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  • Biscuits

    J.P.’s Big Daddy Biscuits Recipe - Allrecipes.com

    I made this biscuit recipe for the second time tonight (again as an accompaniment to tomato soup). I need to remember to not roll them out so thin, because they actually steam from the inside and puff up nicely when thicker.

    → 12:33 AM, Dec 19   •  baking, Food, recipe, Link, biscuit, Blog
  • Results of soft pretzel making

    These worked out quite well. Recipe found at Beantown Baker via Foodista search.

    The dough was very sticky. Maybe it needed more flour, maybe I needed to knead it a bit longer and work more flour into it. Then came the tricky part.

    The astute amongst you might notice that the items in the photo above don't, in fact, look like pretzels. Well, the recipe was on my iPhone and my hands were full of sticky dough, so I ended up with sort of pretzel, erm, "twists" at best.

    Rachael had requested some tomato soup and buns, and these were the "buns".

    The soup was a mix of a couple of roasted red peppers, celeriac aka celery root, leeks, shallots, a couple of pounds of ugly winter Mexican roma tomatoes (from SPUD, so organic, but still…) and then some ill advised dried chickpeas. That's the second time I've used those chickpeas - they REALLY do need to soak overnight. I made a broth out of simmered chickpeas and some veggie trimmings while I roasted the red peppers. I used the same cast iron pan to then saute the celery root, shallots, and leeks in some olive oil. This all got mixed together with the tomatoes and the broth and the peppers, added some dried basil, a splash of some port that I've decided is best used for cooking, and then simmered down.

    I then took a hand blender and blended the whole thing. Those dang chickpeas were still a little on the crunchy side, so the result was a little gritty, but the taste was really good -- the roasted red peppers came through nicely. This was a quick soap, so a table spoon full of Better Than Bouillon vegetable stock base went in instead of salt to round out the taste.

    I finished it with some flat Italian parsley, and I'm not too sure about that detail. The texture was wrong and the blended soap didn't need it -- I think I was sort of picturing an Italian minestrone with some flat parsley leaves floating in it.

    I am getting better at quantities. A bowlful each for dinner, one portion as leftovers, and froze the rest in a yoghurt container. As opposed to a vat of leftovers and 2 yoghurt containers that I might have made.

    → 8:13 PM, Jan 16   •  Personal, baking, soup, celeriac, celery root, pretzel, tomato soup, Blog
  • Irish Soda Bread Recipe

    Ingredients

    • 4 cups all-purpose flour
    • 4 tablespoons white sugar
    • 1 teaspoon baking soda
    • 1 tablespoon baking powder
    • 1/2 teaspoon salt
    • 1/2 cup margarine, softened
    • 1 cup buttermilk
    • 1 egg
    • 1/4 cup butter, melted
    • 1/4 cup buttermilk

     

    Directions

    1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease a large baking sheet.
    2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and margarine. Stir in 1 cup of buttermilk and egg. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead slightly. Form dough into a round and place on prepared baking sheet. In a small bowl, combine melted butter with 1/4 cup buttermilk; brush loaf with this mixture. Use a sharp knife to cut an 'X' into the top of the loaf.
    3. Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, about 30 to 50 minutes. You may continue to brush the loaf with the butter mixture while it bakes.

     

    via allrecipes.com

    Had this as a link on FoodLikeThat, which I will be ditching one of these days. Key things with this seems to be use of both baking soda and powder, and lots of buttermilk.

    Made originally for Christmas morning, 2008.

    → 7:58 PM, Aug 23   •  Personal, baking, buttermilk, recipe, bread, Irish, Blog
  • Dinnner Rolls

  • 1 package active dry yeast
  • 1/4 cup warm water
  • 3/4 cup hot milk
  • 3 tablespoons shortening
  • 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 4 cups all-purpose flour, or enough to make stiff dough
  • melted butter
  • via southernfood.about.com

    I made these for our Canada Day apartment picnic. What's that? It's when you put out pillows and blankets on the floor of your apartment because it's too cloudy / rainy to have a picnic outside!

    On the second rise in the pan, they all just sort of rose into one large mass. Next time, put them farther apart in the pan.

    I also think I might have over-kneaded a bit and/or worked in a bit too much flour as part of kneading, but it turned out some really nice crumb, almost like a biscuit or something with corn meal in it. This is theoretically a Southern food recipe, so maybe that makes sense.

    → 7:45 PM, Jul 1   •  Personal, baking, recipe, Blog
  • flaky biscuits

    012320101031

    I've been continuing on the baking kick. Biscuits are great because
    they take only 20 - 30 minutes from start to finish.

