[BakerAunt]

Dinner on Friday night was a grain bowl. I cooked bulgur in turkey broth from the freezer. I sautéed green onion, celery, carrots; I added some kale towards the end, along with leftover ground turkey from the pizza we had earlier in the week. I cooked some frozen peas and added them. Then I added the cooked bulgur. It’s a one-dish meal, based on what was in the refrigerator and freezer. There is enough for leftovers tonight.

[BakerAunt]

I narrowed it to two and chose the incorrect answer.

That soup looks good, but my husband is not a fan of lamb, so I won't be experimenting with it.

That site looks interesting. I'm going to bookmark it and look at it more later.

[BakerAunt]

I also realized on Friday that we were running out of bread. I decided to repeat the bread that I last baked but use KAF Harvest Grains instead of old fashioned oats. The Harvest Grains do not absorb as much of the buttermilk that I pour over them as the old-fashioned oats do. I added 2 Tbs. oat bran to the mixture. I later needed to add 2 Tbs. more of bread flour during the kneading process. The dough took almost two hours on the first rise, probably because the house was cold. Once my husband started a fire in the wood stove, after the first hour, it did fine. The second rise took an hour. The bread had excellent oven spring. I baked it for 43 minutes, spritzing it once I put it in the oven, and covering it for the last 10 minutes to prevent overbrowning. I look forward to slicing it for lunch tomorrow.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I also knew it.

[BakerAunt]

On Friday morning, I made another batch of Maple Granola, using the recipe on the KAF site, which is a revision of the one in their wholegrain baking book. I halve the amount of salt and coconut flakes, delete the vanilla, and add 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds. It makes a big batch, which is good, as my husband uses it as a snacking food. I like a bit on top of my jar of yogurt in the morning, and sometimes I eat it with milk.

[BakerAunt]

I use marjoram in my Swedish pea soup. I need to branch out.

[BakerAunt]

On Thursday, I also tried a new recipe, “Lemon Crispbread with Kamut Flour and Olive Oil, from Jan Hedh’s Swedish Breads and Pastry (pp. 140-141). Instead of cracker-like breads, what I got resembles the thickness of pan pizza. If I were to bake this recipe again, I would divide the dough into three pieces before rolling it out in order to get it as thin as possible. I rolled each half as large as my cookie sheet, which is as large as my oven would take. Perhaps Hedh was using much larger baking pans (a half sheet would be too small) and a larger oven. I did cut the salt from 20g to 12g, but I don’t think that is the issue. I won’t taste them until tomorrow, at which time I’ll know if I think the recipe is worth another try. I

[BakerAunt]

It's never too early in February to invoke Valentine’s Day. On Thursday morning I baked my Wholegrain Fresh Apple Cake, but instead of a 13x9-inch pan, I used a large, red heart-shaped pan that I bought from King Arthur a long time ago. It holds the same batter as a 13x9 pan, although the cake is thicker. I’ve used it for coffee cakes in the past. The recipe baked well, although I had to add an additional five minutes, since the cake is thicker. I accidentally used 2/3 cup barley flour instead of ½ cup, but I don’t think that will make a difference.

[BakerAunt]

I can remember--a long time ago before I baked my own bread--seeing small squares of yeast in the grocery store dairy case that were fresh yeast. I wonder if people were indeed using it, even though dry yeast was available.

I won't be jumping on the fresh yeast bandwagon since there are other hard to find ingredients that I already need to order.

It's unfortunate that this cookbook, from a leading Swedish baker, did not get the kind of review before publication that would have made it far more useful. The photography is excellent. I see the breads and want to bake them. Then I look at the recipe and the information is hard to interpret. Perhaps the intended niche was coffee table book, but it could have been so much more.

Google revealed a couple of people who had baked one or two of the recipes, but the issues arise. One person was wondering why her bran bread didn't look like the picture in the book. I checked, and apparently the picture for that bread is on the following page, but no note indicates it. At least for the Barley Crispbread I baked, I was able to find the picture of it on the following page.

The book was translated from Swedish with no effort to consider what an English speaking audience in another country would need to follow it. Cloudberry Salt is a good example. One person in England wondered if a "kneading machine" is a stand mixer and whether the bread could be made without one. I'm not even sure a Swedish audience would know what kinds of flour to use, and certainly not indicating whether a particular recipe uses fresh or dry yeast (and the problem arises with more than one recipe) would be a problem for a baker in any country.

I understand that the book is aimed at experienced bakers, but more information and context is needed. I still hope to try baking some of the breads. We'll see how the new crispbread recipe goes.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I'd like to see Len's bread in the favorite recipes section.

[BakerAunt]

I answered correctly based on experience.

[BakerAunt]

I had hoped to try a new crispbread recipe on Wednesday but discovered in the morning that the lemon in the refrigerator had gone bad. I made a special trip and bought more. Then I had to run a last minute errand, then it was time to start roasting the chicken for dinner. In short, the day got away from me. However, I did bake my Whole Wheat sourdough cheese crackers in the evening. Tomorrow I’ll tackle the new recipe.

[BakerAunt]

It began to snow in the mid-afternoon on Wednesday, and the snow will continue this evening. It was a perfect day to roast a chicken. I wanted to roast it with vegetables and looked online and found “Roast Chicken and Vegetables,” on the cooking blog “Spend with Pennies,” from Holly Nilsson:

https://www.spendwithpennies.com/roast-chicken-vegetables/

I followed the general instructions, but I used Penzey’s poultry seasoning and some sweet curry in place of the Italian Seasoning. I didn’t use her optional chicken rub but more of the poultry seasoning and sweet curry. The technique of starting the chicken at a high temperature for 12 minutes, then lowering it, works well. The yellow potatoes and small carrots cooked very well. I won’t make this recipe too often, as I try to avoid the fat from the chicken, but it is perfect comfort food for this snowy evening. I used my white Corning Ware oval casserole dish, which is deeper than what I normally use for roasting chicken, but as the chicken sits on the vegetables, it worked well, and created fewer splatters in the oven.

[BakerAunt]

I have another recipe from Jan Hedh's book to try: "Lemon Crispbread with Kamut Flour and Olive Oil (pp.146-147). When I saw 50g of yeast, I knew that did not seem right. I re-read the introduction on yeast, and he goes over the several kinds and says that fresh yeast is his favorite. He is a professional baker. I looked through the recipes in the book, and it seems to me that some of them, given the large amount of yeast (50g is about 4 Tbs.) appear to use fresh yeast, while others, like the Barley Crispbread I describe above, appear to use active dry yeast.

I wrote to the book publisher again and received a nice reply:

"Yes, 4 Tbs. would be a lot of active dry yeast, particularly for a crisp bread! I believe your hunch is correct, and that the recipe is assuming you’re using fresh yeast. On page 23, the author mentions he prefers fresh yeast because it yields better results, but that certainly should have been noted in each recipe where it applies. Apologies, again!

I hope the crispbread is delicious—it sounds it!"

If I keep baking from this book, I should be able to help them develop an errata sheet.

[BakerAunt]

Thank you S. Wirth. I did some additional googling and KAF says multiply weight by 0.4. I think that this site is using instant yeast.

The recipe for crispbread that I'm hoping to bake this evening says 50g yeast, so I know it has to be fresh yeast. The KAF calculation would make it 20g active dry yeast. The calculation on this site would make it about 16.6g.

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