Guest post: Elena's Bread With Stuff

My friend Elena got a bread maker from her Dad for Xmas and the following is her recounting of the second loaf of bread that she's made with it.

The first one was just one of the packet mix from the supermarket, and while it was OK, I thought that next time it was absolutely necessary to put "stuff" with it. That next time has now arrived.

I used some random wholemeal prepackaged bread mix from the supermarket.

To this I added:

Fennel

I was wary of adding this at all because I ate one of the seed and it was like "BOOM! flavor essplodey bang!!". I put in a miniscule amount but should have put less. Honestly, even if you like the aniseedy flavour of fennel go lightly. I put about .. maybe 30 seeds, but seriously about 5 or 6 of those tiny seeds will add plenty of taste

Cumin

It's hard to lose here, depending on whether you like that Indian-curry flavour of the Cumin. I put in maybe 2 teaspoons. This was a good amount and the bread was nicely but not overly flavoured. I could have gone harder, but the flavour was still full.

Mustard Seeds

Some. About 1 teaspoon Can't remember having heard of them being in bread before. Couldn't discern them in baked bread at all. This is not over between me and mustard seeds.

Thyme

Some. About 1 teaspoon of dried Thyme. The aroma, but no the flavour of the thyme came through as it was baking and when it came out, but during the eating the thyme is barely perceptible, and insofar as it is perceptible it adds a lovely soft perfumey flavor.

Rolled Oats

Generous Handful. About half of a cup. Should have gone harder! I like oats but can not discern them in the finished bread at all!

LSA Mix

Some. About 3 generous tablespoons This stands for "Linseed, Sunflower, Almond" meal/mix. This may not be easy to come by (but is more and more so these days), but is basically hippy/old-people wholegrain additive. One time I gained a taste for it on porridge, as well as just liking it in theory, so have a packet of it around for this purpose that I have very little chance of getting through in a timely manner.

Extra water

The bread recipe suggests 450mL, I added about another splash 30-40mL when I dumped all the other stuff in. The sum total of water would have been less than half litre. It seemed wetter than it should be, but I stood by my decision.

I set it to the "wholemeal" setting (#5) on the bread machine and waited 3-odd hours.

The Results

The results were great!! Better than I expected.

The unexpected result was that the bread was springy. My first loaf was nice and bready and normal but definitely firm.

This loaf is distinctly more elastic.

Summary

Too Strong:

• Fennel

Just Right:

• Cumin
• Extra water

Could have been Bit More:

• Thyme (I'd have put Rosemary in if I'd had some!)

Couldn't even tell it was there:

• Oats
• LSA Mix
• Mustard Seed

I made up mezzo platters with hommus, guacamole, tepanade, avocado, some leftover curry, pepperoni and a dash of balsamic and it (OMGZ!1) totally hit the warm Sunday arvo snack/deliciousness spot.

While not usually a big consumer of bread but seeing as yesterday I ran 10k and kited for an hour and a half (and will probably kite some more today!) I treated myself to a couple of hefty slices :)

The review from the peanut gallery was it was still quite "plain" and normal. I take this as a challenge and there will nearly certainly be adventurousness in the future. I am digging the spice and seed thing though have ambitious ideas regarding cheeses, vegetables and pickled foods, as my breadmaking confidence increases. I have bought a giant bag of flour in anticipation.

Thanks, Elena. I can't wait to see what other creations you devise!

Basic White Bread

The following is the recipe I use on a weekly basis to make the loaf of bread for the week. Sometimes I substitute one or two cups of the flour with wholemeal flour. It usually comes out nice and soft, and always yummy.

Ingredients3⅓ cups flour
2 tsp yeast
2 tsp bread improver (a soy flour blend)
10g salt
2 tbps olive oil
1½ cups water

Mix the dry ingredients together in the bowl.

Make a well and pour in the oil and water.

Mix with fingertips until combined.

Take combined dough out and start kneading on a bench
(it will be sticky to start off with but should get less sticky as it
combines properly - if it does not just add some more flour).

If your hands look like this then it's probably too sticky
(unless you're making a sticky dough like foccacia or brioche).

Keep kneading until the dough is nice and stretchy.

Pour some oil into the mixing bowl.

