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What Are You Baking?


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16 minutes ago, ktmoomau said:

Work is calming down back to a rational point, so hopefully I can get back into baking.  I want to try some different recipes for pita/naan/etc.  I am going to make the cheese bread that was on wapo?  I think.

On the pita/naan/etc. subject, I heartily recommend these flour tortillas:  http://leitesculinaria.com/97035/recipes-flour-tortillas-with-bacon-fat.html

I don't what just made me think of them, since I haven't made them recently, but they come out great.

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6 minutes ago, Pat said:

On the pita/naan/etc. subject, I heartily recommend these flour tortillas:  http://leitesculinaria.com/97035/recipes-flour-tortillas-with-bacon-fat.html

I don't what just made me think of them, since I haven't made them recently, but they come out great.

Sounds like a plan!  I should have some leftover brisket after tonight and some fresh tortillas would be great with that.

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Has anyone had luck with a pita/naan recipe in a normal oven, specifically getting it to puff?  If I do it on the stovetop, I can get some puff but only if I have the pan up high enough that I set off my smoke detector.  I haven't had luck getting puff in the oven.  I have a baking stone, I have seen some moisture may be the key, but I had a pan in the oven before, but who knows if the recipe I was using was the best.  Any tips would be appreciated!

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Wy wife was secretly hoping for a gov't shutdown so she could do some shutdown baking but it was not to be. She's been trying to make one of my personal dessert island foods in many forms for me in the past year - endless variations of rye bread - mostly from The Rye Baker book. It is incredible.

That said, she did try a banana nutella quickbread that was quite good. Super easy too.

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11 hours ago, Pool Boy said:

Wy wife was secretly hoping for a gov't shutdown so she could do some shutdown baking but it was not to be. She's been trying to make one of my personal dessert island foods in many forms for me in the past year - endless variations of rye bread - mostly from The Rye Baker book. It is incredible.

That said, she did try a banana nutella quickbread that was quite good. Super easy too.

Well, she's got a long weekend now :D.

I baked some blueberry corn muffins yesterday.  The recipe (from a blog post here) is an adaptation of an Ina Garten recipe.  I like it because it makes 6 muffins, so I don't have a lot around.  I use a set of 6 jumbo silicon muffin cups to make it.  And I use more like 3/4 cup of blueberries.

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18 hours ago, dracisk said:

Oh my goodness. I always have so many overripe bananas and I love Nutella. I'm going to try this.

I think it was a recipe she saw on NY Times - pretty darn tasty!

7 hours ago, Pat said:

Well, she's got a long weekend now :D.

I baked some blueberry corn muffins yesterday.  The recipe (from a blog post here) is an adaptation of an Ina Garten recipe.  I like it because it makes 6 muffins, so I don't have a lot around.  I use a set of 6 jumbo silicon muffin cups to make it.  And I use more like 3/4 cup of blueberries.

Indeed - but we keep losing power. ARGH!

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I have some turkey kielbasa left after making the sausage-lentil soup that we're still making our way through, and I've decided to use it up by making klobasnek (sausage kolaches) form a Homesick Texan recipe. I don't have quite the amount of sausage called for but close enough to make probably 7 out of the 8 called for in the recipe. I may just put extra cheese and pickled jalapeños in the last one and leave it sausage-free. We'll see how this goes. Right now I have to let the heated milk and butter mixture cool a bit more because it is too hot to go into the yeast, so maybe not the most auspicious start. 

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One of my bookclub members is reaching a milestone age and we're celebrating her birthday next month at our meeting.  I volunteered to make the cake, and thought it would be fun to do a riff on the upcoming  royal wedding cake -- lemon & elderberry with fresh flower decorations.  Well, last night I decided to do a test run using an elderflower syrup that I picked up at Ikea awhile back and using a basic butter cake base, and just for test run purposes, I picked up a jar of Dickenson's lemon curd at the store.  I haven't been doing much sweet baking for the last 2-3 years, but my goodness, I'm amazed at how nasty this cake turned out.  Dense, heavy, nearly flavorless except for the bitterness from the curd (there must have been a lot of pith in it).  So glad I decided to do a test run and didn't subject my friends to this abomination!

