What are you Baking the Week of October 29, 2023?

[RiversideLen]

Sorry to hear that, BA, that is so frustrating. When you use your thermometer, what temperature are you looking for?

[BakerAunt]

Len--King Arthur and some other sites state 200F for quick breads, although I think that I might go with 190-195F.

[Mike Nolan]

The sourdough cheese crackers made with finely ground whole wheat durum flour are very different from those I made with coarsely ground winter red wheat. I am using twice the amount of cheese powder and I added about 3/4 of a teaspoon of salt, but none on top.

[Mike Nolan]

I think I like the ones I rolled out to 1mm better, they're crunchy and despite being thinner seem more airy inside.

So I think the next batch will all be rolled out 1mm thin. The good news is that means I get a lot more crackers from a batch, but it means more time on the sheeter and more batches in the oven. I may cut the total amount of dough by a third or so.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike - now I have sheeter envy. I wish I had the space for it. Not sure I could measure 1mm thickness.

I am working with my synagogue to see if I can bring in equipment. I am storing flour, yeast, and eggs there. They're giving me honey leftover from the High Holidays but I am not sure how much they have. And having a big Blodgett oven is great. At some point I could expand to a lot more than a dozen loaves.

Ahhhh. This week I made more challah. My shaping is improving which is part of the reason I am making it each week instead of once a month. I'm also developing a routine in my new kitchen. I think I am going to bring my old KA mixer there and start making cookies or something in the slack time waiting for things to rise. I also need to bring in some more sheet pans.

I also made ciabatta again this week. I substituted a third whole wheat for bread flour and Violet didn't complain so that's a success. I also dropped the weight down from 5 to 4.5 oz. They have become our go-to sandwich roll and Violet prefers it to the olive bread from Whole Foods which is major coup for me!

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--I, too, have sheeter envy. I could put a sheeter in the Annex kitchen (apt. over our freestanding garage). The price, however, is high, and I would have to prove to my husband that it is worth it. Now that I have developed a second cracker recipe--for which I will post the recipe-in-progress later today--perhaps I can chip away at his financial resistance. 🙂

With the new cracker recipe, those that I can get thinner have a nice light texture. The ones that are thicker (toward the center) are still good and work nicely with heavier toppings. The new recipe--which is not a sourdough--uses lower gluten flours, an idea that I got from a King Arthur cracker recipe that was inconvenient, as it requires the crackers to cool overnight in the oven, so it requires a lot of planning ahead if I baked in the afternoon, so that the oven would not be needed in the evening. I used a combination of half Italian-style flour and a quarter whole wheat and a quarter barley this last time. I plan to substitute spelt for the whole wheat next time. I may at some point see if I can reduce the Italian-style flour, which is the more expensive ingredient.

[BakerAunt]

I am in awe of your Challah project, Aaron! I'm glad that your synagogue appreciates your baking and allows you use of the kitchen.

I am also delighted that you are able to bake a bread with some whole wheat that Violet enjoys! Maybe at some point you will be able to increase the wholegrain.

[Mike Nolan]

I use a digital caliper that I found at a bead shop (Shipwreck Beads in the Seattle area, biggest assortment of beads in the world!), it measures in 0.1 mm increments. Measuring something soft like cracker dough is a bit more challenging, but if you do it carefully I think it's accurate.

The small sheeter doesn't take up as much space when it isn't being used, but I have a 24x48 stainless steel work table in the basement that I use for some baking projects, especially ones that need a lot of space. I'm planning to try rolling out strudel dough in the sheeter, then overlapping pieces when rolling up the strudel.

[RiversideLen]

Thanks, BA, I'm going to give that a try next time I bake a cake.

[Joan Simpson]

I made pie crusts last night and have the 5 ready for baking or the freezer.

[BakerAunt]

I made Maple Granola on Saturday. It is popular in our house, so I try not to run out, as we did two days ago.

I also made dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Crackers to bake next week.

[Mike Nolan]

I made peanut butter cookies Saturday evening.

[Mike Nolan]

I put the thicker sourdough cheese crackers in a 140 degree oven then turned it off and left them in overnight. Now they're dry enough all the way through that they're more crunchy.

I still think I'll roll the next batch out to 1mm, though.

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