Other Bread
Yuletide Bread
A nice, seasonal quick bread, recipe from KAB. The spice blend (cardamom, coriander, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon) lends nice flavor to the bread. It's loaded with a mix of almonds, cranberries, golden raisins, and candied lemon and orange. I plan to go for a panettone next week, but in the meantime this was a good bake. It did take longer than predicted. I tented foiled over the top, but the bottom was a touch browner than I would have liked. If I make it again, I may try the alternative 9"x5" pan to see if I can get it baked without overcooking the bottom.
Carrot Cake Bread
Carrot cake as quick bread with pineapple and coconut (the latter omitted this time due to a colleague's food allergies) and cream cheese frosting. Met with approval by all.
Apple Caramel Chip Walnut Muffins
I also made these banana caramel chip muffins but forgot to take picts. I was using up the new KAB caramel chips -- would not recommend; loved their salted caramels ones but they stopped making them and when these appeared, I had hoped they would be similar minus the salt. Nope! I'd recommend Hershey's salted caramel chips instead.
For the apple muffins, I made a variation on this recipe. Since I was adding the chips, I worried about making it too sweet -- plus wanted to add reduced apple cider to increase appleness in the recipe. I was using KAB's powdered buttermilk (mixed in with the flour) + water, so reduced the water by 30 g. and reduced the white sugar by 30 g. and added 30 g. of reduced apple cider. Added 128 g. caramel chips + 113 g. walnut chips. Omitted the brown sugar on top. Came out fabulous!
Uses about half the amount of discard as some other recipes, so can be useful if you are keeping a smaller amount. While Cook's Illustrated was all about wiping off the cooking spray so that the batter to cling to the side and produce a better foot, I didn't bother with this one and got my best foot yet. I skipped the pre-heating of the pan, but brought my discard to room temperature (I keep my starter in the fridge) as well as my eggs and did warm the milk. I was very happy with the results.
Still working on my braids. Could have pushed the filling closer to the edges, esp. on the short end. And should have used a rolling pin to shape the rectangles before adding the filling, to ensure a more even thickness. But still pretty good and the orange comes through nicely. Despite the thinness of my dough in places, the filling didn't bleed out as it was essentially sugar, walnuts, and cranberries.
Popovers (Cook's Illustrated recipe)
This was a test run in anticipation of Christmas. This recipe uses bread flour and no butter. But clearly they popped! And had a great crispy exterior wuth a lovely custardy (eggy even) interior. I did still end up with the tiny little foot at the bottom, but much of it expanded to fill the cup before blooming even more out above the cup.
Soft Pretzels
Soft pretzels at the KAF school in Vermont; something ironic about coming from Philly to learn how to make soft pretzels. I made the sweet just 'cause it was part of the class, but have stuck to salty since. I really like this dough. And the recipe using baking soda (rather than lye) in the water for the boiling.
Stuffed pretzel roll with mustard
I made two batches, one with a topping of cinnamon and sugar -- but I should have put much, much more cinnamon and sugar on as it mostly disappeared. The ones I left plain I then coated the bottom with semi-sweet chocolate (for my mom who loves chocolate covered graham crackers and digestives). These come out with a very nice honey flavor and a good crisp/crunchy texture.
My mother called this the best cornbread she has had -- and she is a cornbread connoisseur. The recipe didn't specify discard or fed, but given the overall recipe, I went with discard, which indeed was the right choice. I also converted the volume measurements into weight (I was always too heavy a hand with flour when doing volume).
a frequent bake and use for starter discard. Penzey's Mural of Flavor are my favorite add-in herbs.
These are basically sourdough starter discard + a little salt, sugar, and baking soda. Recipe makes 4-5 crumpets. Great with raspberry jam and homemade lemon curd (I just used leftover egg yolks from my macarons and cut back the lemon juice and sugar to 1/3 c. and the butter to 4 tbsp.; since I didn't have lemons I used bottled lemon juice + 1/4 tsp. lemon oil in place of zest and it worked great).
I've never gotten the texture I like. Good but too heavy. I like to use the Yuletide fruit blend from KAF (a seasonal offering) -- a more sucessful panettone is now on the bread loaf page.
Forgot to take a picture, but this sourdough flatbread recipe was simple and tasted great -- and another good use for discard. Went well with shawarma-spiced chicken thighs.
These are little mini-loaves. This recipe is moist and loaded with lots of goodies. I love to make these around St. Paddy's day but good anytime.
Made with the tangzhong method. It really did have a nice effect. Soft, tender, and stays fresher longer.
Croissants & Pain au chocolate
Croissants the first time I made them at KAF's school in Vermont
And some pain au chocolat I tried on my own at home