Quarterly baking report [Q1 2023]

My cooking is best described as edible, so I wouldn’t entirely trust anything I have to say about dinner recipes, but people at least tell me they like my baking. Here’s a review of what we baked in the first three months of 2023 with some notes.

Linzer cookies – King Arthur Baking – This was a post-Christmas bake (hence the Christmas tree shapes). I’m pretty sure I would have reduced the sugar from 1/2 to 1/3 cup, we may have used one whole egg instead of an egg yolk, and we substituted almond extract for the lemon zest/cinnamon and vanilla. The almond extract we had was quite strong, so maybe be aware of that if you do a similar switch. The cookies come out like a crisp sugar cookie with a finer crumb, and I used jam for the filling. Our cookies turned out well, though very almondy. The dough works nicely, so the rolling/cutting out isn’t too tedious. Would bake again.

Clockwise from top left: Linzer cookies, filled wool roll, Nutella/chocolate babka, cranberry apple galette

Filled wool roll – King Arthur Baking – We may have baked this partly (mostly) because it looked interesting. It’s a sweetened bread, so I think we followed the recipe exactly this time. The base is a Japanese milk bread that’s then filled, rolled, cut, and shaped to give it its form and the filling is a mixture of cream cheese and freeze-dried fruit. This was a fun and tasty bake, but as usual I’m reminded of why I don’t bake bread that often because why does proving take so long?

Coconut shortbread cookies – Not sure on the recipe for this bake, which was done mainly to make a dent in some expired coconut flour. I liked the cookies, though the coconut flour definitely does something to the texture.

Prinsesstarta – The Great British Baking Show: The Big Book of Amazing Cakes – I picked up the book at the library, wanted to make something from it, and had a birthday cake to make: enter, Prinsesstarta. For those unfamiliar, it’s a cake layered with jam and pastry cream, then covered in whipped cream and marzipan. Going in to the bake, I knew it would be a long process, and after having done it, the cake is good, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort for me. I can confirm I’m in the pro-marzipan camp though.

Prinsesstarta

Cranberry apple galette – The Pioneer Woman – For pie day we went slightly off script with a galette. My pie crust is still a work in progress so I can’t say too much about the recipe. Overall, it was more or less edible, and the fruit was great.

Nutella/chocolate babka – Again, I’m not positive which recipe we ended up using. I do know we made a Nutella variation on a babka, and as long as your bread turns out, it’s bread and chocolate so assuming you like bread and chocolate there’s not much to complain about. Same comment as above about proving but otherwise I have no grievances against the recipe.