52 Weeks of Baking

Original reddit post

This week is our first country challenge. To me these are the most fun challenges because they really expand my horizons. I am going to make some suggestions for South Africa challenge week here, but I'm no expert on SA. So please do share if you have recipes, favorite dishes or tips! And in particular, if you have a favorite SA food blogger, do drop a link in the comments.

Alright, so here is the fruit of my googling :

Malva Pudding : This one came up repeatedly in my searches, including in a reddit thread where some truly awesome person wanted to bake a cake for their SA roommate! It is made with apricot jam and has a spongy texture and is soaked in cream. Apparently this pudding was popularized by a chef named Maggie Pepler who worked for the SA ambassador in London.

Melktert : Literally "Milk Tart", the Dutch brought this dessert with them to South Africa.

Peppermint Crisp Tart : A no-bake, chilled dessert made with a favorite SA chocolate bar. Sounds delicious though the primary ingredient may be hard to find where you live, so you may have to get creative with substitutes.

Koeksisters : Described as a "sticky donut treat", it's fried and sweetend dough. What's not to love!

Roosterkoek : For a non-sweet option, try this "grill cake" which is apparently popular at South African barbeques. It is meant to be cooked on a bbq grill but the recipe includes an oven option.

Buttermilk Rusks : A twice baked biscuit (cookie for the Americans) that's meant to be dunked in a hot drink like tea or coffee.

Happy baking!

Recipe

I obviously over or underproofed it (my starter definitely wasn't strong enough), but otherwise this bread came out so good. Moist, easy to slice, and delicious. I used cooked quinoa and fresh turmeric in addition to powdered.

Original reddit post

According to Wikipedia, quick breads are bread leavened with a chemical leavening agent (baking powder, baking soda) rather than yeast. In addition to the leavening agent, they contain flour, eggs, fat (like butter or oil) and liquid. Now, this is a very broad categorization which technically includes everything from pancakes to cakes to biscuits. Few people are imagining a white cake though, when they say "quick bread". There's an interesting discussion online about what is or isn't a quick bread. Mark Bittman's book "How to Bake Everything" groups "quick breads" and "biscuits" into a single chapter and calls them "cousins".

Quick breads are usually made using the "Muffin mixing" method. This is the popular "mix all the wet ingredients together, mix all the dry ingredients together, then add the dry to the wet and mix until just incorporated". It produces more liquid-y batter rather than dough. See more info here.

Some recipes, however, use the "creaming" method for quick breads. This is the method used more typically for cakes (and cookies) of creaming softened butter with sugar first. This traps air bubbles in the batter, which results in a lighter crumb. A fun exercise would be to compare Alton Brown's muffin mixed banana bread with Sally's creamed banana bread.

Biscuits and scones use the biscuit method of mixing, which involves cutting the cold fat (butter or shortening) into the dry ingredients. This results in a flaky texture as the fat melts during baking, leaving air pockets behind. This is similar to the way pie crust is made.

So feel free to share your favorite muffins, quick bread loaves, or even scones. For something less sweet, you may prefer zucchini bread, cheddar biscuits or Irish soda bread.

Something of my own creation, these cookies started off as my chocolate chip cookie recipe, but with a bit of cloves thrown in for a winter flavor profile. I then split the dough in half, adding coco powder and chocolate chips to one half, and white chocolate chips to the other half. I then scooped out the cookie doughs individually, chopped the balls in half, and mixed them up to creat these cookies.

On the right side, the chocolate and chocolate chips represent the year qe have left behind, while the right side represents the blank slate and new opportunities the new year offers us all

Hey guys, Bagel is finally back with a new account. Sorry i missed all the December challenges, but i am ready to get back into another year of baking!

I did a few of the December challenges,so here is my signature dish: gooey butter cake! A St. Louis special that i grew up on, gooey butter cake is a cake in two parts: dense yellow cake bottom layer supports a gooey and delicious cream cheese and powdered sugar today layer. This is the classic original, but you can always experiment with it and make other flavors. Last year i made a strawberry cake for a grad party as well as a pumpkin one for Halloween.

