[BakerAunt]

Tuesday evening, I baked two loaves of my Buttermilk Grape Nuts Bread (recipe on this site, although I fiddle around with the percentage of whole wheat flour and buttermilk). It's my husband's favorite bread, but we discovered that it does not last well in warm weather with high humidity, so I've been baking the Vienna bread. Today, cool weather rolled in, so it is time to bake it again. I'll freeze one loaf.

Side Note: I'm trying to train my husband not to talk to me when I'm measuring ingredients. Tonight, I realized that I might have left out a cup of bread flour, and indeed as I was mixing, I found that I had. At least this was a mistake that I could fix easily. I've never been a fan of the "open concept" kitchen, but that is what I have and what I will have, so the only alternative is to train him to let me focus on my measurements.

[BakerAunt]

Chocomouse: When Cass gave me his Challah bread recipe, he included this note:

"If you are going to seed the crust, approximately 3-5 minutes befoure you are to remove the bread, apply another application of egg wash, then turn off oven. Remove the bread after 3 minutes. This is done so the seeds stick. Otherwise, they will fall off very easily."

I do not seed bread because small seeds are a problem for my husband, so I did not try this. I assume that the seeds are on at the start of the bake, after an egg wash has been applied, so this would be an additional one.

If I got this wrong, then perhaps Cass will pop in and clarify for us.

[BakerAunt]

On Monday, I baked a new recipe, "Chocolate Chip Cookies with Espresso and Cinnamon," which appeared in Bon Appetit (August 2002), p. 87. They are an unusual, scrumptious cookie. Even my husband who does not care for coffee loves them. They are good with milk and should be excellent with coffee. I made only two changes: I substituted in 1/2 cup of white whole wheat flour, and I used all semisweet chocolate chips. The original recipe used half semi-sweet and half milk chocolate chips, but I had none of the latter.

I may have to post this recipe.

[BakerAunt]

I checked and the orchard to the south is not u-pick, and they only sell at farmers' markets (including Indianapolis!) I'll see if there are any around Rockville, where we will go for the covered bridge festival in October. We'll be in west central Indiana.

Addendum: My husband thinks that there will be plenty of apples available at the festival. He remembers that from years ago, and says there was fresh-pressed cider as well--so will I please stop bugging him about our route. Sigh. Non-bakers just do not understand about sourcing the right ingredients, but they certainly appreciate eating the results!

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

If you have a typewriter mat--probably unlikely in this day and age--it would prevent sliding. I actually do have one, but I keep it under my sewing machine. A silpat mat might also work, although that seems a waste. One of the gals who helped care for my mother-in-law told me that at a place where she cleaned, a young woman was using her silpat mat under a typewriter--she had received it as a bridal shower gift and did not know what it was.

Maybe some plastic shelf lining?

[BakerAunt]

Thanks, Italian Cook. The map shows an orchard to the south. I'll investigate if it is a you-pick one. It may be where the vendor at last Tuesday's farmers' market is located. I'll also use the map for when we make our trip.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

There used to be a local apple orchard on the east side of the lake, across the road, according to my husband, called Bigley's. He remembers going and the wonderful smell of apples. However, it closed before I started coming here thirteen years ago. I think that there is one out towards Logansport. However, we plan to go to the Covered Bridge Festival in mid-October, so I will look to see if there are any orchards along the way. We also might make a road trip to Michigan, so that is also a possibility.

I'm not having a lot of success with googling u-pick apple orchards.

A couple of years ago, my husband had to travel through Champaign-Urbana on a research trip, and I told him to stop at the orchard outside the city. It was very crowded that weekend, so he did not pick but just bought a couple of bags of different apples. I made an excellent pie from the ones designated for baking, but I do not recall what kind they were, and it was before I was keeping a baking log and doing the "What Did You Bake?" thread.

[BakerAunt]

Italian Cook: I've not tried baking with Galas. My comment was more because if I go to the farmers' market, I really want something I cannot find in the supermarket. I also do not prefer the taste of Gala apples when eaten raw. When I'm baking an apple cake, I usually choose Braeburn. It does not get mushy, and has a good taste when baked. However, if I could get Winesaps, I'd use them. I've also had a Holly apple that was quite nice for baking.

I make my applesauce with Granny Smith's, but as Mike notes, and as Cass has told us, it is even hard to get a good Granny Smith apple. I've decided that I need to branch out to other apples.

The Redfree that I got at the farmers' market is a new variety for me. I checked it out, and it was introduced in 1981, a project of Purdue and University of Illinois. I'd not heard of them before.

Our big problem is that the apple producers assume that no one bakes, and therefore there is no need to produce baking apples. I told my husband that we need to locate an orchard, even if it is a bit of a drive, so that I can get some good baking apples.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I used a recipe from Baking Illustrated, with 1/3 less sugar and double the cinnamon (from 1/4-1/2 tsp.), along with nutmeg, allspice, and a bit of salt.

