Eight-grain no-knead bread
It couldn’t get much more simple than this. I used to make this bread every few weeks when I lived in Ottawa, but haven’t made it since the move out East. Well, I finally got around to going to the Bulk Barn to pick up the grains I needed and am very happy to share this easy recipe.
If you’re not a fan a kneading, or want to make bread but don’t have much time, this is the recipe for you!
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup 8 or 12 grain mix
1/4 teaspoon yeast
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
1 5/8 cups warm water
Directions:
Put the yeast in the warm water and let it froth for ~10 minutes. Put all the ingredients into a bowl, mix lightly, and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Leave the dough, covered, for ~18 hours (leaving the dough overnight works well). After ~18 hours, put the dough in a loaf pan and leave it to rise, uncovered, for about two hours. Pre-heat oven to 375°F. Bake for 20 minutes at this temperature. Lower oven temperature to 350°F and bake for another 20 minutes.
As with many of the recipes I share, this is a great one for experimentation. If I have it on hand, I usually switch up the 8-grain mix for some of my favourite Dorset cereal or muesli. This definitely isn’t a sandwich bread, but it’s great for toast and snacking, and it freezes well.
Pull-apart cheese & herb bread
Well I finally tried it and overall it worked out quite well!
The whole process of making this was actually really simple. As mentioned, I used my classic sandwich bread recipe as the base for this one. One thing I really like about this recipe (other than it being super delicious and you eating it all before you probably should) is that it’s very flexible. You can add whatever spices you think would work well.
Here’s what you’ll need:
1 1/2 cups hot water
1 1/4 tsp yeast
2 tbs softened butter/margarine
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tbs sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbs milk
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1-2 cups grated cheese (cheddar is a good option)
** 1/2-1 tbs of each herb (possibilities include oregano, basil, dill, rosemary, etc., etc…)
Here’s how it’s done:
Put the yeast into the measured amount of hot water. Wait ~15 minutes for it to froth. Put butter, then dry ingredients, then milk into the bowl of your mixer. Give it a quick stir. Once the yeast/water mixture is frothy, add it to the dry ingredients. Mix. Knead the dough until it becomes elastic, about ~6 minutes in the mixer or ~15 by hand. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 2 hours, or until it has doubled in bulk.
Before kneading for a second time, add your selection of herbs to the dough. Knead again for at least 5 minutes.
Line the loaf pan with parchment (the melted cheese will make the bread hard to remove if you don’t). Pull off handfuls of dough and roll it out into thin strips. Cut sections of to approximately fit the width and height of your loaf pan. Lay one piece down at a time, alternating with grated cheese (see photo).
Bake at 350°F for ~30 minutes.
Let the bread cool on a rack before pulling it apart and eating it. Mmmmmmm…
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While I usually split this recipe into two loaves, I used all the dough for one loaf this time. What I found tough was to gauge how much I would need once it started being stacked up. Using all the dough seemed to be a good idea. The only slight complication was that, when it puffed up and baked, the slices kind of baked together. While they did actually pull apart quite easily, using more cheese would have helped (as it always does with everything). Either way, the outcome was incredibly delicious. I’ll be making this again really soon, especially with guests coming, and I hope you do too!
New recipe for pull-apart cheese & herb bread?
Well… not quite yet. I’ve been seeing a lot of recipes on Pinterest and Twitter and everywhere else for pull-apart bread. Most of them have been sweet though, such as this delicious looking cinnamon sugar pull-apart bread found on Joy the Baker:
As much as I love making and baking the sweet, I do also love the savory. So, here’s my plan. This week (or weekend) I’m going to try to switch it up and make a recipe for a pull-apart cheese and herb bread. Using my classic sandwich bread recipe as a base, I’m going to try using cheese between the layers and mixing the herbs into the dough. This doesn’t sound too complicated and I’m sure it will be delicious, but my main concern is making sure it pulls apart as I’m imagining it to. I did also find this recipe for cheddar, beer, and mustard pull-apart bread on Smitten Kitchen, from which I’m drawing some inspiration:
You can see how they both have a similar look – that’s what I’m going for. I also want to make sure this is a really simple recipe that anyone will want to try. It would even be great to bring to potlucks or to gift.
Wish me luck – I’ll report back as soon as I’ve tested it out!