This could count as a crossover with cutthroat kitchen or as my nemesis.

I made this recipe for the first time 4 years ago and it turned out pretty good. Last year I tried the croissants from Sally's baking addiction and was disappointed. They were less than half this size and not even close to honeycombed.

To be fair, these aren't honeycombed either. A lot of butter leaked out. I think I over proofed them. The cutthroat part comes in where I got my brother to help roll the dough and he did it so hard and fast, there were tears that also let butter out. Still taste great though, and looked impressive.

Original Reddit post

Welcome to the 2024 challenge, bakers! Whether you're a veteran of this sub, or here as a new year's resolution, we're so excited to have you.

Start off the new year with a recipe you've never tried before. That's it, that's the challenge. Feel free to go as elaborate or as simple as you'd like. You can look through past posts here for inspiration or just flip open your favorite cookbook. And if you're stuck, I've personally found Sally's Baking Addiction consistently accurate and delicious. Never been let down by a recipe there.

Good luck and Happy New Year!

original Reddit post

We're in an awkward position on Lemmy since there are fewer users and posts to borrow from. If you want to borrow from Reddit, go for it. If you want to stick to Lemmy, you can try cooking or food porn or pizza or any other food community you're aware of. Or like the Reddit post says, use this as an opportunity to bake your nemesis.

Recipe. These came out Per Fect. Delicious.

Starting from top left, we have gingerbread, key lime, and chocolate orange truffles, made with dates and other healthy ingredients, each as disappointing as you would expect.

Original Reddit post

Hello bakers, welcome to week 51! For this year’s penultimate challenge, we’re doing all things gooey! For this week, you could finally try your hand at the famous Reddit gooey brownies if you haven’t already, you could attempt a classic end-of-the year treat like pecan pie, or you could opt for something savory, like these cheesy-stuffed breadsticks

Here are some more options to check out:

Gooey butter cake

Molten lava cake

Sticky toffee pudding

Gluten-free self-saucing pudding

Custard slice

Happy baking!

A super easy recipe and finally an excuse to use the chocolate mold i bought several months ago! I elected to go the double boiler route instead of microwaving the chocolate and wpuld recommend that to anyone trying this themselves. You just end up with a more uniformly melted chocolate that behaves better. I'm glad i went with the mold instead of traditional pan barkbecause it breaks the bark into uniformly sized pieces with a perfectly cream texture with a bit of snap thanks to the candy cane chunks inside.

Original Reddit post

Hi all! Hope you’re ready for something extra-sweet this week, because it’s candy week! For week 50, you can either make something using a candy as an ingredient, like these M&M cookie bars or peanut butter blossom cookies or something inspired by a candy, like a Ferrero-rochet tart, or a Twix-inspired cheesecake. Here are a few more suggestions for those interested:

Stained glass window cookies

Ugly sweater cake

Chocolate gelt filled dreidel cookies

S’mores skillet cookie

Reese’s peanut butter cup pie

Happy baking!

Recipe. I let it rise for an hour and a half, and made them into 5 hoagie rolls to go with brats. This was one of the easiest bread recipes I've ever made, and they made for great sandwiches.

Original Reddit post

Welcome bakers! For week 49, we’re honoring the humble Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or Baker’s yeast. S. cerevisiae is a single-celled microorganism that feeds on sugars and ferments it into carbon dioxide and alcohol byproducts, allowing your baked goods to rise, and giving them a distinct, yeasty flavor.

Commercially available Baker’s yeast comes is several different forms, primarily as active dry yeast, which has to be bloomed in warm liquid to penetrate to the living yeast cells; instant yeast, which is more potent, and does not require activation before using; and cake yeast, which comes in a block that needs to be dissolved, and is said to impart a stronger yeast flavor.

If you want a less consistent, and more rustic approach to your leavening, you can forgo the Baker’s yeast altogether, and harness the flavors of wild yeast, which is yeast from the environment that is cultivated by the baker to use in their baked goods (think: sourdough cultures).

