Croissants!

This is my second attempt at making croissants (from scratch, not buying the pastry!) and they are so gooooood!!!

I won't be writing the recipe for the moment, as it is long and a bit complicated, unless someone wants to try!

I think I deserve a prize for making this by following a recipe in Danish (without previous translation), forgetting to add egg and mis-translating fridge for kitchen top :-)

Chocolate muffins - a classic

I have to admit that these are not my favourite muffins, but it was the only recipe for which I had all the ingredients at home :-)
They're still nice and so easy to make, and there are probably very few people in the world who don't like chocolate muffins!

Choco muffins

255 g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
150 g white granulated sugar
4 tbsp cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1 egg
250 ml milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
90 ml sunflower oil

Sift in a bowl the flower, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, sugar and cocoa poder.
In another bowl, beat egg and add milk, vanilla and oil.
Pour the wet mix into the flour mix. Stir all together just until combined (it shouldn't be overstirred!).
Fill 12 muffin cups. Bake in the oven for 23 minutes at 185C. I use the fan oven for baking muffins, if you have the top and bottom oven you'll need to increase the temperature 10-15C.

Laura's yummy cheesecake

After a very long break from cooking I'm back :-)...

Last weekend I tried again another of my sister's great recipes, the incredibly versatile cheesecake :-) She claims you can pretty much use anything you have at home, soft cheese, ricotta, yogurts, sour cream and it will still be delicious...

I'll write the ingredients I've used this time, but I'll try it again with variations.

Laura's cheesecake

For the base:
50 g melted butter
4 digestive biscuits
2 tbsp rolled oats
1 tbsp sugar

For the mix:
250 g ricotta
250 g philadelphia
50 g white sugar
2 eggs
zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp white flour


Crush the biscuits (I use the blender/mixer) and mix them with the melted butter. Add the oats and the sugar.
Grease an oven cake tin (better spring form or the ones that open) with a bit of butter and cover the base with baking paper. Press the biscuits mixture into the base of the tin with the back of a spoon and put in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

Mix the ricotta and the philadelphia with the sugar with electric beaters until it's smooth. Add the eggs, lemon and the flour and mix together.

Pour in the tin and bake for 30 minutes at 180C.

When it's finished, let it cool down out of the oven. Then leave it overnight in the fridge and spread jam (pretty much any jam will do) on the top before serving. 
 

Another Danish goodie... Kanelsnurrer (Cinnamon buns)

This weekend I've gone for a sweet bread... These buns are really soft and fluffy!
It's another Meyers' recipe, but I've halved it so you get eight buns.

Cinnamon buns

250 ml cold milk
25 g fresh yeast
1 small egg
500 g plain flour
75 g white sugar
7 g salt
6 g ground cardamom
75 g butter

For the filling:
60 g melted butter
75 g white sugar
1 tbsp ground cinnamon

For the topping:
1 egg
Some suggar

Mix the cold milk with the yeast in a bowl. Then add the egg, flour, sugar, salt and cardamom. This has to be mixed until the dough is smooth and shiny, approx 20 minutes on the mixing machine (or by hand if you have the energy!).

Then cut the butter in small dice, add to the dough and mix for another 20 minutes. Cover with a kitchen towel and leave to rest for 1 1/2 hours, until doubled in size.

Get the dough out onto a floured surface and roll into a rectangle, approx 25cm x 40cm.

Spread the melted butter on the rolled dough, then sprinkle the sugar and the cinnamon. Fold the dough twice so you get three layers (folding on the 40cm side).

Roll the folded dough again until it's 30 cm x 25 cm. Cut in 8 pieces (which will be 30 cm long).

Now the shaping bit which is a bit tricky... Take each stripe and twist it from the ends, so it looks like a twisted rope. Then holding the stripe with one hand, you need to fold it twice around your index and middle finger and "close" the shape with the hanging bit by pushing it between your fingers.

Put the shaped buns on a baking tray and leave uncovered to rise for approx 2 hours until doubled in size.

Brush the buns with the beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake in the oven at 200C for 13 minutes and then leave to cool down on a wire rack.

