Pretzels

We wanted pretzels, the shop had no pretzels, so I looked up a recipe. The dough was already on to rise before I read on and realised there was more to it than just baking them in the oven, but I was committed and it didn’t look too hard….

This recipe came from BBC Good Food.

• 500g strong white bread flour
• 7g sachet fast-action dried yeast
• 25g dark brown muscovado sugar
• 50g unsalted butter, melted
• plain flour, for dusting
• oil, for greasing
• 3 tbsp bicarbonate of soda, baked (see below)
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten, for glazing 
• flaked sea salt, to serve

Put the flour, yeast, sugar and 1 tsp salt in a large bowl and mix together to combine. In a large jug, mix together 300ml lukewarm water and the butter. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in the water, mixing together to form a rough dough.

Tip out onto a floured work surface and knead for 10-15 mins or until smooth and elastic. Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with oiled cling film and set aside until doubled in size, about 1hr.

Once risen, knock out the air bubbles in the dough and divide into 8 equal pieces. Using your hands, roll each piece into a long rope about 60cm long.

To form into pretzels, lay the rope in a U-shape with the curve pointing towards you. Take the two ends and cross them over.

Take the ends, lift them backwards and press them into the curve of the U-shape. Repeat with the remaining dough. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6.

Carefully place the pretzels on a baking tray lined with parchment and lightly greased with oil. Cover lightly with oiled cling film. Set aside for about 20 mins until puffy (not fully risen like bread dough).

Fill a medium-sized saucepan with water, bring to the boil, add the baked bicarbonate of soda, then reduce the heat to a low simmer. One at a time, carefully lift the pretzels into the pan and cook for 20 secs per side. The pretzels will rise to the surface; flip with a slotted spoon.

Use the spoon to gently lift the pretzels from the pan and return them to the baking tray. Once they have all been cooked in the water, lightly brush with the egg and sprinkle with flaked sea salt.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 mins or until a rich, dark brown. Allow to cool on the baking tray for 10 mins, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Best served on the day made but can be frozen for up to 1 month.

To bake bicarbonate:

Pour a pack of bicarbonate of soda onto a foil-lined baking tray and bake at 120C/100C fan/gas 1/2 for 1hr. Transfer to an airtight container, label and use the next time you make pretzels. Will keep for three months. 

Now I didn’t read far enough down the recipe when I started to know this involved cooking in boiling water, let alone baking bicarbonate of soda for an hour and a half, so obviously that didn’t happen. A quick google of other recipes to see if everyone was baking their bicarb reassured me it was not a crucial step.

Making the dough was pretty straightforward and pretty much the same as any other dough (except the muscovado – be sure to work that in well to get rid of the lumps). When boiling, some pretzels were more enthusiastic about rising to the surface than others, so I gave the reluctant ones ten seconds more and they looked ok.

They had 20 minutes and were surprisingly browned already when they came out of the oven and they tasted just as they should. 10/10 – would make again.

Tiger Bread

I’ve been wanting to make tiger bread for ages, but could I find rice flour in the supermarket?! Eventually I found it this weekend, (ironically in two places, I hadn’t thought to check in the gluten free section, but it was also back in stock next to the Asian flours). Now I thought a nice, light white loaf with a fun crust would appeal to children so this was made for a light Sunday lunch. This recipe is from bbc good food.

500g strong white bread flour, plus extra for kneading
7g sachet fast action yeast
1½ tsp caster sugar
1½ tsp fine sea salt
300-350ml warm water
vegetable oil, for the bowl

For the topping

90g rice flour
½ x 7g sachet fast action yeast
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp golden caster sugar
½ tbsp toasted sesame oil
90ml warm water

Tip the flour into a large mixing bowl. Stir through the yeast, sugar and salt. Make a well in the middle and gradually pour in the water. Swiftly mix together, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead the bread for 8-10 mins or until smooth and elastic. Lightly oil a large mixing bowl, then put the dough in the bowl, cover and leave in a warm place for 1 hr or until doubled in size.

Once the dough has risen, tip it onto a worktop and knead it three times. Shape the dough into an oval as best you can. Lightly flour a baking sheet and sit the loaf on it. Cover loosely with lightly oiled cling film and leave for a further 45 mins-1 hr or until doubled in size again.

Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Whisk together all of the topping ingredients in a small bowl until you get a spreadable paste, adding more water and/or flour if necessary, then set aside to rest for 5 mins. Gently spread the mixture over the loaf with a palette knife. Place the baking sheet in the centre of the oven and bake for 35 mins. Once cooked, the loaf should sound hollow when the base is tapped and should feel light for its size. Leave to cool completely before cutting into slices.

The instructions were nice and straightforward, and the dough was smooth and not too sticky. Keep it moving to stop it sticking to the table too much. I gave it the recommended 35 minutes but it did come out looking like it had been in a little long. We were ready to eat so let it cool for only a few minutes before slicing. It was very soft but held together.

Surprisingly the crust wasn’t the hit I’d expected. It did have a distinctive flavour to it, and it looked like the paste for the topping was thicker than you normally see on a shop bought loaf, but I’m not sure how successful spreading less paste would have been. But children were not a huge fan.

I liked it anyway.

Challah

Challah is something I’ve had my eye on for a while but hadn’t got round to doing yet. It’s a traditional Jewish light, white enriched loaf with a distinctive shiny crust and plaited shape. I’ve adapted this recipe to metric measurements and easily available ingredients.

240ml lukewarm water

2 tsp dried active yeast

500g strong white bread flour

4 tbsp sugar

2 tsp salt

3 eggs

4 tbsp vegetable oil

Dissolve the yeast in the water with a pinch of sugar until frothy.

Put the flour in a large bowl with the sugar and salt. Stir to combine.

Make a well in the centre and add two of the eggs plus the yolk from the third. Reserve the white from the third for later. Add the oil to the well.

Using a fork or a dough hook on a mixer, mix the egg and oil, drawing a little of the flour in to make a paste. Add the yeast mixture and continue mixing until all the flour has been combined. Keep mixing, adding in more flour a teaspoon at a time until it is no longer sticky, and will make a smooth ball.

Leave to prove until doubled in size.

Once proved, divide the mixture into six and roll each section into a long string about 40cm long.

To make the 6 strand plait, lay the strands out and pinch them together at the top. Start plaiting by taking the furthermost right strand, passing it over 2, under 1 and over the final 2 so that it is now furthermost left. Repeat again until all strands are used up, and pinch the ends together and tuck them under to make a neat end.

Leave to prove again.

Preheat the oven to 180c. While it is heating, take the reserved egg white and brush over the bread, ensuring you get in to every fold.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until richly golden brown and shiny.

I think my braiding possibly needs work, but this was due in part to the dough still being on the sticky side. I tried rolling the strands in a little flour just to make them easier to handle but I was still not able to get as tight a braid as I’d hoped. Nevertheless, it still looks impressive once it’s all puffed up and risen, and the light texture makes me glad I didn’t go overboard with the extra flour.

Anyway, super tasty, would make again!

Hot dog rolls

I’ve made many burger buns in my time, but for some reason always turned to the supermarket for hot dog rolls. Well I’m off work so I have time for extravagances and I scoured for a good recipe….

850g strong white flour (you can sub in whole wheat) divided

4 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 tablespoon instant or quick yeast

1 tablespoon salt

600ml warm water (noticeably warm but not hot)

115g melted unsalted butter

In a large bowl stir together half of the flour, and the sugar, yeast and salt. 

Add water and butter and stir until combined.

Gradually add the flour and stir until combined using an electric mixer and a dough hook. Keep mixing until the mixture is smooth and soft and just past the sticky point. Add more flour if needed but be careful not to make it dry.

Cover and place dough in a warm spot for 1.5 hours or until doubled. Punch dough down.

Uncover dough and divide into 4 even sections. Divide each section into 5 equal sections so you have 20 pieces.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll each piece of dough into a smooth ball, pinching the seams in the back and rolling until smooth. Place ball on the counter and roll back and forth with both hands to make a cylinder that is roughly 5-6″ by 1-1.5″. For hot dog buns that are not as thick, press down to flatten slightly. Line up on baking sheets about 1-1.5″ apart.

