[BakerAunt]

Late Monday afternoon, I cut my Cinderella pumpkin in half--vertically--removed the seeds, and it is now roasting. The interior was more dense than most of my pie pumpkins and drier, although perhaps that is because it has been sitting for about a month. Once it is roasted, I'll scoop out the pulp and run it in the food processor. Most of it will be frozen for later baking.

[BakerAunt]

Rascals--try using a soft sponge to get into the nooks and crannies. That is what I do with the nooks and crannies on my Bundt pans. KAF now sells a special brush, from Nordic Ware, that is designed to clean out Bundt pans. I wonder if it would work well on the USA seams.

I note that my hearth pans (not made by USA)do not have side seams.

[BakerAunt]

For lunch today, I'm using the basic recipe from Kid Pizza's Mother's Lentil and Spinach Soup:

Kid Pizza's Mother's Lentil and Spinach Soup

I'll start with the onions and garlic sautéed on the stove, then put the Staub pot on the wood stove to cook there. It should be excellent with a slice of the bread I baked late last week.

Oops. Instead of frozen spinach, I have frozen broccoli. I may go ahead and use it.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I don't bake directly on foil because in my experience it sticks, even if it is the supposedly non-stick foil that Reynolds makes. I use parchment for baking and also for roasting butternut squash or chicken.

When I use foil to cover something that is baking, like the fish that I did last night, I have noted that the foil is discolored afterwards. It seems to be more of the problem with the Walmart foil that my husband likes to buy.

[BakerAunt]

On Saturday, I made chicken broth on the wood stove, using bones frozen from two chickens we roasted a while back.

For dinner, I'll be making the Dilled Salmon with Couscous. We will steam the last of the green beans from the garden to go with it. There will likely be a freeze tonight.

[BakerAunt]

It's good to see you posting again, Riverside Len.

The spider Bundt cakes certainly look a lot easier than the mummy hand pies! It would also be neat to make smaller ones using Bundtlette pans.

I plan to bake sugar cookies and use some of the Halloween cookie cutters from my vast collection, not to mention some of the rather large store of colored sugar I've accumulated.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

OK, I have put it into the recipe section. I've done that with a few others that were in threads as well. It is unfortunate that King Arthur did not give us even a month's warning that the Baking Circle would be shut down.

[BakerAunt]

I've done a lot of playing around with this basic recipe, always substituting in some buttermilk and whole wheat flour, flax meal and sometimes rye as well. I usually use honey rather than sugar. It can be baked as a boule or in a 10x5 inch loaf pan or in a "hearth bread" pan. I've also baked it in a 12x4 inch loaf pan. I have an electric oven, so I do not follow the directions for turning on the oven during the second rise but let the bread rise, then put it in a preheated oven. When baking a larger loaf, I preheat the oven to 400F, but I immediately turn it down to 375F right after I put the pan into the oven. I usually bake it to 205F, which gets it a bit dark but delicious.

[BakerAunt]

Yes, that is the basic recipe that I'm following. Is it on this site? If not, I can post the original as he gave it.

This time I experimented with honey rather than sugar, some whole wheat flour, some rye flour, some flax meal, some bread flour, and some AP. I used butter rather than oil. I used buttermilk and water, both of which I increased. It filled the hearth pan nicely. I'll report on taste after we cut into it at lunch,

[BakerAunt]

Note: pastry flour can be used instead of the AP flour.

For a sweeter crust, add 1 Tbs. of sugar for a single crust pie, and 1 1/2 Tbs. for a double-crust pie.

[BakerAunt]

Thursday afternoon, I again baked Bernard Clayton's recipe for French Apple Pie. I used 2 Tbs. less sugar this time, as the tart Beauty apples I was using were mostly small, and the two, sweeter Cortland apples were rather large. I made my buttermilk pie crust, with a tablespoon of sugar added. I used pastry flour and whole wheat pastry flour, and the crust was nicely flakey.

I also baked a variation on Antilope's Vienna Bread. I like experimenting with that basic recipe. I was able to bake it in one of my hearth pans, which I found today, after weeks of trying to recall where they had been packed. The loaf filled the pan nicely.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

For dinner tonight, I'm making the KAF Ultra-Thin Crust Pizza. We will use cooked ground turkey as one of the toppings this time, and I'll add some dried fennel to mine to invoke a sausage flavor.

[BakerAunt]

Today for lunch I made curried butternut squash soup, using only the puree, some chicken/turkey broth, Penzey's Now Curry, and Stonyfield full fat yogurt. I like the flavor balance I achieved this time, so I now have a set recipe.

[BakerAunt]

Hi, Italian Cook. I actually do not buy vanilla from Penzey's, although I have received it as a gift on occasion. I do buy other spices from them, so I signed up for their emails, which sometimes have special offers (and occasionally, free shipping for $20 worth). That is how I found out about the vanilla crisis in the spring.

I used to buy a quart of vanilla from KAF, then fill my smaller 16 oz. jars. I won't be doing that again for a VERY long time, but I did have a half bottle or so. I like the Nieman-Massey (spelling?) which is what KAF carries, but for a while I was able to find it at T.J. Maxx in small bottles. I did stock up on another brand at T.J. Maxx as well.

On the KAF site, a member named Livingwell (Cass called her Penelope) did use the double strength, but I seem to recall that she used half in recipes. I'm not sure why they make the double strength.

As I recall from our discussions, we decided that real vanilla--no matter the brand--was about the same.

[BakerAunt]

Today I roasted three butternut squashes. I cut them in half and baked them at 375F for an hour and 20 minutes on a half-sheet pan lined with parchment. After they cooled a bit, I scooped the squash out of the skin and used my food processor to get a smooth puree. I got 7 cups. I froze one 3-cup container to use for soup, and kept one out to make soup this week. I froze a 1-cup container to use for a butternut squash Bundt cake recipe I want to try.

For dinner, I split a boneless chicken breast lengthwise, rubbed it with mayonnaise, then dipped it in Panko mixed with some garlic powder, onion powder, and chives. I would have mixed in grated parmesan, but I found that it has molded, so I had to throw it away.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by BakerAunt.

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