What are you Baking the Week of October 2, 2022?

[BakerAunt]

I baked an apple pie on Tuesday. When we were in Michigan last week, I picked four apples from a solitary tree near where we were staying. I added them to 2.5 lbs. of Spy Gold apples (seconds), which are a cross between Northern Spy and Golden Delicious from the farmers' market. I peeled the Michigan apples because they had some mildew on the skin, and the skin is also rather thick. I did not peel the Spy Golds. We will slice into it at lunch tomorrow.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm not sure I'm going to find any winesap apples this fall, the place I usually get them at lost their entire apple crop to a storm earlier this year, at least the 2nd time they've had storm-related crop failures.

Two of the orchards in Nebraska City (50 miles away) have winesaps, but one of them says they aren't ripe yet, probably another 10-14 days if the weather holds up. Neither offers u-pick except on weekends, for insurance reasons, I guess.

Farming is the ultimate expression of optimism. You prepare, plant, tend and hope for a marketable crop.

[Mike Nolan]

Having a second sheeter board would be convenient at times, for example, if I decide to do a bi-color laminated pastry (look at the cover of Jimmy Griffin's book.)

I've written Brod and Taylor, they don't currently have extra sheeter boards available.

I really want to start playing around with other doughs soon, carta di musica, maybe even strudel or phyllo dough.

[BakerAunt]

Mike, maybe your note to Brod and Taylor will give them the idea of selling extra sheeter boards. After all, they began offering the sheeter after they saw the groundswell response in social media--maybe even here at Nebraska Kitchen!

I'm eager to hear how your sheeter works on cracker doughs.

On Wednesday, I baked two large (9x5) loaves of my Pumpkin-Rye-Whole Wheat Bread, which is a complete re-working of a recipe in Jane Brody's Good Food Gourmet. The recipe calls for two cups of pumpkin, and one cup of puree was the last of the pumpkin-squash hybrid that we had in our garden last year. The other was a cup of frozen peanut pumpkin puree. As pumpkin differs in consistency, I have to adjust the flour amount when I bake it. I look forward to slicing one loaf at lunch tomorrow and freezing the other.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The croissants and chocolate look great.

I made schnecken for Yom Kippur. Mom always made them for Rosh Hashana but for some reason I procrastinated.

I think next time I need to let them cool upside down as a lot of the glaze stayed at the bottom of the muffin tins. Or maybe I need to push the dough deeper into the tins.

I have a recipe for brioche where the baker recommends milk powder if I have it. I have KAB but I'm running low. Is there really a difference between theirs and other brands? And can I use any regular powdered milk or is there special baker's powdered milk I should look for? I should also say I have a lot of powdered buttermilk I'm not using since I switched to the real thing.

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[chocomouse]

Aaron, I use regular powdered milk from the regular grocery store, and it works fine. I know a lot of others disagree. My problem is with finding it in bulk form, instead of little packets that make a cup or a quart.

I keep the powdered buttermilk on hand in case I run out, but I do think the real thing gets better results.

[BakerAunt]

I use the King Arthur special dry milk in my baking.

In my yogurt and non-yeast baking, I use Bob's Red Mill milk powder. I know that when I make yogurt, I have to add the milk powder before I heat the milk, or I do not get a good set with the yogurt. How that applies to bread, I am unsure.

Now that BRM has closed their mail order, I have ordered the milk powder by the case online at Walmart.com

It comes in 22 oz. bags, and while the price is around $14 or $15 per bag, it lasts for a while. I actually saw it for sale at Simply Thyme, the small chain grocery store I visited last week in South Bend.

Your Schnecken look yummy, Aaron. If the topping is at the bottom of the muffin tin, I would vote for inverting the tin immediately on a rack and spooning any topping left in the tins on top of the rolls. It seems to me that the longer you leave them in the muffin tin, the more likely the topping is to "glue" them in.

[BakerAunt]

On Thursday, I made dough for another batch of my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. I will bake them next week.

In other news, I noticed that one of the shelves in one of the two deep utility cabinets was wonky, and I suspected, rightly that one of the shelf holders had come loose. I removed the items on the shelf, and when I removed it, knocked the other two on the side down. I located all of them. Inspection revealed there was nothing wrong with them, or the holes in which they go. Then I noticed that the back left corner of the bottom utility cabinet next to the two walls was SEPARATING. This cabinet, like the one we had to have repaired last year, has failed. We will have our contractor, who is still working on siding the Annex, take a look at it and see if he has ideas for how to fix it. These cabinets were not inexpensive, and I am angry that the construction quality is poor. I am concerned about all the other cabinets. In the meantime, I am back to living with what was in the cabinet in boxes. I know that houses always need work, but I draw the line at having to fix something that was already supposed to be fixed.

[skeptic7]

Aaron;
I use regular milk powder, but I dissolve it in liquid and scald when making yeast breads. I do mainly whole wheat breads, and scalding the milk makes a difference in the rise. It doesn't seem to matter as much whether the milk is scalded in all white flour breads.
Chocomouse;
I can get regular milk powder in the health food stores and not in envelopes. I use this for soups and yogurt and cookies.

BakerAunt;
sorry about your cabinets. Is it the sides that are seperating from each other, or is it one side and the bottom?

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--The separation is between the back wall of the cabinet and the left wall. Both are against walls.

[chocomouse]

Skeptic, thanks for telling me about getting powdered milk in the health food store. I'm always so entranced and overwhelmed by everything there - I never thought to look for milk powder.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm not sure what different the baker's special milk powder makes, it seems more of a fine powder than the stuff at the grocery store, which seems more granular, and it has very little odor.

My mother would mix up powdered milk and combine it with regular milk to stretch it, with 6 kids she had to be creative. But I never liked the taste and still can't stand the smell of powdered milk, even walking past it in the grocery store is worse than walking through the coffee section.

I haven't tried ordering high heat treated powdered milk from anyone else yet, but I've still got enough left to get me through the winter, as I don't use it frequently.

[Mike Nolan]

BA, is is possible there was moisture behind the wall that got into the lamination? We have one sink cabinet where a leak delaminated the floor of the under-sink storage area.

[BakerAunt]

King Arthur's special dry milk cannot be rehydrated. Try to do so, and you will end up with a mess. It has to be mixed in with the flour and other dry ingredients.

Most regular milk powder can be rehydrated in liquid.

Mike--I also come from a large family (eight kids), and my mother also mixed powdered milk with regular milk, in part to stretch it, and she also had the idea it was more nutritious. I, too, hated the taste.

[BakerAunt]

Mike--I will run the idea of moisture by my husband and see what he thinks. There are no pipes in that area, and we have a new roof, so I think it is unlikely, but we will check.

The cabinets were constructed, my husband says, with staples and glue to hold the thin backing in place. That does not give me confidence.

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