2020 Accomplishments - August Update

 


August wasn't great overall. I hope I'm not losing steam.

1) Write at least 2 blog posts each month
I shared the a podcast that I really enjoy, The Endless Honeymoon Podcast
Our cherry tomato plants have gone crazy, now I just make batches of Roasted Cherry Tomato Pasta Sauce.

2) Complete the 10 x 2 Board Game Challenge
We didn't get any of our challenge games in with Shawn and Kelly and we never found time to play together. I'm starting to get concerned that we're not going to make it at this point.

 3) Bake at least 2 different baked goods each month
August was an okay month for baking. I'm back into weight loss mode, so I've not been super keen on baking much because I'm usually the one who ends up eating most of it. That being said, I did work on my my bread a bit. To start the month I made peanut butter dark chocolate Oreo chunk cookies that I saw on Facebook. They turned out pretty darn good and everyone in the house who tried one seemed to enjoy them. I wanted them to be more peanut butter forward, but the dark chocolate and Oreo sort of took over. I did really enjoy the dark chocolate chunks I bought from Aldi. I will likely sub those in for semi-sweet going forward.
The next day I made another loaf of Joshua Weismann's Supermarket Bread with my sourdough subbed in for some of the flour and water. It turned out even better than the previous loaf.
I've been playing with King Arthur Baking Company's no knead sourdough when I don't know what to do with my discards. It's easy enough to just mix the ingredients, do a few folds, and then stick it in the fridge. Below is what happen when you forget to score your dough before it goes in the oven. The second the boule left the pizza peel I knew I might have an issue. I had let the bread proof in my banneton basket so it had great form and a circular pattern on the top, but not scoring it lead to the gaping hole you see. It still tasted good and I got some crazy rise out of it. 
After the previous loaf's mishap, I decided to do the next loaf in a standard loaf pan and made sure to score it this time. I left it in the oven a little long so it got darker than I wanted where it scored, but it had a beautiful crumb and great flavor. Despite it being a rustic dough, meaning it wasn't enriched with butter, eggs, or some sort of fat, it was nice and soft.
Over the last couple days of the month I made sourdough bagels. It's a two day process that required an overnight proofing in the fridge. This is the second time I've made them this way with the same recipe and holy shit did they come out well. I made a dozen, three plain and nine with shredded cheese on top. Despite me inadvertently turning the oven off temporarily, they still came out great. They proofed a little too long so one of them deflated quite a bit after handling, but the rest were fine.

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