Once your hot dog buns are all rolled, let rise for 45-60 minutes until doubled again.

Bake at 220 degrees C for 15-20 minutes, until light golden brown. Optional: brush wth melted butter upon removing from the oven.

Let cool to room temperature before slicing and serving.

And the verdict is that these are most definitely worth the effort.

Pumpkin Bread Rolls

The one time of year when people buy pumpkins, and then have no idea what to use the flesh for. This year I tried a pumpkin pie (very tasty, tastes mostly of the cinnamon, nutmeg and egg in the recipe), pumpkin soup (kind of bland, but fills a hole if you’re hungry) and I still had enough to also make some pumpkin bread. Based on the other two recipes, and previous attempts to bake with pumpkin, you just have to accept that it doesn’t add much in the way of flavour to anything, so a good base recipe is key. To that end, I’ve tried a lovely pumpkin enriched bread this time, which are supposed to be shaped into little pumpkins. Let’s see how we go….

1 packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) instant yeast

1 cup whole milk, scalded and cooled to lukewarm

1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar

3 tablespoons (43 grams) unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup (113 grams) pumpkin puree

2 large eggs, divided

1 teaspoon salt

3 3/4 cups (476 grams) all-purpose flour

Pecan nuts for finishing

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, stir the yeast, milk, sugar, butter, pumpkin, one egg, and salt until well combined. Gradually add the flour and knead on medium-low speed until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Turn off the mixer and let the dough rest for 3 to 5 minutes. Continue to knead the dough on medium-low speed for another 5 minutes, or until the dough is soft and smooth. If it seems too sticky, add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time.
2. Transfer the dough to a large greased bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise until doubled in size, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.
3. Punch the dough down and turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface. Divide the dough into 15 equal pieces and shape into balls. Use the palm of your hand to flatten each ball slightly. With a pairing knife, cut 8 slices around each ball, being careful not to slice all the way into the center, to make the pumpkin shape. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.
4. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 220°C. Using the wooden end of a small utensil or your finger to poke an indentation in the center of each roll to create a space for the “stem.” In a small bowl beat the remaining egg with 2 teaspoons of water and brush all over the rolls. Bake the rolls for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Place a sliced pecan piece into the indentation of each roll.

Any time you use a fresh ingredient such as pumpkin it’s going to be rather variable depending on the water content. Fresh pumpkin is much wetter than tinned for example, and the age of the pumpkin will also have an impact. Mine gave a rather wet and sticky dough so needed a few more tablespoons of flour adding. I resisted adding more and making it too dense.

However, when it comes to shaping sticky dough into pumpkin shapes and slicing the sides to get the distinctive sections, then it’s not so great. I made a half hearted attempt and gave up.

At this point it wasn’t really worth bothering with pecan nut stems either so I left that out.

So they don’t look like pumpkins, and no, they don’t taste of it either, BUT, one cannot go wrong with a good enriched roll, and these have the benefit of being extremely light, fluffy, delicious and also used up a good chunk of pumpkin and thus saved me from yet another portion of bland soup. This recipe was also supposed to be served with cinnamon butter but half the batch had been pilfered by the family who declared them the best rolls I’ve ever made, before I even had chance to mention the final touch. Maybe I’ll save that for myself!

White chocolate and hazelnut rainbow babka

It’s all about rainbows these days, and that includes baking! A lovely friend sent me the link to this one (from buttermilkbysam) and it looked right up my street. I’ve made a Chocolate Babka previously but found it needed something a little lighter than the dark chocolate. This one includes a homemade hazelnut butter mixed with white chocolate, coloured in lovely rainbow shades.

For the hazelnut butter:
120g blanched hazelnuts
Pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tablespoon icing sugar
100g White chocolate

For the bread:
1/2 cup warm water
1 teaspoon instant yeast (or 1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup canola oil (or melted butter)
1/8 cup honey
1 large egg
2 cups bread flour (or all purpose flour)
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

Start with the bread and activate the yeast in the water along with a teaspoon of sugar. Add the rest of the ingredients and knead until a smooth dough. Leave in an oiled bowl to rise til doubled in size.

