Croissants from ALL ABOUT CROISSANT by Jean-Marie Lanio and Jérémy Ballester. It’s not a book for a beginner, as some information could be more detailed, but the results are excellent. Not having access to French flour, I had to guess at what would potentially work here. Flours ended up being a combination of roller milled hard flour and a blend of freshly milled soft wheat and spelt that was put through a fine seive. I gave myself a headache worrying about whether they’d turn out well or not. A few tweaks are still needed, but these turned out very well.
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They are gorgeous! 
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Oatmeal cookies to which I added butterscotch chips so in then they case are called oatmeal-scotchies. My go to recipe for oatmeal cookies is from Midwest Made by Shauna Severn. Recipe contains butter and a bit of shortening but I’m not afraid of shortening. Yesterday they were crisp and chewy and today they are just chewy. Love that caramel taste from the butterchip cookies. One delicious cookie
Everytime I bake cookies, I put some away into the freezer. Now I have enough to sent grandson a care package at university.
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Stellar! 
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These are so pretty that I am angry at you!
Wow.
One of these days…
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I made two giant pumpkin bread loaves (white four, all the sugar and oil 
) and some GF vegan plum muffins (GF yellow cake mix + flax egg, warm spices, vanilla, and diced plums) for a teacher work session tomorrow. Will be served with some cut fruit.
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Making Bravetart’s Devil’s Food Chocolate Layer Cake with the ganache frosting from the baking book for the staff bake sale at work. We do various things (50/50s, the Souper Bowl, bake sales, basket raffles, etc) to make money for the scholarship fund. So thrilled that they moved it to Friday instead of tomorrow as planned. I have tutoring until 5 and the ganache has to be chilled for like 8 hours so I would have had to get up at like 4am to get it whipped, the cake assembled, and ready for work. I’ll make the ganache tonight and deal with the cakes and assembly tomorrow afternoon/evening.
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Still trying to get GF loafpan (sandwich bread) to get as much loft as commercial breads.
This one got 3.75 inches, which is pretty close. Tasted pretty good but was seriously dense as hell (the 9x5 loaf got me 20 slices and massed 32 ounces, vs. typical commercial loaves 24 ounces).
Still, counting it as a win. This was for daughter #1.
Photo note - I’d already stolen a couple of pieces here to see how it toasted. Result - it took 3 toaster cycles, toasted up visually pretty nicely, but was still really dense. Tasted damned good for GF bread, though. All of my daughters claim it’s basically the same or better than Scharf or Canyon, at about half the price. Plus, now at 3.5 to 3.75 inches, it’s taller!
This below is a second loaf for daughter #2 (made Saturday for her). I let it over-proof trying to get more loft but only got a bit. At least it didn’t fall. And this time (as opposed to the post I am linking to), I did an egg wash and liked the crust a bit better. She cuts a thicker slice than I do.
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The crumb looks good – I wouldn’t have guessed dense!
Maybe it’s the mix of flours? I had good luck with brown rice combined with jowar / sorghum and cassava in different loaves.
Psyllium husk also worked much better for me than xanthan – less gummy / dense crumb.
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Many thanks. Maybe I should call it “heavy” rather than “dense”. It is really pleasant as a sandwich bread or as a toasted cheese - but it is heavier than one expects given the size.
We do have Kat’s “Elements of Baking” book (gift to one of my daughters), but I’m trying to lazy my way through this by playing with commercially prepped (mostly King Arthur) bread baking flours.
I know it’s a lot easier, but I found my outcomes were easier to tweak / control for what we wanted when I started with individual flours than with commercial mixes, especially for bread and pizza (in cake / banana bread there were enough other factors for texture & flavor to mask any issues).
All it took was stocking 3-4 flours — some gf blogs suggested mixing up a big batch of your own blend at one go, but I preferred making it up batch by batch based on what I was making — sandwich bread, rustic boule, flatbread, cake, etc.
But this was back in ‘20/‘21, so maybe the commercial blends have improved since then. (I tried KAF, cup4cup, and a few others.)
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Late night bake of lemon cupcakes / muffins to send in a care package. Light glaze and sprinkles for the special occasion.
Not my finest work, but I think the recipient will enjoy the surprise arrival.
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I certainly would! What else is in the care package?
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A few more homemade things, and some purchased bagels and snacks.
I wrote it up here:
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Lucky grandson!!
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Not really baking but made a tray of Rice Krispie Squares for our United Way sale at work: I was just going to bring my jams and chutneys for sale, but I felt bad for the organizer since there weren’t many people who signed up to sell. I doubled the Smitten Kitchen Browned Butter Rice Krispie Squares recipe which was perhaps slightly too ambitious for the pot that I used: there were rice krispies everywhere. But they turned out well and sold out.
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I made banana chocolate chip [and pecan] cakes to get some decrepit bananas out of my freezer. Turned out well – I might have slightly under baked the Bundt but that’s better than dry cake. The cakelets will go to teachers. I was impatient and cut this slice while it was still hot. Subbed buttermilk and canola oil for the milk and butter this time.
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