[BakerAunt]

We had some of the glazed cake tonight for dessert. It is a tender, light cake. It has a lot of the blood orange flavor. I will definitely bake it again next year when blood oranges are back in season. However, I would cut the glaze recipe in half.

[BakerAunt]

I made my healthier version of my Mom’s hamburger stroganoff for dinner on Wednesday night. We eat it over a mixture of brown and wild rice combination. We had microwaved frozen peas as well. Tonight, would normally be a leftover meal from last night, but my husband receives his second Coid-19 vaccine shot tomorrow, and it will be dinner time when we return home. So, tomorrow will be leftover stir-fry, and Friday will be leftover stroganoff.

[BakerAunt]

I had three more Blood Oranges to use, so I tried a new recipe that came in a Nordic Ware email that featured citrus recipes:

https://www.nordicware.com/recipe/blood-orange-loaf-cake/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Citrus Recipes&mc_cid=06f057c0c2&mc_eid=da940b452d

The recipe also let me use up a scant ½ cup of almond flour that has been sitting in the freezer. I made no changes to the recipe, even using the olive oil. I was concerned that the batter nearly filled the pan, and I was irritated that the recipe said not to fill it more than ¾ full. I went ahead with all the batter since I know from experience that oil cakes do not rise that much. I treated the pan with a new batch of the pan grease. I checked the cake at 40 minutes, and it was not yet done. It tested done at 45 minutes. I let it cool for ten, and then IT DID NOT WANT TO COME OUT OF THE PAN! I managed to get it out, but a chunk stuck on either end. I was able to remove it and plop it back onto the cake. The warm syrup that is brushed onto it should keep it in place. Tomorrow it gets an additional glaze.

I assume that I did not get those two spots greased vert well, although it was odd that it was the exact same spot near each end. The cake does not have much gluten, with 3/4 cup AP (Gold Medal), 1/2 cup almond flour, and 1/3 cup semolina, so it is delicate.

I'm looking forward to tasting it for dessert at dinner tomorrow and will report on it.

[BakerAunt]

Len--Actually, you didn't make that big of an error. Back when I wanted to substitute maple syrup for 1/4 cup honey, I googled it. There is more water in maple syrup than in honey. Here's the substitutions;

1 cup honey use 3/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup honey use 1/4 plus 2 Tbs. maple syrup
1.4 honey, use 4 Tbs.

Also, maple syrup is not as sweet as honey, so you can increase the sugar slightly, so adding a bit more sugar if you want more sweetness is the way to go.

When I'm substituting for 2 Tbs. honey in bread, I usually do a 1:1 substitution, but for 1/4 cup, I would go with the given ratio.

[BakerAunt]

Yes, the pour spout does drip a little. I always set the Mason jar on a saucer, just in case. It probably pours out a little too much syrup at a time.

Is your syrup dispenser the one on the KAF sale page? It reminds me of one my grandmother had. I think she used hers for molasses. I am tempted to buy it.

[BakerAunt]

I made stir-fry for dinner on Tuesday. I used the leftover pork, the de-glazing from when the pork was cooked, celery, green onion, carrots, red bell pepper, mushrooms, broccoli, and soba noodles. I do not like this new brand of soba noodles that Kroger now carries. Today was the second time I have used them, and they came out a little better, but they are still too soggy. I will try decreasing the cooking time further. The brand Kroger originally carried were made in Japan; these are made in China.

[BakerAunt]

One additional note on swapping olive or canola oil for butter in cakes. You will want to mix the wet ingredients together, then stir in the dry ingredients, being careful not to overmix. Otherwise, you will get a tough cake.

[BakerAunt]

Yes, I make loose granola.

I did post a marmalade oat bar a couple of years ago, which I seem to recall you tried. I recently made it with an oil substitution. However, they were crispy. Possibly if put in a smaller pan, the interior would be slightly chewy. When I was making the butter version, I often used mini-chocolate chips.

See this search result here:

https://mynebraskakitchen.com/wordpress/forums/search/%22orange+marmalade%22/

[BakerAunt]

That sounds really good, Joan! I'd like to experiment with other flavorings, but my husband is set on the cheese variety. I have made them before with Penzey's dry buttermilk dressing mix. I recall Aaron used Greek seasoning one time.

[BakerAunt]

It also depends on the recipe. I use olive oil in whole grain breads, and it does not affect taste. I've used it in chocolate cake, and it works well. I'm more reluctant to use it in a vanilla cake. I have not tried it in sweet pie crusts, but it would probably work for a savory pie crust. I am eying a recipe for a graham cracker crust made with olive oil, as I would like to try a Key Lime Pie, or rather, Key Lime mini-pies, so that I can freeze some of them rather than eating it over a week, due to the sweetened condensed milk it requires.

I use canola oil when I want to limit the taste of the oil. I've also used grapeseed oil with a little butter in streusels. Avocado oil has been recommended to me by several people, but I wonder if it could be used fast enough not to go rancid.

[BakerAunt]

I declared Monday a day of baking, as we were out of our three essentials: granola, crackers, and bread. I started by making my slight variation of King Arthur’s Maple Granola recipe on their site. (I halve the coconut, delete the salt, and add ½ cup pumpkin seeds.)

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

My third project was Millet-Sunflower Bread. The recipe is in King Arthur’s Whole Grain Baking (pp. 202-203). [Note: if you bake the recipe for the single loaf, only cook half the amount of millet it specifies, or you will have LOTS left over.] I have worked out a recipe to make two loaves and modified it by increasing the whole wheat flour and replacing 1 cup of the bread flour with high-gluten flour that I have on hand and ¼ cup First Clear flour in place of vital wheat gluten. This time I used maple syrup in place of honey, in part so that I could rinse out maple syrup jugs prior to recycling them. I also adapted the recipe to work with my Cuisinart stand mixer, and I hold the oil and salt until after the rest period. I did not double the 1 tsp. of yeast when I first worked out this recipe but used 1 ¾; however, I decided that given the whole grains, I would go ahead and use 2 tsp. The loaves had excellent oven spring (I preheated the oven to 75F and then turned it down to 350F). They are cooling on the rack. I will freeze one and we will slice the other one tomorrow. Due to the millet, these loaves need to be consumed within a few days and to be kept in a cool place. It also helps not to seal the container in which the loaf is kept.

[BakerAunt]

Yes, it will evaporate unless tightly sealed.

I bought some for a recipe for a special crispbread, but the recipe had issues, and most of it ended up in the trash. That was the fault of the baker and his editor not the ammonium carbonate.

[BakerAunt]

Chocomouse--I got the maple syrup into glass jars and sealed on Sunday afternoon. Rhett's instructions were perfect. I used four jars that had once held Vermont Country Store maple syrup, which are about 3 cups, but with filling them to 1/4-inch headspace hold somewhat more. I was able to fill three jars completely. The other one did not have quite enough, but since we were ready for more maple syrup, I just put my plastic pour spout lid (Vt Country Store) onto the bottle and popped it into the refrigerator.

I did some taste testing, liking of used spatula when I finished.... Heavenly.

Today I'm using some of your syrup in Maple Granola.

[BakerAunt]

My original post disappeared. I had posted links to a three-day episode of the comic strip, Breaking Cat News (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), in which the cats and their humans were paying tribute to the Great British Baking Show. Sorry it disappeared, but you can google the strip on Go comics and read it there.

[BakerAunt]

On Sunday evening, I cooked some millet. It needs to rest in the refrigerator overnight, and then I will use most of it in the bread I plan to bake.

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