[skeptic7]

I baked the Hot Cross Buns found in King Arthur Flour Whole Grains Baking. This is half whole wheat flour and half white flour and has baking powder as well as yeast. I found the recipe as written very dry and had to add 1/2 cup more water -- which made it a little too wet so I added some more white flour before everything was a reasonable consistency. It was soft and tasty and a little dense.
It feels like cheating to be using baking powder as well as yeast.
I am using vanilla frosting crosses. I'm at the bottom of the vanilla bottle and the frosting is slightly beige since the vanilla is adding more color than normal.
I made 30 small buns instead of the 24 medium sizes called for in the recipe. They were very pretty despite being small.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by skeptic7.

[skeptic7]

Everyone;
I wasn't able to do a test on yesterday's hot cross buns as I was out of butter. I'll have to test more later but I was happy to stick to frosting crosses in order to indulge my sweet tooth.

[skeptic7]

I tried doing a pot roast with an Italian theme. I sauted onions, carrots, and celery and garlic and put it in the crock pot. I added a large can of salt-free Italian tomatoes and chopped the tomatoes up with a plastic dough scraper. I then browned a 3 lb boneless chuck roast on both sides and placed that in the crock pot. I cooked it overnight for about 8 hours. It started out on high and then then went to low.
I was hoping for a smooth spaghetti sauce and a hunk of meat. I've gotten a rather chunky sauce with tomatoes, and carrots still fairly visible. The pot roast is slicing up nicely cold but has chunks of fat that need to be removed, and visible fat marbling. I thought the fat would cook out but it hasn't.

[skeptic7]

I've microwaved spaghetti squash. I was disappointed in the short strands of flesh, it didn't feel very spaghetti like. I haven't eaten it in sometime, I'll have to try it again soon.

[skeptic7]

Last Monday the 12th, I did a double batch of Hot Cross buns from the Betty Crocker cookbook . This is the recipe with mashed potatoes in it. I tried out two recipes for pastry crosses on top of the hot cross buns which I will write about seperately. Personally I have a sweet tooth and like a frosting cross.
I wanted to bake a pie for Pi day but didn't have enough time or energy. I really like the pictures of other pies.
I did have a pizza pie -- it had a pizza dough crust, but the filling was cabbage and onions and ricotta cheese and eggs, with some cheddar cheese added for extra flavor, on Thursday. This is basically the Italian spinach pie recipe but with 4 cups of thinly sliced Savoy cabbage instead of a pound of frozen spinach. I like it and it makes a wonderful lunch.

[skeptic7]

I had lost power due to the great windstorm on Friday and Saturday, so when Sunday came around and with it power and refrigeration, I decided to use up as much milk as possible. I chose a Hot Cross Bun recipe that used a lot of fresh milk and started in on it. These were baked Monday with two types of pastry cross and some plain as controls. I also made candied lemon peel -- its so good having electricity. I'll write more about the Hot Cross Bun crosses. The baked on cross is a cute idea, and travels much better than the frosting version -- if only it would be pretty and tasty and have a nice texture.

[skeptic7]

Thank you. This was a great article and its the right time to remember Mrs. Cindy. I'm using up the last of the candied lemon peel made from her lemons

[skeptic7]

Mike I've added a link to the Black Bread recipe on KA page

[skeptic7]

Mike;
I am looking at Winter 2000 Baking Sheet, and there is a recipe for Black Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman and accompanying story. This recipe uses old bread toasted until very nearly black and then soaked into a slurry with coffee and oil, in the bread. This gives it part of its color. Have you seen this technique? I think its mentioned elsewhere on the web. In your post above you said you didn't want to use coffee but the nearly burnt bread would help with the color.

Addendum: I found the recipe on the King Arthur site, through not alas the accompanying story
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/jeffrey-hamelmans-black-bread-recipe

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by skeptic7.

[skeptic7]

I baked a batch of Hot Cross buns on Sunday. I started mixing the dough together on Saturday but by the time I finished kneading everything into the dough -- more flour, butter and dried fruit; I was too tired to deal with it so put it into the refrigerator overnight. I formed it into balls on Sunday and baked a sheet pan full on Sunday night, and 8 more buns on Monday morning.
These turned out wonderfully. I tried out a pastry cross on two of them, and that is an idea that is going to require more work. The pastry cross was flour, oil and water and was actually quite tasty when cooked. I am going to have to make it thinner so it can be piped onto the buns.

Mike; Were you making the cinnamon rolls in mini muffin tins?

[skeptic7]

I always use iodized salt in cooking because iodine is an essential element. Mike, there are some foods that naturally includes iodine. Can you eat seafood or seaweed?

[skeptic7]

I did another cabbage pie -- based on the one in KAF Baker's companion, but used canned salmon instead of the eggs and ricotta cheese instead of cream cheese. I used a normal pie crust this time. It turned out very pretty and I loved the pie crust. I have been making pizza for so long I forgot just how tasty a nice crisp pie crust can be.
I had been looking up salmon pies on the internet but most of them were salmon and mash potato, which seemed tasty but too heavy on the starch so I cobbled together this recipe.
I am trying to make the Hot Cross Buns from Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread right now. They are in the proofing stage. The recipe is only a dozen buns using 3 cups of flour so I tried using my Kitchen Aid to knead it. Its much quicker with a mixer, but its harder to tell if the dough is kneaded enough. I used KAF all-purpose flour instead of bread flour and I hope this doesn't make a difference.

[skeptic7]

I have seen recipes that mix the ingredients together just enough to form the dough, let it rise for awhile and then knead. This takes less effort than kneading immediately after mixing the ingredients together, I've never seen a recipe that called for kneading twice.

[skeptic7]

I did Hot Cross Buns on Sunday a variation of the recipe in Fleishman's yeast website with dried pineapples. These came out tasty but too dense, On Monday I baked a whole wheat sugarless fruitless Hot Cross bun which is a rather abstract idea of a proper Hot Cross Bun. I have plenty of spices and butter and eggs and milk to make them properly rich, this recipe is designed for diabetic friends who can't tolerate the sugar found in dough and dried and candied fruit in normal recipes.
I made a batch of candied orange peel for the next attempt at proper Hot Cross buns.

[skeptic7]

Mike;
I have a 4.5 quart Kitchen Aid so I guess I will have to continue by hand. I looked at the KA whole grain cookbook and might try their hot cross bun recipe this year. I was rather put off previously by the baking powder which seems an odd ingredient for a yeast roll.

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