Last December, my mixer broke while making a new bread recipe. This recipe was for brioche bread.
Today, I have a new mixer that is stronger than my old one. Even though it is stronger and far more reliable than my old one, I still was worried about how well it would do making brioche. A few weeks ago, I decided to try to make the bread again.
Ever since I discovered I have food allergies, I have tried my best to adjust any recipe I use to avoid my allergies. Over the years I’ve become more adapted to recognizing recipes with ingredients I can’t use and how to still use the recipe anyway.
Last year, I decided to try make a new bagel recipe. It called for hard apple cider or beer for it. I don’t like to make recipes with beer in it because beer normally plays an important role in the recipe. In fact, the role is so important that I find it is hard to use the recipe with alternative ingredients.
Even though the recipe called for beer or hard apple cider (Both of which I am allergic to) I still decided to give it a try. I thought that if hard apple cider can be used instead of beer, then I could use another apple-based juice as it’s replacement. That’s when I began to learn about why apple juice isn’t a good substitute for beer or hard apple cider.
Continue reading “Discovering New Alternatives for Hard Apple Cider in Recipes”
In a previous post, I talked about how my mixer had died and that I purchased a replacement for it. The mixer problems forced me to reconsider posting about my baking progress for a while. Now that I have a new mixer and it works very well, I decided to start talking about some of the foods I made using it again.
While browsing my copy of The King Arthur Baking Company’s All-Purpose Baker’s Companion, I discovered a recipe called Amish Potato Rolls. It looked similar to an old and nearly completely lost potato bread recipe I grew up eating (And not liking very much because it was always over baked, dry, and the top of the buns were brunt.) I always thought the recipe was good, but the baking of it wasn’t. Since the original recipe was destroyed and can not be found anymore, I decided to give this new recipe a try and see if I liked it.
Continue reading “Making Potato Rolls- How They Turned Out and Opinions of the Recipe”
In October 2023, I announced I will begin learning to make my own bread from scratch. Since then, I struggled to learn how to make bread. Part of the problem was new baker mistakes while the other problem was my mixer.
When I started making bread, I was using an almost 30 year old mixer and it had major problems. Earlier this year, I replaced it with a new mixer. Even though the new mixer is smaller than the old one, it runs much better and does a better job at mixing dough and kneading the bread. This was further improved when I purchased a different style dough hook from Amazon. The dough hook is not from the same brand as the mixer (Kitchenaid) but it was designed to not allow the dough ride up the dough hook while mixing. It works really well and is very easy to clean. It is stainless steel too!
Today, my white bread looks really good! I am now able to make it the same way consistently without any abnormalities from loaf to loaf.
Continue reading “Making Homemade Bread Progress Report: One-ish Year Later”
It’s been a few months since I talked about baking bread in a post. I wanted to give a monthly update about how well I’m doing with my bread baking skills, but I ended up not.
In the mean time, things happened in my kitchen. One of those things was problems with my mixer. This was the main reason for my decision to not post updates. I was finally able to get a new one… over a month after I decided to stop using the old one! (I don’t know why it took so long to ship, but there it is) Instead, I decided to focus on baking deserts. I could make them with a hand mixer, which I had.
In order to get myself back to posting about my baking adventures, I decided to write a post about what happened. This way I can update everyone on what happened before I talk in depth about what I baked.
Continue reading “Update on My Baking Process: Mixer Problems, Bread Baking, and Deserts I Now Love”
Ever since 2022, I began to order more groceries online. Whenever I say this, people sometimes believe I am placing a pickup order at a local grocery store. Instead, I am purchasing more groceries online and having them shipped to my house.
To be honest, I don’t like doing this. For me, groceries need to be purchased in person. I want to see what I am actually purchasing before I pay money for them. I want to see what kind of quality they are, how beat up the boxes are, and how fresh the fruits and veggies are. If I can’t touch them or look at them in person, I’m not interested in purchasing them. This is why shopping for groceries online makes me so upset.
Continue reading “Ordering More Groceries Online and Why I’m Doing It More Frequently”
A while ago, I talked about my intention to make bread from scratch as well as why I’m doing it in a post. Now that I have had some time to bake bread over and over again, I can honestly say that I love how my bread tastes! It isn’t like the store bought breads, but I still like my bread more. It is heavier and denser than the store bought bread. Even though this is natural for the type of bread I make, it does require me to cut thinner slices. I still haven’t master cutting the right size slice, so the bread is still larger than I want it to be.
Even though the problems I’m currently having with my bread isn’t a big deal, I’m still struggling mastering the recipe. My goal is to eventually become good enough at making the recipe that the only thing I need to review in the cookbook is the exact measurements for each ingredient. I still haven’t made it that far. Because of this, I have made many mistake loafs of bread.
Continue reading “Update on Baking Homemade Bread: The Good, The Bad, and The Tasty Mistakes”
My attempts at baking homemade bread and cookies have been a great success! I still don’t feel like I mastered the recipes, but I am still excited about how they turn out. Now that I feel optimistic about my baking skills, I decided to make a list of foods I want to learn how to bake. In true-to-myself fashion, the list is long. Very long.
Even though the list is long, there are certain recipes I want to learn how to make more than others. This week, I will be attempting to make more foods to celebrate Halloween and my birthday next week. I narrowed down the food to five to focus my attention on, as well as write on this list. At least one of the foods on this list will be made this week. If something stops me from working on it, I will work on it next week.
Continue reading “A Few Foods I Want to Learn How to Baking From Scratch (And Why)”
Yes, the title of the post says it all. I purchased a pumpkin for the fall! It wasn’t very expensive, but it is still important. This pumpkin is the first pumpkin I ever purchased to create pumpkin pie with!
Before I talk about why I decided to not use canned pumpkin to make pumpkin pie with, I wanted to show off what it looks like…
Yes, I know it is really excessive to give a pumpkin I purchased at the grocery store its own photoshoot, but I was really excited to own it! Growing up, I used to make Jack-o-Lanterns out of real pumpkins. They were fun to create, but they never lasted very long. As an adult, I decided to used fake pumpkins to make Jack-o-Lanterns instead. Since then, I never bought a pumpkin.
Continue reading “I Bought a Pumpkin for Fall! Why I Did It and What I’m Going to Do With It”
I have realized for the past few years that finding bread made without my allergens is becoming harder to do. This problem has become worse over the past year. I have noticed my favorite place to buy bread at (a bakery in a specific grocery store) has changed their recipe to include an ingredient that I am allergic to. Fortunately, it is an allergy I have a tolerance for. Yet, after weeks of eating the bread, it became difficult for me to consume it anymore without getting sick.
This has lead me to acknowledge that the area where I live is somewhere where is too difficult to find food I’m not allergic to anymore without cooking it at home. I tried to spread my shopping range to other stores, but, sadly, these stores are usually too far away from where I live (About an hour or more drive) without it becoming a major hassle.
Since I’m not moving to a different area right now (I won’t go into reasons why), I decided to start making my own bread from home. It may be time consuming, but, after taking into consideration my allergies, travel time, and expenses, I am sure it will cost me less money, and possibly less time, to do this.
The problem is I haven’t made my own bread in years!
Continue reading “Baking My Own Bread and Why I’m Frustrated With Ingredients in Store Bought Bread”