BakerAunt
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Yesterday I was able to buy a small bottle of 70% alcohol (the last one) at CVS. I was also able to buy a bottle of hand sanitizer.
The hand sanitizer I've been using is old, but it was all that I had until now.
According to this article in The Atlantic (they allow a few free reads per month), the flour shortage is continuing:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/why-theres-no-flour-during-coronavirus/611527/
I'm not sure that I buy their argument that more baking was going on in the 1980s and that women moving into careers led to less baking at home. My husband actually baked bread in graduate school, but it went by the by once he started his career.
If the article is correct, however, the flour shortage will not be ending any time soon.
I missed it.
I did bake on Sunday: Bob's favorite Scottish Oatcakes. I baked this recipe from the Bob's Red Mill site last December and posted about it. This time, I used a combination of 1 Tbs. melted butter, 1 Tbs. canola oil, and 1 Tbs. buttermilk, rather than 4 Tbs. butter. I increased the cane sugar from 3/4 tsp. to 1 tsp. I had forgotten that the recipe on the website uses more water than the recipe on the bag, and I was following the one I printed from the website. So, I mixed in the greater amount of water and had a dough too sticky to roll out. At first, I thought perhaps I'd used too much water, as the Snackasaurus (aka my husband) was foraging in the kitchen, which distracts me. However, I then found the bag recipe and realized what had happened. Instead of trying to roll the dough, I used a Zeroll #40 (1 Tbs.) cookie scoop and made 17 mounds. I then flattened them slightly with a glass and put just a bit of large crystal white sugar on top. That may be what I do from now on, as it is certainly easier than rolling out and using a cookie cutter. These are not designed to be sweet, per say, but to serve as a base for lemon curd and berries or cheese, smoked fish and herbs. I may try to take the recipe more in the direction of a cookie next time I bake it. That will have to wait until I obtain some more Bob's Red Mill Scottish Oatmeal.
Thank you to Aaron and Mike for organizing the Virtual Pizza Party. It was fun. I'm sorry that Chocomouse's computer did not allow for her to join us on video, but I'm glad she was able to get in on audio.
I also like the idea of brunch or "the taking of a toast and tea."
I should have gone with my first hunch. I missed it.
Now why is it called "Wonder" bread?
It's great that you got into the spirit, Joan!
I made a sourdough half-sheet pan pizza, using homemade tomato sauce (with just a bit of garlic), Canadian bacon, sliced mushrooms, mozzarella, Parmesan, and on my half, black olive halves and sliced green onion.
My husband said it was the best crust yet, maybe because I used only a scant 1/4 tsp. of yeast and let it rise two hours in the bulk rise and two hours in the pan.
My pizza is in the oven and will come out shortly before 7:30 eastern time. I'll head over to the zoom site as well.
I think that I may have read about purple yams in one of the food emails that I receive. I did select the correct answer after narrowing it down to two.
I'm pretty sure this chocolate has been around for more than a few years. It has been in the refrigerator. It does have the bloom, but I knew that wasn't a problem.
I decided on Friday afternoon to try the Hazelnut Pain au Chocolat but with vanilla rather than hazelnut. I replaced the 5 Tbs. of butter with 3 Tbs. canola oil. I reduced the salt from 1 ¼ to 1 tsp. I used Special Gold yeast, so I halved the amount for 1 ¼ tsp. My chocolate sticks are old, but they still smell like chocolate, so I went ahead and used them, two per roll. The first rise took an hour, as did the second rise. For shaping, I rolled each quarter portion into a 34.5 cm x 10 cm rectangle, then cut into three strips (at 11,5 cm and 23 cm.) Yes, you can use the inches given, but it is so much easier in metric. I used two sticks of chocolate per roll. It is a sticky dough. I rolled it on a Silpat mat, with saran over the top, using a smaller rolling pin (from a ravioli set). Before baking, I sprinkled with some coarse white sugar but did not do brush them with milk. I baked on the third rack up in my oven, so it is a bit above halfway. I let it bake for 23 minutes but perhaps could have removed them slightly earlier. (It will depend on your oven.) After 5 minutes, we each bit into one. The bread is so soft and the chocolate so melty. Clearly, we each had to have another, as just out of the oven, they are at their best.
I was tempted to make my thin-crust pizza but decided to stick with the sourdough pan pizza. We have no ground turkey, and the store here does not sell a kind we like, if they even have it, which they usually do not. So, I'm going to use Canadian bacon. I made the tomato sauce today. I'll have mushrooms on it, mozzarella, and Parmesan. I plan to put black olives and green onion on my half.
I'm debating if I want to get adventurous and try a completely sourdough crust (no yeast) with an overnight levain and a long rise the next day.
Skeptic--I'm actually baking these today, and the dough is on the first rise. I'll put the details on the baking thread. I have a LOT of the chocolate sticks, for some reason, and some are rather old, but the chocolate still smells fine, so I'm using 24 of them.
In preparation for the Virtual Pizza Party on Saturday, I made tomato sauce using six Roma tomatoes from the store. As usual, I start by heating some garlic in olive oil, add the tomatoes and a pinch of salt, and cook to break them down and reduce the liquid. I have no fresh garlic, and all they had in the store was the stuff from China, which tastes old to me, so I did not buy it. I used ½ tsp. of Penzy’s dried garlic. I added ½ tsp. sugar late in the process and some freshly grated pepper. That gave me 1 cup of thick sauce, which is enough for a half-sheet sourdough pan pizza.
That's correct, Len, but he went a bit far in the other direction when it comes to breakfast. Oatmeal was always the better choice!
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