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3 hours ago, weezy said:

One of my bookclub members is reaching a milestone age and we're celebrating her birthday next month at our meeting.  I volunteered to make the cake, and thought it would be fun to do a riff on the upcoming  royal wedding cake -- lemon & elderberry with fresh flower decorations.  Well, last night I decided to do a test run using an elderflower syrup that I picked up at Ikea awhile back and using a basic butter cake base, and just for test run purposes, I picked up a jar of Dickenson's lemon curd at the store.  I haven't been doing much sweet baking for the last 2-3 years, but my goodness, I'm amazed at how nasty this cake turned out.  Dense, heavy, nearly flavorless except for the bitterness from the curd (there must have been a lot of pith in it).  So glad I decided to do a test run and didn't subject my friends to this abomination!

Did you find a good cake base recipe?  I have made Roland Meisner's from his Basic to Beautiful Cakes. Someone posted it online here (and it has lemon zest in it!)- http://simply-june.blogspot.com/2010/05/yellow-cake-with-jam-filling.html

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10 minutes ago, ALB said:

Did you find a good cake base recipe?  I have made Roland Meisner's from his Basic to Beautiful Cakes. Someone posted it online here (and it has lemon zest in it!)- http://simply-june.blogspot.com/2010/05/yellow-cake-with-jam-filling.html

It's the same butter cake I've been making forever.  Obviously, subbing the Ikea elderflower syrup for some of the milk was a grave mistake, and I'll never buy that lemon curd again!  I'm stopping at TJ's tonight on the way home to pick up supplies for a different take on the same idea.

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On 3/28/2018 at 10:20 PM, weezy said:

It's the same butter cake I've been making forever.  Obviously, subbing the Ikea elderflower syrup for some of the milk was a grave mistake, and I'll never buy that lemon curd again!  I'm stopping at TJ's tonight on the way home to pick up supplies for a different take on the same idea.

Sounds great. Post a picture the finished product!

---

Pães de Queijo - (porcupine)

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Did another test run last night and this time my faith in butter cake is restored.  However, I didn't get the flavor punch I wanted out of this iteration, so I think I'll go with a straight lemon butter cake, since I know I can really amp up the lemon flavor in a cake batter, and make an elderberry curd and syrup to imbibe & fill the layers, and then do a lemon buttercream frosting

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Not as strongly as I hoped for, but the filling still had a taste that wasn't ordinary and complemented the lemon of the cake, so I was happy with the finished product.  And it was a hit with the crowd.  Only 2 slices left over to bring home in a group of 8.

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Great job, I am terrible at icing cakes!  I made chocolate sugar cookies this weekend.  I was going to make pitas again, but was worried we had too much other bread in the house to use.  But once I use most of my mutligrain, I may make some soda bread or something rustic.

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Oh man, for someone who doesn't like to waste and doesn't feel like packing food stuff, my empty the cupboards philosophy has kicked in hard.  I needed some hot dog and hamburger buns, but didn't feel like buying them and had bread flour and yeast, so I made them.  I didn't love the recipe I used, if someone has one they really like, please post.

I then also made coconut, pecan, oatmeal cookies that to me could be a tad bit sweeter, but they aren't bad (next time I would add a little more brown sugar).  

And I made waffles, which is sort of baking?  They turned out well.  I like the mini waffle machine I bought as the waffles come out the perfect size that if you don't eat them all, they are like eggo size and you can freeze them or refridgerate and pop in the toaster.

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4 hours ago, ktmoomau said:

I needed some hot dog and hamburger buns, but didn't feel like buying them and had bread flour and yeast, so I made them.  I didn't love the recipe I used, if someone has one they really like, please post.

I like this recipe for brioche buns from the Post. I have commitment issues so I can't say that I really like them, but give them a try. 

WaPo Brioche Buns recipe

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"I"m out of reactions today"

Think about how profound that statement could be. I"ve had some days at work where I've run out of reactions. In fact, last Thursday was one of them. I was so....confounded by a couple of academics, that I was out of reactions. 

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On 7/24/2018 at 12:39 PM, NolaCaine said:

"I"m out of reactions today"

Think about how profound that statement could be. I"ve had some days at work where I've run out of reactions. In fact, last Thursday was one of them. I was so....confounded by a couple of academics, that I was out of reactions. 

