[BakerAunt]

On Friday, I fed my sourdough starter. I made a sourdough crust pan pizza, topped with a tomato sauce I made from crushed tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, ½ tsp. sugar, ½ tsp. Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset seasoning; a bit of rosemary, and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. I also topped with browned ground turkey, some chopped red bell pepper; sliced mushrooms, sliced green onion, small cubes of mozzarella, and Parmesan cheese.

[BakerAunt]

I have my car back. It had a dead cell in the battery.

On Thursday morning, I used a recipe for Chocolate Olive Oil Cake with Blood Orange Glaze, from a Baking from Scratch email to bake a Bundt cake, but I made some changes in the recipe. (See discussion under baking-desserts--blood oranges.) Blood oranges are not available right now, so I used a regular orange. I used canola oil and reduced it by 1/3 cup. I used buttermilk rather than regular milk and increased it by 1/3 cup. I used 1 cup of white whole wheat flour (Bob’s Red Mill ivory flour) in place of that much AP flour, and I added 2 Tbs. Bob’s Red Mill powdered milk. I baked it in the Nordic Ware Celebration Bundt pan—the one that allows you to cut 20 equal slices—as I don’t have the pan the recipe specifies and do not intend to buy it. I found that my cake needed 45 minutes to bake at 325F. After 20 minutes on the rack, it came out perfectly. I’m not planning to glaze it. We will eat it for dessert tonight, and I’ll add a not about what we think. The entire cake still has 43g saturated fat, but that is fine when sliced into 20 pieces. Had I followed the recipe, and used 1 1/3 cup olive oil, the total would have been 58g.

In the afternoon, I baked my Buttermilk Grape Nuts Bread, with some whole wheat and barley flour substituted for some of the AP flour, and I used bread flour for the rest. I also reduced the honey to 1 Tbs. and the salt to 1 tsp.

Note: The cake has a delicate orange taste behind the chocolate. The texture is excellent.

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

[BakerAunt]

Ah, Len, you've waded into an area that has driven me nuts for some time now. I've scoured the internet, and there does not seem to be much agreement on olive oil vs. canola oil. One source (Livestrong) suggested that olive oil is only considered healthier because it is healthier than the butter it replaces. Supposedly canola lowers cholesterol. However, one of my sisters considers canola oil bad for you and avoids it. I don't think this question will be solved anytime soon.

So, what to do? I use both. In some breads, I like olive oil, and it's one that I reach for when sauteeing vegetables for soups, pizza, spaghetti sauce, roasting chicken or vegetables, etc.. If I'm browning meat, I use grapeseed oil, which seems to hold up better than the other two. I also prefer grapeseed oil (also 2g saturated fat per Tbs.) for brushing on my sourdough crackers before baking; canola seemed to have an aftertaste, and I did not care for olive oil on those.

Since the recipe, as I've now baked it, called for so much oil, I chose the canola. I was also uncertain about olive oil flavor in the cake. In a rye bread, however, I usually choose olive oil.

[BakerAunt]

I figured out that I like a dark roast, which is less acidic than a light roast. I've tried the occasional Peet's Christmas and Anniversary coffee, but I keep coming back to the French roast. It's a good roast also for people like me who prefer their coffee without milk or sugar. I use a French Press, make a 14 oz. cup in the morning, and that usually sets me for the day. Sometimes I'll have a smaller cup in the afternoon but more often I have some kind of tea. I always had sugar and milk in the tea, but I've cut the sugar in a 14 oz. cup back to 1/4 tsp. Occasionally I drink green tea--plain without add-ins, and summer brings on the iced tea. I like herbal or decaf teas in the evening.

[BakerAunt]

I got it wrong.

Texas Tech University, where I taught, has a long history of award winning meat judging teams.

[BakerAunt]

Thanks, Mike. I'll try it with regular oranges and the changes I noted above, then post about the results.

[BakerAunt]

My husband would say that some people have more money than brains.

I like my coffee, but I'm perfectly happy with Peet's French roast, a bag of which lasts me for several weeks.

[BakerAunt]

I also got it wrong.

[BakerAunt]

For Wednesday’s dinner, I roasted a chicken. I had forgotten just how much it smokes up the house when the oven door is opened and the chicken removed. (I suspect this is one reason--the other being cleaning the oven--that so many of us just buy rotisserie chickens.) I’m glad that there is a vent fan in our apartment kitchen. We had noodles made with some powdered mushrooms. I made a new vegetable dish, working off a recipe in a recent special magazine issue, Heart Smart Recipes. I put a 15x10 sheet pan into a 450F oven to heat up for about 5 minutes. I had cut asparagus into 1-inch pieces, sliced some white mushrooms, minced 4 cloves of garlic, then mixed in a package of cherry tomatoes. I tossed these with some olive oil. I pulled out the pan, put a sheet of parchment (oven safe to 450F) on the pan, put on the vegetable mixture, and roasted for 18 minutes. When I took them out, I drizzled a bit of olive oil on them, then sprinkled with Penzey’s Sunny Paris and stirred. My husband, who is not a big asparagus fan, really liked it prepared this way. Note: the original recipe did not use parchment paper, but I do my own clean-up, so I used it and lowered the temperature from 475F.

I also cooked a bag of garbanzo beans that I soaked for nearly a day. Some will be frozen, and some will be used in recipes to be noted here.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt. Reason: Corrected magazine title

[BakerAunt]

The blueberry pie came out much better than last time. I used less filling and also preheated the filling with additional Clearjel. When we cut into it 2 hours and 15 minutes later, it held together well, although still a little warmer than I usually cut it. My husband had a little bit of seconds, so he liked it. The pie is good, but nothing beats a pie made with fresh blueberries.

[BakerAunt]

I actually stayed up to watch SNL's first hour (Emma Thompson is never to be missed!). The skit is even funnier watching it the second time.

[BakerAunt]

I missed it too. Thus endeth my winning streak. I'll console myself by reflecting that I never buy a gallon of whole milk and would have gotten the correct answer if it had been 1%. 🙂

[BakerAunt]

There was a company that specialized in little square towels that people could carry with them. I don't know if it still exists. The idea was to cut down on paper towel usage.

So, all those dishwashers with the hot water that is supposed to sanitize and kill germs--do they actually work?

[BakerAunt]

To cheer us up, I made a blueberry pie using that oil crust recipe that I tweaked from the King Arthur 200th Anniversary Cookbook. I substitute in some white whole wheat flour and use buttermilk. I made the larger recipe and kept some of it out as crumbs. I used a quart of blueberry pie filling that I canned last summer. I heated it up, after adding 2 Tbs. Clearjel, and I added ¼ tsp. allspice and a dash of nutmeg. After parbaking the crust, I sprinkled the bottom with some Panko before putting the hot filling into the hot crust, then I sprinkled the leftover crumbs from the crust (about ¼) over the top. I baked the pie at 425F for 15 minutes, then 25 minutes at 375F. I certainly bubbled up around the edges. We will give it two hours to cool, and then we will have it as a late dessert.

I'll add a note about whether this blueberry pie with an oil crust came out better than my previous attempt.

[BakerAunt]

Unless I want the glaze to soak in, I usually glaze when the cake or bread is completely cool. I've not tried freezing a glazed cake.

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