[BakerAunt]

Thanks, Skeptic. I was thinking along the same lines as you last night--perhaps put some of the batter in first, then mix in the blueberries. However, what is key is keeping the blueberries from touching the pan. I'd probably reduce the number of blueberries, as these are fairly large.

Yes, blueberries have lots of water, which makes canning pie filling with them challenging--it's never clear how much I will end up with to can.

I've not done blueberry pancakes for exactly the reason Chocomouse gives from her experience. Now that I bake a different kind of blueberry pie--which means I have some "blueberry syrup" left over, we have found that we like it with cornmeal pancakes and some maple syrup, rather than using the blueberry concoction to make a compote to go with the pie, which is fine as it is.

[BakerAunt]

I think that this bread would make two 8x4 inch loaves with no problem. I would do that next time, since the 10x5 loaf pan is a little large to bake in warmer weather and that would let me freeze one.

Thanks for your comments, Chocomouse, on maple rolls. The one recipe I have uses maple extract with brown sugar in the filling, and maple in the glaze. I'll have to do some internet surfing to see if anyone has figured out the maple sugar filling. I think that I would save the maple syrup for the glaze. I'm surprised KAF hasn't come up with a recipe to push their maple sugar.

If I made sweet rolls, I would probably divide the dough in half and roll out each part to a rectangle. I'm thinking that it would make 18-20 sweet rolls (or two dozen?), given how happy that dough was--and that was with my using whole wheat flour and halving the salt.

[BakerAunt]

I missed it.

[BakerAunt]

On Friday, I made broth from the bones of the chicken we had earlier this week. On Saturday, I used a cup of it to cook some bulgur to go with our leftover salmon patties and some microwaved fresh green beans from the garden.

[BakerAunt]

Here we go again with the non-advancing page.

[BakerAunt]

I love the way people at Nebraska Kitchen get creative with leftovers!

[BakerAunt]

I knew this because of an Icelandic yogurt that I've bought and enjoyed. Its protein level is high, although its calcium level, like Greek yogurt, is lower than regular yogurt. When we are traveling and I'm buying single packages of yogurt, I will buy it over my second choice, Chobani if available.

[BakerAunt]

Hi, Cass--so good to hear from you. As you asked, I'll give the details here and my list of ingredients.

The blueberries had all sunk to the bottom of the Bundt pan, so I do think the disaster was caused by the batter being too thin to deal with these rather large blueberries that we picked locally. The batter was thin, due to using oil rather than butter, so it could not support the blueberries, and they sank.

I used the GREASE (1/3 flour, 1/3 oil, 1/3 Crisco), and the rest of the cake had no issue--just the part where the blueberries had sunk. I let the cake rest 15 minutes after removing from the oven. That is typical for larger Bundt cakes, but I debated with myself trying to turn it out after 10 min.

Here is the list of ingredients:

1 1/2 cup King Arthur AP flour
1 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour (Bob's Red Mill)
2 Tbs. flax meal
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 tsp vanilla

I added the 2 cups blueberries to the batter. I did not toss in flour, which I should have done, not that I think in this case it would have made a difference.

The filling was 2 tsp. cinnamon and 1/3 cup light brown sugar. I swirled it in at two points before adding more batter to the pan.

I baked at 350F on the third shelf up in my oven, which works well for Bundt cakes, for 50 minutes. It tested done.

The lower part of the cake is fine. When we cut into it, my husband admired the lovely cinnamon swirl. At some point, I will try this adaptation as a straight cinnamon swirl cake, and if that works, I'll post the recipe.

I've made this one with butter, and it worked. However, I used a flatter round ring pan, so the batter was more spread out.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--PJ suggested using rice in her article on preventing mold. However, she had the bread in a glass container, and most of us do not have a glass container for our bread.

My experience is that whole wheat goes moldy faster in warm and humid weather, especially if it was high in liquid. That weather would be what we are having here and have been having for well over a month.

I keep my bread in a large Tupperware container. I leave one corner not pressed down so that it is not airtight. The idea is to let the moisture out.

[BakerAunt]

Hmm--The ones that were in the water longer kept their center holes much more so than the other two.

Today I tried converting the Buttermilk Coffee Cake recipe in King Arthur's 200th Anniversary Cookbook to use oil rather than butter. I was successful in that part, and also in using half whole wheat pastry flour. However, when I've made this recipe in the past, I always added 2 cups of fresh blueberries. I did so this time, and used the Celebration Nordic Ware Bundt pan. The batter could not hold up the blueberries, they sank, and when I turned the cake out, in most places the blueberry part stuck--It did come off the pan afterwards quiet nicely without scraping. My husband, upstairs, heard my disappointment and called, "Don't worry, we'll eat it!" I took the pieces, and we had them along side some frozen vanilla yogurt.

So, the cake will work with oil, but I would not try adding any heavy fruit. At least it tastes good!

[BakerAunt]

Thank you for the detailed discussion, Italian Cook. Given the time it takes me to get batter into a Bundt pan, the homemade stuff would have no oomph left.

[BakerAunt]

I made salmon patties for dinner, which we had with the rest of the quinoa salad, which we put on some of our homegrown lettuce.

[BakerAunt]

Bagels are on my list as well. I actually have a bottle of malt syrup, but it is on the older side. Does it expire, as the date would suggest, or is this one of those expiration dates that can be ignored?

[BakerAunt]

Being retired gave me more time to bake, even before the Pandemic, but my high cholesterol issue pushed me into baking fewer cookies. My cracker output increased, because we banned commercial crackers and tortilla chips (sob!) from the house, and my husband is a Snackasaurus. While the Pandemic did not increase my baking, it spurred more experimentation, particularly with my sourdough starter. The latter may be in part because Aaron's experimentation with sourdough made me reallize that I needed to use mine for more than crackers and the rare loaf of bread. My husband also stopped looking suspiciously at breads made with sourdough and happily consumed them.

I'm Pantry Paranoid these days about running out of basic supplies--or what I consider basic supplies. I was happy that Bob's Red Mill had their free shipping option back and that they had enough of what I needed that I could stock up, even with some limits in place. I wish that they would get their milk powder back in stock, as I use it for making yogurt, my Sourdough crackers, and for my granola (another food the Snackasaurus likes). I've started holding back on using it for calcium enrichment in baked goods.

[BakerAunt]

We are almost out of bread, due to mold on the end of the loaf, so I've switched Friday's plans and put off pizza until tomorrow and am baking the Sourdough Whole Wheat Pan Bread recipe that I first baked on May 20. I wanted to do a bread with sourdough, since after I fed it last night, it overflowed its container a bit, so I know it has plenty of oomph. I'm going to reduce the yeast more than last time, when I went from 2 1/3 to 2 tsp. I'm considering either 1 3/4 or 1 1/2 tsp. I thought it slightly dry last time, so I will make myself hold back on the bread flour, but I'll still use 1/2 cup of the high-gluten, as it needs to be used.

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