I made lavender lemon scones from a mix in the cupboard, I think they needed to bake a bit longer, they were baked through, but a little softer than what I think I prefer, I brought them into the office and wish we still had the toaster oven to perk them up a little.

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Baking, again.  There was an excess of plums in the house, and in searching for easy recipes to use them I came across a stone fruit clafoutis recipe.  I have made one before, but never with plums.  I thought it turned out great, but my father said it tasted like a damp danish pastry. 

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19 minutes ago, curiouskitkatt said:

Does anyone have experience baking gluten free desserts? I want to be able to bake a fruit crisp with almond flour, but am not sure of the swap out measurement from wheat flour to almond and/or coconut flour? Help!

I have used a gluten free pie crust mix that comes in a green box for pie crusts.  If you are making a crisp- I would think you might also be able to use gluten free bisquick, which I have also had really good results with for multiple things.  I had some bad experiences trying to do swaps, so I went for some pre-done mixes which normally isn't my thing.

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I have mentioned before that I do not bake.  But I need a lot of cookies for an event on Friday (without spending a lot of $$) and I am using a well-known hack, much beloved by my mother, which produces a facsimile of a homemade cookie. 

One box of cake mix mixed with 1/3 cup of oil and two eggs.  I rolled the dough into little balls and baked for about 13 minutes.  I made lemon and chocolate.  I added about a half a teaspoon of Penzy’s lemon extract into lemon cookies.

With a coupon and store sale price, each box of cake mix was one dollar.  Each box makes four dozen cookies. Bam. I baked. Don’t judge me harshly. 

 

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For the second time in a week I made Stella Park's chocolate chip cookies. The birthday girl brought them home (as it was her choice to share or not) and others were upset. Always a winner and so easy-

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2017/08/bravetart-chocolate-chip-cookies-recipe.html

I use 2/3 semi sweet,, 1/3 bittersweet for the chips. I do not chop them, but use the bigger guittard baking bites rather that chips for semi-sweet  (small for the bittersweet)

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I made skillet cornbread- not sure I loved the recipe, it was ok, but not spectacular, it could also be that I used powdered buttermilk.

I also made cheddar biscuits this weekend, both for a chili cook-off.  I think the biscuits needed more milk- although I added 1/4 cup for than the recipe called for, to me they were a little crumbly, which was fine with chili, and they tasted good, but next time more milk.

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I baked Melissa Clark's Sticky Cranberry Gingerbread this afternoon to take to Thanksgiving. The comments on the recipe on the NY Times site are all over the place. It calls for an enormous amount of sugar, which a lot of people balked at. I went with the people who tried to balance that out by using 12 oz. of cranberries instead of 8 oz., as called for in the recipe. I also cut the sugar back a bit, but I added some crystallized ginger, which, of course, upped the sugar content again.

I had some difficulties making this (mostly my fault), so i decided to cut the cooled gingerbread into squares so I could decide if it was okay to take. It was actually pretty good.  There were plenty of people who loved the recipe, but most people seemed to have customized it.

Since their Cooking section has now gone to a paywall* (which I feel stupid for paying to jump over), I'm not sure who can see this link to the recipe.

*This is a separate paywall from paying for the main site.

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I'm into the heart of Xmas nosh & gift baking.  Last night was cinnamon-walnut banana bread mini loaves, night before was a butter cookie with cardamom/cherries/pistachios/candied ginger where a fresh package of cardamom has ended up overpowering the other flavors.  Oh well.  They look pretty.  Tonight will be orange-rosemary-parmesan palmiers.  And then I think over the weekend I'll do some snickerdoodles

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We made a lot of cookies for the holidays over a few weeks and stored most in our freezer, to be pulled out as needed (a saving grace for unexpected last-minute gifts!):

  • 3 batches of almond joy cookies (a winner of a new recipe this year)
  • 1 batch of chocolate, mint-chip cookies
  • 1 batch of chocolate, peanut butter-chip cookies
  • 1 batch of gluten-free, salted peanut butter cookies
  • 1 batch of sugar cookies from a tube
  • 2 batches of cranberry-orange cream scones (another winner of a new recipe and great for using up excess cream)
  • 1 batch of molasses cookies
  • 2 batches of nut-horns
  • 1 batch of paciencia meringues

Given that we also received dozens of cookies and other baked gifts, we are SO bakery-ed out!

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