What are you Baking the Week of September 27, 2026?

[Mike Nolan]

I need to make honey wheat bread, probably tomorrow.

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[BakerAunt]

On Sunday, I baked two loaves of Oatmeal Bread. I adapted this recipe form Ron's Irish Porridge Bread, a recipe that a King Arthur customer gave to the company. I was worried that the dough was too wet, but I held off adding more than a smidge of flour, and the dough was easy to shape after the first rise, and it came out with great oven spring. I look forward to having it at lunch tomorrow as I enjoy the last of the Dester Indiana tomatoes with turkey bacon in sandwiches this week.

[cwcdesign]

I had bought a bag of mandarin oranges because I like to peel and eat one after dinner. Now, this particular bag had small ones in it but they were rounder than the usual ones I buy. I tried to peal one and the peel was hard to separate and it was so juicy that the sections were just falling apart. That's when I took to heart the fact that all clementines are mandarins but not all mandarins are clementine - some are even small juicy oranges. I decided to juice them to use the juice for baking. I came out with three cups of juice.

I'm thinking about making the barefoot contessa's orange pound cake, but that only uses 3/4 cup juice and also requires zest from 6 oranges that I don't have. I thought maybe I could sub some orange juice for some of the buttermilk. Any thoughts? Or suggestions for what to do with all this juice? It does taste really good.

[BakerAunt]

CWCdesign--If you have orange oil, you can add 1.8 to 1/4 tsp. and get the zest flavor. I may have some recipe ideas for you, but I will have to look tomorrow, as it is getting late. You can freeze the juice.

Between cooking and baking, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen on Monday. I baked Maple Cookies, a butter-free recipe I created that uses avocado oil. I used the Nordic Ware Autumn square stamps. The cookie stamps are somewhat disappointing in that the acorn just does not stamp well, and the pinecone is not great either. However, the maple leaf leaves a nice clean impression. Scott was having a rough day with sinus and vertigo issues, but the cookies certainly cheered him up. I also made dough for Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers, which I will bake at the end of the week.

Note on yesterday's Oatmeal Bread: I'm really pleased with taste and texture. I've made a note to myself not to add more flour.

[BakerAunt]

I began Tuesday by baking a half recipe of Rory's Irish Scones that appeared in King Arthur's The Baking Sheet. These are somewhat like little biscuits, but they use just buttermilk and a half teaspoon of oil. I made them with half white whole wheat pastry flour and half King Arthur AP flour. It is a quick recipe. I cut them larger, so it made 16.

I also baked Pumpkin Butter Cinnamon bars, which is really a cake, another King Arthur recipe that came to me long ago in an email. (I miss those days.) It uses either apple butter or pumpkin butter, and I had a jar of pumpkin butter that needs to be used, so pumpkin it was. I have reworked the essay to use avocado oil rather than butter, and I used ¾ cup white whole wheat pastry flour and ½ cup King Arthur AP. I made my own glaze by replacing the butter and water with 1 ½ Tbs. of evaporated milk.

My last project, after we returned this afternoon from getting our Covid vaccine, was to make Maple Granola. I should be able to eat some of it after Friday when I get the permanent crown on my tooth.

[BakerAunt]

CWCdesign--I checked my various recipes and they all call for orange zest along with the juice. That seems to be a fact of life for citrus recipes, and one that I find frustrating, as I always have a lot more juice than zest. However, if you have some orange oil (Boyajian makes one), 1/4 tsp. replaces the zest nicely.

[Joan Simpson]

I made a Lemon Supreme Pound cake for a friends Birthday.

[cwcdesign]

Thanks BA - I'll have to get some orange oil - I hope Harris Teeter sells it. Glad to know I can freeze the juice.

[cwcdesign]

I had to go to HT today - I looked for orange oil, but they didn't have any - they did have "pure" orange extract - it had sugar in it. Needless to say, I didn't buy it.

[BakerAunt]

CWCdesign--King Arthur sells this brand of orange oil. I've also seen them at Williams Sonoma. My current small box of orange, lemon, and lime came from T.J. Maxx, although I have not seen it there in a while. (Refrigerate once opened.)

I awoke too late on Friday morning to bake a new muffin recipe, so I had toast. I decided that for breakfast for the next few days that I would like something less sweet, so in the afternoon, I baked Pumpernickel Raisin Bread with Walnuts, a recipe that I created a couple of years ago from two recipes. I am looking forward to slices with my coffee tomorrow.

[cwcdesign]

I had placed an order for other things at King Arthur right before we had this discussion 🙄 we have Home Goods and TJMaxx on the mainland and like you I save up for bigger trips - don't need anything else right now, so I'll probably order online

[BakerAunt]

I made sourdough pan pizza on Saturday. Scott had confessed earlier that he does not care for my sauce, or rather, he could take it or leave it. I tried a different approach today. I did not use tomato sauce but put on the usual Canadian bacon, then added two vertically sliced yellow tomatoes from today's farmers market. They were not particularly juicy, and slicing them vertically helps the slices stay together. I then sprinkled on the 8 oz of mozzarella pieces that I had cut, before adding the mushrooms, red bell pepper (including a small one from our garden), green onion, Greek olives on my side, and Parmesan grated on top. It came out very well. I did have to bake it at 450 F for 18 minutes rather than 15 to get the crust browned and evaporate a bit of water. I let it rest for 10 minutes before cutting it. We have both put on four pounds since spring, so instead of cutting this half sheet pizza into 8 pieces, with each of us eating two for tonight's dinner, I cut it into six pieces, and we each had one, along with coleslaw. I usually felt stuffed with a quarter of the pizza, so reducing it to a sixth is good, and we will have an additional meal from it. Scott also liked it.

[Mike Nolan]

When we were in Grand Rapids MI, we ate at a Wolfgang Puck's Kitchen, and had pizza.

Their sauce had garlic in it, but they were able to make one using marinated tomatoes (tomatoes, a little sugar, a little olive oil, chopped basil.)

Squeeze it so it is fairly dry before putting it on the pizza. All the sauce that pizza needed!

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