What are you Baking the Week of May 1, 2022?

[Mike Nolan]

I've been thinking about making the punitions (sugar cookies) from the Poilane cookbook.

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[BakerAunt]

Mike--you mistitled this discussion--it should be baking. I'm surprised that Word Press let you do that, which is one more reason to dump it.

[Mike Nolan]

I changed the topic heading. WordPress is good at certain things, but it has its limitations unless you want to get into some really heavy lifting development. Drupal has a similar reputation, but I think it is oriented more towards my way of writing code.

It looks like I could create a fairly simple recipe structure in Drupal, and I might even wind up doing that as an interim step, but I want one where each ingredient has multiple components: quantity, unit of measure, ingredient name and comments/instructions, so I can manipulate and analyze them, and possibly even support multiple entry formats, including one that uses something along the lines of the BBGA publication template, entering quantities in baker's math percentages.

[Mike Nolan]

I've got butter softening to make the punitions dough.

[Joan Simpson]

Mr.Google let me see some punition cookie recipes,never heard them called that.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made bread at home for the first time in ages. MASSIVE blowouts! But I had the right crust that I wanted. I used a lame too. They're fun. One of the nice things about Uncle Matt's was Matt would let whomever was making the bread use the lame. Only place I've ever worked that did that.

I need to go back to Mike's instructions for posting pictures. You all would have laughed!

So more practice needed. I think maybe these were under proofed.

[Mike Nolan]

Blowouts are almost always from underproofing.

There's an interesting 6-blade lame on Amazon, but it's not cheap, around $55. I assume it is primarily used for pastry.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I think you're right Mike, because when my bread is properly proofed the slash opens up more when I make it and then even more when I bake it. The crazy thing is I proofed these for about 24 hours (eight to ten in the refrigerator). More bread next week. But this will still work for sandwiches.

[Mike Nolan]

Temperature and indoor humidity have a big impact on proofing times, and even a minor variance in the flour or water can affect it, too.

I've overproofed loaves, too, there's a fairly narrow window of 'just right'.

[Mike Nolan]

I baked the first tray of punitions today, they came out a range of shades from very light to fairly brown, which is what the recipe said would likely happen if you don't rotate the pan during the bake. I'm OK with that. The darker ones have a more complex flavor to them due to the Maillard reaction and probably some caramelization.

They're fairly classic butter cookies, tasty but a bit dull, though you could eat a big plate of them quickly if you weren't paying attention. (They're about 2 inches in diameter and weigh around 7 grams each.)

They'd be better with a dollop of jam (as the recipe suggests, I'll have to see if I have any Cardinal Preserves in the freezer) or dipped in hot chocolate, maybe even tea. Or maybe a little frosting, I've still got a little of the cream cheese frosting from the Hot Cross Buns left, we've been using it up on graham crackers.

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[BakerAunt]

On Monday, I made dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. I will bake them later this week.

[Mike Nolan]

I did find some cardinal preserves in the freezer, the cookies are quite good with strawberry jam on them. Honey on them was good too, and so was the cream cheese frosting.

[Mike Nolan]

I've still got another tray of cookies to bake off, but this recipe is a keeper.

[RiversideLen]

Those cookies look good to me!

[Joan Simpson]

Cookies look good to me Mike.

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