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I realize I'm several weeks late reporting this, but I've been in the throes of packing china for a niece . . . and recovering from it. I had said I'd experiment with baked chocolate chip pancakes. I did that this morning.
I doubled my regular pancake recipe & cooked in a half-sheet pan. I didn't bake them at 425* for 20 minutes as I've done in the past. I baked at 375* for 24 minutes. I think 24 minutes is too long, because the pancakes had cracks at 20 minutes. But they weren't brown on top. I checked them again at 22 minutes & there was some browning at the thinner end. I didn't want them as brown as at 425*, but I wanted some browning. I had that at 24 minutes. Next time I'll use 375* for 23 minutes. I think that'll be perfect.
I also think that 375* is the perfect temp for my recipe. I am pleased with the way today's pancakes interacted with the syrup. I think that's because they weren't solid brown on top. In addition, I baked them on parchment for the first time. I'm probably all washed-up on this, but I think that the parchment played a part in these pancakes being better. I think the parchment served as a buffer from the heat of the metal pan.
My recipe is for a dense pancake, not fluffy. I prefer dense pancakes. I switched to KAF for it today and am pleased with the thickness of the thinner end. Other flours have left the thinner end too thin for pleasurable eating. What I really need to do is try tripling the recipe to completely fill the half-sheet pan.
Len, thanks for the information on your pizza cheese. I don't like asiago, but my husband loves unsmoked provolone. I'll try that in the near future.
Joan, your banana cake looks dive-in great! I never thought of using a cream cheese frosting, but I can see how that'd be delicious. When I make banana cake, I always use my grandmother's frosting. She'd make confectioner's sugar icing with a big dollop of peanut butter mixed in. No one has ever recognized it as peanut butter, although most people comment the icing has something special.
I'm behind in my photo comments, so I'll catch-up here.
Mike, your keto ingredients' breads look good. I admire the way you do experiments. I never do experiments to avoid wasting any ingredients. I think that's my dad talking.
Joan, I don't play poker. When I was a young child, my dad tried to teach me. He supplied our pennies. The first time he had to take one of my pennies was the last time I played poker. Having said that, IF I played poker, I'd want someone to bring the delicious pumpkin pie you baked. Congratulations on mastering the placement of photos on this site!
Joan, I've never made a carrot cake but would love to enjoy some of yours. Beautiful photo!
If I've forgotten anyone's photo, sorry.
Your pizza looks scrumptious, Len! What cheeses did you use on it?
Skeptic, I'm glad you brought this us. I've been baking my normal pancake recipe for quite some time. Over the weekend, I analyzed them. Not only are they too fine, compared to stand-at-the-stovetop pancakes, the syrup doesn't penetrate them as well as stand-at-the-stovetop pancakes. I found them wanting for a good syrupy taste. As you pointed out, the airy holes are missing.
I bake mine at 425 degrees, because that's the temp recommended by Pioneer Woman recipe on Food Network. She recommends baking for 20 minutes, but in my oven, they turn out too brown to suit me. My stand-at-the-stovetop pancakes aren't solid brown or even a medium brown -- they're lightly browned & not on every spot.
I have chocolate chip pancakes on my baking agenda. I'm going to try these at 400 degrees for 18 minutes. But I'm also going to increase my pancake recipe by 1/4. The normal recipe doesn't completely fill a quarter sheet pan. I'll let you know how the lower temp and time work . . . probably not until the weekend.
Initially, I was so thrilled to not be standing "forever" to make pancakes, I was thrilled with baking pancakes. Now, I still want to bake; I just want a better product for syrup.
Food Network has a 4-quadrant baked pancake recipe. It starts the oven at 500 degrees and turns it down to 400 when pancakes put in oven. I think, and may be wrong, that'd mean the pancake batter would first be exposed to 500 then around 450 degrees, which seems too high to me.
Skeptic, if you do any experimenting, please share your results.
For dinner guests with children, I once served homemade Chocolate Pasta with the chocolate sauce that came with the recipe from my second best Italian cookbook. None of us could eat it. The taste was dreadful. We all agreed that if that Italian recipe was our first introduction to chocolate, we'd never want chocolate again. So I think I'll pass on a chocolate omelet.
