[BakerAunt]

We had Salmon and Couscous with Penzey's Greek Seasoning on Tuesday as a break from the leftover chicken. We also had microwaved fresh broccoli. A small loaf of pumpkin bread from the freezer was dessert.

I also made yogurt today.

[BakerAunt]

On Monday, I baked Dried Mixed Fruit and Pistachio Biscotti. It is the Cranberry Pistachio biscotti recipe that I found on the internet last December. I follow the recipe but use 80% white whole wheat flour. I have some bags of dried mixed fruit that I am using up, one recipe at a time. I rehydrate the cup of fruit with a Tbs. or two of water by covering it with saran and microwaving for a minute and letting it rest while I gather the rest of the ingredients.

I then baked Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from the dough I made last week.

[BakerAunt]

I roasted eight chicken thighs on Sunday—enough for tonight and for three additional meals this week. I cooked petite red potatoes on the stove top in some water, then tossed them with olive oil and salt. We had leftover coleslaw. Dessert was the last loaf of zucchini bread from the freezer.

[BakerAunt]

We ate the chocolate cake, beginning the day after I baked it, having a piece for the next four days. It keeps well, and indeed, I thought it was even better on the third and fourth day. We will never know beyond that, as it has been consumed. 🙂

[BakerAunt]

We only had enough leftover black-eyed peas with brown rice and ham for one person, so my husband had it for dinner. For me, I made my version of the Spaghetti Squash and Parmesan Cheese Quiche from Ken Haedrich's The Harvest Baker. The recipe is a three-hour process that requires roasting the spaghetti squash, making and partly blind baking the oil crust, making the filling, then baking the quiche. My husband is not a quiche fan, so I will be having it for lunch this next week. I decided to try baking it in a 10 1/2- inch quiche dish, and it worked perfectly. I am ready to type up my version--much lower in saturated fat than Ken's--and put it in my binder.

[BakerAunt]

I made coleslaw on Friday afternoon to go with the Oven Baked Fish and Chips with Dill Tartar sauce that we like so much. However, I used Alaskan cod rather than Pacific cod this time, and the Alaskan cod was not as tender as the Pacific cod. I do not know if the difference is the brand or the fishing location, or if this was just an odd package. I bought this brand because it is sustainably fished in Alaska, so it was disappointing.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--I've used low-fat sour cream. I have also used nonfat Greek yogurt with good results.

[BakerAunt]

I wanted to bake the Leimsamenbrot again on Thursday, but my husband asked for his beloved Grape Nuts bread, so I baked two loaves of it. I decided to replace a cup of the bread flour in my version with a cup of white whole wheat flour, thereby boosting the whole grains from the 2 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour that I already include. I used white whole wheat as the additional flour so as not to overshadow the Grape Nuts taste. The bread rose well and baked nicely, so I will see how it is tomorrow when we slice it at lunch

[BakerAunt]

Well, this particular cake is an oil cake, so I did not have to make any changes. for it. My change was to replace canola oil with olive oil.

We have a thread here at Nebraska Kitchen from the Baking Circle in which Cass helped CWCdesign alter a butter cake to an oil cake.

I do not know if every recipe could be adapted. The butter cake that I made for our wedding is not one that I would try to adapt because it calls for two sticks of butter, and the cake depends on the creaming of the butter with the sugar for its structure.

I can usually substitute 1/3 cup of oil for a single 8 Tbs. of butter. Sometimes, I will use 1/4 cup oil and then add buttermilk to make 1/3 cup. Substituting oil for butter means using all fat, whereas butter is part water, so adding a bit of buttermilk can help.

I always mix oil cakes by hand, although a hand mixer could be used for combining the oil and sugar and beating in the eggs. However, the dry ingredients should be added with a cake whisk or spatula without overmixing or else the cake may be tough.

[BakerAunt]

I made yogurt on Wednesday.

[BakerAunt]

Thank you to everyone for the good wishes.