Meanwhile toast the hazelnuts for ten minutes at 180c until browning and fragrant. Put in a food processor and blend until the oils are released and you have a runny, buttery consistency. This may take about ten minutes, and you’ll need to scrape the sides down a few times. Add the rest of the butter ingredients and the melted white chocolate. Separate into 6 bowls and colour each with rainbow colours of your choice.

Roll the dough out to approximately 13” long and 2” wider than a small loaf tin. Spread each colour of butter width ways in a stripe until the length is covered. Then roll the dough up lengthways, and using a sharp knife cut it down the middle. Twist the two lengths together and place into the loaf tin. Leave to prove again. Brush the dough (not the exposed butter parts) with one egg yolk beaten with a pinch of sugar. Loosely cover with foil and bake at 180c for 25 minutes. Then remove the foil and bake for another ten minutes.

I wonder if there’s a better way to twist this so that the colours all appear in each slice, because the rainbow effect is slightly lost on mine. Probably the butter would have to be spread lengthways but it might make them bleed into eachother more and make a bit of a muddy mess.
Anyway, this is fabulous. Delicious, and I would happily spread that butter on bread every day. The babka itself is light and delicious.

I think you need to make one.

Wholemeal crackers

I’m really enjoying crackers at the moment for their speed (no proving required) and their convenience as a snack at any time of day. I decided to try wholemeal ones this time and found this recipe at acouplecooks.com

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon honey
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled
1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water
Salt and pepper (or other herbs or spices – garlic powder, thyme, rosemary, etc), for seasoning

Preheat the oven to 180°C
Combine 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, and 1/4 teaspoon paprika. Mix in 1 tablespoon honey and 4 tablespoons cold butter using a food processor, or by hand using a pastry cutter. Drizzle with ice water (1/4 to 1/2 cup) until a ball forms.
On a well-floured surface, roll out the dough with a rolling pin until it is very very thin (if the dough sticks, add more flour to the surface). Using a pastry wheel or knife, cut the dough into small squares, and poke each cracker a few times with a fork. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, or other seasonings.
Bake until crisp, about 7 to 10 minutes. Make sure to watch each batch; timing will depend on how thin your crackers are, with thicker crackers taking longer to bake.

I’ve only just noticed this recipe says to sprinkle seasoning on the top before baking. I also managed to overbake (not quite burn!) the first tray. But we all enjoyed the rest. I didn’t think the paprika flavour particularly came through, maybe the seasoning would have helped.

Flatbread crackers

My four year old has asked for a CRACKER PARTY. What is a cracker party you ask? I think it is the result of seeing crackers on tv this morning and coming up with a reason why we need to consume lots of them. Indulgence in anything has to make it a party after all! I found this recipe on pinchofyum.com.

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons fresh herbs of choice (I used thyme)
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (more or less to taste – as written, it will be pretty peppery)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup cold water

Preheat the oven to 220c. Pulse the flour, thyme, pepper, salt, sugar, and olive oil in the food processor until evenly distributed.
Add the water and pulse just until the dough starts to stick together (about 10 seconds). Remove the dough, press together gently with your hands to form a single ball, and cut into four pieces. Let the dough rest for about ten minutes.
Roll out each individual piece of dough as thin as you possibly can. If the dough starts to shrink up, let it rest a little longer. You want the dough to get very, very thin. Once it’s rolled, place it on a piece of parchment paper and transfer to a baking sheet.
Bake for 4-5 minutes, but check periodically to make sure it’s not getting too brown – flip each cracker piece and bake another 4-5 minutes. Turn the oven off and let the crackers sit in the oven for 1-2 hours to really dry out and get crispy.
Break into pieces and serve.

I did this by hand rather than in a food processor. As long as you handle it lightly and stop as soon as it’s combined, that’s the key. We’re looking for crackers, not chewers, so we don’t want to activate the gluten too much.

To get these really thin, the easiest thing to do is put each blob of dough between sheets of baking paper and then roll out with a rolling pin. I then cut the pieces into rough triangles before transferring to the baking sheet to bake. The main reason for that is that I wasn’t reading the instructions properly. I also missed bit about flipping and baking for another few minutes and did wonder why they tasted so underdone. No harm done, back in they went! At this point they are already pretty crispy but leaving them to cool down with the oven will dry them out properly.