Walnut bread

I had previously made this bread, but this is the first time I try with the breadmaker. I decided to just mix and rise the dough and then shape it manually (you can get really tired of cubic bread...). The only thing is that you can only use the breadmaker if it has a nut dispenser...

Walnut Bread (Pain aux Noix)

2 tsp dried yeast (fast action)
250 g strong white flour
125 g rye flour
125 g wholemeal flour
2 tsp salt
350 ml water
150 g walnuts, roughly chopped

Put all the ingredients (except for the walnuts) in the machine. The walnuts will need to be added in the nut dispenser. Use the wholemeal-raisin dough setting which in my machine takes around 2 hours and a half.

Take the dough out into a floured surface and shape into a log loaf, about 25 cm in lengh. Cover with a tea towel and leave to prove for 45 minutes. It grows a lot!

Bake at 200C for 50 minutes and then leave to cool on a wire rack.

Ciabatta

I need to work on this recipe a bit more... The bread tasted really good, but it wasn't as light and full of holes as it should have been...

Ciabatta

For the starter:
1/2 tsp dried yeast (fast action)
150 ml water
3 tbsp tepid milk
1/4 tsp sugar
150 g strong white flour

For the dough:
1/2 tsp dried yeast (fast action)
250 ml water
1/2 tbsp olive oil
350 g strong white flour
1 1/2 tsp salt

To make the starter pour the water and milk in a bowl. Mix in the sugar. Add the flour together with the yeast and mix to form a loose batter.

Cover with a tea towel and leave overnight or for 12 hours.

Add the water and olive oil to the starter and mix well. Add the flour, yeast and salt and mix to form a wet sticky dough. Beat with a wooden spoon for five minutes.

Cover with a tea towel and leave to treble in size for about 3 hours.

Flour a couple of baking sheets and have extra flour for your hands. Take half of the dough on one of the baking sheets and, with very well floured hands, stretch and pull the dough to form a roughly rectangular loaf (30cm long). Neaten and plump up the loaf by running your fingers down each side and tucking the edges under the dough.

Do the same with the other half of the dough.

Leave uncovered to prove, for 20 minutes. The loaves will spread and grow.

Bake at 220C for 30 minutes, then leave to cool on a wire rack.

Burgers...

Yesterday I tried for the first time to make some burger buns. It's always been difficult to find nice burger bread in the supermarket, which is surprising, so I though I would give it a go.

It's a really easy recipe with very simple ingredients, it takes less than 4 hours in total and the result is amazing!

The original recipe is for 14 buns, but I halved it and it worked perfectly. Here it goes:

Burger buns

2.5 dl tepid water
13 g fresh yeast
450 g plain flour
37 g sugar
7 g salt
37 g softened butter

Pour the water in a bowl and mix the yeast in until it dissolves. Add the flour, sugar and salt and mix together.
Add the softened butter and mix/knead for 6-8 minutes (I did it with the Kenwood mixing machine, but it would be fine to do it by hand).

Leave it to rest for 1 hour at room temperature covered with a kitchen towel.

Put the dough in a floured surface and roll into a "sausage" shape. Cut the sausage in 7 pieces. Roll every piece into a ball, dipping it into sesame seeds before placing it on an oven tray. It's important to leave some room between the dough balls as they will need the space. Leave them to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes (I didn't cover them at all).

Place another tray on top of the buns and push it to flatten them. Then leave them uncovered to rest for 1 hour (room temperature).

 Bake in the oven at 220C for 13 minutes and then let them cool down on a wire rack.

Rundstykker - Danish breakfast bread

Yesterday we finally got to use the thing that lived in the kitchen - the sourdough...

It didn't smell acidic, which apparently is a good thing, but as it said in the recipe, like a good beer.

The recipe for the rundstykker is not that difficult, but it takes almost a full day. One thing to consider is that this recipe makes 30 pieces of bread! so you'll need a lot of space, time and oven trays if you make a full one.