    New Flaky Biscuits

    → 11:12 AM, Jan 23   •  Personal, Foodista, baking, biscuits, Blog
  • No Knead Bread first result

    No Knead Bread (inside)

    No Knead Bread

    01/17/2010

    01/17/2010

    via flickr.com

    This is my first attempt at No Knead Bread (wrote about it previously with links to recipes).

    This was a bit of a mashup with something from Cooks Illustrated that recommends a *little* bit of kneading, and the addition of beer and vinegar.

    I didn't have any beer, but I did add the vinegar, and I did knead for about 10 minutes. I let it sit yesterday at 5pm, and started working with it at around 9am this morning, so it sat for 16 hours. The modified Cooks Illustrated plans on anywhere between 8 and 18 hours.

    1/3 whole wheat and 2/3 white (both unbleached organic all purpose from Spud). The crust is nice and substantial, the crumb is bit too light for me: will have to experiment with heavier grains, maybe some rye flour. Will have to see how it tastes when it's cold: fresh out of the oven all bread is fantastic.

    → 3:20 PM, Jan 17   •  Personal, cooking, baking, no knead bread, Blog
  • Granola bars

    Ingredients

    2

    cups shredded coconut

    1 ½

    cups rolled oats

    1 ½

    cups raisins

    2

    cups sunflower seeds

    ½

    cup sesame seeds

    ¾

    cup chopped peanuts

    ½

    cup chopped cried fruit, like apricots

    ¼

    cup mini chocolate or carob chips

    ½

    teaspoon salt

    1

    cup honey

    1

    teaspoon vanilla

    1

    cup peanut butter

    Preparation

    Step 1

    Mix all the dry ingredients well in a large bowl. Blend honey, peanut butter and vanilla until smooth. Add to dry ingredients. Mix with your hands (grease hands first).

    Step 2

    Press firmly into a greased 9 x 13" pan. Bake at 275 F until golden brown. Time varies but anywhere from 8-16 minutes. Cool on a rack. Cut when cool.

    via foodista.com

    Healthy Granola Bars on Foodista

    Ending up making these tonight. I've had oats and shredded coconut haunting the cupboards for a while, and have been thinking about an on-the-go eat in the morning sort of thing. The Orange Ginger Granola bars look good, too.

    When I went to look for recipes, they're all very similar, and in fact don't seem to matter *what* you put in them.

    I left out sunflower and sesame seeds, and did crystallized ginger and some candied lemon peel for the fruit. The chocolate chips were white chocolate chunks. No honey, but half a cup of turbinado sugar and dark molasses. I like the dark, slightly bitter flavour of molasses, so we'll so how that turns out.

    The peanut butter was aged and sticky, so I added a bit of water to dissolve the sugar / molasses / peanut butter. No salt because I forgot about it.

    Needed to bake much longer (~30 minutes) and a little hotter than listed. Didn't stick together as well as I had hoped, but did end up being tasty.

    → 10:31 AM, Jan 5   •  Personal, recipes, Foodista, baking, granola bars, Blog
  • No Knead Bread

    Media_httpwwwartisanb_fzmkq
    via artisanbreadinfive.com

    My mom has been making No Knead bread for years -- she makes a basic white and then a dark that has all sorts of seeds and grains. The original original recipe was published in the New York Times in 2006. Breadtopia has some videos and a basic method that's worth looking at as well

    I saw the Artisan Bread in 5 book above at the Phoenix on Bowen, where they take the base recipe and expand it many different ways.

    I have yet to make one of these myself, but it's something I'm going to be experimenting with this year..

    → 5:28 AM, Jan 2   •  baking, Food, no knead bread, Blog
  • Buttermilk Scones

    • 1 1/2 cups All purpose flour
    • 1 teaspoon Salt
    • 1 teaspoon Baking powder
    • 1/2 teaspoon Baking soda
    • 6 fluid oz Buttermilk
    • 3 tablespoon Butter room temp

    Preparation

    Oven temp: 425F / 220C / Gas Mark 7

    1. Preheat the oven to 425. Grease a baking sheet.

    2. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. Rub in the butter or margarine with your fingertips until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.

    3. Gradually pour in the buttermilk, stirring with a fork to form a soft dough.

    4. Roll out the dough until 1/2 inch thick. (I often make mine thicker and roll it into one large circle). Cut into wedges with a sharp knife.

    5. Place on the baking sheet and bake until golden, 12-15 minutes.

    via bigoven.com

    One of the things I've been on a roll with over the holidays is baking. I do lots of cooking, but generally little baking. Oh-ten will contain more baking.

    UPDATE: this is very much a savoury recipe -- mine ended up being a bit salty / soda-y because I wasn't very careful at measuring. The texture was very nice and flaky, not sure what adding sugar would do.

    Buttermilk Scones

    → 6:19 PM, Jan 1   •  cooking, recipes, baking, Food, bigoven.com, buttermilk, scones, Blog
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