Welcome to the discussion and reporting thread for our September–November 2023 BCOTM, where we’ll be cooking together from the Sarah Kieffer library: Vanilla Bean Blog, The Vanilla Bean Baking Book, 100 Cookies, Baking for the Holidays, and 100 Morning Treats.* Together, the encompass recipes ranging from simple sugar cookies and quick breads to doughnuts and laminated pastries, and everything in between.
To report on a recipe, put the name of the recipe in ALL CAPS and include which book it’s in and the page number, if it’s available to you, or provide a link to an online recipe (just paste in the address, and will automatically become a clickable link when your post goes live). If you are the first to post about a recipe, please reply to this post. If someone has already posted about the recipe, reply to their post so all the posts about each recipe are linked for easy reference.
To respect the author’s copyright, please don’t post photos or verbatim copies of recipes. Links to recipes online are welcome, and you may post ingredients and summarize instructions in your own words.
Happy Baking!
*Just a heads up that the latter three books are available on Hoopla, the on-demand library app, if your local library subscribes, and 100 Cookies can be borrowed free on kindle if you are an Amazon Prime subscriber in the US.
SPRINKLE SCONES WITH ICING recipe fro VANILLA BEAN BAKING BLOG
I made this recipe for breakfast on my grandson’s birthday. The family inhaled them but my daughter might have not been too happy about them having sweets for breakfast. There are sprinkles in the scone and some sprinkled on top. I didnt have any but it looked like a tender flaky scone. My family loved them.
Sour Cream Dough page 270 a dreamy dough to work with which is made in a stand mixer. Rolls out so easily and i made this doughfor my kolaches.
Kolaches page 133 since i had some farmers cheese to use up I used half farmers half cream cheese, sugar lemon juice. My centres were some with apricot jam and some with lemon curd. After rolling out the dough, making an indentation, filling it, brushing egg wash, sprinkling with
strudel, and baking.
I made this before her website and books became BCOM. This is a very impressive bake. I felt like it came from a european bakery. There is a recipe for kolaches on her website Vanilla Baking Blog but its a different dough.
MILK BREAD BUNS from 100 Morning Treat. These buns are as light as air. I usually bake my milk bread from Mooncakes and Milkbread which is basically the same recipe. The only thing I do different is I simmer my milk first because it takes longer to cool and then cook the tangzhong.
Blueberry muffin from 100 Morning Treats. A delicious muffin but how can it not be. Lots of blueberries, sour cream, buttermilk almond flour and a topping of sugar with nutmeg make it so. Sorry no picture, it was baked awhile back.
100 MORNING TREAT
BUTTERMILK DOUGH page 268
This recipe uses buttermilk instead of milk. The dough is made and folded over ever 30 minutes for 4 times and then refrigerated overnight. Result was a lovely dough to roll out and very soft and fluffy. The nicest cinnamon roll I’ve made.
BUTTERMILK CINNAMON FILLING PAGE 117
There was a correction for the filling 6 tablespoons of butter should be melted not at room temperature.
For the icing 8 tablespoons butter should be at room temperature not melted.
I went easy on the icing because we dont like our buns drowning in icing. I hope to make these again during the holidays. I get the feeling that this is one of her signature bakes. I have a picture in instagram but cant seem to download it here
These sound great. I made her cinnamon rolls from her blog, but neither the dough nor the filling contained buttermilk. Will try these as soon as I get the book from the library.
MAPLE POPPY SEED BREAD page 71
A quick bread it is. Lovely buttery crumb with a crunch of poppy seeds. I will use dark maple syrup next time and maybe reduce the sugar by 25%. Very pleased to add to my collection of quick breads
BANANA POPPY SEED COOKIES from 100 Cookies
I’ve had my eye on this recipe for a couple of years, and they were everything I hoped they would be. They’re made with ground dehydrated banana (purchased at Trader Joe’s), which means a mild but definite banana flavor. The banana is sweet but not cloying and sticky like other banana treats can be. Everyone in the family is having trouble not eating one every time we walk through the kitchen.
The previous night I had a baking disaster due to waaay to much sugar in a recipe (from the book Fabulous Modern Cookies), so I approached the Banana Poppy Seed Cookies with extra caution.
So often I weigh out the amount of sugar for a recipe and think, “that is way too much.” With the FMC recipe, I didn’t trust my judgement, and I paid for it. With 100 Cookies, when I measured out 200 g of brown sugar and thought “that’s closer to 2 cups than to 1” (and the recipe indicates one cup), I got out the measuring cup and used it instead. Even packed, 200 g of brown sugar was closer to 1 1/2 cups. The same went for the supposed 3/4 c of granulated sugar; I reduced down to the cup measurement after weighing. The texture of the final cookies is perfect, so I will note the adjustment in the future. Somewhere in the book the author says that reducing the sugar in her cookies will negatively affect their texture, but I disagree. For this recipe, at least, use cups rather than weighted sugar measurements.
The cookbook, 100 Cookies, is available on Hoopla, so you can access it via your library account. It has her other cookbooks except the Vanilla Bean Baking Book, as well.
