T.I.L

Soda Bread Ingredients:

• 170g self raising flour
• 170g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 290ml (1/2 pint) buttermilk

Soda Bred Process:

• Pre-heat oven at 200C
• Mix the flours, salt and bicarbonate into a large bowl.
• Make a well in the center and pour the buttermilk, mixing with a fork to form a soft dough.
• Knead for 3-4 minutes in a lightly floured surface.
• Form a ball with the sides of your hands, flatten a bit the top.
• Cut the ball in 8 pieces with a big knife. Use a bit of oil so the knife doesn’t stick.
• Let is rest for 15 minutes. Prepare a tray lightly floured.
• Bake for 30 minutes. Check with a toothstick that comes out clean. And it should sound hollow when tapping the bottom.
• Cool in a wire rack.

Ingredients for Peshwari Naan Bread:

• 3/4 tsp instant yeast
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 60ml body temperature water
• 140g plain flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 60ml/54g Greek style yogurt
• 1/2 tsp vegetable oil

Naan Filling:

• 28g butter
• 1 tbsp desiccated coconut
• 24g raisins
• 22g almonds

Naan Process:

• Mix yeast, sugar and water. Wait a 1-2 minutes until the liquid is a bit bubbly.
• Mix flour and salt in a bowl
• Add the water mix to the yogurt and oil.
• Add the yogurt mix to the flour. Mix well with a fork
• Knead for 5 minutes. It is going to be sticky. Add a bit extra flour if needed.
• Put the dough back in a lightly oiled bowl.
• Let is prove until double in size. 1h at least
• Prepare the filling. In a chopping board put all ingredients but butter. Chopped all them until they are fine.
• Add the butter, mix all ingredients and form 3 balls.
• Once the dough has risen. Divide in 3 parts.
• With a lightly floured rolling pin, roll each dough into a small circle, put a piece of butter in the middle. Wrap it with the rest of dough.
• Roll the dough ball with the pin trying to form an eye-drop. It should be quick, not many passes with the pin.
• Put the naans on a ligthly floured towel.
• Heat up a skillet. Once hot, (just a drop of oil), put a naan. Wait until puffs up and start to get brown dots in the bottom.
• Flip and wait for the same. Check it doesnt burn! Likely less than 1 minute.
• Repeat for the other naans.

This is the result:

The soad bread was very tasty and super quick to make!!!

The naans were tasty too. I guess the filling can be very different.

I had aquafaba left over from making humus and always wanted to do something simple with it. As well, it has been a long time since I do brownies. So found a recipe that mixed both:

Ingredients:

• Liquid from a can of chickpeas (around 120ml)
• 290g sugar (I think it is too much)
• 150g dark chocolate (I used 85% dark) chopped
• 110g margarine
• 180g plain flour
• 40g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp coffee powder
• optional: chocolate chips (I didnt use…)
• 2 handful of frozen cherries

Process:

• Pre-heat oven at 175C
• Let the frozen cherries to get to room temperature. Dont add them frozen to the butter (as I did…) as it will solidify it….
• Sift flour and cocoa powder.
• In another bowl, mix sugar and aquafaba. I dont have a mixing attachment to my hand blender so I did it manually. I didnt get to the point as in the video.
• Add the vanilla, salt, coffe to the liquid. Fold it with a spatula.
• Melt the margarine and chocolate using Bain Marie. I ran out of bowl and had to use a saucepan directly on the heat….
• Pour the melted chocolate over the aquafaba mix. Fold everything together.
• Add the flour mix to the wet ingredients. Combine properly but dont over mix.
• Add the chocolate chips and cherries if you want to. Mix all a bit.
• Pour the butter into a baking tin covered with baking paper. Mine is 30x20cm and I think it is a bit too big. You dont have to spread the butter everywhere if you want a bit thicker brownies.
• Bake for 30-35 minutes. Use a toothpick to check if the center comes out with a bit of moister. Dont over bake it! (as I did)
• Let the brownies to cool for 0 minutes then you can cut them.

To be honest, I made many mistakes. The worse one was adding the cherries frozen!!! And I left the brownies too long in the oven. As usual, more practice!!!

I think my normal brownies are much better but still it was a way to use aquafaba. Need to find more usage for that anyway.

This dough can be used for pizza too. And the filling is quite personal.

