Red onion and paprika cheese scones

I was asked to make a few cakes for a charity bake sale, I made courgette and carrot cupcakes, morello cherry scones and these beauties. I wanted to have a savoury option that was a bit different from the norm so came up with this idea.

I took a normal cheese scone recipe and just added some fun extras.

Makes about 12 scones:

225g self raising flour

40g butter 

1 egg

100ml milk

100g cheese (grated)

pinch of salt and pepper

Ideas for added extras:

Paprika, cayenne pepper, mustard powder, souted onion, olives, sun dried tomato, roasted peppers (I'm sure there is a lot more that would be brilliant in scones)

• Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C and grease a baking tray (I used a silicone non stick mat)
• Sift the flour into a bowl, add the powdered spices and then rub in the fat.
• With a fork mix in half of the grated cheese and any onion, olives or other added extras. 
• Add the egg and milk and stir with the fork to form a soft craggy dough, do not over mix.
• Turn out the dough onto a floured worktop and using your hands pat into shape so that it is about 2cm thick.
• Using a cutter of your choice (cooking times will depend on the size you have cut the scones so don't make them too large or the centre will never cook, I used a 2inch round fluted cutter) cut out the scones and place them onto your baking tray. 
• Reshape the remaining dough and cut more scones out.
• Sprinkle the top with the remaining cheese

• Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, they should be golden brown.

I didn't manage to get a picture of these when they were cooked as they got collected still warm and whisked off to the bake sale. I did save one for my husband and he loved it and I received good reviews from the people at the bake sale. 

I will have to make these again to get some more pictures for this blog :)

Happy cooking

xoxo

Wrights bread mix-brioche

I had a go at Wrights brioche bread mix this morning, here is what I did and how it turned out:

Ingredients (easy as):
1 packet of Wrights brioche bread mix
240ml warm water

• In a mixing bowl add the water to the bread mix and bring together to form a dough and rest for five minutes.
• Knead for two minutes and rest for another five.

• Shape into a loaf or make 10 rolls (I made 8 slightly larger rolls and changed the baking time)

I made eight plaited rolls

• Leave the dough to rise whilst pre-heating the oven to 210 degrees C (I went to 200 degrees C as m oven is quite fierce)
• The packet says bake a loaf for 30 minutes and rolls for 15. I baked mine for 10 minutes and the rolls were almost over done (again down to my fierce oven) so keep an eye on how browned the bead becomes.

Some of the rolls stuck together due to oven spring 

These rolls have a lovely crumb structure and are just what you want from a brioche. The flavour is good but in my opinion it is a little bit basic. If I use this bread mix again I will add some flavours, maybe some lemon zest, or chocolate chips (to make my husband happy).

Happy baking

xoxo

Pizza

Every now and then I try a new pizza dough recipe, using my pizza stones in an attempt to make the perfect pizza.

This recipe is Ken Forkish's pizza dough and I have had the best success so far with this recipe, I have a few adjustments to make, but overall it was a great pizza and we loved it.

This is a dough that you start the night before to give the dough a chance to develop flavours.

Ingredients to make 5 pizzas

700g warm water (weighed to be more accurate)

1/4 tsp dried yeast

1000g white bread flour (I'm using Wrights)

20g salt 

• Take about 3 tbls of the water out of the water and set aside.
• Autolyse the dough: mix the remaining water and the flour to form a dough and leave to rest for 30 minutes.
• Activate the yeast in the 3 tbsp of water that was set aside.
• Mix the yeast water and the salt the the dough and knead for a few minutes, if doing this by hand you will need to wet your hands to prevent the dough from sticking and do several stretch and folds until the salt and yeast are combined. If you have machine kneaded the dough after 30 minutes rest give it 2 stretch and folds.
• Transfer the dough into a large bowl (I used a large cake box), cover, and leave the dough to triple in size (about 12 hours)

• The next morning divide the dough into 5 equal pieces, I did it by eye but if you are unsure you can weigh the dough and each portion should be about 340g. I used olive oil to stop the dough sticking to the bench and my hands.
• Shape the dough pieces into balls and pull the dough around to the back of the dough ball a few times to create surface tension. Place the dough balls into something (I used a roasting tray) that is big enough to hold the dough with room for expansion. I oiled the tray and rolled each dough ball around in the oil to stop the dough sticking to each other and the tray. Cover with a plastic bag or cling film and put in the fridge for at least 6 hours.
• To roll out the dough place each piece onto grease proof paper that has been sprinkled with semolina for that traditional Italian flavour. Dip your fingers in oil and push and stretch the dough out into a circle but don't squash and deflate the crust.
• Cover with your favourite toppings, making sure your tomato sauce is cold so it doesn't kill the yeast in the dough.

