Forum Replies Created
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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.
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.
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.
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.
On Thursday, I again baked a variation on Antilope's Vienna Bread and made a 12-inch long loaf in the Kaiser loaf pan. I got distracted and added 1/4 cup too much buttermilk, so I had to compensate with additional flour. The loaf looks fine. I'll know for certain when we slice it tomorrow.
Addendum: The bread came out very well. My husband actually prefers it to the previous loaf, and he liked that one also.
Italian Cook: Cass wanted me to post this information for you:
"Recently "Italian Lady" mentioned that she was having a problem with rolling out yeasted bread dough. It displayed a heavy resistance to her rolling pin.
That is the time to cover her dough & continue in about 10 / 15 minutes again. The dough must relax from the pounding. The gluten is in the process of developing. Another way to look at it is the "PROOFING" mode is doing it's thing.... & will not yield to her rolling pin.
It is ready for rolling out when a poke of her index finger into the dough about 1.5 deep begins to fill-in very slowly. It's time.
If it shows resistance to her poke then more time is required. Repeat every 10, minutes. If it doesn't fill-in then it is considered "OVER~PROOFED.
Anyway I hope all information will help her."
Mike--I was wondering if cooking the frozen fruit first would make a better pie. Thanks for the insight.
Rascals--What recipe did you end up using for your sweet potato pies?
On Tuesday, I tried a new recipe, "Old-Fashioned Peanut Butter Cookies," that appeared in the R.S.V.P. column of Bon Appetit (January 1998), pages 28 and 30. The recipe was requested from Provisions, a sandwich shop on Nantucket. According to the requester, this cookie ended her husband's "lifelong search for the perfect peanut butter cookie." I baked a half recipe, and used my trusty #40 Zeroll scoop, instead of rolling them into balls by hand. (I got 27 cookies.) The only change I made was to substitute white whole wheat flour for 1/3 of the regular flour. It had an unusual mixing technique, in that the eggs are added, one at a time, AFTER adding half the flour mixture. The other half is added once they are incorporated.
I checked it against the recipe in my old Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book (1976) which is the one I remember baking the most years ago. They are close, but this one has twice as much vanilla, a quarter cup more flour, and uses baking powder rather than baking soda, and thus uses twice as much salt. The BH&G book also makes the cookies smaller, as it claims a yield of 4 dozen. I do not bake Peanut Butter Cookies too often, given that the regular peanut butter (in this case, Jiff) is not exactly healthful.
The cookies are very good, with a kind of "sandy" consistency. The peanut butter taste is not as strong as in some cookies I've had, but that is fine. I think the vanilla mellows it, and perhaps the kind of peanut butter used also affects taste.
