[BakerAunt]

I had no idea and missed it.

Smitten Kitchen has a recipe for homemade Fig Newtons that I had planned to try, but when I had time to bake it, finally, I had to cut out recipes that take a lot of butter. Sigh.

[BakerAunt]

Aaaron,, most breads require about 1 cup of starter. My cracker recipe, since I always double it (might as well, since my husband is a Snack-a-saurus), requires 2 cups. It's also great for pancakes and waffles--and I suspect you make a lot of those when they are on the menu.

I use a glass jar with a silicone or rubber seal and a metal clasp that holds it completely shut. I had started with a small jar, but you need room for the starter to rise and fall. I moved to one that probably has about 3 1/2 cups.

A peculiarity of my starter is that the directions said to feed it by volume not weight. However, I stopped never feeding it the equal amounts of milk and flour that I remove because it increased too much in bulk. These days, if I take out 2 cups, I feed it 1 1/2 cups flour and 1 1/2 cups milk. That keeps about the same amount. However, that is my starter; you will get to know what your starter needs.

I'd say start with the quart mason jar and see how much you use it. You can always divide it, feed it, and keep a second starter in another mason jar on the go if you need it or else get a bigger jar. You might even want to temporarily increase it for a recipe that takes a lot, then go back to a smaller jar.

[BakerAunt]

Joan--I think Chocomouse put her recipe on the site here.

I baked cornbread muffins to go with soup for Thursday's dinner. I used the last of the cornmeal that we bought last December when we went to Spring Mill State Park. It has wonderful flavor. If you ever get a chance to try the flour from a small mill, be sure to do so!

[BakerAunt]

Thursday night's dinner was soup. I had a bean and barley mix (expiration January 2019--hey, these things happen!) and I soaked it in salted water overnight and into the next day. I drained and rinsed them, before putting them in a 4-qt. pot to cook for 90 minutes, covered with about an inch of water. In a separate large pot, I sautéed chopped carrots and chopped celery, then added large sliced mushrooms. (The grocery has had these at a better price than an equal weight of the small ones, and they seem to have a more intense flavor.) I added cooked ground turkey that I froze after we had pizza, and 2 Tbs. Penzey's dried onion that I rehydrated in 1/2 cup water. I then added about 4 cups of the turkey broth and let it simmer a bit. I used 2 tsp. Penzey's Bouquet Garni and 1/4 tsp. fennel, and freshly ground black pepper. I added the cooked bean and barley mix and cooked until the vegetables were done. I added some additional turkey broth to get it to a good soup level. We had it with cornbread.

[BakerAunt]

I usually buy Gold Medal unbleached flour to use for cakes, quick breads, cookies, etc. I find that it works well. I've also bought Pillsbury unbleached flour and have not found a difference between the two. Bob's Red Mill also makes an unbleached flour that I've used.

[BakerAunt]

King Arthur had been offering some blogs for new bakers. I read P.J. Hamel's blog on using the flour you've got, which would be useful for newbies. There is also one on substituting bread flour for AP, which I think someone here asked about.

In reading the comments, I saw someone wanted to know when the website would have flour again. The reply was that they could not ship to individuals right now as there are too many people wanting to order flour and socially distancing in warehouses makes the work slower.

The upshot is that King Arthur is shipping flour out to stores, so we have a better chance of getting it at a grocery store vs. no chance of being able to order it online from KAF at this time.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

My Bob's Red Mill order arrived yesterday. I think that I was lucky, as I went back to their site last night and whole wheat flour was listed as sold out. If you need one of their flours, it probably pays to monitor the site. I was lucky to get the steel-cut oats and wheat germ as well.

Based on what I'm seeing from the Bon Appetit and Epicurious (aren't they owned by BA?) emails, banana bread, focaccia, and sourdough seem to be leading the online baking. I've not seen much on chocolate chip cookies, but surely they must be in the running for most popular Pandemic bakes.

For cooking, I've seen a lot of cheesy casseroles (comfort food) in Martha Stewart and Real Simple emails. Bon Appetit, of course, is coming out with the usual very strange main dish recipes that always manage to have an odd ingredient or two that is not easily available even in the best of times--unless you work in the BA test kitchen--that will probably convince most millennials NOT even to attempt to cook. I read comics online at Go Comics, and Luann is about to attempt an online stew recipe that had a long list of ingredients, some of which are rather odd, not to mention expensive. She must have gotten it from Bon Appetit.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I'm making broth from the frozen remains of the turkey we had for Easter. I'll use some of it to make soup tonight or tomorrow and freeze the rest.

[BakerAunt]

Banana bread has been big since the start of the pandemic, I think because it's considered an easy recipe, and people associate it with the families in which they grew up, so it's comforting. My husband goes through banana so fast that it is rare for me to have any with which to bake. I'd like to bake that buckwheat banana bread again.

Skeptic--will the crust be like a sugar cookie or more of a sweet dough?

[BakerAunt]

Actually, Chocomouse suggested the virtual pizza party, and I agreed with her. Maybe we could coordinate it with Aaron's weekly pizza extravaganza. I've been wanting to make a thin-crust pizza, probably just for me for lunches, as my husband prefers the thick-crust. I can see one with artichoke hearts, mozzarella, some onion, mushrooms, and maybe some sliced black olives. (You can tell that my husband won't be eating this one!)

When we moved from Texas to Indiana, I lost the people at the office and at church for whom I baked. Only about three of the houses on this stretch of road are permanently occupied year round. Other than mailing cookies to my sister and her twin daughters, I've had to wait for my stepchildren to visit, so that I can spoil them with their favorite treats. I miss the social interaction that I had at work and have yet to find some groups here. The community here at Nebraska Kitchen has been my one point of social continuity.

[BakerAunt]

One of the staff members in my department, back when I was working, was from Hawaii, and she would bring a kind of dessert that sounds a lot like this one. I thought about it, and answered correctly.

[BakerAunt]

I've always stirred the clear liquid back in after the starter develops its bubbles. I use it, then feed it. If I let the starter go too long, it can develop more than a little clear liquid on top, and that usually means for me that I will need to feed it a couple of times in succession to get it back to normal. I still used the discard in pancakes, crackers, etc.

Maybe I should consider pouring off the liquid.

I'll see about posting that recipe in the next couple of days, Aaron.

[BakerAunt]

Kimbob--Sometimes it's nice to have an excuse for not knowing someone's name. 🙂

[BakerAunt]

The crispbread looks good, with the same crisp texture as when I've made them before. I'll see what it tastes like tomorrow.

We are nearly out of bread, so I am making another loaf of the Barley Wheat Bread, having let the Zo do the kneading. This time I needed to add 5 Tbs. flour; last time it was four. It may be that this cottage cheese has more liquid than the brand I used in Texas. My husband really likes this bread and that it stays soft.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I love anything buckwheat, Riverside Len.

On Wednesday, I made another batch of yogurt.

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