• Place your pizza onto your pre-heated pizza stone (probably as hot as your oven will go 250-300 degrees C) I used a pizza peel but you can use an upside down baking tray.

We topped our pizza with a homemade garlicky tomato sauce, choizo, onion, orange pepper, courgette, basil oil and mozzarella.

This is a photo of the crust to show how lovely and airy it is.

Happy Cooking

xoxo

Courgette Risotto - Wendy's recipe, Wendy's allotment veg!

This recipe is stolen from my mother in law. She cooked it for us a few weeks ago and I loved it. As she has given us some vegetables from her allotment (including very big courgettes/marrows) I decided to cook it for us last night and use up some of the glut. I have changed the recipe slightly to our taste.

Ingredients to serve 2:
1 tbls oil
1 small onion
1 small leek
1 stick of celery
150g risotto rice
4 cloves of garlic finely diced
A small glass of white wine
1 litre of stock (either home made or stock cube, chicken or vegetable)
zest of half a lemon
A few stalks of fresh thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese to taste (we used about 50g)
Knob of butter (about 15g)

(Wendy's recipe used a splash of single cream for a richer risotto)

• Finely dice the onion, celery and leek and start to saute in a large frying pan with the oil.

• Cut the courgette into roughly 1cm chunks (with the marrow I discarded the seeds) and add to the softened vegetables in the pan and continue to saute.
• Warm up stock in a saucepan or make up a stock cube with boiling water.
• Add the rice and the garlic to the frying pan (that is still on the heat) and stir around until the garlic becomes aromatic.
• Add the wine and let it sizzle away for a few minutes

The wine I used, it was just a bit left over in the bottle from another day.

• Add a ladle full of stock and allow that to be boiled away and absorbed by the rice.
• When the risotto starts to dry out add another ladle of hot stock and stir every few minutes.

• Keep doing this until the rice is al dente (this takes about 15-20 minutes) which means it is cooked but still has some bite to it (not mushy)
• Add the lemon zest, butter and parmesan, stir around and season to taste.
• Risotto should be served moist, we added more parmesan and fresh ground black pepper onto the each portion.

We like risotto it is filling, healthy, versatile and often a good store cupboard standby. This recipe would be great with chunks of chorizo added to the pan before the onion, or you could replace the courgette with squash, add chicken, pea and prawn, the possibilities are endless and I suggest you just try with your favourite flavours or just what you have in the fridge!

Happy Cooking

xoxo

Goodies from Wrights

I just received some more Wrights bread mixes in the post, pumpkin, brioche and another sour dough to play around with.

I was thinking about creating a starter then using that and following the packet instructions. I also want to use my dutch oven to get a good oven spring and crust, and I want to try some stretch and folds to get the lovely open textured crumb that a traditional sour dough has.

With the pumpkin bread I was thinking about bread rolls to be dipped in soup, and I am thinking the same thing for the brioche, but to be dipped in coffee rather than soup. I will repost with the results

Happy Cooking
xoxo

Rainbow layer birthday cake

My brother in law turned 18 this week and I was tasked (happily) with making the birthday cake. I convinced myself that 18 wasn't too old for a fun cake and set to it.

I made 6 layers of sponge, each one a different colour using a traditional victoria sponge cake recipe. either use your favourite sponge recipe, or when I make a sponge I always weigh the eggs, then use that weight for the flour, butter and sugar.

I used 6 inch sandwich tins. To make this cake without loads of washing up and doing the cakes in batches you either need 6 cake tins (which stupidly I have) or you can use those tin foil disposable flan tins.

I made a large batch of cake mix and divided it as equally as I could into 6 to add the colour. So you also need 6 bowls to add this different food colourings to the cake mix.

Ingredients
cake:
10 eggs
600g self raising flour (sieved)
600g sugar
600g butter
6 colours of food colouring (I use gel colours as they give a good depth of colour)

Butter icing:
500g butter
1kg icing sugar
3 tbls milk

Strawberry jam for layers.

• Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C. 
• Grease and line the cake tins.
• Cream the butter and sugar (I used my kenwood chef to save my arms).
• One egg at a time beat them into the mix (adding a tbls of flour with each egg to stop it curdling).
• Once all the eggs combined add the remaining flour and mix until combined.
• Scrape down the bowl and mix again to make sure it is all combined.
• Dived the cake mixture into 6 different bows.
• Add the food colouring, If using the gel colouring use a tooth pick to stir the gel around a bit then stir that tooth pick into the cake mix to get the colour into the mixture. 
• Stir the cake well to get an even colour and spoon into a greased and lined cake tin.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes

• Let the cakes cool in the tins for 5 minutes then on a cooling rack until completely cool.
• Cream the butter, icing sugar and milk to make the butter icing.
• Dab some butter cream onto the cake plate/board that you are using to hold the cake still.
• Spread a little butter cream onto the later, and a little jam on the bottom of the next layer and sandwich them together. Keep doing this with all the layers.

I did the colours of the rainbow, but I think I put a bit too much yellow food colouring in, as the yellow layer looked a bit dark and almost orange, so I didn't put that sponge layer in as it would have looked the same as the next layer.

• Do a crumb coat (sometimes called a dirty coat), This is where you cover the cake with butter icing but only use a very thin layer. Then chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. This is done so that any crumbs that (will) get mixed in with the butter icing won't show on the final coat.
• After the cake has chilled and the icing feels firm add the remaining butter cream for the finishing layer.  

With any luck you will have a very lovely cake!

Happy Cooking

xoxo

Naan

Like many food lovers, I am in search of making perfect curries, this includes naans. Now I know I will never get perfect results without having a tandoor oven, but with a pizza stone and a good recipe you can get close.

Makes 6 naan
350g plain flour
175ml warm milk
2 tblsp oil
125ml yogurt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp fast active yeast
1/2 tsp salt

melted butter to brush over the freshly baked naans.
Extras:-
To add to dough:
chopped fresh coriander
onion seeds
chopped garlic
cumin seeds
To stuff inside:
shredded spiced cabbage
keema (spiced lamb mince)
peshwari (coconut, almond, sultanas and sugar)

• Leave the yogurt at room temperature for a few hours before you start baking so that it won't kill the yeast.
• Warm the milk to finger temperature, mix in the sugar and sprinkle the yeast over the top to activate.
• Mix the dough ingredients and then knead for 5 to 10 minutes or use a bread machine on the dough cycle. If you are adding extras you want in the dough now is the time to add it.
• Leave to rise for an hour or more.
• Using oiled hands and worktop knock back the dough and dived into 6, place onto a greased tray or sheets of greaseproof paper that you can slide onto a pizza stone.
• Using your fingers press the dough out into the desired shape (tear drop, round etc)
• Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to 220 degrees C, with the pizza stones inside if you are using them. 

If you are stuffing the naans you need press out the dough, spoon some filling into the centre, wet the edge with water then fold over and press to seal (think Cornish pasty)

I divided my dough in half and did half with coriander and garlic (my husband and I love them like this) and half with onion seed (a more mellow flavour for everyone else).

• Sprinkle a little water over the naans and cook in the oven for about 8 minutes, keeping an eye on them. 
• Brush with melted butter.

If you want the authentic looking charred patches you can place the naans straight out of the oven and into a hot dry frying pan, then brush melted butter onto the naans after that.

Happy cooking

xoxo

Best ever burger buns

I nearly always make my own burgers, with mince from a proper butchers and known additives like onion and garlic not MSG and horse.

So if you have gone to the trouble of making your own burgers, why put them in cheap buns? I have tried many recipes for rolls and found that the recipe from the 'Baker boys' is by far the best.

Ingredients:
500g bread flour (I'm using Wrights)
1 tblsp caster sugar
25 g lard
10g salt
200ml warm milk
100ml warm water
5g fast action yeast

1 egg for glaze
seeds to sprinkle over (sesame, poppy etc) optional.

• Activate the yeast with the sugar, milk and water.
• Mix the flour, salt and lard to form a dough then knead for 5 minutes in a mixer and 10 minutes by hand and rest for an hour or place everything in a bread machine and choose the dough cycle.
• Knock back the dough.
• Dived into 10 and shape into balls.
• Flatten each ball until it is roughly 10cm wide, place the buns on a greased baking tray. Then brush with egg wash, cover loosely with cling film and leave to rise for 30 minutes.
• Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to 200 degree C.
• After 30 minutes brush the buns again with the egg wash again and sprinkle with seeds.

• Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown

These went down a treat at my mother in laws house, and there was enough left over to have them toasted the next morning for breakfast.

Happy cooking

xoxo

Ciabatta

The first bake out of my massive sack of Wrights flour was ciabatta. I made 3 loaves out of this recipe, but you could do 2 bigger ones, or more smaller ones,  just change cooking time accordingly.

I often try different recipes for ciabatta, looking for a bread with the big airy holes, and attempting to not have it spread out into a pancake shaped loaf. Here is another try, another learning curve. This recipe is an easy peasy one which calls for cups. If you would rather grammes and ounces working out let me know. I'm just being lazy by not doing the maths this morning!

