[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike - thanks for the magnet test. Our popcorn popper and our All Clad both say they are induction compatible but neither will hold a magnet. Looking deeper into All Clad, they added a magnetic layer in 2025 to be induction compatible. Our pans were a wedding present and are 25 years old and that was before induction became popular.

We are redoing cabinets and thanks for the tip about drawers. We'll definitely do that. The pullout surface is a good idea too. We don't really have a ton of counter space and that might be a nice way to add more.

Our island is finished butcher block (not sure why the builder did that) and we're swapping that for unfinished butcher block. We have granite counter tops now and we are trying to figure out what to replace those with. We're thinking about soap stone. Some stainless would be nice.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made scones this morning. It's the first baking I've done for my family since Thanksgiving. I subbed chocolate chips for the raisins because we haven't had enough chocolate in the last few weeks.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The cakes and brownies all look good!

I made 24 loaves of challah. This is the first batch where Violet helped me make the dough. I have been making it Wednesday morning but I shifted that to Tuesday afternoon so she could join me. The dough was a little drier than normal when I made the loaves so I may increase the hydration to try to counteract that.

I have pans with pre-shaped dough balls for four three-strand loaves. I timed things and it took me about 10-12 minutes to make four loaves. I also tracked the time so when I was done with the last loaves I knew how long the first loaves had been rising and I staggered their entry into the oven accordingly. The whole batch took me about two hours. Then I was stuck inside for another half hour as we had a bomb threat and went into lock down until the police cleared us.

Then I went to help the chefs at the nonprofit kitchen wear I volunteer for an event they were catering that evening. They had already made unhealthy snickerdoodles so I had to make gluten free healthy cookies. They said they had coconut so I was going to make macaroons but the coconut turned out to be almond flour so I made chocolate chip cookies with raw sugar.

The snickerdoodles tasted a little flat to me. They usually had a tang and I swear it came from cream of tartar. I can't find my old recipe that I was working on, but it had cream of tartar. There are some recipes with it online. I may try to resurrect them again.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made cookies with our 7th graders in religious school this past Sunday. One of our rabbis emailed me at the last minute and asked what we could bake in an hour. This was Violet's class and she recommended we bake sweets, so we made cutout sugar cookies with some sanding sugar.

It's also a challah week so I'll start that tonight. I usually make the dough Wednesday mornings but Violet wants to help so I'm doing it after school with her. The we cut and pre-shape the dough Wednesday afternoon and I'll finish everything on my own on Thursday morning.

At some point I need to make molasses cookie. I'm thinking of making a giant batch using my BIG mixer!

[aaronatthedoublef]

All Trumps was mentioned in the class as a high gluten flour but all three places we visited used Sir Lancelot and maybe some others mixed with it.

KAB sells small bags of high gluten flour (and Amazon sells it too) but it is pretty expensive. I'll have to find a less expensive source.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made bagels - sort of -this week. I took a bagel tour/class in New York and at the end of the tour we cut dough and\? rolled bagels. Then we boiled and baked them.

In NYC everyone was using Sir Lancelot. What do you all use for high gluten flour? Do I really need it or will bread flour do?

[aaronatthedoublef]

Your cookies look great Joan!

The place I volunteer has some holiday parties coming up and they added extra shifts so I worked one of those on Thursday. The chefs know I like to bake and so while others were cooking I was given the baking tasks.

First I made brie en croute with cranberries boiled in apple cider. I wanted to try cider since we're in New England and had it from a local orchard but it didn't work as well as orange juice. It was still a little too tart so I added some sugar in it. Now why they assumed I've made brie en croute before is beyond me but I was the only one there (aside from the chefs) who have worked with puff pastry. I have no idea how they came out. I'll find out next time.

They I took snickerdoodle dough and flattened it put it into muffin tins. We filled the cookie cups with apples baked with cinnamon and tossed with a little sugar to soak up some of the juice. Those came out pretty nicely.

It was a real change from what we normally make. Everything is gluten free and plant based for the clients we deliver meals to.

I knew things were going to be different when the chef came out with a giant cambro of AP flour! They I used non-gf puff pastry and real brie. So it was a big change. Of course clean up took a little longer because I wanted to make sure everything was wipe down and cleaned off for the regular cooking.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Interesting CWC. My regular starter has been in the fridge a long time. I should see if I can revive it. And my GF starter probably needs a feeding too.

