What are you baking the week of October 21, 2018?

[Mike Nolan]

No baking for me today, I think, but here's a place for others.

Spread the word

      

  

  

[BakerAunt]

OK--it's time to get some baking going this week, especially here with highs in the 40s. (Update: it actually got into the lower 50s.)

On Tuesday morning, I baked a healthier version of my Harvest Pumpkin Cake. It comes from a recipe in King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion (p. 194), but the texture is definitely that of a cake not a bar cookie, so I changed the name. It is a favorite of my younger stepson who often requested it for his birthday. I wanted to see if I could make some healthy tweaks to it, so I substituted ½ cup barley flour for that much AP flour, reduced the sugar to ¾ cup from 1 cup and the salt from 1 tsp. to ¾ tsp. I have always added ¼ cup powdered milk. I added 2 Tbs. chia seed and 1 Tbs. flax meal this time. I always use my own pumpkin puree. I will forgo the lovely low-fat cream cheese (Neufchatel) frosting—which includes 3 Tbs. of butter—and serve pieces with pumpkin butter dollops on top.

I'll add a note this evening about how we like this version.
Note: The changes shifted the cake closer to a bar cookie, although it is still a cake. We liked the flavor, and we both enjoyed spreading a layer of pumpkin butter over the top. (Saturated fat content is 1.125 grams for 1/8 of the 9x9-inch cake.)

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by BakerAunt. Reason: added information

[BakerAunt]

On Tuesday afternoon, I baked three loaves of Grandma A’s Ranch Hand Bread, which I have not made for a long time. The recipe was originally posted at the KAF Baking Circle, but it is now here at Nebraska Kitchen. I use a 7-quart stand mixer, but Zen worked out a scaled-down single-loaf version, and it is posted here as well. I used 5 cups whole wheat flour, ½ cup flax meal, 2 ½ cups bread flour, and 2 cups AP flour. I substituted 3 Tbs. honey for the sugar, replaced 3 ¼ cups of water with buttermilk, and used 4 Tbs. of canola oil rather than butter. I also reduced the salt to 4 tsp. from 4 ½ tsp. It was cool in the house, so both rises took longer than an hour. The loaves were done after 43 minutes in the oven.

[RiversideLen]

I baked Apple Pie Bars, recipe from Jenny Jones. I ran across some of her stuff on YouTube. It's very much like apple pie except it's baked in a 8x8 pan and you put a bottom crust in the pan, then the seasoned apple slices and top it with the top crust, no crust coming up the sides. Her recipe calls for an oil crust (no saturated fat), I subbed part of the AP flour with white whole wheat. It came out pretty good, I'll probably make it again.

[BakerAunt]

Len--these look great! I might try buttermilk for the milk.

Apple Pie Bars

Note: Oil does have saturated fat, but a LOT less than butter. Canola has 1 gram of saturated fat per tablespoon, and from what I have read, can help lower cholesterol. Olive oil has 2 grams per tablespoon, as does grapeseed oil. It's not clear that either of those has cholesterol lowering ability, but both have much less saturated fat than butter, which has 7 grams of saturated fat. Thus, an oil crust is a substantial savings in terms of saturated fat.

[Joan Simpson]

Those apple pie bars looks good Len.I checked out that page.

[RiversideLen]

When I ran across Jenny on YouTube (Jenny Can Cook) I really didn't know who she was, I thought she was just another youtuber, but I liked the way she was doing stuff. It wasn't until I went to her site and read her bio that I realized who she is.

The apple recipe only calls for 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, I used a lot more than that, I didn't measure, I just poured it on. For my taste, it's hard to have to much when it comes to apples. But, I did run out of my good cinnamon and bought a jar of McCormick to tide me over until I put in an order at The Spice House. The McCormick is more mild.

I have used her oil crust several times, it's better than the oil crust I had been using. Her crusts call for equal parts of oil to milk, the crust I had previously used called for 2 to 1 oil to milk.

The apple bars on her site look better than mine, but I think mine look okay.

With a dollop of Greek yogurt.

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[Joan Simpson]

Len,yours look good!I enjoyed reading about Jenny-she has some good looking recipes.Thanks.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by Joan Simpson.

[BakerAunt]

Len--Thank you for introducing us to Jenny's website. I am going to try some of those no-butter recipes.

[RiversideLen]

Thank you Joan. I agree, her recipes look interesting. I enjoy watching her videos too.

You're welcome BakerAunt. I'm sure you'll find recipes you like, I'm happy with the things I've made so far.

[BakerAunt]

I tried a new recipe, “Crispy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies,” from Jenny Jones’ s blog. I made one change, in that I substituted half buttermilk for half the oil, in order to save about 3.75g saturated fat and justify including nearly ¼ cup (60g) dark chocolate chips. The sixteen cookies have .75grams fat each. These are pretty good, although they will not replace my beloved butter-based ones. They seem to have a slight aftertaste from the oil. The recipe did not specify what kind of oats to use, so I used quick oats, which worked well.

[chocomouse]

I made two loaves of Beth Hensperger's Buttermilk Oatmeal Honey Bread, which is my husband's favorite sandwich bread. I subbed one cup of whole wheat flour for one of the AP, and added two tablespoons of high-maize fiber.

[BakerAunt]

On Saturday afternoon, I baked Black Forest Brownies from Jenny Jones’ blog, as I fortuitously had a can of dark cherries in juice in the pantry. I made some slight changes: added 1 Tbs. flax meal, deleted the tablespoon of sugar, and used non-fat Chobani Greek yogurt, which is what I have in the house. (I’m hoping the flax meal will help, since the recipe says 2% Greek yogurt.) I baked in a parchment-lined pan. I used 30 grams of semi-sweet chocolate chips, which is less than the ¼ cup in the recipe. I calculated the saturated fat in my version at 19g per 9x9-inch pan. I cut the brownies into twelve servings, which means each has 1.58 g. saturated-fat and served them with a bit of frozen low-fat yogurt. These are pretty good. If I make them again, I would add ½ tsp. of espresso powder.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by BakerAunt.

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