Form the dough into a ball
(grab the underneath and pull it over the top while turning).

Use the ball to spread the oil around the bowl and
then flip it over into the bowl so the oily side is up.
Leave to rest in a warm place until it doubles in size
(about an hour).

Poof! Now punch it gently to knock the air out of it.

Grab two sides to make a log and...

... place in the tin, squishing it down flat.
Leave to rise in the tin (about 45 minutes).
Preheat your oven to 200ºC about 30 minutes in.

Don't let it rise above the top of the tin unless you
want a very tall loaf.
If it does rise too far just slash it across the top diagonally
(very quickly with a very sharp knife).

Bake for 50 minutes at 200ºC until good and brown.
The bottom of the loaf should sound hollow (and not too dull) when tapped.
(the light makes it look lighter than it was, especially the next shot)

The finished loaf!
Cool on a wire rack.
I store my loaves at room temperature in a plastic container.

Orange and White Chocolate Buns

Welcome to the new year, the Year of Bread!

I should point out that I've been baking bread (for sandwiches) pretty routinely for a couple of years now. I started thanks to the Great British Bake-Off season 1 which I saw some time after it actually aired (since I don't live in the UK). I've played around with a few sweet breads and not much else. I'm going to take the inspiration from last year to try out a bunch of new things this year in bread land.

Not overly pretty but I'll be working on that!

The first recipe for this year is from the Bake Off, season 4, by Ruby Tandoh, adapted from her recipe posted on the BBC website. The main deviation from her recipe is adapting it to 12 buns instead of one ornate loaf. Other changes are noted in the method.

Ingredients

• 350ml milk
• 60g caster sugar
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• 2 tsp salt
• 700g plain flour
• ¾ tsp ground cardamom
• 1 large egg
• 85g unsalted butter, softened
• 3 oranges, zest only
• 200g white chocolate chips
• 100g candied mixed peel

Method

1. Bring the milk to the boil in a saucepan and then remove from the heat and leave to cool. Top up with water to make 400ml total of liquid – the mixture should be lukewarm.
2. Add the sugar, yeast, salt, flour and ground cardamom to a large bowl and mix.
3. The dough will be very sticky - have a plastic bowl/bench scraper handy. Mix in the lukewarm milk and water mixture, egg, softened butter and orange zest. Combine using your hands. Ruby's instructions had only ¾ of the liquid added initially, then more added afterwards as needed. I found the dough needed all the liquid and also adding it afterwards was quite difficult and annoying. Next time I'll just add it all in one go.
4. Knead the dough until it's smooth, elastic and no longer sticky (yes, it should stop being really sticky after a couple of minutes). Knead in half of the chocolate chips and half of the candied peel. Shape into a ball, place in a large oiled bowl, cover and leave for 1-1½ hours, or until doubled in size.
5. Knock the air out of the dough. At this point Ruby gets very fancy with her peacock loaf - check the original recipe if you'd like to do that. For 12 buns split the dough into 12 even portions. Form each one into a little ball. Squish each ball flat, add a bunch of the remaining chocolate and peel on top and push it in a little. Roll the dough over to seal it and then roll out until it's about 15-20cm long. Loop the dough around one end in a spiral fashion and tuck the loose end under the middle. Place onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.
6. Cover the buns with a dry towel and let rise for 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 190ºC before the rising is complete.
7. Brush with an egg or milk wash if you like - the sugar in the dough will cause the buns to brown up nicely regardless. I used an egg white wash but I think I'll skip it next time.
8. Bake for 20 minutes.

These are very, very yummy. Not too sweet and just the right amount of flavour.

Tamale Pie

For the last pie of the year I decided to do something very different, a Tamale pie (think taco filling with corn muffin on top). I stumbled on a recipe over here and thought it looked yummy. Corn muffin mixes are rare in Australia, so I had to follow another recipe to make those. It was tough enough just finding the cornmeal (hint: look for polenta and read the ingredients carefully to make sure it's actually corn meal)!

