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Italian Cook: Here is the chart I use:
I do a bit of "guesstimating" with smaller amounts.
On Sunday afternoon, I baked another new recipe from the King Arthur 200th Anniversary Cookbook. It’s the Basic Quick Bread, and I baked the Spicy Applesauce Bread version (pp. 90-91). I used the smaller amounts of oil and brown sugar. I substituted 1 tsp. boiled cider for the vanilla, and I added 1/3 cup of quick oats. I did not add the nuts or raisins. I baked the batter in three mini-loaf pans (coated with THE grease), and it took 35 minutes. These have nice rise, especially given that they are half whole wheat. We will sample them on Monday, since quick breads are usually best if allowed to sit for a day.
Note: Note: The spice combination is excellent. However, the breads were slightly dry. Next time, I’ll omit the oats I added or else decrease the flour slightly.
It was a good day to bake, since it has been snowing all day. Tomorrow should also be a good baking day.
I still have some limes from my lime tree in the refrigerator, and they are starting to yellow, although they still have juice. In paging through King Arthur Flour’s Whole Grain Baking, I came upon a recipe for “Sunny Citrus Squares” (pp. 363-364) that uses ½ cup citrus juice—lime, lemon, or combination—along with zest. The only issue for me was the 6 Tbs. of butter in the crust. I decided to use the guidelines for the oil pie crust that I’ve baked from the KAF 200th Anniversary Cookbook and see if I could modify the crust.
I used 4 ½ Tbs. canola oil in place of the butter, and I replaced the 3 Tbs. of orange juice in the crust (meant to cut the whole grain flavor of the spelt flour) with 3 Tbs. buttermilk. I whisked the buttermilk and oil together, before combining with the flour, using a fork. I followed the rest of the recipe as given, although I used a bit of water to reach the ½ cup of lime juice. It baked up well. As the recipe states, I will refrigerate it overnight. I’ll add a note tomorrow after we have it for dessert.
Note: The bars are delicious. I did have some shrinkage of the crust, so some of the topping flowed over and got beneath the crust. Next time, I will refrigerate the crust for an hour in the pan before I bake it, since my oil pie crust recipe says that doing so will relax the gluten and prevent shrinkage.
I don't know if I will have so many limes this year. Usually we put the lime tree in the apt., which we keep cool, but with the house renovation and our living in the apt., it got too warm and the lime tree bloomed early, but inside there are no pollinators.
I baked a new recipe on Thursday morning: “Apple-Maple Snack Cake,” from Better Homes and Gardens Cut the Sugar, the third re-issue of a special interest magazine first published in 2017. I looked at the magazine carefully before buying it, and most of the recipes are also low in saturated fat, or can be made with an oil substitution, as was the case with this one (p. 85).
Like Wonky, my baking sister, I can never leave a recipe alone. I replaced the 4 Tbs. butter with 3 Tbs. canola oil; I added 1 Tbs. flax meal and 2 Tbs. Bob’s Red Mill powdered milk. I deleted 2 tsp. vanilla and replaced it with ¼ tsp. maple extract. (Why would I want to cover up the maple syrup in the cake with an expensive 2 tsp. vanilla?) I used two unpeeled Winesaps; I deleted the almonds used to top it and used Swedish Pearl Sugar instead, and it baked up very prettily.
I'll add a note to this post after we have it for dessert tonight.
Note: We like the cake! It has a definite maple flavor that pairs nicely with the apple. I will bake it again.
