Mothers Day : Fruit Bread

One of our favourites in my no knead bread.  It stays moist and fresh for days, makes wonderful sandwhiches and even better toast.

With Mothers Day coming up I very happily rigged what I would get for breakfast - fruit toast - something I ador!  I adapted the no knead recipe and the result was perfect, I think it even tastes better than shop brought stuff.  So with the fire roaring, tea in hand and hot buttered fruit toast I was one happy Mumma on Mothers Day.

No Knead Fruit Bread
Makes 2 Loaves

1L Warm Water
15g Yeast
500g High Grade Flour
350g Wholemeal Flour
2t Salt
100g Sugar
3T Cocoa Powder
1C Sultanas
½C Currents (or more sultanas)
2t Cinnamon
2t All Spice
½t Ground Cloves
1t Ginger Powder

Pre-heat oven to 50C on standard bake if you have it - you will use fan bake later.
Stir together water and yeast and allow to stand for 10 minutes.  Meanwhile boil the kettle and generously oil 2 loaf tins (or line with baking paper).  When yeast is activated and foamy stir in remaining ingredients.  Give a good mix - about 30 stirs will do.  Divide batter between the 2 tins and put into warmed oven alongside a bowl of boiled water (the steam will stop the tops of the loaves drying out while rising).  Leave to rise for 20 to 30 minutes until the batter looks like it is just about to spill over the sides of the tin.  Gently open the door and remove hot water - do not slam the oven door or your loaves will deflate.  Turn oven up to 200C and switch to fanbake.  Bake for 45 minutes.  Remove from oven and leave loaves in their tins for 20 minutes and then gently ease into cooling rack.  Allow to cool completely before cutting.

Something Different : Soft Pretzels

For Sunday lunch we had some day old rye bread and coleslaw on the menu, not too flash - I fancied something fresh and warm with the weather being so wet outside.  After considering a few things like foccacia, bagels and soda bread, I opted for a new recipe - soft pretzels.

I've never had fresh pretzels before, only the cracker-like ones from a pack.  I jumped in totally blind and was really pleased, and surprised, with the result.  They have a distinct pretzel taste, a chewy crust and perfect crumb.  I substituted about a fifth of my flour with rye flour to make them extra tasty.

I also tested one batch on conventional bake and one fan forced.  The batch cooked with conventional bake were darker and had a better crust than those cooked on fan forced, so I'll stick with conventional bake next time.

Soft Pretzels
Makes 10 'breakfast' sized pretzels

2t Brown Sugar
22g Yeast, Dried Active or Instant
375ml Water, Blood Temperature
575g Bread Flour, Plus Extra for Dusting
2t Salt, Plus Extra for Topping
¼C Baking Soda
1 Egg

Mix sugar, yeast and warm water and leave to activate for 10 minutes.  Add in flour and salt and stir till it starts to come together into a ball.  Tip out onto work surface and knead for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic (the dough will be quite sticky, just scrape down your hands and bench a couple of times as you go, it will come together).

Dust your work surface to keep the dough from sticking and divide into pieces (I made 10 which turned out about the size of a breakfast bagel).  Form into rounds and rest for 10 minutes.  Roll out into 30cm long sausages and twist into pretzels (I used this diagram).  Lay on a baking tray lined with baking paper and rest at room temperature for 30 minutes then refrigerate for another 30 minutes.

15 minutes before the pretzels are due out of the fridge turn oven onto 220ºC (425F) bake and put a medium sized pan with 1 litre of water on to boil.  When the water comes to the boil add the baking soda - a little at a time, it fizzes like crazy!  Turn water down to medium-low.

Gently remove pretzels from the tray, one at a time, and poach in the baking soda solution for a minute on each side.  Remove with a slotted spoon and return to baking tray.  When all the pretzels are poached beat the egg with 1 tablespoon of water and brush over tops of pretzels - this makes them nice and glossy.  Sprinkle with a little salt and bake for 15 minutes, swapping trays half way through if using conventional bake (which gives a much better colour).

Poached Pretzels

Beef Tongue

With the homekill half of a cow that we purchased last year we got a huge tongue.  I've been meaning to cook it up for ages and try the method that my mother in law had told me about.  I finally pulled it out and defrosted it to cook at the weekend.  It was quite easy really, a set and forget kind of recipe.  I was not one bit queasy cooking or peeling this odd peice of meat - but I can see how some would be.

