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

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks for all the tips on powdered milk. The King Arthur stuff is all I ever used for baking for regular milk. I have gone through tons of Saco powdered buttermilk but, like the rest of you I prefer the real thing.

BA, Sorry to hear about your cabinets. I let the schnecken sit in pan about 10 minutes and then, just as you suggest I inverted it, dumped them out, and scooped the topping out onto the schnecken. It was a little solid so I might reheat it some before scooping it out. I did follow your guidance to put the filling on the dough before I buttered the dough. In fact, I left that butter out of the completely and there were still two and a half sticks in the recipe.

Violet wants to bake this afternoon. Not sure if I will or not. We are both at the tail end of COVID.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--I have a sticky buns recipe from King Arthur--appeared in the second iteration of The Baking Sheet, I think with the Sands family was still involved in King Arthur. I think it was baked for a girls' lacrosse team. The recipe said to invert the 13x9 pan immediately, or the topping would stick to the pan, which is why I suggested that you might try inverting the muffin tins immediately.

I will have to find that Baking Sheet recipe for myself, since I seem to recall that it was low-fat, although probably a lot of sugar.

[Mike Nolan]

When we designed and built our house, we went with a local custom cabinet maker that does primarily commercial kitchens. These things are pretty solid and they weren't cheap, either.

The biggest problems we've had in 25+ years are a couple of edge strips that
have come loose and the under-sink one that delaminated when it got wet due to a plumbing leak. I've reglued some of the edge strips.

[Mike Nolan]

Nice schnecken, Aaron.

I tend to think of schnecken, the word is German for snails, as more like Danish, but any baked good that is coiled could probably be called that.

If I understand correctly, Saco buttermilk powder is made from real buttermilk, which is the stuff left over after butter is churned.

What's generally sold in the stores as buttermilk is a cultured product. I suspect the closest it has been to a butter churn is being in the same building.

When I was young, you could get buttermilk brought to the house by the dairyman, I remember it being kind of weird looking, sort of like watery milk, and it was not something I'd drink. (My mother liked it, though.)

[BakerAunt]

The grocery store in our town has changed milk distributors, so I cannot get the buttermilk locally that is 1.5% saturated fat, likely made with low-fat milk. They are now selling one that fancies itself as upscale and is 5% saturated fat per cup. Never mind that buttermilk by definition is supposed to be low fat.

Just as I stock up on two of the quart containers of yogurt when we do our every three or four weeks run to the larger town northeast of here, I will now have to buy my buttermilk there to get one that is low saturated fat. Depending on what I am baking, Ican go through a 2-quart container pretty quickly.

[Mike Nolan]

Calling the cultured stuff 'buttermilk' comes close to being food fraud, but I guess if we can have almond milk and soy milk and vegan meat patties, anything's fair game these days.

Cultured sour cream also is a far cry from the original, which was made from cream that had soured. If you've ever had it, the cultured stuff is probably an improvement, certainly better on a baked potato. But low-fat cultured sour cream still strikes me as an oxymoron.

It would be interesting to do some comparison baking for products made with cultured buttermilk, buttermilk powder and real buttermilk, which I'd probably have to make myself.

I have Diane St. Clair's book: The Animal Farm Buttermilk Cookbook: Recipes and Reflections from a Small Vermont Dairy , it even has recipes for making your own creme fraiche. (The most important part of the book, IMHO, the first chapter on how to make buttermilk, creme fraiche and cultured butters, is available in the free preview on Amazon.)

Now, if could just find 55% butterfat cream, I could try to make Devon clotted cream. Its hard to find anything above about 38% butterfat in the USA. Some 'whipping cream' packages don't even list the butterfat content, though if it is under 30% it won't whip properly even if you nearly freeze it first.

[Mike Nolan]

I was at Costco today and a 12 pound bag of KA AP flour was $9.49 or 79 cents/pound. That's the equivalent of a 5 pound bag at $3.95.

Prices were up on nearly every thing I looked at. I doubt we'll see them go down any time soon, either, if ever.

[BakerAunt]

I baked Skeptic's Pumpkin Biscotti today--the first batch of the season! I make them with white whole wheat flour. I sprinkled the log with a mixture of coarser white, orange, and black sugar since we are in the days leading up to Halloween.

[chocomouse]

BakerAunt, if you can't find that Baking Sheet with the sticky bun recipe, let me know. Are you thinking it was Vol II, 1991? I have almost every Baking Sheet published, organized into binders by year of publication, so it won't be difficult to search. Maybe my winter project should be going through ALL the binders and trying out interesting recipes!

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hey Mike. Stella Parks did some comparisons of buttermilk substitutes over on Serious Eats.

Violet and I both have COVID so we baked together. Duff Goldman's rainbow blondie recipe.

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[Joan Simpson]

Awesome photo Aaron of Violet working in the kitchen, by the way I love your kitchen and floors!Nice.Wishing you both to get over Covid soon.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hey Mike. Stella Parks did some comparisons of buttermilk substitutes over on Serious Eats.

Violet and I both have COVID so we baked together. Duff Goldman's rainbow blondie recipe.

[skeptic7]

Baker Aunt; you might have to use something like those small right angle brass pieces from the hard ware store to repair the cabinets. If they are just stapled together the staples won't hold under normal pressure and they aren't thick enough for screws. Its not as elegant but I like cabinets that have solid pieces of wood as glue/screw blocks where the sides and edges meet.

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--That is exactly what our contractor did on the first set of cabinets that he repaired for us last year. I am thinking it needs to be done for every cabinet. The contractor also screwed in that first set of cabinets to the ceiling as well.

We thought we were getting good solid cabinets. Sigh. I have always lived in houses with older, good solid cabinets. I did not understand that in modern cabinets corners are cut.

[BakerAunt]

We will be waiting for the final pictures of the rainbow blondies, Aaron. That's great that you and Violet are able to use your recovery time to bake.

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