[BakerAunt]

That's good to know, Mike. I have been on their email list for a while now, but I've not yet ordered from them.

[BakerAunt]

I baked Eggnog Muffins on Friday evening to have for breakfast tomorrow and for a few days afterwards. The recipe is my adaptation of an old King Arthur recipe for Holiday Eggnog Muffins. My version replaces butter with avocado oil, reduces the sugar and salt, and replaces the AP flour with white whole wheat flour. I also use a reduced fat eggnog. I made them tonight because the spices will have a chance to develop if they rest overnight. I adapted this recipe last year and discovered that the warm ones did not have the great flavor that the muffins had on subsequent days.

[BakerAunt]

I made two more batches of applesauce on Friday afternoon. The trick will be to find room in the freezer for 3 ½ quarts. I have about 7 ½ lbs. of apples left. I might make an additional small batch of applesauce and use the rest for more apple butter.

For dinner we had ham sandwiches on the pumpernickel rye that I baked yesterday.

[BakerAunt]

We had more of the leftover beef stew on Thursday, with no complaints, as stew gets better over several days.

[BakerAunt]

What a wonderful dessert potluck we could all have if we lived closer to each other!

I noticed last night that there was only enough bread for my husband for lunch on Thursday. As I intended to have a ham sandwich, I was able to defrost a Rye Semolina bun for me. However, I want to have a good bread for ham sandwiches, so I baked Pumpernickel Sandwich Bread, which is my version of King Arthur's Rye Sandwich Bread. I use dill pickle juice from a German brand, Hengstenberg, which I could usually find around October at Tuesday Morning or at Big Lots. I find the flavor essential for my potato salad, this bread, and my dill tartar sauce. While I am well stocked for now, with an almost full jar in the refrigerator and an unopened one in the pantry, not to mention pickle juice in a jar without any more pickles, I will have to do some internet searching when I need to re-stock.

[BakerAunt]

I agree with Skeptic--the trifle looks wonderful.

Merry Christmas everyone! Remember that there are twelve days of Christmas, so keep the celebrating.

And to others, happy first night of Hanukkah!

[BakerAunt]

It was two weeks ago that we arrived home from Florida. I have been rushing to condense all the Christmas preparation and baking into those two weeks, with some things, such as Christmas cards, a concerted effort to decorate the tree, and planning a special Christmas Eve dinner, falling to the wayside. We thus decided on an easy Christmas dinner for a relaxed day which included a zoom session with all the kids. I roasted sweet potato chunks tossed in olive oil, which we had with a pre-sliced ham, some of the applesauce that I made on Monday, and microwaved fresh broccoli. We had pumpkin pie for dessert. I'm not sure why the ham is styled "pre-sliced," as I had to do a fair amount of the slicing. However, this Appleton ham from Aldi's has great flavor and is not as fatty as some we have bought in the past.

[BakerAunt]

On Christmas Eve, I baked pumpkin pecan bread. The recipe is for a 6-cup Nordic Ware pan. I used two 7 ¾ x 3 3/4-inch loaf pans. I maybe should have used three of my little loaf pans instead, as they were not as high as I would have liked. When I cracked in one egg, it had a double yolk, which sent me to Google, which was not particularly helpful, as views differed. I decided that since the yolks were a bit smaller, I would go ahead and put in another egg. I do not know if that affected the rise. One loaf went into the freezer, the other is part of a Christmas gift for a neighbor.

I also baked my beloved Pfeffernusse cookies. It is not Christmas for me without them, and yes, I still use the stick of butter in these. I just insist that my husband and I limit ourselves to one per day.

My last project of the evening was a pumpkin pie, because for my husband, it is not Christmas without a pumpkin pie.

[BakerAunt]

We are having more of the beef stew this Christmas Eve, which is good, because I am still baking more tonight for Christmas.

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--I also can never get the fruit evenly distributed after the dough has had its first rise. I often cheat and just put it in the dough when I mix it before the first rise. With the bread machine, I wait and add it when the machine beeps. That seems to do a pretty good job..

I agree that your rolls sound really good!

[BakerAunt]

On Monday, I made beef and vegetable stew for dinner. The stew meat and the potatoes came from vendors at our farmers' market. It has been a cold, rainy day, so the stew was perfect.

I also finally had the chance to try out my Weston Deluxe Electric Food Mill on a double recipe of applesauce today. The instructions that come with it are minimal, so I watched a few You Tube videos to get some tips on working with apples and on how to set it up so that the sauce can flow more easily into my container. I ended up putting a large bowl on a couple of boxes on a stool next to the counter. While I did have to cut the apples into pieces (my recipe does not peel, core, or remove any seeds) so that it would work with the mill, the processing of each 5 lb. and 3 oz. of apples was amazingly quick. It does leave small pieces of skin, but they are too small to be a problem, and I like the chunkier texture. I have at least 10 lbs. more apples to process, but those will wait until after Christmas. I froze three quarts and set one aside for Christmas dinner.

[BakerAunt]

I hope you sat down for a while with your feet up, Joan! That is quite the accomplishment, and I know all the recipients will be excited to receive your baking.

[BakerAunt]

I made yogurt on Sunday for the first time since before we went on vacation. It will be good to have it at breakfast again.

I also roasted a peanut pumpkin. I had two, but one burst open overnight and made a mess. Usually, I would have processed the pumpkins by now, but there were just too many demands on my time in the autumn. I was particularly sorry to lose a peanut pumpkin, as I think the puree consistency is particularly well-suited to cakes and my cakey version of pumpkin bread.

We finished the turkey, spinach, and rice casserole tonight. It really holds up well.

[BakerAunt]

Here's hoping that the part for Mike's refrigerator arrives soon!

I was going to make stew today, as I need to use some potatoes, and I was able to buy a pound of stew meat at the farmers' market. However, the stew meat is frozen, so we had more of the turkey, spinach, and rice casserole. It does hold up well.

[BakerAunt]

Italian Cook--I'm glad that you liked the peanut butter oatmeal cookie recipe.

Wow, Joan! You had a busy day of baking, too!

What I really want is a taste of what Mike is baking.

On Saturday, I baked a double batch of King Arthur's Spiced Rye Ginger Cookies. My only changes are to add 1 Tbs. milk powder per recipe and to halve the salt. I used a #40 scoop, which gave me 47 cookies. I rolled them in equal parts of white, red, and green sparkling sugar. (King Arthur used to sell the sparkling sugar in colors other than white but stopped doing so.) A dozen of these will be a gift to our neighbors. These cookies are delectably spicy.

After baking the cookies, I experimented with making Eggnog scones by adapting a King Arthur recipe so that I used canola oil rather than butter. I was able to find a low-fat eggnog at the grocery when we did our shopping run, but I had to buy lactose-free to get it and to avoid eggnog with high-fructose corn syrup. I splurged and used 90 g of cinnamon chips and added ½ cup of chopped pecans. I will try a couple for breakfast tomorrow.

Next Day Update: I had two of the scones for breakfast. They are firmer than butter scones but still delicious. I used half whole wheat pastry flour and half King Arthur AP. I might try replacing the AP with white pastry flour next time.

[Author]

Posts