What Did You Bake the Week of January 1, 2017?

[BakerAunt]

Ah, a brand new year of baking is upon us with all of its possibilities.

On Monday, I made Easy Buckwheat-Oat English Muffins on the wood stove, which I have discussed in another thread. On Wednesday evening, I baked cornbread to go with leftover soup. On Thursday, I baked a loaf of my Buttermilk Grape Nuts Bread (recipe on this site).

On Friday evening, I mixed up the dough for Rye Crisps, a cracker recipe from The Baking Sheet, 13.1 (Holiday 2001)-- a new recipe, thus keeping the New Year's resolution to try a new recipe every week or every other week. It's a yeast cracker that also uses baking powder--and since I substituted in some buttermilk for water, I added some baking soda. It mixes for 5 minutes in the bread machine (until it makes a cohesive dough), then rises for an hour, and then is refrigerated for several hours or up to 24 hours. I baked them on Saturday afternoon, and I really like them with their shiny egg wash. I would, however, divide the dough in half, and only bake one half at a time, as dough rolls out to cover my largest baking sheet completely, and the crackers on the edges got a little browner than I would have liked, even though the taste is excellent. They are also great with cheese as well.

When my husband came in from outside, somehow the smell from the rye crackers reminded him of chocolate cake, and he said wistfully, "Now, I want some chocolate cake." There did seem to be a faint chocolate smell from the crackers. So, I made the KAF Deep Dark Brownies (using a 10-inch ceramic baking dish). I will finish this evening by baking another batch of shortbread.

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• This topic was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Italiancook]

BakerAunt, glad to read that you have started off the New Year by keeping your resolution!

I had said I wouldn't start my resolution until next week, but a curiosity led me to start this week. I started wondering what Paula Deen's website looks like. She has recipes. I was pleased to find several non-chocolate cookie recipes. (I can no longer consume as much chocolate as I used to enjoy.) I made her "Magical Peanut Butter Cookies."

They are interesting in that they are flourless. In her video, she used all Splenda for the sweetener, so I did too. They batter pulled together quickly. The taste of the Splenda was greater than I liked. Normally, I use half Splenda and half granulated sugar. If I make these again, I will do that. This is an eating cookie, not a dunker. I guess it's because they don't have flour that they fall apart easily. On the up side, there are fewer calories with the Splenda and I guess without flour. So, yes, I considered that they worked into my New Year diet.

[luvpyrpom]

Sorry that I've been MIA from posting here. I literally took a vacation from baking anything the last couple of weeks. I had baked so much stuff over the Christmas holiday that I'm still working on eating all that. Thank goodness for freezers. No baking stuff this week. Maybe next week.

[cwcdesign]

I had 3 days off this week which was a pleasant surprise and allowed me to recuperate from my New Year's cold and laryngitis - not easy when you're talking to the public for 4-6 hours. However, I did manage to make 2 loaves of my version of no knead sandwich bread. Both loaves are sliced and back in the pans to freeze before bagging.

A friend gave me a huge batch of organic oranges, so I tried the Orange Pound Cake with Bourbon Glaze from the KAF site. The cake is delicious but I used orange juice instead of bourbon. However, I did decide to follow the KAF bundt cake guide on greasing my pan and that was not a success. I even called them to register my disappoint and the baker I talked to kept trying to tell me what I'd done wrong and I kept telling her I followed their directions exactly. I'm going to try to talk to someone else tomorrow. Anyway, they said if you had a non-stick bundt pan, to just grease it, so I thought they must know what they're talking about. It stuck BADLY, like the top half of the cake. I put it back in the off oven like they suggested and no go and I think it helped dry it a teeny bit. So no cake for work, but I will divvy it up for friends who won't care how it looks and I will definitely be greasing AND flouring my pans from now on!

[Mike Nolan]

The pan grease might have worked better for you.

BTW, I found out recently that it CAN go bad if ignored long enough. I cleaned off my countertops recently and found some pan grease that must have been over a year old, it was moldy.

[cwcdesign]

I've never had succes with the pan grease, Mike. I use a trick I learned from Cook's Illustrated which is a tablespoon of melted butter mixed with a tablespoon of either flour or cocoa powder and then brushed on the way you would brush on pan grease.