Rundstykker

Pre-dough:

2 1/2 dl cold water

25 g fresh yeast

500 g plain flour

Dough:

8 dl cold water

3 dl sourdough

300 g fine durum flour (which is basically pasta flour)

1.1 kg plain flour

35 g salt

For the topping:

Poppy, sesame and linseeds

Predough: Pour the cold water in a bowl and mix in the fresh yeast. Then add the flour and mix it all together. You will need to use your hands and you should get a quite hard, stiff and just mixed dough.

Put the mix in a plastic bowl, cover with plastic film and refrigerate for 12 hours.

Dough: Mix the water, sordough, durum flour and salt with the predough in the mixing machine (obviously this can be done by hand, but you'll need to mix and knead for at least 10 minutes). After the mixing/kneading the dough should be elastic and pliable.

Leave to rest (at room temperature) covered with a kitchen towel for approx 30 minutes until it begins to grow.

Cut in three pieces and roll each one into a roll. At this point I have to say that the dough is quite sticky, so you might want to use quite a lot of flour for this. Cut each roll in 10 pieces. Make a ball of each piece, dipping it into the seeds before putting it on an oven tray (with either greased baking paper or the magic teflon sheets, I recommend the latter).

Cover them with a loose kitchen towel and leave them to rise until doubled in size (1-2 hours).

Put an oven pan on the bottom of the oven and heat to 200C. Once the oven is hot, pour a glass of cold water in the oven pan and put the bread in. Bake for 20 minutes and then leave to cool in a wire rack.

If you don't have any sourdough, the recipe suggests replacing it with the same amount of water, but I tried this the first time I made them and they got really flat.

Homemade pizza... mmmmm...

Lovely (and way too big for two!) pizza with the base made in the breadmaker...

before...

and after...

Stuffed Italian bread - Focaccia Farcita

To complete the good food weekend, we had a tomato, rocket and mozzarella focaccia for dinner on Sunday... For the first time I made the dough in the breadmachine, and it really makes it a lot easier!

Here goes the recipe...

Focaccia Farcita

For the bread:
2tsp dry yeast (the quick one for breadmakers)
500 g strong white flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp olive oil
350 ml water

For the filling:
1 fresh mozzarella, cut in pieces
250 g cherry tomatoes
a handful of basil leaves
rocket leaves (as much as you can stuff in the focaccia)
1/2 tsp coarse salt
4 tbsp olive oil
3 sprigs rosemary

1. Put the bread ingredients in the breadmachine, using the "dough" setting.

2. Once the dough is ready, divide it in two equal pieces. Chafe each of them for 5 minutes (chafing is basically making the dough round by rotating it with your palms while you push downwards, stretching the dough from the top down). Then leave both pieces to rest for 10 minutes.

3. To do the filling, put the cherry tomatoes on a baking tray. Sprinkle with a bit of olive oil and some salt and bake for 20 minutes at 200C. Cut the mozzarella, rocket and basil and mix together.

4. Roll out each piece into a 24cm round. Put one in an oiled baking sheet (I use the teflon re-usable sheets you can buy in supermarkets). Arrange the filling on top of it and then put the other round piece of dough on top, sealing them by pinching the edges.

5. Cover the dough with a tea towel and leave it to rise for about 30 minutes.

6. Press the surface of the dough with your fingers to make dimples (1cm deep). Sprinkle with the coarse salt and 1 tbsp of olive oil and then top with the rosemary leaves.

7. Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes until golden (200C). Serve warm.

Exotic Caribbean Soup

This has definitely been a cooking weekend! After the bread and the cake yesterday, we went for a soup dish today.

This soup is really nice, a little bit spicy (depends how much chilli you use, of course) and quite creamy... It's made in a wok, I've never tried to make it in a normal pan, but I guess it's possible.

Caribbean Chicken and Coconut Soup

6 spring onions
2 garlic cloves
1 red chilli
175 g cooked chicken
2 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tsp ground turmeric
300 ml coconut milk
900 ml chicken stock
50 g small soup pasta
1/4 lemon, sliced
salt and black pepper
2 tbsp chopped coriander

Thinly slice the spring onions and chop the garlic. Finely chop the chilli (without seeds).

I've made this soup both with grilled and with boiled chicken breasts, and it doesn't seem to make any difference as long as the chicken is cooked. It should be shred or cut in dices.