Thanks, Mike, for your detailed explanation. I learned from it. Next time I make these I'll go to 8 tablespoons butter and leave the recipe at that.
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/chewy-chocolate-chip-cookie-bars-recipe
Calling you expert bakers: Last afternoon, I baked King Arthur's Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, link above. Recipe calls for 11 tablespoons butter. Without thinking, I used only 7 tablespoons unsalted butter. I used a glass Pyrex 9x13" dish, so I heavily greased it with 1 tablespoon butter.
The recipe recommends letting bars sit overnight, so I cooled for 3 hours then covered with foil.
In the middle of the night I realized my butter error. I expected the bars to be too hard to cut. First thing this morning, I portioned them for the freezer. It was easy to cut them.
I had made these once before using the 11 tablespoons butter. Both times, I used 1 cup Ghirardelli bittersweet chips, 1 cup Nestle caramel chips & 1 cup finely chopped walnuts. It was a couple of years ago, but the goofed bars seem as moist as the ones with the 11 tablespoons butter. So I don't understand what the 4 tablespoons butter I didn't use would have done for the cookie bars. I guess I don't understand the purpose of butter in batters. I always thought butter was for moisture & taste. What am I missing? Thanks! And in case butter helps the rise, I think my goofed bars rose as much as the ones with the recipe amount of butter.
BakerAunt, your post reminded me of a Giada DeLaurentis recipe we like. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to copy and paste. It's at foodnetwork.com if you want to search for it:
Nonna's Lemon Ricotta Biscuits.
It calls for butter, and I have baked them that way. I've also used oil and been pleased. Either way, they are more like a biscuit than a muffin even thought baked in muffin liners.I also want to let you know . . . belatedly, you were correct. The packing box for my Emile Henry ciabatta baker was larger than the product box. Especially in height. Once unpacked, the box would have been manageable if I truly had room for it. I will when a niece takes a set of china. In the meantime, it's resting on top of a tall bedroom dresser. Resting is the key word. I haven't opened it yet. I'm blaming that on my small kitchen. I can't visualize what I'm going to do with it after I wash it unless I make bread and wash it in the same day. That hasn't happened yet, because it still comes down to having no where to store it once it's out of the box. Niece is making plans to pick up the china, so homemade ciabatta is in my future eventually.
RiversideLen, I also remove the skin, but I don't remove the bones. I crush the bones with my fingers. I do this because that's what my mom did when she made salmon patties. I just Googled to find out if there's any nutritional value to crushing the bones. Apparently they're a good source of calcium.
I checked my recipe for salmon loaf. I thought of it as salmon loaf, because I bake it in a loaf pan. Recipe calls it salmon casserole and calls for a 1-quart dish.
In addition to the 1-lb. can of salmon, it calls for celery leaves, parsley, onion, dry mustard and Tabasco, bread (I think it's soaked in milk, but don't recall for certain), and 3/4 cup milk. If I had a red pepper (or any color pepper), I'd add that this week. Sounds good.
Len, you reminded me that I have a good recipe for salmon loaf. Thanks! I haven't had that since way before the pandemic. I'll make it this week. I don't know why it's been so long since I made it. In fact, it may have been a whole decade since I made it. The last time I had a painter working in the house. I made two salmon loaves while he worked. One for him to take home for he and his wife to bake that night. One for here.
Thanks, Mike, for taking the time to explain this to me.
Mike, I've been reading with interest your journey with the keto diet. I have a question:
Our son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes back in the dark ages before blood glucose testing existed. Automatically, he had daily ketone strip tests. They were on the regular testing strips. Ketones meant dangerously high blood glucose. So if the keto diet requires you to exercise ketone caution, how can it be a safe diet? Seems to me from what you've said here is that the keto diet elevates blood sugars, and that's why you have to be ketone-concerned.
BakerAunt, I have a Cuisinart hand mixer, also. I've also experienced the beaters falling out without "catching." I can't tell you how I learned this -- calling the company or reading the instruction booklet -- but: One of my beaters has wings, protrusions on the sides of the stem. The other beater is just straight.
I learned that I have to put in the winged beater first, using the hole that has openings in the sides for the wings. Then that beater will hold in place.
Lastly, put in the straight beater, and it will catch and stay in place.
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