Since I was cut early today, I was reading the KAF blog about the Lemon Bliss Cake where PJ mentioned that if you have an intricate bundt pan, you should grease it right before you put the batter in so it doesn't slide and pool in the bottom. I checked before I put the batter in and mine didn't do that. But I think I'll stick with what works for me ?

[Mike Nolan]

When I make Texas chocolate sheet cake, I butter the pan then dust it with cocoa powder, it gives that extra burst of chocolate flavor. But I've never tried to take the cake out of the pan.

[Joan Simpson]

Made Lemon Crinkle Cookies from Mennonite page as we like anything lemon and they were very good.Had lemon jello in them for flavor and color and when baked they puffed up high but you were to slam them down on the counter to make them fall.They were very bendy after cooling and I loved them.I got 24 big cookies but next time I'll probably go a little smaller.Besides corn bread that's all I baked.

[BakerAunt]

For Bundt pans, I use Bakers Joy, which RLB had recommended in The Cake Bible. I also use it for layer cakes and even for the brownies I baked last night. However, it is more expensive to use, and I am aware that I am contributing to non-recyclable trash when I use it. So, I'm going to experiment with the pan grease this year.

I wonder what on earth the person (surely not a baker!) at KAF was thinking. It is standard practice to grease and flour a pan to get the cake to release. I have heard that when brushing it with butter, it helps to refrigerate the pan. I recall that Backform, which recommended using melted butter and finely ground nuts to coat a crown pan, also said to refrigerate the pan while mixing up the batter. Someone on the BC reported using this technique and said that it worked.

[Mike Nolan]

I used Baker's Joy on something last fall and my wife said it left a taste she wasn't fond of.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA,

Does baking soda still give your crackers a lift after several hours? What about double acting baking powder?

Also, how would clarified butter work compared to melted butter mixing with flour or cocoa to grease a pan? I have to admit I usually just use cooking spray but I've never made a bundt cake.

I made Jakes. This is a chocolate chocolate chip cookie recipe I made for my nephew many years ago. I used to make them weekly when I lived out west but I make them very infrequently since we moved east.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.

[Joan Simpson]

Have had good results with the pan grease but...on my Banana Nut Bread it tends to stick???So as I did years ago before I knew about parchment I sometimes use wax paper in the bottoms just to be sure.I always liked The Bakers Joy but sometimes ran out.

[cwcdesign]

Aaron, I don't see why clarified butter would not work. You're mixing the flour with melted butter so that it makes a paste like pan grease. Clarified butter just removes the milk solids and for that reason, it might even work better. I might have to try it sometime

I worry about using Bakers Joy for the same reason I worry about plain baking spray - what all that stuff does to finishes like non-stick and the USA pans. On my new non-stick skillet they specifically say not use spray oil on it.

[BakerAunt]

Baker's Joy does not leave a residue. Regular cooking spray, such as Pam, that is not designed specifically for baked goods will leave a residue. I've not noticed an aftertaste, but everyone has different taste sensitivities.

Now, to Aaron's question about the baking soda. I think that the answer is along the same lines as what Kid Pizza said about baking soda in cookies in his reply to Italian Cook, who wondered about refrigerating and freezing the dough. The baking soda is not there to give lift.

For Italian Cook from Cass

The recipe that I was using had baking powder and yeast. Because I was using buttermilk, I needed to offset it with some baking soda, remembering that baking soda has 4x the rising power of baking powder. I buy the Bakewell Cream Baking Powder from KAF (not the regular Bakewell Cream, which is different).I'll post my version of the recipe in the recipe section as soon as I can.

Addendum: I've now posted the recipe in the recipe section here.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.

[luvpyrpom]

I always use the pan grease (Crisco/flour/oil) on my Bundt pans and never have them stick. Of course, I may be applying them pretty thick, too. I don't like to use the sprays as I've have a few of them leave some sticky residue and impossible to wash off on my regular pans. For loaf pans where I might worry the baked product may stick, I've started to use parchment paper to line the longer sides. I make them taller than the loaf pan and then just use the parchment as a sling to lift the loaves out of the pan.

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