simpson]

Thanks for the tip Len.When I was making the pizza dough I thought about the amount of yeast could be cut but I wasn't sure but next time I know I will remember this.

[navlys]

I baked potato sourdough bread. The recipe ( can find in the archives) makes 3 loaves that freeze well and can be warmed after defrosting.

[skeptic7]

I baked a whole wheat bread with 1 cup of very good Cabot cheddar cut in cubes and kneaded in on Tuesday. This is the same recipe I did last week but I baked it in the oven instead of the crockpot. This didn't rise very quickly and I baked it when it was only partially risen, I didn't get much oven spring, it was tasty but rather dense.

[Mike Nolan]

Whenever I try a new recipe or vary an existing one, I find waiting for dough to rise seems to take forever, especially if I'm not sure exactly how much it is supposed to rise.

And that's true with old standby recipes, too. Even a few degrees of difference in the room temperature can make a half hour or more difference in how long it takes my honey wheat bread to double--and some days it just doesn't double no matter how long I let it rise.

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--It might be that the bread needed more yeast and/or more water. A few weeks ago, I tried some changes to a bread I'd not made in a long time, and it came out dense after both rises took longer, and it too did not have the oven spring it should have had. I recalled this bread having a good rise previously. I realized that I'd cut the yeast too much, and that with some additional whole grains, it needed more water.

I'm also finding, now that the weather has cooled down, that my kitchen is not the best place for dough rising. The kitchen countertops are cold, so it does help to put a pad under the dough bucket, so heat is not lost there. The adjacent dining area is warmer when our wood stove is in use.

[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday, I baked my lower-saturated fat, whole wheat, sourdough cheese crackers from dough I made up last week.

[skeptic7]

Probably the bread needed more time and a warmer temperature. Nothing about this bread rose as well as the bread last week -- the sponge didn't rise, the dough didn't rise, the shaped loaf didn't rise. The main difference was the temperature 60 degrees in the kitchen as opposed to 66. Next time I am going to give it more time and find it a warmer place to rise.
However the good news is that I have finished insulating my attic, and making the insulated attic hatch cover for the attic ladder so I can hope for warmer temperatures in my house. I need to find a good excuse to run the oven the same day I want to make bread now that its cold. I think one of those recipes where you do a roast at 250 degrees for hours would be perfect. I've seen recipes for bake beans and pot roast in the oven too.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Joan, you also do not need to punch the pizza dough back down. I do a long rise on my pizza dough and it always doubles in size then falls back a bit. This happens with most of my yeast doughs when I let them rise for 12 or more hours. If I knead them the yeast seems to come back and I get good second rise if I need it and good oven spring as well.

My son - the only one beside me who eats rye bread - finally tasted the rye bread I made last week. He prefers the bread flour/clear flour mix to the all clear flour. It was "less dense". And it's still not stale so that's good to. I have to find someone to take some loaves off my hands.

This morning I put up dough for English muffins. They are currently rising in the garage and I'll take them back in and bake them tomorrow. I usually griddle them and finish them in the oven but this place does not have a griddle and I cannot figure out how to make the induction cook top work and I am not sure if it would work with a sheet pan even if I figured it out. Last week I was trying to use it to melt chocolate and I couldn't boil water. I stuck the chocolate in the oven which worked fine.

I haven't decided what I will make while I wait for the English muffins during their second rise I may make brownies again but it's also time to start making my mom's molasses cookies so I may do that.

[Mike Nolan]

I've taken to slicing the marbled rye bread I make (a minor variation from the recipe in BBA) and freezing it, so that if I need a couple of slices for a sandwich or enough for a meal I just take them out and let them sit on the counter for a few minutes.

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