Homemade bread, spread, tongue, pickles with tomatoes, lettuce and cucumber from the garden

Beef Tongue

1 Beef Tongue
Salt
1 Onion, peeled and halved
1 Carrot, scrubbed
2 Bay Leaves
8 Peppercorns
Gelatine Powder

Put tongue in a large pot and cover with water.  Add a good pinch of salt, onion, carrot, bay leaves and peppercorns.  Gently simmer for 4 hours or until tender (a knife will easily push into the thickest part of the tongue when done).  Keeping the cooking liquid, put the tongue into a bowl of cold water and peel away the leathery skin and any fatty pieces (the cold water makes it much easier to peel).  Find a bowl that the tongue will just fit into and squeeze it in.  Strain 2 cups of hot cooking liquid and dissolve into it 4 teaspoons of gelatine (better to have too much gelatine mix than not enough).  Pour gelatine mix over tongue to fill mold, place a plate over the top of the tongue and weigh down with something heavy (jug of water or tin cans).  Allow to set and cool overnight before removing from the mold.

This is great sliced thinly and added to salad or sandwiches.  Or fry up some butter, onion and sage - when the onion is soft add slices of beef tongue, heat through and serve on hot buttered toast - YUM!

Herman the German

My lovely sister-in-law gave me some of her Herman starter last week.  To be precise, Herman the German Friendship Cake.

To start with, I didn't read the instructions in full - so thought all I had to do was mix and add ingredients every 5 days.  Turns out you're supposed to give Herman a good old beating every day - oops.  Any way, we reached day 10 yesterday (baking day).  I was too busy with Friday play group, chasing chickens and tending to the garden to bake so Herman was divided and baked this morning.

The idea is that you quarter Herman, bake with some and give away the rest - but that's something you cannot really do at 6am, on Saturday, in your PJs.  So with a monster batch of Herman starter and hungry kids I decided to keep quarter for another starter, make 2 cakes and whip up pancakes with the rest.  Let's just say the kids aren't hungry any more and I now have a good way to use up extra Herman starter.

The Herman cake calls for a lot of sugar and some cooking apples, which I don't have.  I replaced apples with ripe bananas from my fruit bowl and halved the sugar.

 
 Herman Pancakes

1/4 of a 10 Day Old Herman Starter
1 Giant Freaky Frida Egg (1 or 2 normal eggs would work too)
4 T Plain Flour
1t Baking Powder
Splash of Milk

Beat starter, egg, flour and baking powder together.  Add a splash or 2 of milk and stir again.  Keep adding milk till you get a pancake batter consistency (or leave slightly thicker and make pickelets).  Grease your frypan and cook on med-low heat as the sugar in the starter tends to burn if you cook too high.  Flip pancake over when bubbles appear on the surface.  Cook the other side for a minute or so.  We had our with Fig and Ginger conserve that I got from Peplers Fine Foods - just down the road.  Beautiful.

Mad about bread

Right now it's still dark outside and I should be tucked up in bed waiting to woken up by my husband and 2 lovely boys for my birthday breakfast in bed - but - there was sourdough waiting on the bench.  I could have left it till 7 or 8am, not 5am!  What's happening to me?

I guess it just that I have a real passion for bread now, I have even put away my bread maker that I used to do all my kneading.  I love the feel, taste and smell of the stuff.  I love coming in the from the garden to a kitchen filled with the aroma of baked bread, the tang you can only get from a loved and nurtured sourdough loaf and the chewy but soft crumb that waits beneath a glorious crust.  Beautiful.

My sourdough batter was tucked up like a baby last night.  Warm water, flour and a dollop of my wild yeast, stirred and wrapped up with layers of cloth to do its work over night.  I woke up feeling just a little like a kid on Christmas morning, how could I go back to sleep when there is a little bit of magic working in my kitchen.  I was rewarded to find my batter was full of life and waiting for some good kneading to transform it from a sloppy, bubbly batter to a smooth and elastic dough.

Sourdough Bread

Overnight Batter
650ml Warm Water
250g Wholemeal Flour
250g High Grade Flour
Soughdough Starter (about a cupful - but a bit more or less will do)

In the morning
475g High Grade Flour
125g Wholemeal Flour
20g Salt

Oats/flour for dusting

Before you go to bed combine the overnight ingredients in a large bowl and give a good stir.  Cover the bowl with a plastic bag and wrap with a couple of layers of tea-towels.

In the morning you will have a bubbly batter, add the morning ingredients to this and bring together with your finger tips.  When the dough is looking a little raggedy tip everything onto your bench, giving the bowl a scrape down as you do so.  Now, don't be afraid of the sticky mess in front of you, just start working with it.  Knead, pull, stretch and roll then every few minutes pull the doughy mess off you hands.  Soon you will see the gluten starting to work, your dough becoming smoother and pulling away from the bench cleanly - keep going.  After 10 minutes of giving your arms and the gluten a good workout you should have a smooth, strong and elastic dough.  Form this into a ball and add a slug of oil to your mixing bowl.  Roll the dough in the oil, cover the bowl and leave to start rising.

After an hour grab an edge of the dough, pull it up and over to the center of the dough and give it a push to hold in the middle, turn the bowl by an eighth and continue to pull the sides to the middle until you have worked your way around the bowl, this is giving the gluten structure.  Repeat this stage every hour for 3 to 4 hours.  As each hour passes you will feel your dough becoming more light and airy.  Give 3 hours in warmer seasons, more for cold.

