chocomouse
Wed. Feb 18th, 2026
Kimbob, great shaping on your bread! Magnificent!
Thanks, Mike, I'm pretty sure they do. I have the 15" Lodge, and love how the crust comes out.
chocomouse.
Tonight we had pizza, the first time I cooked pizza in the Breville. It came out good - crispy and browned on the bottom with melted lightly browned cheese (but not burned) on top. I cut my recipe from 3 to 2 cups of flour, and next time will try only 1 3/4 cups. The pan that came with it is not nearly as nice as the cast iron pan I've been using, and a lot smaller - but it fits into the oven.
It is an awesome, sweet rig! I have no idea how to run it. I loved the old-fashioned set up we had for 37 years (and my husband's father and grandfather used for I would guess, 50 years). That was when I hauled in armloads of logs and shoved them a couple at a time into the arch to keep the syrup boiling. And stuck a thermometer down into the boiling mass of sticky stuff to see if it was getting close to 219* yet. That's all done electronically now. We just need to monitor, in case something goes wrong. And it does -- every week it's something else! My husband and son have all the tubing hooked up to the trees now, and will start tapping tomorrow.
Kimbob, my husband doesn't like chicken either! And I love it - could eat it 3-4 times a week. I think what he actually doesn't like is "picking" at his food, eating it off the bone; he doesn't like fish, like trout or salmon steaks for that reason also. I think boneless chicken is fine, but also feel the bone-in gives it added flavor. He eats the chicken without complaint, but I'm careful to not serve it too often.
And your dinner is going to taste great, too!
Since the temp was in the 40s, we grilled steak tips, and had roasted brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy.
Looks like that photo did not attach. Trying again.
Edit: And now we have two of the same!! Sorry about that.
chocomouse.
chocomouse.
Yes, BakerAunt, that's the dispenser I bought.
Here's a photo of our sugaring operation last year.
I did make that recipe about 2 years ago. I'm planning to make it in a week or two and send it up to the sugar house in a cookie (squirrel and mouse proof!) for my husband and son to snack on. I'll probably use raspberry jam since Rhett doesn't care for marmalade.
Does your pour spot drip? The syrup dispenser bottle I recently bought from KABC does not drip, and pours out a thick drizzle of syrup. We like it.
I'm glad you like the syrup and got it repackaged OK. I think that granola recipe you make is loose granola, not a sold bar, right? I've tried for many years to make a good solid cookie-like granola bar. I've used maple syrup, nuts, choc chips, oatmeal, coconut, sunflower seeds, etc, but never been happy with the outcome because they are either hard as a rock or crumbly. Any suggestions for me? Thanks.
I baked the Tuxedo Cupcakes from the Iambaker site; I do not recall ever making cupcakes before in my whole life! They are good. The cream cheese chocolate chip filling stayed nice and gooey, a special treat inside the cake. This filling is simply dolloped on top of the cake dough before baking, and most of it sinks in to the center. They are a touch dry, so next time I'll try baking them for only 23 minutes at 340*.
I baked cinnamon chip scones in my countertop oven - still experimenting and learning how to use it. I set it for 375 instead of my usual 400 because it is convection, and I never used the convection in my regular oven. I used the same timing, 24 minutes. I felt the top was too browned; it looked ready/done in about 15 minutes. However, my husband said it was fine that dark, and it was not at all dry. I think next time I make scones I'll try 350.
For dinner tonight, I cooked a small pork loin roast, and made a fresh mushroom-onion gravy on mashed potatoes. With it we had a Greek salad with mozzarella instead of the usual feta.
I had a problem with my bread today, too, Mike. The first rise was fine, but I didn't get hardly any oven spring, which is very unusual. I baked it in my new Breville Smart Oven, first time using that for bread. I used my usual Lodge cast iron bread pans, with the oven set at 325 for 40 minutes. After 20 minutes, the top crust looked done, very brown, but it didn't seem to get much darker during the next 20 minutes. When I took it out, it was very very crusty, hard, very unusual. We'll see what it's like when cut.