Heat the wok, add the oil and when it's hot add the spring onions, garlic and chilli. Stir for a couple of minutes until the spring onions look soft.

Stir in the turmeric and let it cook for 1 minute.

Add the coconut milk and the chicken stock (mix them together previously) to the wok. Then add the pasta and the lemon slices. Bring to the boil and simmer (half-covered), for 10 minutes (until the pasta is cooked). Stir from time to time.



Remove the lemon from the wok and add the chicken. Season and simmer for another 2 minutes, to get the chicken heated.

At the last moment add the coriander and serve immediately.

The apple pie for the people who don't like apple pie...

With the leftovers of my sisters' visit last weekend, today I baked a tarte tatin, learned from my sis Laura and based on http://petiteboulangerie.blogspot.com/2008/10/tarta-tatin.html. (in Spanish)...

It's so good even people who don't usually like apple pies love it!

Presentation-wise not so good this time, but taste... mmmmmmmm.... Served with a Chai tea and some clotted cream cornish ice-cream.

Mor's rye bread

I'm not sure if this is going to be a disaster or a success, as I haven't seen the inside of this bread yet... Doesn't look too bad on the outside, though...

Here goes the recipe:

Leaven: (only for the first time, then the bread dough before baking is used as leaven)

1 dl water (at 40C)

1 dl plain flour

10 g fresh yeast

Stir all the ingredients together. Cover the mix with plastic foil and leave for 2-3 days at room temperature.

Once the leaven is ready, we can start the bread itself. It takes two days to make this bread, so it needs to be planned a bit in advance.

First part:

1.8 l water (at 40C)

6 tbsp salt

2 dl leaven

1 tsp sugar

Second part:

300 g cracked rye grain

100 g sunflower seeds

100 g linseed

400 g cracked wheat grain

400 g rye flour

Third part:

5 dl water

700 g rye flour

250 g cracked rye grain

1. Mix and stir the water, salt, sugar and leaven together until the leaven is resolved. Mix the second part of the ingredients into the leaven-resolution. Stir firmly until it is completely mixed together. Leave the mix to rest (and grow) at room temperature, covered by a kitchen towel, for 12-24 hours (I do this first bit in the morning before going to work and leave it till the next morning).

2. Add then the third part of the ingredients and stir well until the dough is a kind of thick paste. Take 2dl of this dough to use as leaven for the next time (at the bottom it's explained how to keep this leaven).

Grease two tins well with oil and divide the dough into the tins. Flatten the dough with the back of a spoon and leave at room temperature, covered by a kitchen towel, for 4-8 hours.

3. Brush the top of the bread (which should have grown a bit) with olive oil and bake for 1.5 hours at 200C (top and bottom). Then take out of the tins and leave to cool down on a wire rack (it takes quite some time to cool down and it shouldn't be cut while hot or it crumbles).

How to keep the leaven:

The leaven should be kept in the lid in a jar with a lid (or a tupper). The leaven needs to be taken out of the fridge and left at room temperature for 1-2 days before it's used.

The leaven is good for 3 weeks only if kept in a fridge. It can be kept for 3 months if frozen. Again, it should rest at room temperature for 1-2 days after defrosting.

How to keep the bread:

The bread keeps well for about 1 week at room temperature. It can keep frozen for approx 3 months. Don't keep it in the fridge as it will quickly become dry.

Sourdough

Danish original recipe: http://www.gastro.dk/opskrifter/tilbehor/meyers-surdej/

9dl water
150 g plain flour
75 g grahams flour
75 g rye flour

Put all ingredients together in a bowl and mix together. Leave for 10 days in a jar or bowl, a bit open so it can breathe, stirring once a day only.
After 10 days the dough should smell like a dark, good beer.

Sourdough according to Meyers (day 4)

So this is my first attempt at making sourdough from scratch... It's based on a recipe by Claus Meyer (in Danish :-S)...
So far (day 4 out of 10) the thing looks a bit alive. It's supposed to end up smelling like a good, dark beer, but I'm not sure how that smells like!
Only 6 days to go...