[aaronatthedoublef]

Interesting! I never thought about melting the sugar but that makes sense. These days I melt half the butter and cream half the butter with the sugar. I may try melting some of the sugar.

I've also started adding about a TBSP of freeze-dried coffee too. Supposedly brings out the chocolate.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I've tried KAF raisin bread twice. The first time I didn't let this rise enough and had no oven spring.

The second time I may have over-proofed it. Our kitchen was about 75 instead of about 67 and I forgot to put the dough in the refrigerator when we went out so it rose in the pan at room temp for about four hours. It had a nice high crown over the pan edge but not only did it not have any oven spring it actually fell back some in the oven.

CWC, I'm with BA. Some brownies really are better the second or even third day.

I looked at the recipe and it has you melt the chocolate and butter together. This makes it fudgier. It's denser because you're not beating air into the butter. If you cream the butter with the sugar and add the eggs, chocolate and oil, and cocoa and water, it should make them cakier.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Interesting. I have two sets of sheet pans bought at Costco about a year apart. The first batch was from Korea and the second from China. Even though they have the same listed dimensions on the bottom the Korean pans are slightly larger. Other than that they have been functionally the same.

My wife bought me a KitcheAid half sheet and quarter sheet set from Williams Sonoma that had to be pretty spendy. The quarter sheet is okay because of its small size I think. The half sheet buckles EVERY TIME even at 300 degrees.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Sorry. I am late to this. For what it's worth I have Costco but they only have half, quarter, and full and they usually come in packs.

But they were pretty cheap when I bought them 25 years ago and they do not bend or warp under high heat (I've taken them up to 750).

Mike and BA, thanks for the quick lessons in what to look for in better sheet pans.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Sugar often goes in with the fat instead of the dry ingredients. As BA say, cream it with the oil (or the butter).

BA thanks for the tip but I am not sure there is anything I can do to slow my boys down. Sam took out a block of cream cheese and all the crackers I made and just sat there spreading the cream cheese on the crackers and finished most of both of them. I started adding Everything Bagel topping to them and that has not helped! I am back to rolling by hand instead of with the pasta roller. I think it's easier.

I put together bread dough I just haven't had time to shape, rise and bake (mostly the rises).

I'll make more crackers tomorrow.

[aaronatthedoublef]

People have been 3D printing organs for a while. Not sure how successful it is has been for something more complex like a liver. It did work for things like heart valves. And people were cloning ears for a while but I don't think anyone has actually done that for ear replacement.

The FDA regulatory environment takes a long time to wade through. It is focused on safety not speed. But some of that is changing because sometimes, speed is better for safety.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I asked my brothers about this and they just responded "why?"

Mike - did you see the "Battle of the Joshes"?

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi. It's been a while! Been making lots of scones recently - made them for friends who looked after our house, for my wife's birthday, and then mother's day. Trying to figure our how to scale them beyond four dozen at one time. I've always made these completely by hand. The big change I made was I started grating the butter. I thought this would be more work then cutting it in but it really is easier. I grate it then toss it with a fork. I wonder if a food processor would work but if it would be any easier.

I made an Ina Garten coconut cake for my wife's birthday. The coconut made it really rich and I probably could cut back the butter. Also, it called for cream cheese frosting which my wife does not like so I just make an American butter cream and dumped in some coconut. Next time I'll toast the coconut in the frosting.

Been making BA's cracker because my kids won't eat store-bought crackers any more.

I need to get back on the bread track this week.

[aaronatthedoublef]

THANKS BA!

It does have sugar. Go figure.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Quaker had a really nice applesauce oatmeal muffin recipe that I lost and I've never found. Applesauce was the sweetener. It was pretty nice. It would be even better with cinnamon. Someday I'll try to recreate it.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Last week was an interesting week of baking. For the first time in a year I made no bread or crackers. I had my starter hibernating in the refrigerator downstairs not being fed. I did not even make pizza dough for Sunday night pizza (fortunately I had some dough leftover in the freezer from before Passover began). I made an almond pancake recipe which none of the kids liked except my oldest so I won't do it again. I made matzah caramel crunch which I've seen with saltine crackers before.

My middle showed an interest in baking cookies before Passover began so he baked some sugar cookies. During Passover he wanted to bake some Passover sugar cookies. It was an interesting recipe containing potato chips for crunch (didn't really work - probably needed thicker, kettle style ruffle chips). They were very dry and sandy and probably needed less flour or more butter or something. But to these he added citric acid to try to make them very sour. But he did not add enough so no one tasted the sour. We'll see if his interest in cookie baking continues or abates now that he made his joke cookies.

My starter is back up. I've fed it but it's still cold, compressed, and thick. So I'll see how it is tomorrow and see if I can make crackers with it. I did have five dough rounds for pizza so I made five instead of seven pizzas which means no pizza for lunch today but everyone seemed happy last night.

Not sure what else I'll do. Might make some rye bread. I have some white rye flour to use up which I do not like so much but I need to use it.

[aaronatthedoublef]

On top of more demand for shipping their is more competition for drivers. For a while Amazon even had a program to loan money and help you start your own shipping company and they would pay you to deliver for them. There are tons of Amazon trucks around us.

And UPS used to have standout wages and benefits but Amazon is competitive now.

We are living in interesting times.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I have seen "Nailed It" although not this episode. But neither my brothers nor I (fourth generation south siders until we moved away) have heard of this. My dad probably would have. He had a job driving to gas stations all over the city and his knowledge of Chicago geography and institutions was encyclopedic.

My little brother was a big fan of the Rainbow Cone which he was introduced to while working at Rainbow Beach.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Had my second shot (Pfizer) Saturday and no ill effects. My arm was not to sore until Violet started jumping on me.

[aaronatthedoublef]

"Sour" is interesting. I used to have a really sour starter and what was good about that was I could make sour sourdough (too many sours) quickly. But I couldn't make something lighter. Now I have a starter that is sweeter that I can make more sour with time.

If I could have multiple starters hanging out I would have a sour one and a sweet one (and maybe rye and wheat variants too). But, until I have my own kitchen that won't happen.

Thanks for the tip on first clear Mike. The first time I ordered a 50 lb bag of flour the shipping was $11 (including the box of parchment. The next time I went to order flour shipping was $35. It was cheaper to by 48 lbs of flour in 8 lb bags from Walmart because the shipping was free.

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