[aaronatthedoublef]

Ahhhh... One more reason the authenticity of this recipe was suspect - it contained no alcohol. It was sort of like a pound cake with dried fruit.

And looking back at my notes, the English (and Aussies) cover their fruitcakes with marmalade and then seal it with marzipan! I remember doing this part. I chose to just cover the top and not the entire cake. But their is one chance to get it right because after the marzipan meets the marmalade it is not budging!

In hindsight the smart thing to do would have been to make the marzipan larger than the cake and then just trim it. But I do not anticipate anyone asking me for a wedding cake anytime soon.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made my usual Thanksgiving pies. My pumpkin crust was better than my pecan. I need to work on my blind baking.

One of my sons was doing a report on Winston Churchill and asked if I would make a Winston Churchill fruitcake. The directions were very sparse and it did not seem like a traditional English fruitcake recipe to me. I did use currants but I had no candied citrus peel, no place to buy it, and no desire to make it.

It said "bake in a moderate oven for two hours". I guess moderate was 350 but it was done in an hour... It could have used a glaze on the top but it was pretty tasty.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Like Mike I use KAF pastry flour. I have unopened bags in big, plastic bins in the basement with DampRid in the bins. I keep opened bags in plastic containers in the kitchen. I tend to go through it pretty quickly as I use it weekly for waffles and pancakes.

I use cake flour and flax meal from Bob's Red Mill. I can buy both of those locally. Bob's cake flour is unbleached and not a blend like KAF. I use if for making pizza so I go through it pretty quickly as well. The local Big Y just had it on sale for $3 for 3 lbs. so I stocked up.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I just read an interesting article about two different cookbooks - one by Anthony Bourdain and the other by Alton Brown. I also read the article about Alton Brown referenced in this one. This article and the other make Mr. Brown seem a bit tragic.

I like to read cookbooks too. Two of my favorites are Bread Bakers Apprentice and My Bread. They are both good reads independent of the recipes in them.

I have some classics to and some that were classics to my family. I have several editions of the The Settlement Cookbook including a reprint of the first that tells how to make the recipes over open fires or woodstoves.

But sometimes I avoid the classic. One of my favorite baking books is Jewish Holiday Baking by Marcy Goldman. It definitely is not a classic Jewish baking book and that is part of what appeals to me as my family is not what most people think of when they think of Jews and the "classic" Jewish dishes are not the things my mom made of cooked for holidays,

Another favorite is Rosie's. I saw it on a remainder table right after I had moved out west and was missing back East. I knew and loved Rosie's bakery and couldn't not buy it. It was this book that started me baking more than just chocolate chip cookies.

Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BTW, I have two bread recipes I want to try but they call for TWO different clay bread bakers. Does anyone know a good substitute that is something I might readily have in my kitchen?

Thanks

[aaronatthedoublef]

I developed a tangential theory this summer... We spent a week on Nantucket which has become mini-Manhattan in the summer. All the restaurants server overly complex dishes with loads of local ingredients.

First, on a small island without much land for farming there is a limited amount of stuff you can grow and grow well. It's just a fact of life. There are many wonderful things about Nantucket but it is not a great place to farm.

Second, there are a lot of mediocre chefs who try to up their game by putting tons of different ingredients into their food.

Next, the simpler a dish, the harder it is to make well. It took me a few dozen baguettes before I could make and shape them well. Biscuits and scones are basic and simple and hard to make well so most people dress them to excess to make up for what they cannot do when making them simple.

I read an article that talked about millennials drinking from Ball jars because it's authentic. It's only authentic if you drink from them because that's what you have that will hold liquid. If you buy them to drink from it's affected.

I find myself going back to basics more and more. I barely use my kitchen aid mixer any more because it's heavy and noisy and my favorite time to bake is 4:30 am. Bowls and spoons are much quieter. The thing I like best about no-knead breads is that I don't need my mixer or muscle.

Sorry for the rant.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made a bunch of pizzas this week. I gave a talk on pizza which turned into a hands-on class because only about 12 people showed up. The talk was at 9 and so I was at the temple at 7:15 getting the oven on and hot. It was a Vulcan convection oven and I forgot that the doors are not insulated and re-learned that lesson the hard way. I made six pizzas with my crust and one with Jim Leahy's no-knead from "My Bread". People were eating pizza at 8:30 in the morning so maybe if I open a place here I'll make pizza for breakfast - and not breakfast pizzas but regular pizzas.