Here are some suggestions that use yeast as a leavening agent:

Vanilla bean sufganiyot doughnuts

Vegan chocolate challah

Masala chai fig jam buns

Whole wheat cranberry bread

Brown butter sage dinner rolls

Chicago-style deep dish pizza

As always, Happy Baking!

Recipe

Served with homemade dulce de leches ice cream, which made it perfect.

Original Reddit post

Hello bakers! It’s week 48, which means we only have 5 weeks to go in this year’s challenge! Kudos to those of you who have kept up with the challenges this whole time, and thanks to all who are participating! This week we’re making cobblers – pick any fruit (or vegetable, if you’re feeling particularly adventurous) you’d like, top it with some batter of your choosing, and bake!

Here are a few suggestions:

Cast iron skillet berry cobbler

Bourbon peach cobbler

Cranberry cobbler bars

Apple and pear crisp

Fruitless maple pecan pie cobbler

Vegetable cobbler

Happy baking!

Recipe

Alaska by Little Hurt is one of my favourite songs and this challenge gave me the idea to try out this brownie baked alaska recipe. Absolutely delicious, but I got meringue all over my hands. Will be attempting again!

P.S. sorry I'm so late!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there! I've been so busy starting a new job that i havent had much time for baking. But we are having a thanksgiving potluck tomorrow so i decided to take on a bunch of stuff at once! Had to do a challenge this month, have to do all my Thanksgiving prep today because i am working tomorrow and Thursday so i won't have time, and I gotta make a good impression on my new co-workers! Tomorrow morning I'll whip up some fresh whipped cream!

I still have 2 more small cobblers in the oven as I write this up, as all the small ones will be going to friends around town for them to share with their families as well.

Original reddit post

Hi bakers, and welcome to week 47! This week, the challenge is to bake something using a preserved ingredient, such as jarred fruits and jellies; pickles, kimchi, and sauerkraut; or wines and spirits. Here are some suggestions if you’re looking for inspiration, and feel free to add your own below!

Maple syrup and miso pear pie

Apple butter apple pie

Victoria sponge

Dill pickle bread

Chocolate sauerkraut cake

And speaking of preserved, if you want to take this week’s challenge even further, try making a traditional Christmas fruit cake, which both uses preserved Brandy and gets ‘preserved’ itself from now until Christmas!

As always, happy baking!

Recipe. Little dry for my taste, but with coffee it's a nice healthy snack and it has ingredients I can get in my small culture less town.

Original reddit post

Welcome bakers to week 46! Happy Diwali! Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights with its variations also celebrated in other Indian religions. It symbolises the spiritual "victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance". (from Wikipedia). Diwali 2023 will be celebrated on November 12th. Diwali celebrations can last for about five days.

I personally recommend to all of those who are not familiar with the holliday (like myself) to read and learn about it. It is great to know more about other cultures' holidays, and if any of you celebrate it, please feel free to comment and let us know with your own words!

But here are some recipes I found online of what is usually baked for this holiday:

Gulab Jambu:https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/how-to-make-gulab-jamun/

Rhubarb, rosewater and cardamom kulfi: https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/rhubarb_rosewater_and_78554

Butter Murukku: https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/butter-murukku-recipe-easy-murukku-recipe/

Happy baking!

Meringues

Dulce de leche fudge

We're doing a late halloween event. I wanted to stick the ghosts in the pumpkins but that didn't work out. I put the eyes on before I cooked the meringues and some of them burst out in a creepy/cool way. Everything tastes great.

Original reddit post

Welcome bakers to week 45! This week is all about texture. Crunchy, soft, spongy, creamy. Sky's the limit as you mix any two together. It can be a combination that is an intrinsic part of the recipe (say, creme brulee) or it may be the topping or decoration you decide to use (or filling).

Here, as always, some ideas:

Creme Brulee Donuts: https://bakewithzoha.com/creme-brulee-donuts/

Apple Crumble (with Ice Crem):https://sweetandsavorymeals.com/classic-apple-crumble-recipe/

Molten Lava Cake: https://www.pauladeen.com/recipe/molten-lava-cakes/

Have fun! As, at least for me, combining textures is always fun.

Happy baking!