[Mike Nolan]

I'm currently making croutons from some of the Challah I made on Sunday, and the plan is to make potato-leek soup for supper. (I still need to go buy potatoes and leeks, though.)

[Mike Nolan]

I've got a lovely tray of tomato seedlings starting to put out their first true leaves. All but one of the 35 pots sprouted and that one might yet do something.

[Mike Nolan]

Macaroni and cheese here, something simple and fairly mild.

[Mike Nolan]

Brown butter cream cheese frosting is something I would like to try. What's the ratio of cream cheese to brown butter?

The usual ratio for cream cheese frosting is 2 parts cream cheese and 1 part butter, but the last time I made it (for my Hot Cross Buns) I used 2 ounces of butter to 8 ounces of cream cheese, and we liked that very much

Update: Based on the copy of her recipe on the WaPo site, it looks like she's starting with a standard 2-1 ratio.

[Mike Nolan]

I don't think I've made carrot cake with pineapple in it, but it sounds better (at least to my wife) than one with coconut in it. (She really doesn't like coconut.)

[Mike Nolan]

We had pizza bread on Challah, with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, ham and cheese.

[Mike Nolan]

One advantage the oven under the stovetop has is you've got the stove top as a staging area, assuming it isn't all in use. With my 48" dual fuel range, unless we're using the grill or griddle, we've got that space available. With a wall oven, you've got to have some space nearby for staging.

The ergonomics of oven loading and unloading is something that comes up on the BBGA forum frequently, many commercial ovens are at wall-oven height.

[Mike Nolan]

I think wall ovens, which are higher up, might make handling easier, but I've only worked with them a few times at my son's house. (My mother-in-law's house had a wall oven that she never used, she preferred the one in the stove, when someone did try to use the wall oven it turned out it had never been wired up!)

[Mike Nolan]

As I understand it, Baker's Special Dry Milk is made from whole milk that is heated to at least 180 degrees before the evaporation process, which disables the protease enzymes. Somehow, that also makes it something that cannot be reconstituted.

[Mike Nolan]

We're having French Toast with some of yesterday's Challah.

[Mike Nolan]

I've baked loaves up to about 18 ounces of dough in my Dutch Oven, it usually takes around 30-35 minutes at 400 degrees, depending on how brown you like them. Interestingly enough, according to several BBGA bakers, loaves that are a light to golden brown outsell the darker ones.

I've burned myself on the oven racks more than on any pots and pans.

[Mike Nolan]

That's a lot of trees, but you've got a pretty good sized piece of land as I recall.

[Mike Nolan]

The 8 strand one seemed easier for me to do than the 5 strand one, which sounds strange.

After he gets set up in Israel, I think he's planning on doing a class with a 10 strand braid. Of the ones we made yesterday, I am probably most likely to make the 8 strand, though I do want to practice the rose one again. (I think I left out a step on the batch that I made later in the day, I need to watch the video of the class again.)

The 11 strand braid was huge, 1100 grams of dough. It'd be good for a large gathering, though.

His Challah recipe is one that doesn't have egg in the dough, though it does have sugar. He says doughs without egg keep the bread softer longer. We'll see.

[Mike Nolan]

Here's the 11 strand braid. All of these came out a bit dark, because it used an egg yolk wash, this one might be overbaked by a minute or two

Here's the 8 strand braid. I gave this one to our neighbor, as I don't have space in the freezer for all of them.

Here's the 5 strand braid, which came out a bit wobbly. You turn it on its side after the braiding, and are supposed to pull it open, but I couldn't figure out where.

Here's the rose, this is made with a 3 strand braid that is rolled up and cut in half to make two rolls.

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[Mike Nolan]

The braiding class went well, though I'm exhausted after spending a good 3 hours prepping for the class, over 2 hours on Zoom and then another hour and a half baking the things we made in class.

I'll get some pictures posted later, I thought the 11 strand and 8 strand braids came out well, the 5 strand one needs work.

We also made some Challah roses using a simple 3 strand braid, I think one came out good enough to post a picture of, I'll have to practice that one some more, too. But it looks like a good thing to do with any left over dough and if I can master them they'd make good rolls to set out at everyone's place at a dinner party or to help decorate a table.

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