Any Home Bakers Here?

[pennyJo1960]

my old dog buddies think I have popped my cork and that I am totally foreign to them
I make cinnamon rolls, pies, biscuits, bread and cookies all from a recipe book by old ladies printed the year after I was born

 

[ronott1]

It is amazing to remember how they could bake without a written recipe - I so wish I had spent more time in the kitchen with both my Mom and Grandmom.



For sure. Many young folks think heating up a prepared, packaged item is cooking

I have some recipes memorized for baking but for many I use a recipe. I often do not follow the instructions though. For example, the king arthur fudgey brownie recipe has a silly instruction-add cocoa powder to the eggs and mix until smooth. This makes hard clumps of cocoa in the brownies. I do not know if they think that is a good thing but I do not like it at all.

I add the cocoa powder to the flour, salt and baking powder in the sifter. Works much better.

Once you have memorized the basic recipe for bread dough you can make bread, rolls, cinnamon rolls and doughnuts from that recipe. For cinnamon rolls and doughnuts, you use milk instead of water, butter instead of oil and add more sugar.

Like this:
1C scalded milk cooled to 110
1\2C melted butter
1 egg
1\2C sugar
1 pck sugar
1\2 tsp salt
approx. 4C flour
Sprinkle yeast over 110 degree milk and let sit for 5 minutes. Add egg, sugar, salt and melted butter. Mix in flour 1 cup at a time until it is a sticky dough and then kneed in more flour until dough is smooth and stretchy, about 5 minutes.

Let rise for 30 to 60 minutes until doubled. At this point, you can make them into cinnamon rolls or doughnuts.

For bread, you would sub out water for milk and oil for butter-reduce oil to a couple of tablespoons. Sugar goes down to 1\4 cup. Salt stays the same. This will make one loaf of bread. To make more, add water, yeast and salt to the recipe along with more oil. more flour too of course but I never measure flour. I add it until the dough is the correct stiffness.

 

[N F C]

After making 2 doz. sandwich buns almost daily for the past 3 months, I have that recipe memorized, lol.

1/4 C yeast
1 C sugar
1 Tab + 2 tsp salt
4 C warm water
1/2 C unsalted butter, melted
4 egg yolks (save the whites for wash)
4 whole eggs
13-14 C AP flour

Dump it all into the big 20-qt mixer with a dough hook and once "tacky" (not sticky) take it out and knead into a smooth, firm ball. Rest until almost doubled. Weigh out into 4.8 oz portions and shape. Rest until puffy. Brush with egg white/water wash, sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake at 375* for 14 minutes.

We make big 8 oz. hamburgers in the restaurant and these turn out just the right size for them. Works well for the bbq sandwiches too because they "hold up" instead of falling apart with a messy sandwich.

 

[MagpieDucks]

That's a lot of buns! I think im going to make pretzels today!

 

[N F C]

That's a lot of buns! I think im going to make pretzels today!

Yum, I love warm from the oven pretzels!

 

[User395221]

I'm sorry I ever asked about making pretzels. Now I keep getting reminded and it's torture

 

[pennyJo1960]

I'm sorry I ever asked about making pretzels. Now I keep getting reminded and it's torture

that is how I got roped in to allot more being made almost as bad as making the bread and rolls

 

[wyoDreamer]

gotta make banana bread today. A couple of bananas are getting quite brown.
Never go to Sams Club when you are hungry. Came home with 6 pounds of shrimp, a 2 pound chunk of parmesan, a 3 pack of alfredo sauce (for some of the shrimp), 10 pounds of chicken, lemonade, cream cheese and a 25 pound bag of bread flour. No fruits or veg, lol.
I already have enough flour for the month already. DH wants to know what I have in mind for baking - cause we are trying to loose some weight. Now I have to do massive amounts of bread making to do ...
Hay, at least I didn't buy the 50 pound bag of flour.

 

[pennyJo1960]

I buy my flour 50 lbs at a time we shop at big box store Costco

 

[MagpieDucks]

Pretzels were great! Only baked half of them, the other half of the dough is in the freezer!