#baking experiment

[hockpock]

Made a thing!

[furyxiv]

I tried making brownies, but I replaced the cocoa powder with dehydrated strawberries. I think I might have something here but I'll have to work shop it a bit more 🤔

[missguomeiyun]

coffee bread.. .

Don’t mind me. The following photo is gonna disgust you. .. but I have to show it bcos not everything in life works out the way you plan it to be.

I made coffee bread for the 1st time in my life & this is what it looked like.

I’ve been working OT quite often lately, & one evening last week, I was like, “I’m gonna make coffee bread”. So I literally Googled & used the 1st recipe on the search result list haha

& like you know, I don’t like baking, I don’t have the talent for it, & most importantly, I really don’t like following recipes all that much =/ even knowing that baking is an art of precision, I decided to deviate from the recipe, & just followed the basics. I don’t recall what amounts of what I used but somehow, despite the failed appearance, the texture & flavour was quite good!

Here’s the cross-section of the circular one (the oval one was the same bcos I baked them at the same time in my toaster oven). The crust was slightly crispy.. . it had a cookie-texture to it. The inside was soft; it wasn’t too dense, nor dry, nor felt-underbaked. The texture turned out well; I thought it was all over based on the appearance lol.

The flavour was veeeeery coffee-y. I decreased the amount of sugar & up’d the amount of instant coffee. I also added dark chocolate, which isn’t very sweet. .. so yeah, it was kinda bitter, but had a minute sweetness. Ppl will likely find it gross but I personally liked it!

I experimented with diff ways of eating it after eating it regularly as is. I tried putting a small piece of chocolate on top, & then microwaving it so that the chocolate would melt into a sauce, coating the top of the bread. That was not bad. I tried drizzling some maple syrup. That was ok too, but I’m not huge on maple syrup. I recently purchased honey powder; so I melted the honey powder in a small amount of water (to get like a light honey sauce going), poured that on top of a slice of bread sideways, & then heating that up in the microwave. This was my fav out of the 3. The bread soaked up some of the honey sauce; thereby making the texture of the bread softer & more cake-like.

Altogether, I deemed the coffee bread a success. I did worry that it didn’t rise for the longest time... like 20mins in, it barely rose a centimeter. But after 40mins, it did form a dome. A cracked dome lol. Anyway, until next time! :D

[colbypuppythebaker]

I present to you all: Apple Pie Snickerdoodle thumbprints!

Components: strudel crumb topping, apple compote, modified snickerdoodle dough, cinnamon sugar.

Ingredients for crumb topping:

1/2 stick unsalted butter (if salted omit extra salt)

2 ounces flour

1 ounce brown sugar

1 ounce white sugar

Dash of cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Using (clean) hands, cut butter into the dry ingredients until combined and crumbly. Helps if the butter has time to soften! You will likely have extra, if so you can save it for making other baked goodies! (Don't eat raw unless you like raw flour)

Ingredients for apple compote-

1 or 2 crisp apples (the variety is your choice, just be sure it can hold its shape when cooked! Granny Smiths are the go-to for baking usually. I used honeycrisp.)

Splash of water (might not be needed the apples will release a LOT of juice)

Enough sugar to coat the apples (amount you want will vary by the amount of apple you have, coat the apples but don't go too crazy with it)

Dash of cinnamon

Butter (a quarter to half a stick, depending on amount of apples)

Peel and dice your apples, combine in pot with other ingredients. Simmer on low heat on stovetop, covered, for 15 minutes. Allow to cool. (I made mine the night before and chilled it in the fridge. You will likely have extra of this as well, which can be used for other baked goodies or eaten as is! Willing to bet it'd be a good icecream topping)

Modified snickerdoodles and assembly-

(Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, it'll heat up while making the dough)

7.5 ounces butter

8 ounces brown sugar

2 eggs

.25 ounces vanilla

10 ounces flour

0.1 ounces baking powder

0.1 ounces salt

Cinnamon sugar (white sugar, cinnamon) for coating

Cream together the eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Gradually add in the eggs. Combine dry ingredients seprately, add once egg and butter/sugar are combined fully.

Scoop in 1 Tablespoon balls, roll in cinnamon sugar. On cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, place ball and press thumbprint softly into center of cookie. (The parchment paper is a must, it will make cleanup a thousand times easier and these are very messy cookies!) Spoon enough apple compote to fill the dent in the cookie- it will not take much. Try to avoid getting too much liquid. Sprinkle on crumb topping. A lot will likely end up on the baking sheet. You can try to save it, put it back on the cookies, etc. But I just left it. You have plenty more.

Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 13 minutes. Allow to cool, then enjoy!

[kamiyu910]

Meet my creation, the vanilla chai cake with orange spice frosting!

Take 3 bowls, sift together 3.5 cups of cake flour, pinch of salt (1/4 tsp if using unsalted butter), and 4 tsp baking powder in the first one

Then whisk together 4 whole eggs, room temp (you can use 6 egg whites), 1/4 cup of milk (room temp), 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream (room temp) and 3/4 cup of tea (I used 4 tea bags in about 8 oz - vanilla chai)

In the last bowl, beat 2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened and whipped, 1.5 cups baker's sugar, and 2 tsp vanilla, until smooth and creamy. 

Combine them all together, and I used a hand mixer and just put it on the highest setting for more of a whipped effect. 

Frosting:

I didn’t measure anything except the butter (1 cup)...  I melted it with white chocolate chips, then added a bunch of powdered sugar, then added the orange spice tea (again used 4 tea bags in 8 oz). It didn't give the strongest flavor so I added a little ground clove and cinnamon and vanilla, and whipped it with the hand mixer. 

[sabrinas-sweets]

I tried a weird experiment this week. How exactly do oils affect the taste of baked goods? I made three batches of brownies, all exactly the same, minus the type of oil in each. The first batch contained vegetable oil, the second contained canola oil, and the third contained olive oil. I found some interesting results. Most people actually liked canola oil brownies the most, which I found very surprising considering most recipes call for vegetable oil. The canola oil batch came out much sweeter. This is likely due to the fact that vegetable oil is quite bitter. The olive oil brownies came out pretty bad, as expected. What was interesting, though, was how they tasted almost entirely normal at first. The aftertaste was what got everyone. Lastly, the canola oil batch actually cooked faster for some odd reason. I might look further into this at some point. tl;dr: canola oil makes baked goods sweeter and cook faster, most preferred canola oil, and don't ever use olive oil to bake.

[radioactivepeasant]

Cookie experiment! Cinnamon sugar with chocolate syrup drizzled over them.

[kamiyu910]

Raspberry tea cake, with jello cream frosting. I used a raspberry zinger tea for the cake, and for the frosting I used 3 tsp raspberry jello, mixed it with hot water, then mixed it with ice until cool, added it to a buttercream frosting and added whipped cream to that. It could probably use a little more flavor in the cake but it's not bad and deliciously moist.