2023 Edition - What are you baking?

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Banana Bread cuz I had overly ripe bananas and am trying to reduce waste! I'm almost feeling like a baker. :LOL:
Do you know that you can make banana bread muffins with the same recipe? They are ready to eat a lot quicker than a loaf. If you use cupcake liners, the clean up is easier too. Just saying
 
I remember my first clafouti. Made it twice but was so runny could hardly serve it. Finally my gal pal says... there are no eggs! I was flabbergasted (and embarrassed) that I'd never noticed. We sent a comment to the blogger and sure enough he apologized, corrected his post and added 3 eggs to it. They had been traveling and didn't proofread. LOL Sure worked a lot better with the eggs.
Funnily enough only one other person sent him a message about it. I was a little surprised that not more had noticed. But he thanked us both for the heads up.?
My friend still teases me about the "eggless" clafouti. :LOL:
 
Warmer than it was a couple of days ago, but still good for baking! Not one of the breads I start a couple of days early - today I just made some of my bread sticks, with WW and rye flours, plus a little gluten, since I had almost half rye flour. As usual, I put about a tb of caraway in, plus a scant half tsp of nigella and ajwain seeds, plus I put a generous tb of that sour cream onion powder, which I only use for things like this, not dip! This time I used about 12 oz of kefir - not as strong as the usual yogurt or buttermilk I use in it, to just under 32 oz of dough.
WW and rye bread sticks. by pepperhead212, on Flickr
 
I tested my yeast, and it's alive. So, today I made a no knead peasant bread. I made it once before, but managed to kill the yeast on the second rise. The author said you could do the second rise on top of your stove, but my stove gets really hot. So, this time I didn't do that. I used 25% whole wheat this time, so I needed to give it a bit of extra water. I am working on raising the percentage of whole wheat, little by little. Does anyone know the normal hydration percentage range for whole wheat? Or maybe where I could find it?

It was very good. The crust was really crispy and the crumb was good. I saved the recipe to Copy Me That a while ago: https://www.copymethat.com/r/YzvPPbusV/my-mothers-best-no-knead-peasant-bread/

No knead peasant bread small.jpgNo knead peasant bread on cooling rack small.jpgNo knead peasant bread slice small.jpg

 
I've made a couple things in the past week or so. Alison Roman's Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies - I chopped Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt and Chocolate Toffee Crunch candy bars from Aldi for the chocolate. These are amazing. They're brushed with egg and rolled in turbinado sugar for sweet, crunchy edges ?
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I don't know but there are some tips here that might help: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/bl...stitute-whole-wheat-for-white-flour-in-baking

You might want to post this as a question in a separate post so it gets more attention.
Thank you for that link. I think I have the info I need.

I found it funny that they were saying that it might be better to substitute less whole wheat, because it changes the flavour and texture. Well yes, that's one of the reasons I want to substitute whole wheat flour for white flour. This is a no knead recipe that doesn't take up precious refrigerator space. At the moment that is what I'm looking for. I have other no knead recipes that use 100% whole wheat flour, but they have to rest overnight in the fridge. I used to bake whole wheat bread, using a white bread recipe, but some extra yeast. But, that one was kneaded.

I usually just use whole wheat for everything. For most stuff I don't make any changes. Heck, I even made a sponge cake with Joy of Cooking's recipe. I used soft whole wheat flour and it makes a lovely cake, but it doesn't rise quite as much as white cake flour would let it rise.
 
I've made a couple things in the past week or so. Alison Roman's Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies - I chopped Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt and Chocolate Toffee Crunch candy bars from Aldi for the chocolate. These are amazing. They're brushed with egg and rolled in turbinado sugar for sweet, crunchy edges ?
View attachment 63524
They look fantastic!! I love shortbread Can you post the recipe with your changes/additions.
 
I have a request to make Coffee and Walnut cake (to take into the office next Tuesday 14th). But I have noticed that the people in the office are not so keen (these days) on gathering round a cake to cut slices - a bit too "hands on" I guess? (Germophobia) So, I plan to make Coffee and Walnut Cup Cakes with cream cheese frosting. And so far, it seems the best way to get a really good coffee flavour into the sponge is to use instant Espresso Powder. Seems good to me. But any other suggestions? (I have tried making "proper" coffee with my Cafetiere, but actually got pretty weak results.)
 
KatyCooks, I have had several recipes for coffee flavours and they all called for Expresso Granules. In the end I bought a jar and have not been disappointed. It keeps, I've had the jar for a couple of years now and it is fine.
I hope you can find some, here I got it by Nestle's "Gold Expresso".
 
I buy this brand to use in recipes (mostly my mocha brownies). It also last a long time.

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Happy Valentines Day! ?

I stirred up a half dozen banana pecan muffins this morning.

I was out of flour so I buzzed some old fashioned oatmeal in the blender as a substitute. Oatmeal can be substituted 1 for 1 by weight but you need to up the amount by volume by an extra 1/3-1/2 cup for each cup of flour. This works best with quick breads, pancakes, etc…

This got me to thinking about substituting crumbs from stale baked goods in place of flour. Years ago frugal bakers would substitute crumbs for up to half of the flour in many recipes to save a few pennies and reduce waste. This works best in recipes that have strong flavors like chocolate or spice.

Here is an updated example of bread crumb cookies from from Mark Birman.


 

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