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walkitoutI took A. out of school early to make absolutely certain we could make it to the Burlington Staples in time for a 3:20 appointment for precheck. This was utterly pointless, because they had computer issues, and there were people in line from 1:10 appointments. Yikes. We bought some random stuff (because it is a Staples). Also, all the construction made it tricky to figure out how to even _get_ to the Staples. Oh well! One of the things we bought was a Popl keychain, because A. wanted to try it. That’s an NFC tag plus an app (freemium) that is a “business card replacement”. Simple to set up, and once you do, in theory anyway, anyone with a phone with NFC should be able to just “tap” your phone, and your contact info should pop up as an option to go into their contacts on their phone. There are a variety of other things (like a QR code) that can also be tried if the “tap” does not work. *shrug* It was $20 to see whether it works, basically; there have been a variety of efforts in the general direction of make-contact-sharing-more-effortless. Perhaps this one will take off. NFC stickers are also being used in interesting ways for smarthome type stuff. I haven’t gotten into it (I totally skipped Dash buttons, too) but you never know.
On the way home, it was late enough that we got to the Concord rotary backup at about 5 pm. I suggested to A. that we have dinner at Paparazzi, and she asked if I was serious, and was super excited when I said yes. V. was our server and she recognized us as T.’s family, so that was nice. I had the PEI mussels and the chopped salad, minus butter and cheese. I wound up with the gluten free bread, because the current bread has milk products in it. It was above average, and I asked about buckwheat and was reassured — and didn’t have any negative reactions, so, yay! I got a manhattan and a triple templo. Yum.
When we got home, we made peanut butter bread. I’d seen the Dylan Hollis tiktok, and showed it to A. and she was excited to make that. I made some changes, because the original recipe involves milk, and because I never follow recipe directions exactly.
2 Cup freshly ground soft red wheat (measure after grinding!)
1 egg plus enough apple juice to be 1 Cup of liquid by volume
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter (Trader Joe’s unsalted valencia creamy — natural peanut butter, you know, the kind everyone says you cannot use in this recipe)
3 tsp baking powder
Chocolate chips
You will note there is no salt anywhere in this.
My technique was a little different than some of the descriptions out there. It is inspired by elements of Dylan Hollis’ youtube video in which he shows the original recipe, the 1945 Searchlight variation, and then his own version.
I combined the flour, baking powder and brown sugar (mix dry). Then I added the peanut butter, and used a fork to cut it in until it was evenly crumbly. (Cut in peanut butter). Finally, I added the 1 cup of liquid (combined egg and apple juice). I forgot to mix in the chips, so I sprinkled them on top. I expected them to sink it (that’s what happens with my blondies) but they sat on top and melted a bit.
Here is the thought process: with the egg, I’m not going to need as much BP for the rise. The bread came out nicely rounded on top so this worked well. I suspect it could be cut down a bit more, altho it does not matter much. I never mind not having salt; this is a bread that in the 1932 and 1945 formulations is broadly agreed to need something spread on it, so putting a salted spread or butter should satisfy the salt lovers out there. I, personally, thought it tasted fine, because, chocolate chips. This version of the loaf kinds tastes like a very bread-y peanut butter cookie and the crumb has a bit of that texture as well (I attribute that to how I assembled it, at least in part). Most important, I needed _some_ kind of liquid, and I don’t consistently keep non-dairy milk in the house. As a result, usually what we have is the unsweetened almond milk from costco that R. puts in his coffee, and which I am not a particular fan of. Dylan Hollis used applesauce in his final variation, and apples and peanut butter are always good together, so I went with apple juice (rather than orange juice, which I often use, or just water) and 1 beaten egg, in place of the milk. I reduced the volume a lot, based partly on the Searchlight approach, and partly on my own (deep) history of baking — I just thought that batter was excessively loose.
I _thought_ that I was going to recommend reducing the liquid further, however, actually think this is a very forgiving recipe (not unlike my biscuit recipe), and tolerates a very broad range of liquid, and a broad cooking temp. The original called for 325 for an hour. I went with 375, convection, 45 minutes, which is much closer to the Searchlight cooking temp. A lot of this comes down to how much do you want the outside of it to brown.
Final comments on the recipe. I’ve been through a lot of phases of baking technique. I used to use Nucoa stick margarine as a straight butter replacement, and water or soy milk as a straight milk replacement and reduced or left out the salt depending on what the recipe was. Over time, I experimented with other spreads, and then switched to oil, after someone made my apple crisp very successfully using oil. I had to adjust technique (instead of creaming butter and egg, I usually combined oil and other liquids as part of a “mix wet”), but it was within the standard baking repertoire to use that kind of technique. The awesome thing about switching to oils was it got rid of a lot of salt (as most non-dairy spreads have a salt in them, and some have quite a bit). After the switch to oils, I read some stuff that was kinda harshing on refined oils (in retrospect, this was a pretty bonkers critique, but at the time, I was in a very crunchy phase). I was still using a lot of nuts in cooking at the time (I was in a very meat-light phase of eating), and I had some really good food processor / grinder type equipment, so I started experimenting with modifying baked goodies to use freshly ground nuts / nut butters, instead of refined oils. I was having interesting and good results, but pregnancy sort of derailed that and I never returned to it. I’m excited to try the peanut butter bread, in part because it is a potential gateway to that phase of my cooking experimentation.