Ingredients
Filling

• 500g minced beef
• 1 brown onion
• 1 small can corn kernels
• 1 can kidney beans
• 1 can crushed tomato
• 1 grated carrot
• 3 small brown onions*
• 1 packet of Taco seasoning

Muffin Topping

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup plain flour
• ⅓ cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• ¼ cup oil (original recipe says canola but I used olive)
• 1 cup milk

Method

• Preheat the oven to 200ºC.
• Make the filling by frying the onion until soft, adding the mince and frying until brown, adding the seasoning and stirring until mixed and then adding everything else. Leave it simmer while you get on with making the muffin mix.
• Make the muffin mix by stirring together all the dry ingredients in a bowl and the mixing in the wet stuff gently until you've got a lovely yellow consistent gloop.
• Add some leftover cornmeal to the filling if it's a bit wet until it's nice and thick.
• If you've not used an oven-safe frying pan you should now transfer the filling to a pie dish. Top the filling with globs of the muffin mix in a pleasing pattern. It will spread a little.
• Bake for 20 minutes or until the muffin topping is cooked.

I thought this was quite nice but the muffin top was too sweet. It was so sweet my daughter was turned off it. I reckon my American readers would probably find it palatable (based on my experience with corn muffins over there) but I think next time I'll halve the sugar.

* at this point I was just throwing stuff in I had in the fridge to make it a semi-balanced meal :)

Chicken Pie

Tonight's pie - the second last of the pies in this Year Of Pie - was a yummy chicken pie. With bacon, mushroom and Pinot Grigio. I made it up as I was going along, and the wine I was drinking as I was cooking it was tasty, so I chucked some in. Yum.

The base was shortcrust and the top a rough puff. Along with the other ingredients already mentioned, I threw in an onion, a chicken stock cube and a light sprinkling of salt, pepper and rosemary. It all came together rather nicely.

Ingredients

• 650g chicken thighs, cubed
• 4 short rashers bacon, chopped up
• 1 brown onion
• 6 small brown mushrooms
• 1 generous splash (a sploosh?) white wine (whatever is on hand that you quite like, or just use water if you don't want to use wine)
• 1 chicken stock cube
• a dash of rosemary
• salt, pepper to taste
• some plain flour to make the gravy
• 250g butter and 550g flour to make the pastries

Method

1. Prepare the pastries beforehand so they can chill. Remember that the rough puff needs to be folded and chilled several times so plan ahead a few hours. This is a good pastry to make during the day on a weekend spent at home since each fold and chill takes only a few minutes.
2. Blind bake the case. This takes about 30-40 minutes so while it's going you can prepare the filling.
3. Fry up all the filling bits however you'd normally do it. You might also like to add some cream (about 1/3 cup I suppose) but I'm happy with how it came out without that. Just before you use the filling you should thicken it up with some flour. Just sprinkle some on, stir and repeat until the gravy is thick enough.
4. Fill the pie and top with the rough puff and bake for 40 minutes. Add an egg wash if you can be bothered. As you can see from the photos I didn't.

What I like about this pie is that I'm quite comfortable making it (or something like it - whatever filling) as just a thing we can have on a weekend. Thanks to this Year of Pie I find it quite easy to make the pastry and do all the construction. What a wonderful thing!

Bakewell Tartlets

Given this is a Great British Bake-Off inspired Year Of Pie I figured it would be wrong to go the entire year without baking a Bakewell Tart. I've even used one of the contestant's recipes as a reference. I didn't follow it exactly for various reasons.

Ingredients
For the pastry

• 100g butter, chilled and cubed
• 200g plain flour, sifted
• 40g icing sugar, sifted
• 3 tbsp chilled water

For the frangipane

• 110g butter, softened
• 110g caster sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 80g ground almonds
• 2 tbsp plain flour

Also

I was just chuffed to bits with how these
came out. Look at that pastry! Just look at it!

• Some raspberry jam (at least a few tablespoons worth)

Method

1. Put the flour and sugar into a blender. Blend in the chilled butter until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the water 1tbsp at a time while still blending. Continue to blend until the dough starts to ball up. Turn out onto some plastic wrap, squish into a thick disk, cover fully and refrigerate for an hour before use.
2. Place little tart-removal paper strips in the cups of a 12-cup cupcake tin (see previously). Unwrap the pastry, place a large sheet of greaseproof paper on top and roll out the pastry to a thickness of 1mm. Cut out 9-10cm rounds from the pastry (a good centimeter larger than the cupcake cup) and gently push into the cupcake tin. Chill for 15 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 170°C.
4. For the frangipane, place the ingredients in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth and thoroughly combined.



