BakerAunt
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I received the same email that Aaron did.
I exclusively use BRM whole wheat flour, which I think has a sweeter taste than King Arthur's due to being stoneground. I'm also a fan of their Artisan Bread flour. Both of those will be hard to source locally. When I was at Kroger, ten days ago, there was no BRM whole wheat flour, and they have never carried the artisan bread flour. I've also not seen their pastry flour, so I ordered it from them. I have not seen their whole wheat pastry flour for some time. I've never seen their milk powder, which is essential for my yogurt and also in my baking. No place here carries their beans. I did, to my surprise see a package of their barley on my last trip to Kroger, which surprised me because I had to order it after searching in vain a couple of years ago. I have never seen oat bran locally.
I like the BRM oats, but I think that I can get similar nutritional advantage from Quaker Oats, for maybe a little less money. I already know to avoid the Aldi's oats.
Aaron--my sweet roll dough recipe comes from the "Snails" sweet roll recipe that was a signature recipe of my husband's aunt, who got it from a friend with a Scandinavian last name. I have wondered if these were originally the Scandinavian sweet roll that is split and filled with cream before the glaze.
I also find that oil cakes require a different mixing technique. I start by whisking together the sugar and oil, then whisk in the egg and any dairy and vanilla. I mix the other dry ingredients separately, then add them to the egg mixture, using a cake whisk and spatula. An oil cake will be tough if it is overmixed, so while a hand mixer could be used, it needs to be on low and for not too long.
Oil cakes do not rise as much as butter cakes, so the pan can be filled fuller than a baker would do for a butter cake.
One other tip I saw in an oil cake discussion is to add some milk powder to increase tenderness. I usually add 1 Tbs. per cup of flour.
The "wide accessibility" of which they speak is not available in the area in which I live. Even such basics as bags of whole wheat flour are not always available in the larger town where we do our big grocery run, as I noted a couple of weeks ago. I have never seen the milk powder, and I recently had to order it through a place that is on Walmart.com.
BRM must have realized that they could cut costs by getting out of the shipping expenses and not dealing individually with customers. It is yet another sign that employee-run companies seek to maximize profits at the expense of relationships with even longtime customers.
Skeptic--Yes, I discovered that about oil cakes too. I think that there was an article on it in either Bon Appetit or Epicurious emails, back before they started charging for using their sites. I find it particularly noticeable in cakes with spices.
Our weather is warming up as well. On Sunday, I baked submarine rolls using the recipe that came with a specialty King Arthur perforated pan with spaces for five. I have used this recipe before and adapted it. I now use 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup medium rye to replace some of the flour. I replace 1/2 cup of the water with buttermilk and replace the tablespoon of sugar with a tablespoon of honey. I reduced the salt by a third. The recipe was always tricky, in that it seems to have too much liquid. I ended up adding over a cup of additional flour, and even then, it was a slack dough. Both rises were also exceptionally fast, probably due to the warm weather. However, the dough did bake up into five lovely 12-inch rolls.
I also baked the Blueberry Greek Yogurt Cake Without Butter (recipe posted here at Nebraska Kitchen).
My college roommate and her husband (I was in their wedding party) are in the area and will be visiting us tomorrow. The sub rolls are for Turkey Bacon and Tomato Sandwiches for lunch. The cake is for dessert for either lunch or dinner, or perhaps both.
Mike--I'm going to look through my boxes of kitchen implements. I think that somewhere I have an old cheese slicer. That would be worth a try.
I made Buttermilk coleslaw this evening to have with lunch tomorrow.
Navlys--I saw that recipe, and I thought: all that work for ONE loaf? That's one recipe I will not be tearing out of the catalog to save!
Aaron--I have taken to sprinkling a cinnamon sugar mixture onto my sweet roll dough before rolling it up. I do not butter the dough or use melted butter on it, as I think that the butter makes the filling run out. (I got that from Bernard Clayton's bread book.) The King Arthur Whole Grain Baking Book has a wonderful all whole wheat cinnamon roll recipe that uses egg white in the filling, and that one is spread onto the dough. Unlike Mike, I'm a devotee of the dental floss method. The trick is to get it under the dough, then cross above it, and cut.
I make a simple glaze of 1 cup powdered sugar (sift after measuring), 1-2 Tbs. milk, and 1/4 tsp. vanilla. I let the sweet rolls cool for 15-20 minutes before I put it on.
Rose Levy Beranbaum, in a Bon Appetit article wrote about the birthday cake she baked and decorated for her brother's wedding. Her father built a custom case for the cake, which was traveling by airline. A massive blizzard hit New York, with no flights going out. Airport workers ended up eating the cake; I think the reason given was that it would spoil. The custom-made case was never found, so perhaps they ate that too?? Beranbaum had to bake another cake before the wedding.
After two years of poor harvests of snow peas from our garden, this year we have had a nice crop. I made stir-fry for Saturday night dinner using soba noodles, leftover pork and its deglazing liquid, carrots, celery, green onion, red bell pepper, mushrooms, broccoli, and our snow peas.
We had leftover lima beans, brown rice, ham, and vegetables, along with some sweet corn.
This morning I blanched some green beans and froze them. For details, see the "Freezing Green Beans" thread.
It has been three years since I last froze green beans, but we have had a bumper crop, and my husband remarked that it would be nice to have some in the freezer in the late fall, so I reviewed what I posted here, then did some additional googling. I thought this site was helpful:
I also looked at a couple of other sites. I decided to add 1 Tbs. coarse salt to the boiling water before adding the green beans. I also followed my procedure from last time and after blanching put the dried, individual green beans (this time without parchment) onto small baking sheets before sticking them in the freezer for an hour before sealing them in pint bags and returning to the freezer.
According to one source I read, the salt is supposed to help maintain the nutritional value during the boiling stage and may help the texture when I cook them later.
It was not the most balanced of dinners on Thursday: a slice of leftover pizza and an ear of sweet corn. At least I included a glass of milk.
I made yogurt today.
My husband and I went back to the blueberry farm today and picked 15-16 pounds. I washed most of the berries and am air drying them on paper towel-lined sheet pans. Tomorrow, I will divide them into 4-cup bags and freeze. That should hold us for the year. I set aside the rest for upcoming baking projects.
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