I walked in the morning with A.
On the way home, it was late enough that we got to the Concord rotary backup at about 5 pm. I suggested to A. that we have dinner at Paparazzi, and she asked if I was serious, and was super excited when I said yes. V. was our server and she recognized us as T.’s family, so that was nice. I had the PEI mussels and the chopped salad, minus butter and cheese. I wound up with the gluten free bread, because the current bread has milk products in it. It was above average, and I asked about buckwheat and was reassured — and didn’t have any negative reactions, so, yay! I got a manhattan and a triple templo. Yum.
When we got home, we made peanut butter bread. I’d seen the Dylan Hollis tiktok, and showed it to A. and she was excited to make that. I made some changes, because the original recipe involves milk, and because I never follow recipe directions exactly.
2 Cup freshly ground soft red wheat (measure after grinding!)
1 egg plus enough apple juice to be 1 Cup of liquid by volume
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter (Trader Joe’s unsalted valencia creamy — natural peanut butter, you know, the kind everyone says you cannot use in this recipe)
3 tsp baking powder
Chocolate chips
You will note there is no salt anywhere in this.
My technique was a little different than some of the descriptions out there. It is inspired by elements of Dylan Hollis’ youtube video in which he shows the original recipe, the 1945 Searchlight variation, and then his own version.
I combined the flour, baking powder and brown sugar (mix dry). Then I added the peanut butter, and used a fork to cut it in until it was evenly crumbly. (Cut in peanut butter). Finally, I added the 1 cup of liquid (combined egg and apple juice). I forgot to mix in the chips, so I sprinkled them on top. I expected them to sink it (that’s what happens with my blondies) but they sat on top and melted a bit.
Here is the thought process: with the egg, I’m not going to need as much BP for the rise. The bread came out nicely rounded on top so this worked well. I suspect it could be cut down a bit more, altho it does not matter much. I never mind not having salt; this is a bread that in the 1932 and 1945 formulations is broadly agreed to need something spread on it, so putting a salted spread or butter should satisfy the salt lovers out there. I, personally, thought it tasted fine, because, chocolate chips. This version of the loaf kinds tastes like a very bread-y peanut butter cookie and the crumb has a bit of that texture as well (I attribute that to how I assembled it, at least in part). Most important, I needed _some_ kind of liquid, and I don’t consistently keep non-dairy milk in the house. As a result, usually what we have is the unsweetened almond milk from costco that R. puts in his coffee, and which I am not a particular fan of. Dylan Hollis used applesauce in his final variation, and apples and peanut butter are always good together, so I went with apple juice (rather than orange juice, which I often use, or just water) and 1 beaten egg, in place of the milk. I reduced the volume a lot, based partly on the Searchlight approach, and partly on my own (deep) history of baking — I just thought that batter was excessively loose.
I _thought_ that I was going to recommend reducing the liquid further, however, actually think this is a very forgiving recipe (not unlike my biscuit recipe), and tolerates a very broad range of liquid, and a broad cooking temp. The original called for 325 for an hour. I went with 375, convection, 45 minutes, which is much closer to the Searchlight cooking temp. A lot of this comes down to how much do you want the outside of it to brown.
Final comments on the recipe. I’ve been through a lot of phases of baking technique. I used to use Nucoa stick margarine as a straight butter replacement, and water or soy milk as a straight milk replacement and reduced or left out the salt depending on what the recipe was. Over time, I experimented with other spreads, and then switched to oil, after someone made my apple crisp very successfully using oil. I had to adjust technique (instead of creaming butter and egg, I usually combined oil and other liquids as part of a “mix wet”), but it was within the standard baking repertoire to use that kind of technique. The awesome thing about switching to oils was it got rid of a lot of salt (as most non-dairy spreads have a salt in them, and some have quite a bit). After the switch to oils, I read some stuff that was kinda harshing on refined oils (in retrospect, this was a pretty bonkers critique, but at the time, I was in a very crunchy phase). I was still using a lot of nuts in cooking at the time (I was in a very meat-light phase of eating), and I had some really good food processor / grinder type equipment, so I started experimenting with modifying baked goodies to use freshly ground nuts / nut butters, instead of refined oils. I was having interesting and good results, but pregnancy sort of derailed that and I never returned to it. I’m excited to try the peanut butter bread, in part because it is a potential gateway to that phase of my cooking experimentation.
I walked in the morning with A.