What are You Baking the Week of September 8, 2019?

[BakerAunt]

I spent Sunday afternoon baking, a perfect occupation for rainy, cool weather. I baked a new pumpkin bread recipe, “Pumpkin Maple Loaf,” which appeared in the November 2018 issue of Cooking Light that I bought last year to help get me through the holidays on a low-saturated fat diet. (Note: you can find the recipe online by googling the title and Cooking Light). I didn’t find the issue that helpful, but I had marked this pumpkin bread recipe—What’s not to like about maple?--and decided to bake it today. I hadn’t been sure about the flour content, so I did some googling, hoping to find reviews. I didn’t find any, but various bloggers had baked it. I also found a different recipe, from a Canadian blogger at Kitchen Heals Soul, and while I saw no reason to prefer her recipe, I liked the idea of sprinkling maple sugar on top of the bread and not roasting the pumpkin seeds. I made a few other changes to the Cooking Light recipe. I added ¼ cup powdered milk and 3 Tbs. flax meal and used ¼ tsp. salt in place of the Kosher salt. I deleted all spices except for 1 tsp. cinnamon, and I also deleted the vanilla and added ¼ tsp. maple extract, because if I’m using maple syrup, I want to taste it! I’m saving the last of my dark maple syrup for other purposes, so I use a lighter one. Instead of a 9x5 inch pan, I used a Kaiser pan that is longer and narrower. (That idea was inspired by a recent KAF blog post.) I sprinkled about 1 ½ Tbs. maple sugar on top, then not quite 2 tbs. pumpkin seeds. It baked for 55 minutes. I let it sit for 10 minutes, then turned it out by putting a piece of waxed paper over my left hand in the baking glove and using my gloved right hand to tip it out sideways, before righting it on the rack. Most of the topping stayed put!

While my pumpkin-maple bread was baking, I mixed up a recipe of my cornmeal seeded crispbread. It bakes at the same temperature, so when the bread came out, that baking sheet went in.

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[BakerAunt]

We liked the pumpkin bread a lot. I think that I could even omit the maple extract. The maple sugar and pumpkin seeds on top are particularly a nice touch. I will certainly bake it again, along with the one I found here at Nebraska Kitchen last year.

[Joan Simpson]

I've got a cousin coming tomorrow so I pulled a frozen pie crust out of the freezer and made a coconut pie.The crust had lots of butter spots but when I rolled it out it tore all up,so I rolled it up in a ball and rolled out again,it looks fine so I'm hoping it'll be flaky.

[Mike Nolan]

Something they had us do in pastry school was to pound the disc of pie dough with the rolling pin a number of times before starting to roll it out. Apparently that 'shocks' the butter or other fat, which is a semi-solid (if fully thawed), so that it rolls out better.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks for the tip about pounding the dough. Pie dough is on my list for this week.

After all our discussion last week I made English muffins. My boys love them. My daughter not so much. My wife might try one... The recipe calls for buttermilk but I used powder so there isn't any buttermilk tang. I let the dough rise on the counter for 24 hours instead of following the recipe so I have some fermentation flavor. Next time I will use some more flour as the dough was a little too slack. I will also sub out a cup of bread flour for WWW flour.

My wife volunteered me to make oatmeal cookies for the cross country team this week. It's an out-of-town meet so only 10 kids are going, thank goodness. The coaches here take as many kids as want to run so our boys XC team has about 130 kids. And after a 5K (plus warmups and cool downs and just in general) they can EAT. I may try the apple oaties I just saw here or I may just make my usual oatmeal cookies.

[Mike Nolan]

If you've never tried the oatmeal crisps (chocolate chip oatmeal cookies) recipe I have posted, I still think it is the one of the best cookie recipes I've ever tasted, especially if you have milk to dunk them in. This is the second most requested thing I bake after the Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake. You do need to use Crisco as opposed to butter, though.

[chocomouse]

I made another Berries N Cream Cake, this time raspberry (last week I made blueberry). It is so easy and quick, but different. It's made in a spring-form pan with a dough base, then a quart of berries spread on top of the dough, and a sort of custard poured over that and baked for an hour. I'll post the recipe later.
I also made a batch of raspberry muffins, for the freezer stash.

[Joan Simpson]

Thanks for the tip on the pie crust Mike.

[Joan Simpson]

I just cut he coconut pie and am very pleased,baked in tin foil pan very flaky and browned very well.I have a question about ya'lls pies.I didn't butter the tin this time but I usually do,my question do you butter the pan,my recipe is part butter and part Crisco?

• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by Joan Simpson.

[BakerAunt]

Joan--When I was making butter or butter-Crisco crusts, I never greased the pan. I also don't grease it for the oil-based crusts that I now make.

I fed my sourdough starter on Thursday and used what I took out to mix up a double batch of my lower saturated fat, whole wheat crackers. I tried them this time with 1/3 cup flax meal, as I think the ½ cup I used the past two times is a bit much. I’ll bake these in a few days.

On Thursday, I also made Len’s recipe for Rye/Semolina/Whole Wheat buns, but I made a double recipe and baked two 8x4 loaves. I’m still experimenting a bit. I decided to use two eggs this time and 3 ¼ tsp. yeast. I also kept a close eye on the rise and put the loaves in after 30 minutes. I’ve had a bit of an issue with some sagging in previous attempts because I let them rise too long, but these look good.

[Mike Nolan]

I never grease pie tins. I've been using the NorPro non-stick pie pan for a couple years now, and it is still the best non-stick pan I've ever used. I let the pie cool, then a slight twist is all it takes to completely free it from the pan. Then I slide the pie into a different pie pan, usually a disposable aluminum one if the pan is going somewhere, or onto a large plate if it is to be eaten at home.

[Joan Simpson]

Thanks Mike and BakerAunt for the answered question on buttered pie tins.

[BakerAunt]

Like Joan, we're about to have company, and like Joan, I've baked a pie. My younger stepson arrives for a week’s visit tomorrow. When I asked if he is on a particular eating plan, he replied that he is on a “strict blueberry pie diet.” So, on Saturday evening, I baked Carole Walter’s Blueberry Crumb pie that I first baked on July 27, again using the oil pie crust variation that I worked out from the King Arthur 200th Anniversary Cookbook. I had one glitch. After gently cooking what I thought were 7 cups of blueberries and removing them from the juices to rest for 15 minutes, I realized that I still had 1 cup frozen berries in a cup on the counter. I had returned the bag with the rest to the freezer, but then the dog requested she be taken out, and when I came back, I forgot to add that last cup. I took a chance and mixed in the cup of frozen ones. The pie may be a tad juicier than it should be, but at least it will have enough blueberries. I used frozen berries that we picked in July. As for the juice, I made it into the warm blueberry sauce that can either be served with the pie or used otherwise—I’m thinking over cornmeal pancakes.

[skeptic7]

I baked a yeasted banana bread, according to my recipe it was based on "Banana Feather Loaf" on page 271 in "The Bread Bible" by Rosy Levy Bernabaum. It has 2 mashed bananas and buttermilk. The recipe was adapted by me to use all whole wheat flour and no additional sweetener. I had made the previous week a normal baking soda quick banana bread for a friend who was diabetic and wanted to see what this would taste like it it didn't have sugar or honey. It had a very subtle taste and a smooth texture.
The previous week's normalish banana bread had a rougher texture, I think thats because the banana was just mashed and not kneaded throughly into the dough. It tasted nice with cream cheese, a bit boring without it.

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