To be honest these just taste like pretty normal crackers. I kept the herbs and pepper quite light so as not to offend young palettes, but I think that makes it a success. You could really do what you like with the seasoning of these; mustard seeds, chilli, garlic, poppy seeds…. as a basic cracker recipe I think it hits the nail on the head!

Oaty wholemeal biscuits for cheese

I have cheese.
I have chutney.
I have a hunger for comfort food.
I have more wholemeal flour than white, and more oats than I know what to do with (thanks brewery!)
So this recipe from delicious magazine seemed perfect.

50g oatmeal
175g wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking flour
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp caster sugar
100g cold unsalted butter, diced
3 tbsp milk

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan160°C/gas 4. Mix the oatmeal, wholemeal flour, baking flour, salt and caster sugar in a large bowl.
Rub in cold unsalted butter, diced, then add the milk and knead lightly to form a dough. Set aside for 15 minutes.
Roll out on a floured surface to 3mm thickness. Cut into squares or rounds and place on a non-stick baking sheet. Prick with a fork and bake for 12 minutes until golden.
Allow to cool before eating. Will keep for a week in an airtight tin.

I have interpreted baking flour as plain white, although I probably needed three times as much in the end when dusting the surface to roll this out as the dough is very short otherwise and pretty sticky.

I left these to cool while doing the shopping and came back to find my husband had made a start on them and declared we need never buy oat biscuits again. I think that sounds like quite a good review!

Breadsticks

It has been almost exactly 3 years since I lasted did a bread blog entry. We are mid lockdown, and flour is finally available again, and this morning I just felt the old enthusiasm for trying something new.

Now I find myself in a fortunate position this lockdown to have a brewer husband so I have an abundance of yeast, which seems to be one thing people are still struggling to get hold of. Now would be the ideal time to grow a starter, but for now that can be something for another week.

So I revisited a couple of old recipes from here, and tried a couple of new ones too. Here is the first, some big, fat salt and pepper breadsticks from the bbc good food site.

450g/1lb strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
1 x 7g/⅛oz sachet fast-action dried yeast
1½ tsp salt
250–275ml/9-10fl oz warm water
vegetable oil or spray oil, for oiling
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp sea salt
2 tbsp freshly ground black pepper

Dust two large baking trays with flour.
Put the flour, yeast and the salt into a large bowl and add enough of the water to make a soft but not sticky dough. Knead well for 10 minutes by hand on a lightly floured work surface or for five minutes if using an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook.
Divide the mixture into 12 equal portions, each weighing about 60g/2½oz. Roll the portions into balls, then place each ball on a floured surface and roll into a long sausage shape about 25cmx2cm/10inx1in. (For the best visual results make the sausage shape an even thickness.)
I like to shape half of them into twists. Run a knife down the centre to split the dough, leaving a bit at one end uncut. Braid or plait the two halves over each other to give a twisted effect.
Place the breadsticks on the prepared baking trays, spacing them 4cm/1½in apart. Cover the breadsticks loosely with oiled clingfilm, making sure it is airtight. Leave in warm place for 30 minutes, or until the breadsticks have almost doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
Remove the clingfilm and brush each breadstick with the extra virgin olive oil. Sprinkle half of the breadsticks with the sea salt and the remainder with the freshly ground black pepper. Bake on the top third of the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the breadsticks are lightly golden-brown and feel firm to the touch. Remove the breadsticks from the oven and leave to cool on the baking trays.

I’m not entirely sure to be honest if my brewers yeast is classed as easy blend or not (it looks like it; it’s fine grains as opposed to the little round beads), but just to be safe I activate it in the water first, being careful to use the lesser amount of water for this so I can still add more after.

It’s a very thick and stretchy dough, not the easiest to shape. I found making a small sausage and then stretching it out was the easiest. My twists had a tendency to unravel themselves though so the straight ones ended up looking neater.

There was a slight chew to this rather than a dry snap. Perhaps being thinner would be better? I don’t think they could have been baked much longer. But then again, a little bit of chewy crust is no bad thing either.