[BakerAunt]

Here is the thread with Baker Irene's directions. I moved it here from the Baking Circle before it closed:

Baker Irene on Making Your Own Flavored Chips Thread

I miss Baker Irene and wish that she had joined us here.

[BakerAunt]

Italian Cook--My favorite rolling pin is a wood cylinder that is 20 1/4 inches long and 1 1/8 inches in diameter. No handles. I bought it years ago with a square wood board that could be adjusted to different heights for rolling out dough evenly. As it turns out the square wood board (I think it was called a dobard) was not that useful--too small to roll out very much dough at one time and fussy to adjust. However, I LOVED the long rolling pin. I have a lovely, heavy maple one but rarely use it or any of my other collection. I use the longy cylindrical one with thin wood strips to roll out cracker dough evenly.

I seem to recall that Mike has a similar, non-tapered pin.

I keep my rolling pin collection in a wood wine bottle rack (bought at a thrift store!) on the kitchen counter.

[BakerAunt]

Butternut Squash Soup is a fitting way to christen a shiny new Dutch oven!

[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday, I baked the Banana Cake recipe from a website titled “Cooking Made Healthy: Quick and Easy Recipes,” but I made it as banana bread in a Nordic Ware decorative 4-loaf pan (8 cups batter). It is the same recipe that I baked on Sept. 5. I replace the three cups of whole wheat flour with two cups of whole wheat pastry flour and 1 cup KAF AP. I halved the salt, from ½ to ¼ tsp., given that it has ¾ tsp. baking soda, in addition to baking powder. I reduced the vanilla from 1 Tbs. to 2 tsp. I usually add buttermilk in place of water, but this time I used 1% milk. I also added 2 Tbs. Bob’s Red Mill milk powder. I plan to freeze three of these.

[BakerAunt]

The plot thickens--or perhaps I should say, curdles? We did our weekly grocery trip today, and again there was no buttermilk, but now there were about seven bottles of kefir. Sigh. I bought another one to tide me over.

I did ask the store manager, and she was surprised, especially when I told her there was none last week. The milk delivery had not come, but she said that she would call me if buttermilk arrived. I received no call, so it probably did not. She said that she would ask the delivery person.

Stay tuned for developments!

[BakerAunt]

Italian Cook--Is this the large sugar crystals or smaller ones? I've had nice results with the large crystals. I've also used demerara sugar with nice results.

[BakerAunt]

That bread is spectacular, Len!

I think that breads that work best in Dutch ovens have a higher liquid content.

[BakerAunt]

I made yogurt on Tuesday. (I make it every six days.)

For dinner, I made my healthier version of my mom’s hamburger stroganoff, one of my favorite comfort foods, which we had over a mixture of brown and wild rice. It was particularly tasty, in part because I found a package of marked down ground sirloin. Our vegetable was microwaved fresh broccoli.

[BakerAunt]

I have been looking at Made In, since I get emails from them. I am considering buying one of their stainless steel pans. For the most part, I also prefer metal lids, but I have a glass one from a pan that bit the dust that fits nicely on the small Calphalon pan I use for cooking my steel-cut oats in the morning.

[BakerAunt]

I'm sure that your neighbors are rejoicing over your now working oven, Joan! Enjoy your visit with your sister.

On Monday, I baked my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers.

[BakerAunt]

I made a batch of tomato sauce on Monday using the tomatoes that have finally started piling up from our garden. Unlike Mike and Chocomouse, we only have a few tomato plants. That is just as well as I have not yet replaced the 4-qt. Calphalon saute pan I lost last year when the coating came off. I want a stainless steel pan, but they are pricy. I am reduced to using an All Clad round roaster pan, but it is not deep enough for more than 5 cups of tomatoes at a time.

Dinner on Monday was breaded chicken breasts, leftover rolls, and green beans from our garden. There may be a few more green beans, but not enough for another side dish.

[BakerAunt]

How much buttermilk I use depends on what I am baking in a given week. I substitute buttermilk for water in most of my bread recipes. I use buttermilk in place of milk (and adjust baking powder and baking soda accordingly) in most muffin and quick bread recipes. I use buttermilk in my oil pie crust. My coleslaw recipe has a buttermilk dressing. I probably go through half a gallon every 2 1/2 weeks or so.

Buttermilk, as S. Swirth always told us, improves the keeping qualities of baked goods. I started using it a lot when I needed to get more calcium into my diet.

[BakerAunt]

The thread is already here at Nebraska Kitchen. It is in the section titled "Threads Saved from the KAF Baking Circle (at the bottom of the forums listings on the right side of the page.

Here is the link to it:

The Quest for a True Southern Biscuit Thread

Note: Although I posted it, all the words are Mrs. Cindy's words.

[BakerAunt]

Mike--I was surprised to find non-sweetened kefir and might have overlooked it had I not been looking at the yogurt and not finding one that I considered ok to use to thin into a buttermilk consistency. I might have overlooked it except that my younger stepson likes to drink blueberry kefir, so I was familiar with the bottle shape and thought, oh, so NOW they get it when I don't need it, but then I noticed it was unsweetened.

The grocery store in our town has a mixed clientele. There are the townspeople who are not that particularly health conscious, but there are also the summer and weekend people, as well as the parents who have kids at the local prep boarding school, and some of the people who teach at the school. There is a small section of foods used for Asian cooking, and there are the occasional upscale cheeses, yogurts, and wines. There is a small gluten-free and Bob's Red Mill section. Last week, when the son was in town, I could only find a single small bottle of raspberry kefir for him, which tided him over until we made a grocery run to the town northeast of here. Whether the large bottles of kefir (there were two) are an aberration or a new stock item remains to be seen. I'm just glad that I found it this time.

[BakerAunt]

I have been meaning to ask you, Janiebakes: Do you use purchased yogurt as starter for your yogurt, or do you buy packs of yogurt culture? I've been using full-fat Stonyfield yogurt as my starter, as it is the only non-Greek yogurt I can get here that does not have modified starch added to it. When I first started making yogurt, years ago, I used to purchase little packets of starter for an initial batch, then use the yogurt I had made as starter until the culture started weakening, then I would use another packet. I have not found yogurt packets for sale around here. I make my yogurt, 6 (3/4 cup-jars) at a time, and I eat a jar of it with breakfast every morning to increase my calcium intake. I use such large amounts of buttermilk that it is not practical for me to use diluted yogurt.

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