baking up a storm.

In my time home, I've been baking like crazy. A few weeks ago I made those peanut butter centered chocolate cookies, then I made some healthy cookies*, I've baked five loaves of no-knead bread**, and right now I have a loaf of chocolate zucchini bread in the oven, using some shredded zucchini I froze way back when. I chose the recipe because it only has 1/2 cup oil in it, while most have a full cup. It already smells good, but I'll let you know how it turns out!

*I made some alterations to the cookies this time around. I didn't have any applesauce, so I used mashed banana. I also substituted coconut oil for the fake butter, used milk chocolate chunks, and omitted the almonds because I didn't have any! I had to smash down the scooped dough a bit, because the cookies didn't want to spread much. They turned out to be delicious, and the perfect cookie shape! Next time I definitely want to add the nuts, and may add rasins or crasins as well.

**I've had varying experiences with the no-knead bread. Two Sundays ago, I baked two loaves: one all white, the other 1/2 wheat. I had only ever baked 1/3 wheat before, and these two loaves turned out drastically different. The white loaf was beautiful! It puffed up nice and big, and the seam on top burst and cracked just perfectly. The 1/2 wheat loaf was about half the size, and the seam completely disappeared, so I slit an X in the top of the dough before baking. I baked the wheat loaf second, to give it that much more time to rise, but I think it could have used a lot more.

Then, last night I baked 3 loaves of white bread. When I prepared the dough, I sifted the flour, which I think was a mistake (I was itching to use the vintage sifter I picked up at my great-aunt's yard sale, it has a turquoise enamel handle and is super cute). Because I sifted the flour, I must have used "less" and the dough was really sticky, and I mean really. When I tried to shape it into balls, it would hardly hold the shape, and it completely melded into the towels (didn't stick because I had floured them) eliminating the seam that makes that beautiful rustic top. In the end the loaves were wider than usual, and not as tall. Hopefully they will still taste amazing!




Comments

Unknown said…
isn't baking just the best!!

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