What are you Baking the Week of October 17, 2021?

[BakerAunt]

On Friday, I baked my adaptation of Skeptic’s Pumpkin Biscotti. (Adaptation consists of using white whole wheat flour, reducing the sugar to 2/3 cup, cutting the cloves to 1/8 tsp., and adding 3 Tbs. milk powder.) I am grateful to Skeptic every time I bake this recipe, which is frequently.

[Mike Nolan]

I made a sponge for the Altamura bread, which I will let sit overnight. I'll mix the final dough tomorrow morning and bake it in the afternoon.

[KathyD]

I just mixed up Mokonuts’ Rye-Cranberry Chocolate Chunk Cookies. They are scooped and in the fridge overnight for their rest. Can’t wait to bake them up.

[chocomouse]

KathyD, the carrot cake is excellent! It's a bit dry, but not at all oily or greasy, as it often is. I think subbing apple sauce for some of the oil eliminated any excess. I haven't had carrot cake for two years, and it is one of my favorite sweets.

[Italiancook]

I baked banana spice bread today. I used my grandmother's banana bread recipe and added 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon allspice.

[Mike Nolan]

The Altamura-style bread is out, it had nice oven spring. I'm letting it cool a bit before slicing, then I'll post some pictures and comments on the recipe I used.

[Mike Nolan]

Here's the finished loaf of Altamura-style bread (100% semolina sourdough):

The oven spring was very good, the finished loaf is a little over 8 inches long, about 5 1/2 inches wide and over 3 1/2 inches high.

I wound up re-shaping it after it had risen for about an hour because it was flattening out too much, so I did a couple stretch and folds to tighten up the loaf and reshaped it back into a football shape. It still flattened out a bit with another hour of final proofing but the oven spring rounded it out very nicely.

Here's a slice:

The bread has a nice open crumb and is quite chewy, like one would expect from a sourdough bread, but it does not have much of a sour taste.

The taste is quite a bit different from the semolina bread I've been making using Hamelman's recipe.

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[Joan Simpson]

Bread looks nice Mike!

[BakerAunt]

That bread looks wonderful, Mike.

I pulled out my Nordic Ware Autumn Wreath pan on Saturday evening and baked my adaptation of the Pumpkin Chocolate Harvest Cake recipe that came with the pan. I substitute in some whole wheat pastry flour, use my homemade pumpkin puree, replace 2/3 cup butter with ½ cup oil, delete the water, add some milk powder, use 2 whole eggs, and cut the salt in half. I also use a mixing method that works better for oil cakes. I baked in the evening so that there would be no temptation to slice it until tomorrow, and the flavors have time to meld.

[KathyD]

Mike, your bread looks so good. I bet it will make great toast. I’ve been looking at Jeffrey Hamelman’s revised bread book. I’ve added it to my list. You can rent it on Amazon for $29.95 for something like 3 months. I think I’ll check the library and see if they have a copy.
My Mokonut Rye Chocolate Chunk cookies turned out good with a great rye flavor. I also made Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies along with a Miso Maple loaf. I have Peter Reinhart’s Bagels in the fridge for their overnight rest.

[Italiancook]

Your bread looks delicious, Mike! It's helpful when you post the measurements. Thanks.

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