The Baking Thread

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Has anyone been baking anything recently?

I cannot believe it, but my freezer has been out of sourdough for 1.5 weeks now… Gotta go bake me some boules stat!

I also need to come up with a dessert for a get together with some friends, most of whom I haven’t seen in quite a while. Maybe something with blueberries that I got from the farmer’s market. Maybe a clafoutis?
 
I made a cherry pie for the first time. Definitely won't win awards on presentation, but I hope it tastes good. Used fresh cherries from our cherry tree.

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No clafoutis was made by me over the weekend. Not were, much to my chagrin, and boules produced. Instead, I did make cinnamon roll up cookies!

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too hot to bake. The heat humidity messes up my dough, hence no fancy baking in the summer. I've tried several times and results were tragic. Cookies like Chocolate chip or heavy on the fats are really the only thing that tune out decent.
 
Mrs. Ram made Tres Leches cake this weekend. It was fantastic but holy heck is that stuff sweet. One thing came immediately to mind:
Flan is the one that always gets me. The couple I've tried were so overwhelmingly sweet, I felt like a guy in a costume was going to jump out and warn me about the dangers of tooth decay.
 
Okay, since no one guessed, it was bagel dough (surprising? Probably not).

But then I also made these delicious little hand pie babies (I don’t know how the only picture I have of the 2 dozen I made is one pan before baking):

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OMG these are heckin' cute.
 
How much does humidity affect rise? I'm guessing at least a little. My last artisan loaf didn't seem to rise quite as much, and it was good, but a bit more dense than usual. I remember reading somewhere adding powered milk might help, 1-2 teaspoons, but I'm open to suggestions. I'm using a simple, overnight rise recipe.
 
How much does humidity affect rise? I'm guessing at least a little. My last artisan loaf didn't seem to rise quite as much, and it was good, but a bit more dense than usual. I remember reading somewhere adding powered milk might help, 1-2 teaspoons, but I'm open to suggestions. I'm using a simple, overnight rise recipe.

Humidity can definitely affect rise. I’m assuming you are referring to proofing rise (before baking) vs. oven rise (during baking), here. Typically, I have read that warmer, more humid environments (like lots of U.S. places in the summer, but not really where I live) will cause doughs to proof/rise at a much faster rate than a colder, less humid environment. So what I’m guessing is, your dough may have actually gotten overproofed, because it proofed very quickly.

The caveats to all of this are that I mainly deal with sourdough, not yeast (and I’m not sure what you’re using here), and I live in a fairly Mediterranean climate where the temperature and humidity don’t change that much with the seasons.

But, I think the general principles are the same, since the whole thing with sourdough is that it is simply using natural yeast vs added yeast to get the rise in the loaf.
 
Because, holy moly, it’s been 2 months since I last baked bread and even longer since I bread made bread for myself and Mr. Leggo, here are the loaves from today’s bake!

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I haven't baked in a very long time...my schedule is kinda hectic during the week if I do gym and it's difficult to do stuff beforehand to allow it to rise. I want to get back into it, but I feel like I need to plan things out way before so I don't get overwhelmed.

Maybe I'll make cookies or something tonight, just to make something.
 
You can do it, @JayKay PE! Cookies, muffins, quickbreads are all within your grasp!
I'm going to take a quick inventory of what I have in my pantry and see what I can make tonight cookie-wise. Worst case, I can make chocolate chip-less cookies, which are actually my favorite.
 
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