Ingredients for dough (x2 calzone)

• 225g plain or strong white flour + dusting
• 90ml milk warmed at body temperature
• 50ml water warmed at body temperature
• 1 tsp dried yeast
• 25ml olive oil
• pinch salt

Filling:

• cherry tomatoes
• 1 mozzarella roughly chopped
• any cold meat if you wish
• capers, oregano
• grated parmesan
• olive oil
• some slices of onion
• some tbsp of tomate sauce

Process

• Sift the flour and salt in a bowl.
• Warm the milk and water in a saucepan. Just body temperature! If too hot, will kill the yeast. Add the dry yest and mix.
• Add the milk mix to the flour, mix a bit and then add oil. Mix well.
• Knead until smooth and the window test passes.
• Let me it proof until double in size.
• Pre-heat oven at 250C.
• Mix all your filling ingredients in a bowl.
• Dive the dough in two, roll in a big circle around 23cm or so.
• Put the filling in the middle. Dont put too much so you need to “close” the dough.
• Brush the dough edges with water, then fold half the side over to cover the filling.
• Pinch the edges “covering your thumb”.
• White a knife score the top of your calzone.
• Bake until dough is golden.

It looks like a big “empanada” but still was good.

To be honest, I need to practice more my pizza dough. It is quite far from any good pizza I have tried.

This is typical sweet from my hometown and never tried to bake it until yesterday. I have been in the bakery (“horno”) twice in the last two years and just got an idea of the ingredients but never been brave enough to ask for the proportions so this is just a guess…

Ingredients:

• 200ml water + 25g sugar + 2 star anise
• 100ml orange juice
• 200ml olive oil
• 400g strong white flour (harina pastelera)
• 120g caster sugar
• 50ml anise (43%) – I used sambuca

Process:

• Boil the water, sugar and star anise. Let it simmer for 5 minutes. Then cool down.
• In a bowl, mix all ingredients. Just add 150ml from the water mix above.
• Knead for 15-20 minutes until smooth. It doesnt stick much as it has lot of oil.
• Let the dough to rest for 30 minutes in the bowl.
• Using a scale, make 6 balls, aprox 150g each. Be sure they are tight balls.
• Let them rest for 1h or so in a tray with a bit of flour as anti-stick. I used two trays. The idea is to try to prove the balls (in my case it didnt happen…)
• Pre-heat oven at 175C
• Make a hole in the middle, like a “rosquilla” and the try to make “picos” in the sides. I failed miserably with the “picos”.
• Put one tray in the oven, bake until golden.
• Bake the second tray.
• Let the “rosquillos” to cool down.

My version:

The real deal:

So still a bit off target 🙂

The real “rosquillos” uses only anise (liquor). But it can be dangerous to use at home because if the oven has not good ventilation, the alcohol can blow it, so for that reason I just used it a bit and try to replace it with the water+star anise.

In summary, my version is eatable. I didnt have to throw them away so that’s a win at the end. The flavour is still far from the original but tasty nonetheless.

Another thing, I had the oven at 230C initially so the first batch went to dark and inside wasnt very well cooked. And this morning were quite hard. I remember the original ones go hard too but no the next day. Still it was tasty today though.

So possible modifications/incognitas:

• Bake at 175C (already updated instructions)
• Less olive oil, 150ml?
• A bit more anise alcohol?
• how to make them prove?

I guess I will try again soon as the process and ingredients are not “difficult”. It was to find a decent proportion. Hopefully next year I will go back to the bakery and ask for the proportions.

2nd Attempt:

• 150ml water + 25g sugar + 2 star anise
• 100ml orange juice
• 100ml olive oil
• 450g strong white flour (harina pastelera)
• 120g caster sugar
• 50ml anise (43%) – I used sambuca

Super sticky dough, not much better 🙁

3nd Attempt:

• 100ml orange juice
• 150ml olive oil
• 450g strong white flour (harina pastelera)
• 120g caster sugar
• 100ml anise (43%) – I used sambuca

No sticky dough (good to remove water+sugar+anise), but still not raising. It releases liquid…. I think I need to put less liquid (of everything)?? It is the flour correct? The recipe needs “Harina Pastelera” and when asked what was the difference I was told it was the “strength” so I have assumed I need “strong” white flour… Next time I will try to make “Harina Pastelera”.

For NYE dinner I wanted to try something different from my standard vegan cherry frozen cake so this recipe looked nice.

