[Mike Nolan]

I haven't tried the parchment sling idea yet, it probably works better if you have full sheet pan sized parchment sheets (26 inches long, probably cut in half lengthwise.) I generally use my cookie spatula, which has a long enough handle I've never come close to burning myself as I lower the bread into the Dutch Oven. While moving the pan or lid around is a different story, though.

[Mike Nolan]

Jimmy recently started numbering his lessons, his latest is #60, on using a lame for scoring bread. Some of his scoring designs at the end are interesting and even amusing.

[Mike Nolan]

I baked some more of the cinnamon/maple fan tan rolls today, this time in individual silicone muffin cups. That worked pretty good. I think the butter paste ones were better today, maybe those were just ones that got more filling.

[Mike Nolan]

I read an interesting article recently on the guy who was involved with several pizzerias and restaurants in the north Chicago suburbs, including the Inferno in Evanston, Gulliver's in Rogers Park, the original Pequod's in Morton Grove and more recently Burt's Place in Morton Grove.

Burt Katz died in 2016.

BTW, Gullivers's is apparently for sale again, and there was an article in the Trib that the Malnati family is considering selling Lou Malnati's for somewhere around $ 700 million. (It has around 68 locations in several states.) I've been told by more recent Northwestern grads that Gullivers went downhill after it was sold (the second time, I think) in the late 70's, the new owner tried to use cheaper ingredients, it seems. Their pizza bread was so popular you'd order it as you were waiting in line for a table, just so it was ready when you were seated.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any information on when The Pizza Oven on Main Street in Evanston closed (I think it morphed into a Giordano's takeout location), I wish I could find someone who was involved with it to see if their recipes are available.

[Mike Nolan]

Ask three Italians about the right way to make pizza dough and you'll probably get 5 recipes, using everything from a soft pastry flour to a high-gluten flour. My former neighbor sold tons of high-gluten flour (15%) to local pizza chains.

Although we like the pizza crust I've been making lately, I think I'm going to do some experimenting with pizza dough crusts again, I'm still trying to come up with something close to the thin crust pizza we got in Evanston 45 years ago. :sigh:

[Mike Nolan]

We had Reubens, some of which used the new batch of sauerkraut, which is at the 'sampling' stage but not fully fermented yet, it has just a hint of a sour tang to it.

[Mike Nolan]

We tried some of the rolls this morning. Both of us had a slight preference for the ones that were made by spreading butter on the dough then brushing it with maple syrup and sprinkling on cinnamon sugar, so that's probably how I'll do this in the future.

The recipe I'm using is this one from the Food Network:
Fan Tan Rolls, substituting cinnamon sugar and maple syrup for the herbs. This is a pretty good basic dinner roll recipe, I may make it as plain dinner rolls some time, too.

I also took a 13x17 pan and turned it on its side then used it to stage the dough, so that the dough was sitting on the 2" side wall. That way it had a back to rest against and didn't slide around. Made things much easier.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

Well, freezing the butter/sugar/cinnamon paste works, but I think it is probably easier and faster to lay out a strip of dough, spread some soft butter on it, brush the surface with maple syrup and then sprinkle on cinnamon sugar. Whether that gets as much sugar on each layer is probably something we'll have to determine by taste.

I made a tray of each and am freezing them overnight, since they seem to bake just fine straight from the freezer.

We'll see if I can tell much difference in them after baking.

[Mike Nolan]

Large holes are usually a shaping issue.

It sounds like the lock wasn't fully engaged. See if you can lock it in place without the bowl there.

I'm glad I'm not in the market for a new stand mixer right now, figuring out which KA models are the good ones is challenging, and the non-KA market is not much better, the commercial ones are usually the better ones, but are not cheap.

[Mike Nolan]

I've been tinkering around with spreading out butter/sugar/cinnamon paste on waxed paper and freezing it. It looks like it has to be about 1/8" thick in order to be easy to handle while frozen.

I'm going to be testing making a small batch of fan tan rolls using some of the frozen paste in between layers, also brushing the dough with maple syrup.

Whether it's worth the extra effort remains to be seen. Chilling the dough after cutting it into strips might accomplish pretty much the same thing, I may try that with half the dough.

[Mike Nolan]

Fuji and Gala are good apples, but Honecrisp is a better apple, and so is Cosmic Crisp. Gala has a thicker skin than Honeycrisp (so much so that I almost always peel it) and Fuji is a bit sourer, though if you like a tart apple it is great. SweeTango is similar to Honeycrisp but has more sweetness up front and more of a tart aftertaste, which can be surprising.

But $3.99 a pound for apples is pretty steep, and I'll often go with Fuji or Braeburn instead. I strongly recommend peeling Braeburn.

(Almost ANYTHING would be better than Red Delicious, and even Granny Smith has gotten mediocre lately.)

[Mike Nolan]

I baked the last of the frozen maple/cinnamon fan tan rolls today, it doesn't seem to make much difference whether I thaw them overnight or just take them out of the freezer before turning the oven on and letting them sit during the oven's pre-heat cycle.

Now I need to play around with finding easier ways to make them.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

We had tacos.

[Mike Nolan]

Cold and rainy here today, as expected. I made chicken stroganoff.

[Mike Nolan]

Sunday and Monday it was just plain hot, temperatures got into the mid to upper 80's. Today it was back down into the 70's with a morning thunderstorm. Supposed to drop down into the 50's and 60's for the rest of the week and into next week.

I did bake bread yesterday and today, but had the windows open yesterday evening and all afternoon today to cool things down.

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