Cooking & baking inspiration
I’ve continued to spend time this past week, as I probably do every week, searching for new eats and recipes. Here are a few of my favourites that I plan to test out in the coming months. I’ve also come across some really great, interesting blogs, some of which feature the recipes below. I’m leaving it at four, but honestly the list in this post could go on for pages. If you want to see more of the recipes I discover or plan on trying, you could always follow me on Twitter @60percentbaking!
Grilled potato rounds with pesto and shaved asparagus via Minimally Invasive
Sweet potato and black bean patties via Tasty Yummies
Red flannel hash via Spoon Fork Bacon
Buttered rum cupcakes via Adventures in Cooking
Tikka Masala
Along with developing a new menu to guide our grocery and eating habits, we’ve been search for and testing a few new recipes.
I got this recipe from In the Kitchen with Stefano Faita. After watching him make it on TV, seeing that it looked pretty simple and flexible, I decided to give it a try. I got all the necessary spices at the Bulk Barn and I was pretty much ready to go, as most of the other ingredients are ones I usually have on hand.
Here’s the recipe as adapted from this one from In the Kitchen:
Ingredients:
2-3 chicken breasts (boneless)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp chopped fresh ginger
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp turmeric
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup whipping cream (35%)**
Basmati rice for serving
Preparation:
Cut chicken into 1 1/2 inch cubes and season with salt and pepper.
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When oil is hot, add chicken and cook until cooked through, about 5 minutes. Remove from pan.
Clean pan, add more oil. When warm, sweat onion, garlic and ginger for 2 to 3 minutes. Add cumin, turmeric, chili powder and cardamom and let the spices heat while stirring. Add lemon juice and cook for another minute.
Add tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer. Add chicken back to pan. Continue to cook add whipping cream**. Simmer until sauce is thickened.
Serve over rice and garnish with plain yogurt.
** What neglects to be mentioned in the In the Kitchen recipe is that you should not substitute whipping cream for regular coffee cream. The high fat content in whipping cream (or the yogurt if you choose to use that instead of cream) is what keeps it from curdling when added to the warm pan. If whipping cream isn’t an option for you, you can temper your regular cream before adding it to the pan. This is done by adding, in several small additions, teaspoons of the juices from the pan to the cream while stirring vigorously, then adding this to the pan while stirring.
Overall, I was pretty happy with how this dish turned out. It was hearty, easy to make (once I figured out how to avoid curdling), makes great leftovers for the next day. It’s also very flexible, in terms of spices and flavours, so you can tweak it to taste. This recipe is definitely going to be added as a regular to our menu.
Enjoy!
Lemon cupcakes with vanilla and matcha tea frosting
I’ve made and blogged about lemon cupcakes a few times, like here and here, but I only now realized that I’ve never shared the recipe. I apologize, because I think this recipe is definitely a keeper. The cupcakes are easy to make, moist, and work well with several types of frosting.
Here’s what you’ll need and how to put it all together:
Lemon cupcakes:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup cream
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
3 oz butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2+ tbs lemon zest
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Combine and whisk together cream, eggs, yolk, vanilla, and lemon.
Cream together the butter and sugar in a mixer. Beat until well blended.
Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the wet in two parts.
Scoop batter into a muffin tin and bake at 350F for ~15-20 minutes.
The top will start to crackle when it’s done baking.
For vanilla frosting, you can check out my previous post on chocolate cupcakes here. For matcha tea frosting, check out my post on grapefruit cupcakes here.
Mamiyaflex C – round three
My other film camera, a Mamiyaflex C, was given to me by my father who got it from his father.
It’s a great camera, shoots amazing photos, but I haven’t used it too much. It doesn’t have a light meter, which makes it difficult to accurately expose each image, and the manual isn’t super clear about loading the film, so I’m always nervous about starting a new roll. Also it takes 120mm film, so that provides another challenge in finding somewhere to get it developed.
All that said, I’ve decided to run another roll through it, having downloaded a light meter app for my phone. I know, cheating a bit, but whatever. I want to use the camera and this should help me get used to recognizing light settings and, to be honest, I’m not going to be buying a pro light meter any time too soon.
So, stay tuned! Since there are only 12 shots on a roll, I’ll hopefully be sharing some photos soon.
In the meantime, here are some photos (including some double exposures) I took with this camera the last time I put a roll through.
Flickr
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