What are you Baking the Week of September 19, 2021?

[Mike Nolan]

Probably too hot for much baking again today.

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[Italiancook]

I made 2 boules Cuban Bread. I'm unhappy with the rise -- not tall as normal. I keep my yeast in the freezer and thought it'd last almost indefinitely there. Am I wrong -- does yeast have a shelf life?

[Mike Nolan]

I keep my instant dry yeasts (regular and osmotolerant) in the freezer as well, and lately a package of IDY lasts me close to a year with no noticeable degradation in how well it works. The osmotolerant (SAF Gold) yeast I have is a good 3 years old and still seems to work fine, I don't make a lot of sweet doughs, so it lasts a lot longer

[Mike Nolan]

I still need to make semolina bread, but I'm waiting until tomorrow. High today is supposed to be 93, high tomorrow is supposed to be 78. And I'm seeing some forecasted lows in the mid 40's as we head into fall, so it looks like the heat wave is over. Now, will we get any fall rains?

[BakerAunt]

My current bag of yeast was opened about a year and a half ago and has no problems. My gold yeast is even older and performs well. Sometimes bread just does not do what we expect it to do. Humidity or dryness can affect the flour. I found that I get a better oven spring just by setting the oven to preheat 25F higher, then dropping the temperature once the bread goes in.

[Mike Nolan]

I've made my honey wheat bread hundreds of times, but each time it is a bit of a mystery as to whether it is going to have a tight crumb with not a lot of oven spring or blow up like a balloon in the oven. Not sure if it is moisture or something else, but it usually feels about the same during shaping.

[Joan Simpson]

I made cinnamon rolls today and my oven worked fine...yay...but my dough didn't rise as well as it usually does but the taste was very good and I shared a small pan with our friends.I'll definitely be baking more now.

[BakerAunt]

Hurrah, Joan!

I baked Cinnamon Biscotti on Sunday. It’s a KAF recipe—back when KABC was KAF, and they sold cinnamon chips. I tended to buy bags whenever I needed to make a shipping minimum, so I have a large stash in the refrigerator. Unfortunately, the cinnamon chips, like all candied chips, are high in saturated fat. I went ahead and used the full cup in this recipe because I will send any remaining ones with my younger stepson when he starts his drive back to Colorado on Tuesday. I replaced 1 ¼ cups of the 2 ¼ cups of AP flour with white whole wheat, so these are slightly healthier.

On Sunday evening, I baked sweet rolls with some blueberry pie filling that I had frozen. For the dough, I used the base recipe for the KABC Cranberry Orange rolls. However, I had a bit too much water in the dough and did not catch it, so the rolls are not that well-formed, although the glaze helps hide it.

[cwcdesign]

On Sunday, I tried PJ’s method for sourdough sandwich bread from her blog series on KABC called the Casual Sourdough Baker. It’s a batter bread that takes a long time to rise - 8 hours for me, 14 for her. Then you put it in a pan de mie pan and let it rise a couple more hours. It used unfed starter, bread flour, white whole wheat and some rye flour. I may have over baked it as it is somewhat dense and shrank in the pan. There was a discrepancy in temperature for the bread itself - she said hers was 204 and 190 was mentioned in the comments. I think I would have been fine at 5 minutes less. It toasts really nicely and has a good flavor. I will definitely make it again.

Question - PJ used medium rye, all I had was dark rye, but I only used about 60 grams - would that have made a difference?

[Mike Nolan]

I made semolina bread today, tinkering with the flour ratio a bit, normally it is 1 pound of semolina and 1 pound of AP or bread flour, I used 20 ounces of semolina and 12 ounces of AP. It looks pretty good, but is still a bit too hot to sample.

[Italiancook]

Thanks BakerAunt and Mike for your input on my bread rising disappointment. Since it wasn't the yeast, I'm off on a new tangent. Maybe it was my scoring. The recipe says to make an X. But I was in the mood for wheat stalks. Based on Mikes experience with his honey bread, it may have been a flukish rise, however.

[BakerAunt]

On Monday, I baked another batch of Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. Although I baked a batch last Wednesday, they are almost all gone, since my husband as well as the younger son both enjoy them equally. I only made this dough on Saturday, and usually I allow it to ripen for about a week in the refrigerator.

I also baked my version of the soft oatmeal cookies from Jenny Can Cook, as well as Ellen’s Buns as 16 rolls. Most of today’s baking, as well as the Cinnamon Pecan Biscotti from yesterday will travel with the younger son who leaves tomorrow to drive back to Colorado. I do not want him to get hungry on the way! 😊

It was wonderful having all three kids visit this summer.

[BakerAunt]

CWCdesign--I have often used dark rye in place of medium rye. As long as you use the same weight, I would think that you would be fine. Possibly the dark rye might require a little bit more water.

[Joan Simpson]

BakerAunt he's gong to be one happy fella with all the goodies.

[cwcdesign]

Because it was so humid, I didn't want to mess with the amount of water, but I probably could have added another tablespoon or two without a problem. The starter was also cold when I added it, but I'm not sure it made that much of a difference since the rise was so long.

I also followed their formula for increasing PJ's measurements for her 9x4x4 pan multiplying the ingredients by 1.44 for the 13x4x4 pan. There are a lot of good comments in the blog which I found helpful.

I'm thinking of trying Irish Meal in place of the rye - it has about the same protein. Also, I don't know about my WWW to rye proportions. Suggestion was combination - I did approximately 2/3 WWW and 1/3 rye. It can be done with all bread flour.

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