Answers to the comments:
I offered to bake them a mini-tier cake, as I have the mini-tier set that Wilton used to sell. I used it for my own wedding cake, as well as for my stepdaughter's college graduation. I sent them a picture of the latter. However, they wanted just a small two-layer cake the size of the top tier. I'm not sure if they plan to eat the entire cake that night--or perhaps save some for breakfast before they leave the next day--but I have given them instructions, so if they want to freeze part of it, they know to first refrigerate until the frosting hardens, then double-wrap in saran and pop into a Ziplock bag. I am assuming that a white chocolate-cream cheese-butter frosting will freeze well.

That is a sweet story, Aaron, about saving the top tier for your first anniversary. I like the idea of freezing the top layer and pulling it out for the first anniversary, but I did not have that option for our wedding cake, as we did not get married in the state in which we were living. Two of my friends ate their top tier on their one-month anniversary, as they were not sure if it would last for a year. I think it depends on the quality of the freezer.

If I were making a butter-based cake, freezing would be the way to go. I did that with the various layers I baked for my own wedding cake. One reason I chose the oil cake is that it would be hard to keep it frozen on a two-day drive, even if the weather is not overly warm. Oil cakes can be frozen if necessary.

We ate half of one layer this evening, and it is delicious with tender texture. We will compare over the next four days.

Yesterday, I ordered a package of 8-inch cake circles from Michael's. I looked at my stash--or what I can find of it (our remodel project continues) --and found 6-inch, 10-inch, and 12-inch but no 8-inch. As cake circles are rather thin, I will tape two together for a sturdier base, then cover them with the foil Michael sells for that purpose, as I still have plenty in my stash. It and the other cake circles are left over from when I would bake the office birthday cakes. I ordered a cake box as well, so that I can transport it to the reception, and send it home with them afterwards.

I'm not sure about a cake stand. I have several that are 10-inches wide, which would dwarf a 6-inch cake, and two of those are family heirlooms that I would not want to subject to a cross country jaunt. I have a Wilton set of three stands of different heights that reflect a rage in the past for three different sizes of cakes on three levels. I used one of them for the mini-tier cake for my wedding, so I might use the 8-inch one. If I lived near stores, I would probably be browsing T.J. Maxx and Tuesday Morning frequently over the next few weeks. I may check out the thrift store in town. I have done some looking online but found nothing. I know they exist, but where they exist is the problem.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--I also use espresso powder in the chocolate cake.

I am currently using the organic EVOO that Aldi's sells. It's the only kind of olive oil I have in the house.

We ate half of one of the 6-inch layers for dessert tonight. The taste is wonderful and the texture tender. I think the texture is not just due to the olive oil but the technique that I used for mixing it, as well as the Gold Medal flour.

When I make my oil pie crust, which calls for half a cup of oil, I have started using half canola and half olive oil. The crust takes on an almost buttery flavor that complements almost any filling.

[BakerAunt]

Happy Birthday, Joan!

[BakerAunt]

That's a nifty idea for keeping flour contained, Mike. I will have to give it a try with my Cuisinart stand mixer.

Today I baked a half recipe of the King Arthur Favorite Fudge Birthday cake, using two 6-inch cake pans. I changed the mixing instructions because of my experience with oil cakes. They are more tender if mixed by hand, and it is better to mix the sugar in with the oil, then mix in the eggs and vanilla. I mixed in the dry ingredients with a cake whisk before slowly incorporating the water.

I made a couple of ingredient changes. I used olive oil because as Cass once told me, it brings out the flavor in the chocolate. I made that substitution the last time I baked this cake, and it stayed moist for the four or five days over which we ate it. I also replaced the King Arthur AP flour and cornstarch with Gold Medal AP flour for a lower protein level.

For more details about this project, see the thread: A Special Little Wedding Cake

[BakerAunt]

I baked multigrain crackers today--a recipe that I have adapted from one in the King Arthur Whole Grains baking book. My version replaces the butter with avocado oil. As it is a baking powder rather than a yeast cracker, they bake up fast.

I have discovered that if I roll the dough directly onto my Silpat mat, with saran over the top, it rolls out quite easily. I can then flip the mat over and carefully peel off the Silpat and replace it with parchment paper. I then can flip it back over, remove the saran and transfer the parchment with the dough to a baking sheet.

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