This recipe is a weekend one, in that even though it doesn't take much effort, it needs time for the flavour to develop, and every now and then you will need to stretch and fold the dough to get the characteristic crumb structure.

This dough is soft and sticky, and I for one would not do it without kneading it in my mixer or my bread machine. But if you are brave you can do it by hand, I just know it will stick to everything. You don't want to add lots of flour and dry out the dough. You can put oil on the counter, or lightly wet/oil your hands when you are handling a high hydration dough.

This recipe used a pre ferment (called so many things in the bread world, if it is a stiff dough its called a biga, if its a soft batter a sponge, or a starter), this is common and really easy so don't get put off.

Pre ferment ingredients:
1 cup bread flour
1/2 cup warm water
pinch of fast action yeast (yes only a pinch)

Dough ingredients:
All of the pre ferment
3 1/2 cups of bread flour (1 of these cups can be whole meal/brown)
1 1/4 cups of warm water
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 semolina (you can use milk powder if you have added brown or whole meal flour to keep the dough soft and light)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp yeast (this is more than enough, don't worry).

For the pre ferment

• The night before you want to cook your ciabatta sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and leave to activate for a few minutes.

• Add the four, and stir/whisk by hand until there are no more lumps and dry patches and everything looks uniform, it should form a loose dough. No need to knead, just a quick mix to combine.

• Put the whole bowl inside a plastic bag or cover with cling film, and leave it on the counter over night.

For the dough:

• In the morning my pre ferment looked like this:

• In my bread machine (which I used on kneading setting only-no cooking yet!) I placed the pre ferment, the remaining bread flour, the olive oil, the water and the semolina (not the yeast and the salt yet) I mixed all this together, kneaded for a few minutes and let rise for 1 hour. This is a technique called autolyse. 

This is a baking term for a dough made without the yeast, kneaded, rested, which then you add the yeast to and carry on as normal. People use the autolyse technique to hydrate the ingredients to start developing the flavour and the texture of the dough before the rising agent is added. This technique is used a lot in fresh bread baking.

• Sprinkle the yeast over the dough and start the kneading again, once the yeast has been mixed in slightly sprinkle the salt and do the same. Once you have kneaded the dough for another few minutes leave to rise again.
• Once the dough has doubled in size knock the air out and transfer (if its not already) into a big mixing bowl. Slosh olive oil onto the dough to stop it all sticking.
• Every 20 or 30 minutes or so stretch and fold. To do this slosh some olive oil onto the dough, grab a handful at one edge and lift and stretch it out then fold it on top of the dough still in the bowl. Do this twice every time you do a stretch and fold.
•  Once you have done this 5 or 6 times then you can shape the dough into loaves and do a final rise. I put each loaf onto grease proof paper which I had dusted with semolina. I placed them next to each other in an attempt to get them to rise up rather than out.

• I let them rise for about an hour like this, mean while I pre-heated the oven to 200 degrees C with my pizza stones in to pre-heat too.
• Bake the loaves either straight onto a pizza stone or just on a baking try for 15 minutes, cool completely and enjoy!

These are the final loaves, these are probably the best shape I have managed when making ciabatta. There is a little bit of oven tear which tells me I could have proved the loaves longer before I baked them. 

They tasted great, we had them savoury and sweet (toasted with jam) and I am very impressed, and I Will use this recipe again and play around with it.

 

I have in the past  given up and baked before the 5 or 6 stretch and folds, the bread came out fine but the dough did spread out more in the oven, if you are using a loaf tin to keep the dough from spreading out you won't need to worry. But I prefer the look of the free form loaves.

Happy Cooking

xoxo

Any excuse to not unpack

We moved house last week, and I have been doing anything to get out of unpacking boxes, so it became imperative that I buy a sack of flour.

Now the silly thing is that I have bee toying with the idea for years! But I always thought I would never get through 16kg of flour before it went bad.

In an attempt to do something other than unpack boxes I naturally started looking at prices/amount/delivery options of sacks of flour. I decided on buying Wrights white bread flour, as I use Wrights flour quite often already.

Well once the order was placed I was super excited for it to arrive. I cleared a cupboard out (only just recently filled from a box..) got the kitchen spic and span, and after receiving an email telling me the four will be delivered the next working day prepared a starter for a bake.

Well on the morning of delivery it felt like Christmas, I was super excited. luckily it came before 9 am and I didn't have to wait long.

Well let the baking begin!