I realized this morning that what I thought was pastry flour was actually Bob's Red Mill unbleached, extra-fine cake flour (label had come off). I've had to move flours around to smaller containers with the move, and with the refrigerator switch, so the mistake got made. It was a wonderful dough to roll and shape.

Additional comment: The crust was surprisingly flakey, while perhaps not as light as pastry flour would have made it. My husband and I both like it.

The Redfree apples did indeed make a good pie, although as I expected, there was a bit of an air pocket in the center. I had tasted a bit of the juice that was dribbling out last night when I removed the pie from the oven, and these are indeed wonderful apples that did well with the lower amount of sugar. I was disappointed that the vender was not at the farmers' market this morning, as he said they would be. I had planned to buy more of the apples and freeze some as pie filling and some as applesauce.

There was another vender selling Gala apples, but why bother? I need to find a "You-Pick" orchard that has good pie apples.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt. Reason: corrected sugar amount

[BakerAunt]

It was probably in the late 1990s that I bought a bread board from King Arthur. I was new to their catalog and they were advertising a bread board--a large board with an Italian name that meant "little table." (According to the catalog, a man would give it as a wedding gift to his wife.) I used it for a long time. It has a lip on the bottom so that the board won't move away from you as you are kneading, and it has a raised area on the back to keep flour from spilling off. I still made a bit of a mess, but it cut down on it. To clean, I had to scrape the dried dough with a bench knife. I also wiped it lightly with a damp cloth.

I still have it, but I have not used it for a long time. I started using the Silpat mat (ok, also bought from KAF), and it made kneading so much easier--no sticking!--no need for extra flour, and clean-up was a breeze. I did use the board under the silpat mat when I was kneading on a kitchen table that was rather low. Then I got my stand mixer, and I don't knead by hand much anymore. I shape my breads on the mat. Still, I keep it, and perhaps will use it again some time.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I bought a bag of organic apples (Redfree) at the Farmer's Market on Tuesday. The seller told me that they would be good for pie and would not need as much sugar as most pies. Friday evening, I baked the "Classic Apple Pie" recipe from Baking Illustrated: The Practical Kitchen Companion for the Home Baker (2004), by the editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine (pp. 184-185. I used my buttermilk pie crust recipe, but I used pastry flour rather than AP flour. I followed the BI recipe, except that it specifies a combination of Granny Smith and McIntosh apples. I also reduced the sugar from 3/4 cup to 1/2 cup. I increased the cinnamon from 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. I had no lemon zest and had to use bottled lemon juice. Instead of an egg glaze, I brushed the crust with milk.
I'll report tomorrow on how the pie tastes. It is still in the oven.

[BakerAunt]

Since Wednesday, we have been down to one refrigerator. The energy inefficient one in the garage was picked up by the power company (which gave us a $50 credit). Today, we are supposed to get some help to move the energy efficient one we brought here. It will go into the apartment, and we will then have two until around March--which is the earliest our contractor is going to be able to start the house remodeling and complete re-do of the kitchen. We will go down to one refrigerator at that point, as the almond side-by-side will also become part of the power company's rebate program. (There is a limit of two, and they must be plugged in, running, and used to store food.) When the kitchen is finished, I'll put a new refrigerator in there, and we will be a happy two-refrigerator family again.

The upshot is that I have to be careful how much I freeze for now. I've thought of canning apple pie filling. The problem is that my husband blithely moved the canning stuff to the back of the room where we have most of our boxes piled. I hope the apple pie inspires him to help me move some things.

[BakerAunt]

Hmm. Peeling them seems to be the way to go. I do have my KAF recipe for The Best Apple Pie. I also did copy the French Apple Pie recipe from Bernard Clayton's book into my frequently used recipes, although it uses Granny Smith's. I'll let my husband decide which recipe he would prefer.

[BakerAunt]

A friend and her family (she's one of my former students) live in Houston, as do her parents. I know that in the past, they have not worried about flooding, but this is different from what anyone has experienced there. I had emailed her before the hurricane hit, but I've not heard back.

I have never liked the term "100 year" flood, or drought, or whatever. I can recall in Los Angeles in the 1980s there was the "100-year drought." Then came an even worse one that only began to break last year.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday, I made a chicken-vegetable soup, using turkey broth from the freezer and carrots, celery, yellow zucchini, canned tomatoes, green beans, red bell pepper, onion, a bit of garlic, baby Bella mushrooms, and whole grain elbow macaroni. We added some chopped chicken to each bowl of soup. I followed my minestrone recipe, but my husband draws the line at basil.

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