Savory Baking Fails

Why does this keep happening?

Just to keep everyone up to date, I need to talk about a couple of baking fails I have had as I have begun my bake-through of Erin McDowell’s Savory Baking. As people who have been following my baking journey know, I bake a lot of her stuff. My pie baking is 99% her crust recipes, 90% her filling recipes. But, I have recently made two of the quick bread recipes from Savory Baking and neither have turned out right.

The first was a savory zucchini bread, with cheddar cheese. It had a lot of zucchini and cheese in it, with a topping of panko bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. When I pulled it out of the oven, it seemed done. The toothpick came out clean and it had all of the visual cues of a baked loaf: good color, pulling away from the sides of the pan, springing back into place when touched. But, it was gummy inside. Despite that, the freshly baked bread was delicious!

Other than the weird texture, it also wasn’t good at room temperature, but it did reheat well.

I also made an olive and feta loaf. Despite it sounding delicious, it was gummy and didn’t taste great, so I’m not going to dwell on it or ever make that one again.

So, I am moving on. I have more baking to do this weekend, so fingers crossed I can report some successes.

On the pie front, I haven’t baked any lately, but it’s about time to decide what I am going to enter in the county fair pie baking contest this year! More to come on that!

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One non-baking item before I go: while I haven’t discussed non-baking items here, I do want to say that it has been an incredibly unsettling week. To try to freeze all federal loans and grants is a clearly illegal act on the president’s part, who is in the process of consolidating power. Foundational to our system of government, Congress, an equal branch of government, allocates how money is spent. Once those bills are signed into law, the president cannot, constitutionally, say we're not spending that money anymore. Here is a deeper dive into the ramifications: Click here to read about the spending freeze. While the courts have put a hold on the order, it is very unclear whether or not the administration is abiding by the court order. If you are concerned about this, please call your representative and senators and tell them so. The main number is (202) 224-3121. You can dial and ask for your senators’ or representative’s office. Here is a script from 5 Calls. You can also download the 5 Calls app and it will connect you with your senators and representatives.