An action shot! You don't get many of those
on this blog, but they were just so PUFFY!

5. Prick the bases of the pastry cases then place (a generous) half a teaspoon of the jam in each. Zap the jam in the microwave for 10 seconds to soften it up a little if it's too hard to work with. Top with the frangipane mixture. I used a piping bag to get the frangipane in nice and evenly. Bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes until the frangipane is risen and golden. Cool in the tin for a few minutes then transfer to a wire rack.

The original recipe included making the jam, which I just wasn't up to doing on Christmas Eve.

It also included half the frangipane I've included above. I ended up tripling the amount, but that was a little too much - as you can see above they're really slightly too ... generously tall. Doubled would be fine, so that's what I've included in the ingredients list.

The original recipe had the baking time at 25 minutes which was way too short - my tartlets needed 40 minutes. You could use any jam you like in the base.

So yummy!

Custard Tarts Revisited

The first batch. At least I remembered to sprinkle the nutmeg
on this lot.

My daughter requested custard tarts to celebrate the end of the school year. Oh, OK, twist my arm :) I varied the recipe from last time by making a chocolate crust instead of the plain (though sweet) one. I actually made two batches, refining the recipe the second time. The first effort used muffin tins (making 12 tarts) which meant lower sides on the tarts (my largest pastry cutter is 9.5cm) resulting in less custard. I also had less cocoa in the pastry which was also rolled out much thicker (about 2-3mm) so while they were OK, I figured I could do better.

The next effort made 16 tarts in a couple of cupcake tins, though I could probably have gotten 18 out of the dough if it hadn't been so warm in the kitchen (the dough got way too squishy to work with).

Always position the slightly munty ones out the back there.

Ingredients

• 200g flour
• 40g cocoa
• 50g icing sugar
• 160g chilled, cubed butter
• pinch of salt
• 4 tbsp chilled water
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1 1/4 cups slightly warmed milk
• 1/4 cup caster sugar
• 3 tsp vanilla
• nutmeg to sprinkle

Method

Just after baking - note the bits of paper in the
older, less non-stick tin.

1. Put the flour, cocoa, sugar and salt into a blender. Blend in the chilled butter until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the water 1tbsp at a time while still blending. Continue to blend until the dough starts to ball up. Turn out onto some plastic wrap, squish into a thick disk, cover fully and refrigerate for an hour before use.
2. Roll the pastry out until quite thin - about 1mm or so. Use some flour (sparingly) to stop it sticking. Cut circles that are about 1cm larger than the cupcake cup top. Cut out lengths of 1cm wide baking paper that fit in the tray holes with bits poking up - these will be handles to help pull the tarts out if they stick (which can happen with sloshed custard). Carefully poke the circles into the holes, being sure to not create a fold. Press into the corners. If you need to press the pastry around a bunch then it's a good idea to use a cast off piece of dough rolled into a ball to push the pastry around with. This will prevent you warming up the case pastry too much when fiddling with it, or poking holes with your finger tips. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for about 20 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Jab the case bases with a fork a couple of times, cover with a little bit of foil (carefully - I find it's easy to accidentally push the pastry sides down) and some baking weights. Bake for 10 minutes and then remove the foil to bake a further 10 minutes (after starting the second bake, prepare step 4). If your oven is as uneven as mine that's a good opportunity to turn the tray around to even out the bake a little. It can be tricky to tell if the pastry is done because it's so dark, but that cooking time should be about right.
4. Reduce oven to 180°C. Mix the slightly warmed milk, caster sugar, vanilla and eggs. Skim off any bubbles and floating egg white chunks. Once the pastry comes out of the blind baking, carefully pour the custard into the cases up to the rim. Sprinkle with the nutmeg.
5. Bake for 20 minutes or until the custard doesn't wobble too alarmingly. Cool the tarts in the tin for about 5 minutes and then cool on a wire rack.

Next time I'll tweak the recipe by adding just a little more sugar to the crust. Maybe another 20-30 grams. I seem to recall reading somewhere that a 1:2 ratio of cocoa to sugar is good to aim for, but I might be making that up.