Lightly oil 3 loaf tins (mine are 29 x 14.5 x 7cm).  Divide your dough into 3 pieces, weighing them out so they are the same size for even cooking.  On a floured surface flatten a piece of dough to a rough square with your knuckles, about 22cm wide.  Fold the top down by a third and the bottom up over the first fold - like a letter.  Push the seam down a little to hold.  Holding the short ends lift and gently pull the dough so it is about 50% longer.  Now fold the left and right sides in by thirds.  Using your knuckles again push the dough into a square, to the width of your loaf tin.  Starting from the edge farthest from you, begin to roll the dough into a sausage, rolling nice and tight to keep all the tension you have created from the folding process.  Roll the dough in your oats or flour to coat and place seam side down in you loaf tin.  Repeat with other dough balls, cover, and leave to rest for another 3 or so hours, till the dough is about double in size and feels soft and airy when you squeeze the sides.

Turn your oven on to 250C Fan Bake (a little higher for standard bake), put a roasting tin on the bottom shelf of the oven and turn on the kettle.  Once the oven has reached temperature gently slice the top of the loaves a couple of times, about 2 cm deep -  use long pulls with a bread knife while gently holding the loaf - don't saw it.  As fast as you can put the loaves in the oven and a cupful of boiling water into the roasting tray.  Don't bang the loaves around or slam the oven door - this will deflate air from your bread.  The steam helps your loaves rise by letting the crust stay moist and elastic for longer.  Cook for 10 minutes at this high heat then turn down to 180C and switch over to standard bake, cook for 35 minutes longer.  If you take the bread out of the tins 10 mintues before the bread is due to finish cooking you will get a better crust.

Let the loaves cool completely before you tuck in - you'll squish all your lovely air bubbles down if you try and cut while its hot.

Peanut Butter

This is easy to make, cheaper than buying it off the shelf and healthier too.

Peanut Butter

1kg Peanuts
1/3 C Oil (I use sunflower or canola)
1t Salt - Optional

 Heat oven to 170C.  Roast peanuts in a tray for 20-25 minutes, shaking the tray every 5 minutes to turn the nuts and check if they are done.  You are wanting just a bit of colour - that said, you can roast to what ever taste you prefer.

Let the peanuts cool.  At this stage you can rub some skins off but I leave them all on, more taste, more fibre.  Put into a blender and wizz for a few minutes until chopped down to the size of sprinkles.  With the blender going add the oil a little at a time until you get a good peanut butter consistency.  Homemade won't be as smooth as shop brought stuff, you're after a more grainy consistency.  If you have blended the peanuts warm, keep in mind the mix will stiffen when it cools.  Add salt if you like, blend to combine then put into a jars.  If I make more than one jar I put the extras in the fridge.

Just because I can - Sourdough Crumpets

I had almost given up on making crumpets - but then I watched Paul Hollywood whip up a batch and I had to try it.

All other recipes I've tried have been flat, dry and I always trashed the mixture after seeing they would be a miserable fail. Boo!

This morning however, it is far from a fail - we have scoffed the most beautiful light and fluffy crumpets I have ever eaten.  And just because I can, I added some of my ripe sourdough batter after the first rise - they are divine.

I don't have crumpet rings, so topped and bottomed 2 pineapple tins (we're having roast pork for dinner tonight so I'm sure the contents will come in handy with no cooking apples at my disposal).

This recipe is a must
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/crumpets_61013

  

Sourdough Pancakes

Time to start my blog!

I've had this page sitting doing nothing for 6 months with dreams of flaunting my amateur 'food porn', budgeting ideas and gardening experiences.

What better way to start that with one of our new favourites - sourdough pancakes.

 I've had my sourdough starter bubbling away for nearly 2 years now, it lives on my counter, stirred, divided and fed every other day. Mind you, it hasn't always been given the attention it deserves, I have had to rescue it from back of the fridge with layers of slimy enzymes and fuzzy growths after months of neglect - but today it is given the respect and attention it deserves.

 I think what lead to its neglect was the waste from discarding most of my starter mixture whenever it needed feeding (I know it's only a little flour and water - but I have come to be quite thrifty).  One day it came to me to look up 'how to use up sourdough starter' - the first result was sourdough pancakes - with my starter rescued and a new recipe to heart I've never looked back.

Sourdough Pancakes
Put the jug on (you only need a little hot water) and put a fry pan on a medium heat.

Mix together:
2 Cups Sourdough starter (keep your discarded starter in the fridge till you have enough)
1 egg
1 T Sugar
Small slug of oil
Dash of vanilla

In a small cup mix 1 teaspoon of Baking Soda with a dash of hot water (about a tablespoon).  Fold this into your batter.

Cook as you would regular pancakes and scoff with fruit and honey or good old lemon and sugar.