Then my family wanted pizza for dinner since I had assembled everything and they had nothing for so I made another five pizzas for us. My 13 year old ate two-and-a-half... There was a little leftover so my daughter took it to school for lunch today.

My 13 year old had a soccer team party so I made my first batch of ginger-snaps of the season (they're really more molasses cookies). I brought two boxes and the hostess took one so the kids only had one box with a couple dozen cookies which they polished off.

Last week was crazy so I fell behind on my Thanksgiving prep doing this other baking. Now I need to catch up.

[aaronatthedoublef]

KAF Self-rising flour is here

It has baking powder and salt added to it and is low protein at 8.5%. There is also a blog post that says it is milled from a softer, southern wheat.

Here is a site on how to make your own self-rising flour. It uses all purpose flour and adds baking powder and salt. But given what KAF (and others) say about it being softer I might substitute pastry flour.

I did make my own years ago for an Australian fruit cake. I probably used bread flour but the cake actually came out fine. It was a back in the mid-90s before there were recipes for everything on the Internet. According to my Brit and Aussie friends they mostly use what we call self-rising flour.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I looked on their website and they have a cafe too. Although there isn't a menu or pricing for the cafe it's targeted at "hikers" and such so may be a bit more affordable.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I used to use table salt. Then I worked for a pastry chef who only used Morton's kosher salt. She is a phenomenal pastry chef so I started using Morton's kosher salt as well. And it is different from other brands.

I asked my wife to pickup some kosher salt and she came home with coarse sale' de mer... It is this super coarse French sea salt and makes kosher salt look like table salt.

Every once in a while I will taste a salty bit in something I make but I find if I mix the salt in well this doesn't happen.

I want to make biscuits for Thanksgiving... Maybe I'll try the cheddar ones.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Their parchment is pretty expensive. If you live near a restaurant supply store it is worth checking to see. It comes in whole sheets not half sheets but a box by me costs between $35-$40 and will last forever (or until your basement floods). I was on the same box for 12 years until the basement flooded and soaked it.

It comes out to about $0.08 a sheet or $0.04 a half sheet.

[aaronatthedoublef]

As Mike says, it lasts years, especially if treated properly. The SAF site says to always keep it chilled and not to let the bag come to room temperature. Just take what you want and use it. It also says that as the yeast ages you may want to proof it before you mix in the rest of your ingredients.

I keep mine in the package in a quart bag. I keep the quart bag in a gallon bag along with the oven bags I use for letting the dough rise.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Yup. The pain de mie pans I've seen did have lids but you don't need to use them I don't think.

I just used regular loaf pans. I haven't done it in a while. All the loaves I've made recently were for bar or bat mitzvahs so those were braided loaves.

At my bread class this weekend there was a woman who made challahs in all shapes and sizes. Her phone was loaded with pictures. And a fellow I used to bake bread considered challah a real good bread for toast and French toast and didn't care what shape it was in. So while there are some traditional shapes it seems like anything goes these days.

Good luck with your next challah.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I've baked challah in a pan. I braided it then put the braided challah in a loaf pan. It give it a regular shape but it's still braided and it makes it easier to use for sandwiches.

My mom did this too.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks. Maybe I'll try some baking with it out of the oven. And, like you Mike, I am very curious about the baking steels but I am not sure why it is better and as you point out it is expensive and heavy.

In my last oven the door had no window and no insulation so the stone actually helped keep the temperature consistent. When our youngest started moving about we decided it was finally time to bite the bullet and splurge for a new oven that was significantly less dangerous to kids (although our first two survived with no burns and without setting anything on fire from the pilot lights).

But even before that oven I never took it out. Mine is some unglazed ceramic rectangle. And I used to have it on the bottom but I recently moved it to the middle shelf (our old oven only had two shelves).
And, again, it helps regulate the oven temp. The people who installed the oven never tested the temperature and so there can be big variances in different parts of the oven. The stone helps mitigate that some. Some day I'll have someone service the oven and adjust.

That is the one thing I miss about our old oven - it was dead simple and I could do most repairs and maintenance myself and I am not a handy person. I also made some insulators for the door but it was ugly so it was banished from the kitchen.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.

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