I will of course be posting the recipes and photos of what I bake, and we shall see, can I win the race, Will I finish the flour before the weevils move in?

Happy cooking 

xoxo

Wrights sour dough packet mix

In our town we have a delicatessen, and the other day I noticed that they are selling Wrights flour bread mixes, I thought I would give it a go because the bread flour that I use is Wrights and I am always happy with the outcome.

Nice and easy ingredients
1 packet of Wrights sour dough bread mix
310 ml warm water
4 tsp oil
egg wash (optional)

• Mix into a dough.
• Rest the dough for 5 minutes.
• Knead for 5 minutes.

• Rest for 30 minutes (the packet said only 5, but I wanted to see how fast it was doubling in the temperatures I was working in).

• Shape your loaves, I went for baguettes because I love a sour dough baguette. I lightly oiled the worktop and my hands to stop the dough from sticking, because the last thing you want to do once you have made a high hydration dough is to add loads of flour and dry it out.
• Make a rough flat rectangle, the length the baguette will be.

• Tightly roll up the dough into a sausage.

• Place on an oiled baking tray/grease proof paper/floured cloth/silicone baking mat seam side down.

• I have used a silicone baking mat which has been designed to make baguettes which I bought from Lakelands, but I more often than not don't use this mat and just use grease proof paper.
• Paint the baguettes with egg wash.
• Score with a serrated knife, If the knife is sticking to the dough you can get it wet between each cut.

• I left the baguettes to rise for 20 minutes, meanwhile I pre-heated the oven to 200 degrees C. 
• I baked the baguettes for 17 minutes (but check after 12 minutes and keep an eye on them).

My finished baguette:

I am happy with this outcome. In other attempts I have managed to get the slashes looking more pronounced but I think I know what I did wrong there.

The crumb structure was nice, but not what I have grown to expect from sour dough, to get large irregular air bubbles like a true sour dough I think I would have to spend longer on the dough development and add some stretch and folds in.

The smell was apparent right from the word go with mixing, this sour dough flavour is of course totally different from the starter that I have grown and developed myself. 

I liked the flavour and it was more complex than I expected from a packet mix. It is definitely quicker, easier, less messy and less of a life take over than making your own sour dough. 

If you love the flavour of sour dough but don't want to spend the time that it takes to develop your own starter this is definitely for you. If you make your own sour dough but have not got your starter ready for a bake this packet mix is for you. 

I won't be giving up my starter as I have to admit the time I have put into it, the fun I have had making and baking with it and the flavours and textures I have managed means that I have grown slightly attached. But during the week, or busy weekends when I don't have the time to do the likes of long retarded rises, I would definitely use this product. 

The final test, my husbands late night snack, does it pass the test?

Thumbs up from him!

Happy baking 

xoxo

Bagels

As I am sure it is very obvious, I love cooking bread. I will have a go at any recipe and I came across this one and loved it, luckily so does my husband as he has to eat most of the things I bake.

Makes 12
500g white bread flour
250ml warm water
50ml vegetable oil
20g caster sugar
10g salt
5g dried yeast

egg for glazing
topping/flavour of your choice
(I have tried seeds on top, softened onion in the dough, cinnamon and raisin in the dough, the possibilities are endless really)

• Refresh the yeast if necessary in the water with the sugar.
• Make the dough in your preferred method (bread machine =dough cycle, food mixer = 10 minutes kneading or by hand = 15 minutes kneading) adding any additional ingredients that you want in the dough.
• Leave dough to rise until doubled in size (30 minutes to an hour)
• Degas the dough and divide into 12

• Flatten each piece with your fingers into a rough rectangle.

• Roll tightly into a sausage

• That is about 15cm long

• Dip one end of the dough sausage in water then bring it round to the other end (making a loop) and press the two ends together.

• Leave all the bagels to prove on an oiled surface (baking tray, chopping board I've used a silicone baking mat) and covered until they double in size again.

• Bring a large pot of water to the boil, boil as many bagels in the pot at once that will fit with room for puffing up. Boil each bagel for one minute on each side.
• Once they have been boiled lift them out with a slotted spoon and place on a clean tea towel to drain (paper towels will stick!).

• While you are boiling your bagels pre heat the oven 200 degrees C.
• Place your boiled bagels onto a greased baking tray
• Brush with egg wash and top with seeds if using. 
• Bake for 15 minutes then cool on a wire wrack, the bagels should look golden brown.

My poppy seed bagels went down a treat at our house and a few made it to a friends house, where rumour has they were loved just as much. I really recommend giving this recipe a try, its difficult to do wrong and easy to make great results!

Happy baking

xoxo