[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. Thanks Joan.

Mike - what's your dough hydration? My pizza dough is about 75% right now. Bread flour has worked the best so far.

I did try semolina a couple of times but my family was not thrilled with it. That was a while ago and it is fun to try new things every now and then. But most times they do not want me to mess with the basics.

I personally like provolone or fontal cheese with mozzarella, for example, but I am the only one... My last experiment was using aioli under the sauce to give a strong garlic taste. Everyone liked that.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made pizza last night. I used bread flour to roll out the rounds and then, per suggestions here, I used semolina on my metal peel. The semolina works great for sliding the pizza off the peel! Thank you. It does not work well for rolling out the dough. So I need both or I use a ton of flour on the peel and it transfers to the pizza. I use much less semolina and I kept it off the floor.

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[aaronatthedoublef]

S'mores pizza! Violet will love that! How did you make sure the pizza didn't stick to the grill?

[aaronatthedoublef]

Kate has Hulu set up so I'll have to watch this. I have not found good Italian beef outside of Chicago. Portillo's has become a chain and they have passable food in Minneapolis but it is kind of like eating at an Uno's after you've had the real thing when it was a dive in Chicago.

Now the country will wreck another Chicago staple.

I like Jeremy Allen White and he seems to be making a career out of playing seedy Chicagoans!

[aaronatthedoublef]

I unsubscribed from Bobs. At this point I'm looking for substitutes. It's really disappointing. And Whole Foods (I know that's not an option for everyone here) is upping their store brands for some of the main things I bought from Bobs and their store brand is usually pretty good and less expensive.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The bread looks great. At this point I don't make any KABC bread recipes. Mike's glass bread looks good so I may try that.

Netflix has a kids' version of the Great British Baking Show called "Jr. Baking Show". It is so much better at then the adult show at this point. There is none of the snarkiness. It's shorter too as there is only a technical and a showstopper. And, of course, Violet loves to watch it with me so that is fun.

I made scones this week. We came home from Maine this past weekend. No bakeries where we were staying but great views of the ocean! My in-laws stayed over at our house Saturday so I had scones for them Sunday morning before they took off. I was out of raisins so I used chocolate chips. I think it was a little too sweet but my kids loved it. My father-in-law introduced his grandchildren to "breakfast chocolate" when the boys were little!

I had big plans for other baking but things happen. I took Sam back to school and one look at the bags he meant to take on the train told me I needed to drive him all the way in so that was an extra three hours. An hour and a half of that was with my son so it was well worth it.

Then I went to donate blood another day and I was giving platelets instead of blood. That involves lying on my back with tubes in each arm for two hours while they draw the blood, take out the platelets, and put the blood back in. It was a three hour session with everything. So maybe I'll get to do something today or tomorrow.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Happy anniversary BA and Chocomouse! And to all the family,

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks BA.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike, it has been around forever. My mom gave me a reprint of the very first one which was real not much more than a 10 page pamphlet and most of the cooking and baking was done on wood stoves or in fireplaces.

BA, that would be great if you could. Thank you!

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA, I think our schnecken are probably cousins. They are a German Jewish treat for the New Year. Mom's recipe came from the Settlement Cookbook, which, sadly, fell apart in my hands as we were cleaning out my parents' house. So it has been lost to the ages. I can probably find a copy somewhere.

My recipe comes from a Jewish baking book from a Canadian Jewish baker and is very similar to my mom's. They're baked in muffin tins. First a brown sugar/butter/cinnamon mixture (similar to the filling) is put in the muffin tins. Then the rolled, cut dough is placed in the cups on top of the mixture which turns liquid in the oven. When they're done baking and flipped out of the tin, the part that was in the tin is the top and is coated with the liquified sugar/butter/cinnamon. And the dough has expanded into the tin so they do have a shell like shape.

Oh, and traditionally they (and my mom's always did) have nuts. Mom used walnuts.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks BA. I mixed the coconut oil with the butter (this cake had both). Coconut oil, as you've said, is not particularly healthy like olive or avocado (which is ALL the rage here now) and it is solid at room temp which is why I treated it like butter. But, like your oil cakes it did take a day or so for the flavor to come out.

It's funny - people are so anxious to get baked goods right out of the oven and a lot of stuff really needs time to set. Just because it is done baking doesn't mean it's done.

That would be a good study for the Serious Eats folks. Take some different baked goods and see what the taste is like fresh out, after an hour, two hours, 12 hours, 24, etc...

[aaronatthedoublef]

I'll look and see what I can find today, BA. I actually found their whole wheat to be more bitter or maybe it's just stronger. My favorite whole wheat is King Arthur's white whole wheat. These days I seem to only be able to find the organic version in Whole Foods which is now over $10 for a five pound bag. At that point it's cheaper to order from Central or Small Valley.

Like Mike I do like their pastry flour and whole wheat pastry flour.

BRM is going through a lot. They switched to employee-owned but then were hit by COVID and now the current problems. Add to this, at least three local bakers here are switching to wheat berries and building out their own milling operations because, they say, wheat berries keep longer, they can make five pounds of flour from one pound of berries, and things like that. These are folks who go through a couple pallets of 50 lb bags a month.

I haven't seen any numbers but adding what amounts to a whole new line to your business cannot be cheap and I don't know if it will pay off and if it does how long it will take. It will require some big, up front capital investment as well as training and new staffing, at a time when people are already short staffed.

Three is not a big number but if this is a trend across the country it will put pressure on mills.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I did not see anything online when I checked. I just received an email that was from the standard BRM address.

We have a good amount of their products here but I am not certain if we have everything you all use. And there isn't a cost effective way for me to buy and ship it otherwise I would.

After having tried their wholewheat and bread flours I am not a fan of those. I was ordering from Central Milling and Small Valley Milling. But now with shipping they are $2/pound. KAB is still under $1/pound at Walmart. Central and Small Valley are both organic and KAB is not so that is at least part of the price difference. I really like Small Valley and I want to support them but not at double the price.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The cake will stay moist but usually the frosting will start to dry out and flake after a day or so. Some of that may also depend on how much air you whip into it. I was making a cake with Violet from a Duff Goldman recipe and he has you whip the frosting for much longer than I would normally do it. It makes a very nice, light frosting but it's a little drier.

Simple syrup is good if you're worried about dry cake layers. Poke a few holes in each layer then brush it on. It soaks in and helps keep the cake moist. It does add a little sweetness.

The oil cake is interesting. The last coconut cake I made used a yellow cake but subbed some of the butter for coconut oil. It used coconut flour, coconut milk, and coconut oil for coconut flavor and definitely tasted better the second day.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA and Mike - both the cheese slicer and dental floss are worth trying. We have dental floss but I do not think we have a cheese slicer. I used a bench knife this time which was handy because I could cut then scrape and place it in the pan. This is what the bakeries I've been in have done but they also make a couple dozen a day. When you do something that often you work out a system to become consistent with whatever tool you're using.

I have a few ideas from you both for fillings to try. I need to make them more and that means I need someone to give them to, especially as we only have Sam with us for another couple days before he is back off to college.

There are no eggs in this recipe. After tinkering around with a bunch of different ones I used my recipe for schnecken. I made them a few months ago and had some extra which I used to make cinnamon rolls (Violet's suggestion).

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