I need to make ciabatta this week. I'm down to two left. Not sure what else I'll make.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I tried making personal pies in muffin tins. It was a first. The pecan pie is supposed to have a blind baked crust and they shrank a lot. My family said there was too little filling to too much crust. I'm a crust guy so I think they're nuts. I'll need to experiment before next Thanksgiving. Maybe I can bake them without blind baking then pull them out of the muffin tin and finish baking with the shells on a sheet pan.

I used up the last of my Nabisco chocolate wafer cookies to make the hazelnut chocolate pie. Not sure what I'll do next. There are other chocolate wafer cookies out there so I may try those. I've tried making my own or using Oreos and neither were approved.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi BA. Not only is Violet still baking but my oldest son is as well. He is working for a place called BagelUp in NYC as a side gig and is making bagels, assisting teaching classes, and helping out. He is having a great time. He starts his first, real job in Feb so I am glad he is having as much fun as he can now.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi. It's been crazy! Hope you all are doing well.

Never had a banh mi with headcheese. I don't think I would have tried it. Headcheese creeps me out.

I've started to tinker with gluten free. I volunteer for a place and all the people who run it are GF and craving sourdough. I've been using KAB GF bread flour. It's several different starches. The exec chef there tried it and said it didn't have the big, airy feel with holes but the crust was great. Some how none of my bread (GF or regular) have those big airy holes. Not sure what I am doing wrong. My ciabatta, for example, has a tighter crumb than typical ciabatta. I might need to let it rise at room temp longer after taking it out of the fridge.

I'm experimenting with hand pies. I have good recipes for dough and for fruit filling. I may use it for Thanksgiving pies. Not sure how to put pumpkin or pecan pie filling into hand pies but maybe I'll put the pie dough in muffin tins and make individual pies. It uses sour cream for the liquid and it's pretty extensible and it has really nice layers.

My challah program has its second client now. It is remarkably hard to give away bread! I have a 20 quart Vevor stand mixer which does a nice job with the dough. I'm up to about 20lbs and not sure how much more I can make. But I get better kneading after 20 minutes in the mixer than 45 minutes by hand. My challah finally has the right texture. I finally used up my SAF red so I'm going to try some sample loaves this week with SAF gold. And Violet - my baby - is helping me as part of her bat mitzvah project. I cannot believe my baby will be bat mitzvah in July. No wonder I am too old to knead 20lbs of dough by hand.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi,

I like them. I try to order a bunch at one time because over a certain amount is free shipping. Also, when I ordered from them more frequently they sent me lots of good coupons.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hold on now BA- you can't find anyone to take some spare chocolate cake off you hands?

[aaronatthedoublef]

My favorite cake comes from Rosie's baking book. It's a sour cream chocolate cake with a chocolate frosting that uses evaporated milk, unsweetened and semi sweet chocolate, and sugar. You melt the chocolate and throw all the ingredients in the blender until mixed. I started add the sugar to the evaporated milk first and heating both then mixing before adding to the melted chocolate. This seemed to fix the grit problem.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA, nice cake. Is it a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting? I have a similar recipe for ganache frosting but it calls for granulated sugar. If you follow the recipe (I stopped) it can be kind of gritty. I bet your powdered sugar would fix that.

I made my first test batch of hand pies. I made a KA recipe with blueberries and a sour cream pie dough. Sour cream is the liquid. I only had six but the recipe said I should have eight. The blueberry filling is nice and basically a quick preserve. I can probably sub in strawberries too. I will also try to figure out how to make some pies like chess pies and pumpkin pies into hand pies. The pies have nice layering. I'll work on the yield. I also need to work on scaling - can I mix pie dough in a stand mixer?

Next are macarons. The brewery wants to use macarons as a GF alternative. But they also want to package three different cookies together. I've checked with some nutritionist friends and we cannot package GF and non-GF together and call it GF.

I'm thinking a chocolate chip cookie, a shortbread cookie, and a chocolate chip cookie to start.

I've started using my couche for my ciabatta. I'm still not getting a high enough rise. I may start doing a stretch and fold to increase integrity a little.

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