[BakerAunt]

I was back in the kitchen Monday afternoon to try a pumpkin bread recipe I found at Nebraska Kitchen, which was submitted to the Baking Circle by Lemonpoppy on March 17, 2004. She got it from a friend, but she notes that it came from Bon Appetit (November 1995), submitted by Vera Bertagna of West Frankfort, Illinois. It also had been was on epicurious.com and there were reviews with suggestions.

My favorite pumpkin bread calls for 2/3 cup butter (makes two 9x5 or six 3x7), so I needed one with less saturated fat. Of course, when I decided to give the one posted by Lemonpoppy a try, like my always experimenting friend, Wonky, I made changes. Lemonpoppy had cut the sugar from 3 to 2 cups. After looking at my former recipe, I cut it to 1 3/4 cup. That is plenty sweet. I followed her suggestion to use half oil and half buttermilk. She said that a combination of flours could be used for the 3 cups, as long as one included enough wheat flour for the rise. I used 1 ½ cups AP flour, 1 cup barley flour, and ¾ cup quick oats. I had started with ½ cup, but the pumpkin I thawed was more watery than usual, so I threw in that additional ¼ cup after the batter was mixed. I also added ¼ cup flax meal and 1/3 cup powdered milk to increase nutritional value. For the spices, I used 2 tsp. cinnamon, ½ tsp. nutmeg, ¼ tsp. ginger, and ¼ tsp. cloves. I did not add nuts, fruit, or chips, as my husband and I are pumpkin bread purists. I baked in six 3x6 loaf pans (used The Grease to coat them) for 30 minutes, which was perfect. We ate one tonight, and while it will never have the texture of a butter-based quick bread, it still had great texture and taste. I froze three of them for later.

[BakerAunt]

Darn it, my husband really likes the flavor and wants me to try baking it again. (He and the dog consumed half of the second loaf today.) I might try it in three 7-inch pans I have.

[BakerAunt]

Note on Lemon-Anise Biscotti:

It's a great recipe, especially if you need one low in saturated fat. After baking the recipe, I have some adjustments/suggestions.

1. The recipe does not say when to add the lemon zest, vanilla, and anise seed. After I whisked together the eggs and sugar, I then whisked in these three ingredients.
2. I used a "Danish whisk" to incorporate the flour mixture.
3. You do not need to oil the pan. Just line it with parchment paper.
4. I dropped the dough in mounds, after dividing it, to form the long logs. I used slightly wet, rather than floured hands, and a metal table knife, to help shape them.
5. I cut mine straight, rather than on a diagonal, as I wanted them mostly the same size. I may have cut mine thinner, as I got about 60 slices.
6. I did the second bake by standing the slices on edge on the pan. I still baked 15 minutes.

Flavor note: These are quite sweet. The lemon flavor does not come through. I like the anise.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I'm sorry to hear about the freezer failure, Mike. Losing all the food makes it that much worse.

The hardest part of my low saturated fat diet is having to avoid the cookies and pastries that rely so heavily on butter. While a little butter can be ok, a lot of my recipes call for significantly more, and even a modest serving can add up when attempting to stay at 11 g or less of saturated fat per day, especially when I've already assigned 3 grams of that to dairy, and I still need to add in meat and/ or eggs--and the Land o' Lakes light butter-canola spread I plan to have on my sweet corn tonight. I spent yesterday afternoon exploring some recipes at My Nebraska Kitchen, and I printed some promising ones.

On Sunday afternoon, I baked Lemon-Anise Biscotti, which was submitted to the Baking Circle on April 8, 2004 by Bettina (aka Laura Four Paws). She had it from a Cooks Illustrated email that invited subscribers to send it to friends--and we were all friends on that site. Assuming an egg is 2 grams of saturated fat (I’ve also seen it listed as 1.5g), these biscotti have only 4 grams of saturated fat. When cut into slices, that will be quite acceptable, and eggs have valuable nutrients as well.

The recipe is missing one step, as it does not say when to add the lemon zest, anise seed, and vanilla. I whisked them in after first whisking together the eggs and sugar, before sifting in the flour mixture over the egg mixture and incorporated it with my large dough whisk. It is a very sticky dough. I weighed it on saran on my scale. (I need to weigh my bowls so I can divide dough in them on the scale.) Instead of floured hands, I used slightly damp hands and a metal knife to spread and shape the two rolls on the parchment-lined cookie sheet. (I’m not sure why the recipe says an oiled cookie sheet covered with parchment. It must be a mistake.)

After the loaves had cooled, I found that they stuck to the parchment, and I could not get a spatula under them, but I pulled up the long side of the parchment next to each loaf, so that I turned it over, and then the parchment was easily peeled away. I cut mine straight rather than on the diagonal so that the pieces would be about the same size. That actually gave me 5 dozen. For the second bake, I stood them on their sides, but still baked for the stated 15 minutes. (I'm not fond of turning biscotti.)

