Thank you @ieatalotoficecream - they were really fun to make!
KAF’s Big Bubbly Focaccia. I think it was @emglow101 ‘s post of this recipe which prompted me to finally try it – it was KAF’s recipe of the year in 2025. The only modification I made was to swap out 25 g. each of the flour and water and sub with a total of 50 g. sourdough discard. FYI the recipe calls for 1 ½ t. table salt or 9 grams. I went by weight, which amounted to only 1 t. I baked in a Lloyd 9” square pan.
I was a little skeptical about de-panning the loaf and putting it back into the oven directly on the rack, but it was easy (I used a cake lifter) and (more importantly) it wasn’t as oily as anticipated, and it didn’t make a mess of my oven.
This came out great. I think my old go-to - the ATK focaccia - is a little less fiddly, but the KAF version is the better focaccia. In hopes of keeping things simple, I’ll probably try a hybrid of the two methods in the future.
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Bagels in the Bread Machine – The Final Analysis.
It took me 7 controlled bakes (40 test bagels – all eaten or about to be) to get this recipe where I wanted it:
Enough flavor and chew to satisfy my personal desire for an “authentic” bagel.
Not so much chew that DH – with his dental work – couldn’t also enjoy them.
Suitable for mixing in a bread machine on the “set it & forget it” dough cycle.
The numbers I finally settled on are:
Protein content of the flour blend: 12.86% to 13.57%
Hydration: 58.5%
18-hour cold ferment
Not quite as dense and chewy as a NY or Montreal-style bagel, but certainly in bagel territory and far more to my taste than anything I can buy here locally. Bonus points for mixing a small batch in the bread machine on the “set it and forget it” dough cycle. Going forward, I might play with increasing the duration of the cold-ferment to judge the effects, but otherwise, I’m at a stopping point with the tweaking and happy with my bagels.
As a side note, the process of doing controlled bakes on “slow” bread - judging the effects of the various tweaks at all the various stages - has been really fun! Something to look forward to most days, and always something to learn.
Because this recipe was written specifically for the bread machine, I’ll post the recipe on the Bread Machine thread.
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Wowza! Beautiful bagels, great job, congrats on all the testing bearing fruition!
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Thank you! I sometimes have trouble sticking to the adage of making only one change to a bread recipe at a time, but managed to do it here and it paid off. It was such a fun project, and I learned so much, I’m kind of sorry it’s over. I’ll have to pick a new topic to delve into!
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That looks awesome 
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Thank you!
Thank you. The “if you mill regularly” part is indeed the question for me. I’m not immune to jumping onto this or that bandwagon enthusiastically, but then 6 months later abandoning it. So if I’m still doing it after a while, I’ll gift the KAGM to a kid, and happily pay for a better mill. And if I’m not still doing it much after a while, I’ll be happy I only spent the $130.
What are you baking? February 2026 - #107 by MunchkinRedux.
Ha! Story of my life 
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maple gingersnaps.
I substituted maple syrup for molasses in this recipe:
They are a nice cookie, and they worked well to thicken my sauerbraten sauce.
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Needed a simple dessert for tomorrow, as I’m taking dinner over to my friend who lost her mom while I was away, but her whole family is suddenly going to be there (dad, siblings, husband, kids). Didn’t want anything fancy because it’s a condolence visit, did want something reliable because kids and dad have a sweet tooth. Tiger cake seemed to fit the bill.
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Peanut butter cookies with white chocolate. Boy do I have a abundance of white chocolate. A couple of weeks ago, I went to Business Costco and bought a 5kg bag of white chocolate chip because they didn’t have the 2kg. Today I opened the bag and to my surprise the chips are as big as buttons. 1 weighs 3 grams. I had to chop it in quarters. Anyway, some will be donated to my daughter. Recipe is from Pie and Taco website. Peanut butter and White chocolate is a nice combination.
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That one turned out fantastic! Make sure they’ll appreciate it.
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Almond Croissants - again. Starting from Costco giant croissants, cut in half. Some red grapes on the side for this lunchtime dessert serving.
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A treat for the ladies’ card game next week has been requested.
Bittersweet chocolate is on sale right now, so I went ahead and picked some up. I’ve been eyeing some variations of chocolate meringue cakes, like this or this.
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Hosting a dinner for friends on Sunday and they LOVE chocolate - any recommendations for your absolute favorite most chocolate-y cake? Thinking like one-layer cake although not opposed to 2 - thanks!
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Smitten Kitchen chocolate Soufflé cake
Yossy chocolate yogurt ( I used sour cream ) cake 45 g egg white/ sugar meringue for 6” cake
Spread meringue on top and folded over some batter
Yossy chocolate cake, reserved a little batter and drizzled over, lightly folded into meringue.
Some thoughts for you…you could take your favorite chocolate cake and just top it with meringue and incorporate some of the batter and swirl which is what I did .
Claire Saffritz also has a version where she reserves some of the meringue used in the cake for the top.
SK soufflé cake is adapted from Richard Sax, I think he referred to it as a Cloud Cake, iirc it’s a larger cake than her version.
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I was going to post that Cloud Cake from Richard Sax. Haven’t made it (helpful, I know), but it sure looks like a winner.
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@LulusMom1 ‘s chocolate whiskey cake is a terrific bundt.
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SK variation is very nice but imo, not that chocolatey! I think she might make mention of that .
Also , I think Gateau had some good chocolate cake variations, I haven’t made anything yet from her new book on Chocolate.
