[BakerAunt]

I was able to unearth my food processor, and the new blade appears to fit. I hope to be able to try it out when sugar pumpkins become available.

[BakerAunt]

For anyone needing inspiration on food for the eclipse:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/08/19/544446630/total-eclipse-of-the-stomach-a-stellar-menu-of-gastronomic-delights?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20170820&utm_campaign=thesalt&utm_term=nprnews

[BakerAunt]

Hmm--I just compared the ingredient list of the KAF and the nuts.com cheeses. KAF comes out ahead. I think that the KAF Vermont Cheese powder is the same as the Cabot Cheddar Shake.

I found it here:
http://www.dakinfarm.com/Cabot-Cheddar-Powder-8-Oz,3229.html#

The shipping charge for this site is horrendous, but if I were to buy it in bulk, I'd still come in under the KAF price.

However, I have belonged to the Bakers' Rewards with KAF, so with a $25 order, I get free shipping, and I usually have a rewards coupon if I've previously done a large order. My Bakers' Rewards membership expires in a month or two, and I need to decide, by working out the math, if it is worth it for me to pay for another year of it.

[BakerAunt]

I saw a segment on the News Hour last night with this mathematician. She suggested getting kids interested in math means telling them not that it's "useful," but that it is "exciting." She also pointed out that theoretical mathematical discoveries that had no obvious practical application at the time when they were discovered have turned out to have significant applications in our time.

[BakerAunt]

Here's the Rye Crisps recipe:

Rye Crisps

I'll get the sourdough one posted this weekend.

[BakerAunt]

For Friday dinner, I made salmon patties, a recipe based on one I saw in an internet health story a few years back. They went perfectly with the Clonmel Kitchen Double Crusty Bread.

[BakerAunt]

I will post my variation on the KAF recipe Sourdough Cracker recipe. I don't recall if I posted my variation on the rye crackers in the KAF 200th Anniversary Baking Book. I'll have to look.

I find that some of the KAF cracker recipes are over complicated. Instead of rolling all the dough out, as some of the recipes state, I've found that dividing it and working with a smaller amount at a time is easier. As for moving the crackers individually to a cookie sheet--it's not going to happen. I cut them on the parchment, slide the whole sheet onto the cookie sheet and bake.

Mrs. Cindy advocated using a pasta machine to get nicely thin crackers, but I don't have one, so I've not tried it.

If you think that the ingredients in store-bought bread are scary, try reading the ingredients in store-bought crackers!

[BakerAunt]

I've also made the Austrian Malt bread, and I agree that the malt is not in the forefront of flavors. When I want a malty bread, I make my version of the Grape Nuts bread.

[BakerAunt]

Friday morning I tried a new recipe, "Peach Oatmeal Bread," from KAF's Whole Grain Baking, p. 57, since I had the rest of the peaches to use up, and I feel that I have not used this baking book enough, although I've probably baked more of its recipes than from my other KAF baking books. I followed the recipe except that I substituted in buttermilk and adjusted the baking powder and baking soda accordingly. I also reduced the salt from 1/2 to 1/4 tsp., since I had increased the baking soda by 1/4 tsp. Instead of using a 9x5-inch loaf pan, I used two 7 1/4 x3 1/2 loaf pans. (I found them years ago and bought them for an apple-cheese bread recipe I have.) The breads are now cooling on a rack. One I will freeze, and the other will be for desserts and tea/coffee time the rest of the week.

[BakerAunt]

Rascals--I put the whole recipe into that pan. It baked a humungous loaf that was a little more dense than usual. I tried the recipe again the next week, and I made two loaves in my French bread pan. Those loaves are lighter in texture.

[BakerAunt]

Tonight I made a double batch of dough for my Sourdough Cheese Crackers. (There is no such thing as "discard" sourdough in my kitchen.) I'll let it refrigerate for a few days, then bake it.

[BakerAunt]

Our first phase of remodeling on the house took longer than expected, so I'm anticipating this one will as well, especially since we also plan to have the front bedroom extended over the front of the house, and will be taking part of the downstairs bedroom closet for the kitchen. The front part of the house is original, built in 1907, but it had some not great 1960s remodeling decisions (in one case a major structural one, and there were also electrical issues). We did a first phase of remodeling almost four years ago. The back part of the house was added on in the 1960s at the same time as the remodeling, and it had more issues than the 1907 part.

I may start a thread on kitchen remodeling thoughts. I do not have it pinned down yet.

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

[BakerAunt]

Thanks for the recipe recommendations, Mike. I will try puff pastry--but not until the kitchen has been remodeled. Right now, it is challenging, because we have not organized from our move, since we know that everything is going to be moved out. We do not have a start date yet, since our contractor is tied up right now on another project.

I have a beautiful maple rolling pin with handles that I bought years ago from Williams-Sonoma. However, I only use it for rolling out sweet roll dough. I stopped using it for bread because I think it was contributing to the blow-outs in the loaves. I now pat the bread out with my hands and shape it. I have a Joseph Joseph rolling pin where rings are screwed in on either end for the width. It's a Canadian company, so the rings are in metric with approximate English measurements. There is no 1/8th, I seem to recall. It works well for rolling out cookie dough. Otherwise I use the long straight rolling pin without handles or any tapering that came with my dobard (sp?) that I bought from KAF years ago. I use the pin all the time, but I find adjusting the board for different heights is not worth the effort, as it is too small for most of the doughs I want to roll out. I use that straight pin with a set of pastry wands that I bought from an independent place after it was mentioned on RLB's blog. I love them for rolling out crackers and pie crust.

[BakerAunt]

For breakfast on Thursday, I baked the Basic Muffin recipe from the KAF website. I had done a search for berry muffins in their recipes, and this one came up. I used the variation that is 1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour and 1 cup oats. I reduced the sugar from 1/2 to 1/3 cup. (One-third cup for me is a muffin; 1/2 cup or more verges toward cupcake.) I used buttermilk instead of regular milk, so I reduced the baking powder to 2 tsp. and added 1/4 tsp. baking soda. I used the scant 1/4 cup of blackberries from the bushes on our terrace (we got here too late for the major crop) and diced three leftover strawberries. I made the recipe as six large muffins, so I baked them for 18 minutes. They are very good, and the berries did not sink (mixed them in with the dry ingredients), so I will use this recipe for non-blueberry muffins.

[BakerAunt]

Dinner on Wednesday evening was what my mother and her mother called turkey hash, because it was a way to use up leftover turkey. I used the drippings from the chicken my husband roasted earlier this week, skimmed off the fat, then cooked some cut up small red potatoes and small carrots in it until tender. I added the rest of the cut up chicken, then steamed broccoli in the microwave to go with it. It was a good quick meal that I could fit in while watching dough rise for bread, and it used up leftovers.

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