Mike Nolan

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  • in reply to: What are you Baking the week of March 22, 2020 #22443
    Mike Nolan
    Keymaster

      I find using good pre-shaping techniques on the balls of dough and then letting them rest for several minutes before trying to poke a hole in the middle works very well. My granddaughter learned both of these skills fairly quickly when she was 10 or 11, and it was really hard to tell the bagels she shaped from the ones I did, and I've done it many times.

      Like a lot of baking skills, making bagels isn't hard, but it is a bit precise.

      Of course the best part about making cheese bagels is you get to eat the cheese that falls off the bagels after it has been baked into a chip.

      in reply to: Coming Through the Rye #22437
      Mike Nolan
      Keymaster

        Report on Buttery Crispbread (Ginsberg pps 193-195):

        buttery-crispbread

        These are 100% rye crackers, and fairly easy to make, though the recipe makes a lot of them, so I only did a half-recipe, which was one 12x18 sheet of dough. The coarse rye meal that I have might almost be a little too coarse for these, pieces of the meal get stuck in my teeth, as do some of the sesame seeds and caraway that I used.

        I wound up with 24 crackers about 1/2 inch thick.

        They're pretty good, and versatile. I've had several plain, one with some butter, one with peanut butter and one with pimento cheese on it, and all of the toppings worked well.

        Because the rye meal is so coarse, it's hard to tell how the dough is developing. I was a little worried it was under-developed, it seemed pretty gummy for a while, but after it bulk proofed it rolled out easily, so it must have been sufficiently developed by then. (There's not a lot of gluten in rye flour.)

        I used a carpenter's straightedge to trim the edges straight, you take the excess dough and roll it back in. I also used the straightedge to cut the dough into rectangles before baking them. This is a handy tool that we used a lot in chocolate school, so I picked up a 12" and a 24" one for home. They're reinforced so they're not likely to bend or warp. I've used them to cut anything that needs to have nice clean lines, including cinnamon roll dough. (These days I cut the dough into strips before rolling it up, a trick I learned a few months back.) Next time I make laminated dough, I'll use it to cut them into strips for schnecken and triangles for croissants.

        straightedge

        Next time I make this recipe (or other crackers), I might use a little aluminum foil to tent the edges, they were threatening to get overdone before the center was fully done. After I broke them into squares, I put them back in the cooling oven to dry out a bit more overnight. Today they're pretty dry, and the recipe says they should keep well--if they last that long.

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        in reply to: Chickpea Cracker Recipe #22436
        Mike Nolan
        Keymaster

          We do have a pizzelle oven somewhere, I think my wife used it once. Might be interesting to try doing some flatbreads in it.

          in reply to: What are you Baking the week of March 22, 2020 #22421
          Mike Nolan
          Keymaster

            Your bagels look great, a bit more baking soda in the water might have given them a little shinier surface, the alkali bath changes the surface starches a bit. (I'm almost out of baking soda, if we buy a new large bag of it I plan to bake some of it into sodium carbonate, which gives a much higher pH, though still well below that of lye.)

            I'm making the Buttery Crispbread from the Ginsberg book today, but they're supposed to air dry for 24 hours before you eat them, if I can last that long before sampling them.

            in reply to: What are you Baking the week of March 22, 2020 #22414
            Mike Nolan
            Keymaster

              Maybe we should set up a virtual potluck?

              in reply to: Washington Post on the influx of new bakers #22413
              Mike Nolan
              Keymaster

                I posted a note on the Washington Post story about the right way to measure flour, because bread machines work better if the dough is nice and soft. You can deal with stiffer doughs easier manually. As we all learned the hard way, it is really easy to measure out too much flour.

                Traffic (ie, page views) is up on the site over the last week or so, but not subscribers. We have picked up a few BBGA members as subscribers, though.

                in reply to: Daily Quiz for March 28, 2020 #22412
                Mike Nolan
                Keymaster

                  My mother loved smelt. She's split them open and gut them, because she didn't like the taste of that part, then bread and fry them.

                  I haven't seen them in stores since we moved to Nebraska. The California Grunion run should be occurring in the next few weeks, will people violate the remain-in-place order to harvest them?

                  in reply to: What are you Cooking the week of March 22, 2020 #22403
                  Mike Nolan
                  Keymaster

                    We were going to do a lavash pizza yesterday, but our jar of artichoke hearts had gone bad, too many days since it had been opened, and I haven't been to Sams to get more yet.

                    in reply to: What are you Baking the week of March 22, 2020 #22394
                    Mike Nolan
                    Keymaster

                      I made a batch of bagels today.

                      in reply to: What are you Baking the week of March 22, 2020 #22393
                      Mike Nolan
                      Keymaster

                        Soft bananas are an excuse to make banana nut muffins. It usually takes 4 for a batch, sometimes I'll peel them, put them in a bag and freeze them until I haven enough for a batch of muffins.

                        in reply to: Washington Post on the influx of new bakers #22391
                        Mike Nolan
                        Keymaster

                          There were eggs at the store today, not cheap but plentiful. A little generic brand flour, not much sugar, no TP or Kleenex. There was a line of at least 15 people waiting to get in at Sams, so I went elsewhere, as they were standing too close together, probably in violation of the limits on groups.

                          in reply to: Washington Post on the influx of new bakers #22384
                          Mike Nolan
                          Keymaster

                            Eggs are in short supply in lots of places, and it takes 22 weeks for a chick to grow into a laying hen.

                            Wholesale egg prices are up 180% over the last month.

                            Stores and wholesalers usually start to build up inventory in advance of Easter and the annual egg sales, which usually start around now, but egg demand for Easter may not be as high as usual due to social distancing.

                            in reply to: Covid-19 Discussions and Stories #22382
                            Mike Nolan
                            Keymaster

                              I hear Germany is advising its citizens to start stockpiling sausages and cheeses.

                              It's their Wurst Käse scenario!

                              Thanks, I'll be home all spring, it appears.

                              in reply to: What are you Cooking the week of March 22, 2020 #22373
                              Mike Nolan
                              Keymaster

                                I think we're still in leftovers mode for another day, if not two; we've got some chili, some meatloaf and even a little corned beef left. Though the bagels are gone, there are still a few of the Salty Rye Rolls. And pie.

                                Yesterday it was in the mid 70's, today we're back down in the 50's, I don't see any 70's in our near future.

                                in reply to: Washington Post on the influx of new bakers #22372
                                Mike Nolan
                                Keymaster

                                  I have yet to figure out exactly how the Anksarsrum works. It doesn't appear to be a true spiral mixer like the (even more expensive) Fanug. I wish pmiker was still around, he had an Ansarsrum, as I recall.

                                  Spiral mixers are supposed to help prevent over-oxdation of your dough, not that I think I'd recognize over-oxidation unless it was pretty extreme.

                                Viewing 15 posts - 4,516 through 4,530 (of 7,572 total)