The flavor of the crumbs from when I cut them is great, and I'll try one after they cool, but this recipe is certainly a keeper. I look forward to having them with tea and coffee.

It's not in the recipe section, but in the saved threads:

Misadventures With Biscotti Thread Recipes Dvdlee by bettina

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

For lunch on Sunday, I mixed leftover brown rice with a drained, rinsed can of low-salt chickpeas, then added some of my homemade tomato sauce. Simple. Good. Healthy.

[BakerAunt]

I agree! Nothing replaces freshly grated parmesan.

[BakerAunt]

Last year I made a peach cobbler recipe that had cinnamon-swirl biscuits on top. Of course it uses butter, as it is a biscuit dough. It baked at 375 for 25 minutes.

[BakerAunt]

Bev--I hope that all is well with your son.

After lunch on Friday, I tackled our pile of tomatoes. I’m making fresh tomato sauce. I’m trying an experiment and not skinning them, since they worked well in the ratatouille that way, and we are supposed to be eating more skins of vegetables and fruits. My base recipe came from a Cooks Illustrated email (back when they, like KAF sent those out!). I added to heated olive oil some onion, which I sautéed, then added some chopped celery (neither is in the original recipe) and the one clove of garlic I have in the house. After sautéing those vegetables, I added four pounds of tomatoes from our garden that I had cut into chunks. I am happy that I found my Calphalon 10-inch sauce pan when I was rooting around amongst the boxes in the shed last week. It makes it easy to reduce the tomato liquid. I have about 4 cups of sauce. Some of it, I will probably freeze.

Dinner on Friday is stir-fry, made with leftover pork and minimal drippings (deglazed pan with white wine), celery, red bell pepper, halved mushrooms, a large zucchini, chopped. It then gets mixed with buckwheat noodles. Yesterday, we were able to score what will likely be the last of the sweet corn from a local farm, so we bought 12 ears. We had two each last night, but tonight we will limit ourselves to one apiece.

[BakerAunt]

Bernard Clayton's Dark Grains Bread comes out light, in spite of being about 70% whole grain--buckwheat flour, rye flour, wheat germ, whole wheat flour. I had hoped this one would also be light, but clearly, it is not meant to be. I think that the millet is the element that moves it toward heavy.

[BakerAunt]

In my web surfing, I also found this tribute to Bernard Clayton:

http://www.notyourmotherscookbook.com/bernard-clayton-breadmaker-1916-2011/

[BakerAunt]

I found a blog that features this bread:

Multigrain Bread

And, yes, that is exactly what my loaves look like.

I have a feeling this recipe is not worth a repeat.

I'm wondering if slicing a loaf thinly, brushing with butter, and toasting would produce an interesting "hard bread" cracker. I may try that.

If all else fails, we have a "bread hound," who mooches bread off of my husband who is trying to get her to love him....

[BakerAunt]

Unfortunately, I'm on a low-saturated fat diet, and 1 Tbs. of regular cream cheese has 6 grams. I do, however, have plenty of homemade jam, in three flavors, that I made earlier this summer.

The taste will determine if I decide to give it another try. Figuring out how much yeast to use, keeping the dough to two rises (I could kick myself for not just shaping and panning it in spite of the quick first rise), and possibly using different pans might make a difference. Each pan had 663g of dough, and my 8x4 pans usually have unbaked dough of about 860g.I have some 7x3 pans, and they might have worked better.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I tried baking Bernard Clayton's Multi-Grain Bread from New Complete Book of Breads (revised and expanded), pp. 2228-231. The sad details can be found in the Adjusting Another Bernard Clayton Bread Recipe thread.

[BakerAunt]

It's the same issue that David Matsumoto discussed in his book, Requiem for a Peach. He had a wonderful peach he grew on his farm in the central valley of California, but market forces nearly drove him to bulldoze the orchard. An essay in the L.A. Times magazine led to rediscovery of his flavorful peaches that do not keep well in cold storage and so were spurned by markets. He did end up keeping the trees, but the book defines the real difficulty farmers face when markets--and the public--demand show over flavor.

[BakerAunt]

I ended up using 6 tsp. of yeast, and perhaps it should have been 4 1/2 or 5 tsp. The very fast rise worried me, so I decided that I would give it a second rise before shaping and the third rise. In the past, I've had breads that had a fast first rise collapse. That may not have been a good decision, but it was what I did. They were rather small in the pan, so I might have been able to use just two 8x4 pans. I ended up with three rather low loaves--certainly not sandwich bread size--which will likely be rather dense. I'll add a post tomorrow about taste and texture.

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