baking: does it come easily to you?

ooh they look good

T/S: Physical cookbooks or digital? Price obviously tilts in favor of digital, but having followed recipes on a tablet and having to keep it on, physical recipes are a lot less fuss, and I imagine buying a cookbook would help out some of my favorite chefs/bakers.

Physical by 1,000. Reused online recipes chez nous get printed out, slipped into page protectors, and put into a pink binder. Sometimes I even edit and reformat them bc I’m fussy. Wouldn’t buy a digital cookbook.

I can't scribble corrections on an online recipe

i don't like e-cookbooks. sometimes i get them on hoopla through the library to preview or copy recipes but i don't find them useful otherwise.

yeah physical by a mile, and printouts for tried & true online recipes

i had Dorie Greenspans baking book on kindle, (ordered kindle version by mistake & figured i’d live with it) - super annoying! a one page recipe in the hard cover is like, 4-5 pages on the kindle. Lot to be said for seeing the whole thing laid out in front of you vs flipping pages all the time

oh last week i finally made my second recipe from that book, since i made the apple muffin cake a hundred times and nothing else. the swedish visiting cake is A+ and has to be the easiest baking recipe in existence.

muffin cake is LEGIT great

my fave is the marbled mocha walnut bundt cake, its so pretty & easy & delicious

havent tried the visiting cake yet, i will give it a go!

Swedish visiting cake is great stuff, tops

i don't use digital cookbooks but i'm getting really sick of online recipes, recipe websites have all become unnavigable ad-ridden messes on mobile

they have, but if I like a recipe I just copy and paste it on my laptop to an unformatted text document on Pages, delete the advertisement text and save it in a recipes folder.

I really want to try Dorie Greenspan's Apple Nut Muffin Cake

I think if I use raisins in that recipe I will chop them up into very small pieces, I like the flavor of them but not the texture as much

the quantity of raisins isn't very large but you could use something smaller like currants instead. every time i make that recipe i have used cultured buttermilk instead of the cider/milk combo which i guess is a different product but this is my problem, i find something good and will just make it over and over. i think the first time i had cider that had gone bad so i was driven to experiment.

I like the idea of cultured buttermilk for it

I made made my first pie crust from Lily's recipe, and it was nearly idiot-proof! VERY simple, though I didn't use the parchment paper so had to deal with it getting stuck on the rolling pin/chopping board. Also, I got a soggy bottom from the blueberry pie I used it for -- looks like I should blind bake it at 400-425 for 6-8 minutes?

Yay! I never bother to blind bake because I like soggy bottoms on fruit pies, so I can't say for sure, but that sounds like it should work.

When I pre-bake that crust I do it at 425

I also find that a soggy bottom doesn't stick to the tin as much, which is another reason I don't blind bake either. But, you know, personal preferences. It's definitely easier to serve crisp pastry in a social context because it doesn't just all fall apart.

Hah, I've been indoctrinated by GBBO! I kind of like that raw, doughy taste myself, as well.

might make a peach pie soon. i have vacuum sealed peaches in the freezer from last summer.

if you have extra peaches I can highly recommend this Texas peach cobbler

https://www.davidlebovitz.com/texas-peach-cobbler-hill-country-recipe-fruit-recipe-peaches/

it has a bit of a kouign amagn vibe (not technique just flavor/texture) all crunchy & carmelized

O_O

it’s so easy & SO good

I tried the Dorie Greenspan Apple Nut Muffin Cake recipe. I used buttermilk and pecans, and chopped the raisins up into small pieces before adding them. I also diced three very small honey crisp apples to add to it since i didn’t have any medium or large apples. It was really good!

by mistake I ended up adding more butter than was called for. It took longer to bake but it was so good! I want to repeat it

i need to make it again i love it so much

i'm making it again right now. this is becoming a problem! i was going to make the julia child brownies but may do it next weekend or the next one. i went to home goods on friday to see if they had a pyrex square baking dish. i ended up getting a robin's egg blue le creuset square, and a bundt pan, and a ceramic pie dish with wavy edges.

Something that's happened to me in the last couple of bakes in a loaf pan, there's been a strip of uncooked batter. And the weird thing is, especially for the last thing I made (this gingerbread cake) -- was that the raw dough was just an inch under the top. What am I doing wrong?

(Incidentally, that recipe otherwise turned out quite well!)

You sure your temp is right? Maybe it's possible your top heating element has burned out or something? Certainly strange!

Have you done other bakes, not in a loaf pan, that have come out normal?

that is odd!

maybe try adjusting rack one spot higher or lower depending on where heating element is located?

some other suggestions here

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2018/03/15/how-to-tell-when-banana-bread-is-done

Have you done other bakes, not in a loaf pan, that have come out normal?

That's a good question! I just realized that when I'm using an 8x8 pan, I use my toaster oven, so I don't have a great point of reference for bakes with that kind of volume. I haven't noticed anything amiss with cookies, muffins, or savory dishes (usually casseroles/lasagnas), but of course those are apples/oranges.

Another question: are they things you are used to making? Are you comparing them to other times when they have come out right?

i would be kind of dubious about baking a cake in a toaster oven tbh but as Lily says if it’s worked out for you before then i dunno!

oh sorry I meant things like the gingerbread cake that you do bake in the oven (if I'm understanding right.)

The banana bread recipe is something that I've used before without much issue, but the last time (probably within the last few months) it had that raw strip (a lot like the one from Veg's link), but again, I think a lot shallower. But beyond that, I don't use my big oven a whole lot for cakes and loaves, although come to think of it, I did bake a babka in it a couple weeks ago. There was a lot wrong with it so I don't exactly remember if it came out raw, too.

In any event, I'm going to get an oven thermometer, and maybe in the meantime I'll increase the oven temperature 15 degrees?

maybe just preheat it longer. when i got a thermometer i realized i needed to preheat another 20 min, then it gets the right temp. definitely wasn't cold enough to make a quick bread have a raw spot though, that's pretty cold imo

I cook alot and am pretty good at it but have no interest in baking. My daughters would bake dessert every single day if I let them.

everything in VG’s link sounds worth thinking about

also Lee, just out of curiosity - how come you don’t primarily use your oven for baking?

I do use my big oven for things that won't fit in my toaster oven! It gets all of my 9x13 casserole dish, cookie sheet, loaf pan bakes. But when it comes to my 8x8 cake pan, I think that I'm trying to save on gas costs.

An oven thermometer is a great thing to borrow from a friend. I only ever used mine once and was like "yep, that's the right temperature"

interesting!

though tbf i have never encountered a toaster oven that i could bake a cake in.

Think it depends on the toaster oven; in AK sometimes we would run out of propane during a cold snap (you can't pump propane when it's cold) and have to use the toaster oven, and it worked fine for small things.

My cousin and I once took a toaster to a bar and baked a pie in it while listening to the band, which in retrospect must have been really annoying for the bar staff, though we did give them some pie. My cousin's dad had been playing music there for decades, so she got away with stuff like that.

a toaster oven, that is

omg lol that rules!

Haha I love DIY bar pie

My boring oven update: I got the the oven thermometer, and apparently it too my oven an additional 10 minutes to fully preheat!