Ingredients for caramelized pears:

• 6 small firm pears (conference are good)
• 200g caster sugar
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 star anise
• 6 cloves
• 1 lemon zest
• 1 orange zest

Ingredients for sponge:

• 250g pitted dates
• 1 tsp chia seeds
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 200ml sunflower oil
• 160g dark muscovado sugar
• 200g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate soda
• 1 tsp ground mixed spice (I used Chinese)
• pinch of salt

Process:

1- Peel the pears, cut the bottom off each to give a flat base. With a small knife, try to cut the pips/heart from the base. Roughly chop these scraps and discard the seeds as are not sweet. Set aside for later.

2- In a saucepan where all pears can fit, pour sugar, cinnamon sticks, star anise, cloves, zests and 600 ml water. Bring to a boil, then simmer and add the pears. Cover the saucepan if you can. Poach them until a knife easily slides into the pear. Around 25-30 minutes. After that, remove from heat and let the pears cool down in the liquid.

3- Put chopped dates, chia and coconut milk in another saucepan. Bring to medium heat, stir often so the milk doesnt stick in the bottom. Check the dates get soft.

4- Pour the date mix into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Add oil and blend again. Let it cool down.

5- Pre-heat oven at 175C. My bakin tin is 32x22x5 cm. Line it with baking paper.

6- In a bowl, put the sugar, flour, bicarbonate, mixes spice and pinch of salt. Mix all well by hand. Be sure there are no sugar lumps.

7- Add the date mix to the flour. Mix with a spatula all together. Add the pear scraps.

8- Pour the mix into the tin. Nestle the pears, standing up right. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Remove from oven only if a skewer in the center of the cake comes out clean.

9- Try to reduce the pear poaching liquid to a syrup (I couldnt).

10- Once the cake is out of the oven, with a brush, pour a bit of the syrup on top. Then let it cool down a bit.

11- I cut mine in six parts to be sure everybody had a piece with pear.

I haven’t tried a sticky toffee pudding from a long time. This one didnt remind me much but it was really tasty nonetheless. So happy with the result. And my friends too!

This is a dough that can be used for Foccaia, Bloomer or small bread rolls.

This recipe makes:

• 1 foccacia of 880g (25cmx15cm aprox)
• 1 bloomer
• 4x bread rolls of 80g each

Ingredients:

• 1kg strong flour
• 40g course semolina
• 15g dry yest (30g fresh yeast)
• 20g sea salt
• 100ml olive oil
• 640ml water (warm)
• 1 egg (for eggwash)
• 4 garlic cloves chopped
• Rosemary
• Sesame seeds

Main process for dough:

• Mix flour, semolina, yest.
• Add crushed sea salt and mix
• Make a hole in the middle of the flours and add water and oil. Mix until all combined
• Knead by hand. Take the dough in the air, and slap it on the work surface. Dont add any flour in the work surface. At the beginning will be sticky but once gluten starts forming will be more manageable. Do this for 15 min aprox. Until the dough is smooth.
• Prove until double in size. If using proving machine: 3% water, 35-40C temp.

Foccacia:

• Prepare a tray of aprox 25x15cm. Oil it, add baking paper of similar size, cutting a diagonal in the corners so it fits better.
• Take a portion of 880g from the main dough.
• Spread it on the tray so fills it.
• Prove for a second time until double in size.
• Preheat oven at 200C
• After proving, oil your fingertips and make holes on the dough
• Spread the chopped garlic as evenly as possible. Add a bit of oil
• Cut some rosemary, dip it on olive oil so it doesnt burn in the oven. Add it to the foccacia in the holes made earlier.
• Bake until golder brown (20-25m)
• Take out of the oven, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Let it cool!

Bread rolls:

• From the main dough, after first proving. Take 4 pieces of 80g each.
• Make a ball with each piece, the surface should be smooth. Dont use flour in your work surface.
• Put the ball in a tray covered with a bit of semolina.
• Prove until double in size
• Eggs wash each roll. And add sesame seeds
• Bake in the preheat oven at 200C for 15m aprox or until golden brown.

Bloomer:

• From the leftover dough after the first proving, divide it in 3 parts.
• Roll them horizontally.
• Like babka, make a braid like this video.
• Tap both ends.
• Prove second time until double in size.
• Dust with a bit of flour and bake for 25m or golden brown at 200C in a preheat oven.

This is the result!

To be honest, I didnt like much the bloomer and breadrolls. My weekly homemade sourdough is far much better (and still got room for improvement)

And for the foccacia, as well, I prefer my sourdough version.