Pizzas

The best dinner I've had all month!

You know when you just get sick of eating the same thing for dinner every night but it seems like way too much effort to come up with something new to cook? That's me. I've been living off brown pasta, brown rice, vegetables, omelets, quorn, and kidney beans for the past I don't know how long. I was getting so sick of eating dinner and that's just not right. Food is supposed to taste GOOD. So I finally worked up some enthusiasm and made fresh pizza, and let me tell you it was the nicest, and unhealthiest, thing I have had for dinner in quite some time. I was very, very happy last night.

Onions!

When I say I, I do in fact mean my sister, Emily, and myself. She deserves credit too, especially 'cause I don't think she'd be too happy with me if I didn't give it to her. We got the recipe for the dough from a bread making bread book called 'The Complete Book of Bread and Bread Machines' (yup, I bought another new one! But it was only seven euro so I couldn't resist). I'm pretty impressed by this book, not so much because of the results, which were pretty damn good, but because of the sheer quantity of recipes in it. This is the first thing I've tried from it but there's enough in there to keep me going for the rest of my baking days. It won't stop me from buying more but I certainly don't need any. No kidding, there is every type of bread that could possibly exist, hundreds of them and they're all so different, I can't wait to try more.

We didn't really do anything to the dough recipe. The quantity was enough to make two 30 cm pizzas (we thought my brother wanted one too, but his friend had already stuffed him!). I was going to be good and make it with whole wheat flour, but we weren't sure if it would go with the topping so we said screw it and just made it like the book said.

The topping was mostly Emily's creation, and I think it was pretty amazing. Caramelised onions have to be one of the nicest foods in the world, I just love onions anyway, but these things are seriously amazing. Who ever thought that cooking onion in vinegar, sugar, and olive oil would taste so good? For the cheese we used blue cheese which has a really distinctive flavour, so much better than mozzarella which tends to taste of not a whole lot. And then we put some spinach on because it's just really good on pizza.

Blue Cheese!

Recipe: Basic Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

• 280ml/ 1 1/4 cups warm water
• 30ml/ 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 450g/ 4 cups white bread flour
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
• 1 tsp easy-blend dried yeast

Method:

1. Pour the water and olive oil into the bread pan
2. sprinkle over the flour to cover the liquid. Add the sugar and salt in separate corners of the pan. Make an indent in the flour without exposing the liquid and add the yeast.
3. Set the bread machine to the dough or pizza dough setting and press start. Lightly oil two baking sheets.
4. When the cycle has finished remove the dough and place it on a lightly floured surface. Knock back gently and divide into two equal pieces. Preheat the oven to 220 d
   

As for the topping, that's really up to you. We used pissata mixed with a bit of sun dried tomato paste for the sauce, blue cheese, spinach, and caramelised onions. I really do recommend it, and the smell that fills the kitchen is amazing ;)

To caramelise onions:

1. Chop up a good load of onions (they shrink a lot during cooking).
   
2. Heat 25g of butter in a frying pan and sprinkle over 1 tablespoon of caster sugar and a tablespoon of vinegar.
   
3. Add the onions and cook over a medium heat for one hour, stirring frequently, until they are transparent and golden.

Everything that's good in life (and on pizza)

As you've probably guessed, this was super pizza. Okay, it wasn't the best I've ever had, but I really liked it. I think I'm probably being won over so easily because its been ages since I last has pizza. The base was good, thin but not invisible, and it had that wonderful squishy quality even though it was well cooked, not burned and dried out. The fact that it was freshly baked is what made it so good - I'm sure there are better dough recipes out there, but this one is good for me - It's so easy to make and it gives good results. The topping is what made it, I can't say good enough things about onions and blue cheese. The only thing I would do differently next time (Emily suggested this) would be to leave the caramelised onions off 'til after the pizza had been baked, we think the oven burned some of them as they'd already been cooked for about an hour.
After this I'm keen to get more interested in cooking as well as baking. Who knows, this could be the start of a new obsession!

Meaty!

We put the leftover base in the fridge, covered in plastic wrap, and it kept fine 'til the next day. I was a bit nervous about it but there weren't really any problems (I forgot to grease the baking sheet that it was on so there were some 'issues' with getting it off). We used it to make a pizza for my brother the next night.

Mmmm, pizza

His was pretty much the same as ours, but with meat (chicken), mozzarella and Cheddar cheese, onions, peppers, mushrooms, and spinach. He seemed to like it, and managed to eat all but one slice! I think a nearly a whole 30cm pizza with that much topping is pretty impressive for a fourteen year old.

This time it had a big crust

Brioche

If only it had had custard in it...

Brioche is a delicious enriched, French bread that tastes really buttery, even though this recipe didn't have that much butter in it :) It's usually served with jam, butter, or used to make French toast, but I there is no beating it with patisserie cream. The first time I tried it I almost died of food related joy, it was like heaven. The squishy, sweet bread combined with the cool cream, topped with sweet icing is one of the nicest things I've ever had. Whenever we get it it's gone in the same day. Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea how they get the custard in it! We usually buy it in Lidl so there's no one to ask about it in the shop. It comes in a foil container, the bread is quite flat - almost like a pie - and the patisserie cream is rippled through it in streaks of pure food magic, but we got one from Alid where it was a braid and the cream was sort of platted into it. I was trying to work it out but nobody really seems sure how to do it.
I did get the suggestion of somehow making it like Cinnamon swirls, and that's looking to be the most promising way of doing it at the moment, but if anyone can help I would be forever in your debt.

Before Baking

Recipe: Brioche

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 2 tbsp hand-hot milk
• 225g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 55g butter, melted
• 1 1/2 tsp easy-blend dried yeast
• sunflower oil, for greasing

Glaze:

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tbsp milk

Method:

1. Lightly beat the eggs with the milk in a bowl, then pour into the bread pan. Sprinkle the flour over the liquid to cover. Place salt, sugar, and butter in 3 corners of the pan. Indent the flour without exposing the liquid and add the yeast. Set the bread machine to the dough setting and press start.
   
2. With the lid shut, let the dough rise in the machine for an extra 30 minutes
3. Remove finished dough from pan. Knock back gently on a lightly floured surface.
4. Slice of one quarter, wrap in oiled clingfilm, and set aside. Oil a brioche mould or round cake tin.
5. Kneed large piece of dough, shape into a ball, place in mould, and indent the top. Unwrap the smaller piece and lightly kneed into a pear shape. Place on top.
6. Cover with clingfilm and set aside to rise in a warm place for about 1 hour to rise.
7. Remove the clingfilm. Lightly beat the egg yolk and milk together to form glaze. Brush brioche with glaze. Bake in a preheated oven at 180-200 degrees c for 30-45 minutes, until golden brown.

And after

The recipe came, one again, from 'Essentials: Bread' by Linda Doser. I didn't make any changes to the ingredients, figured it was best to leave it as it was. The one thing that shocked me was the oven temperature and cooking time - originally it says to bake it for 40-45 minutes at 220 degrees C, surly a mistake. After 20 minutes at around 200 degrees mine was thoroughly cooked and so brown it was nearly burnt. I think it would be more reasonable to bake it at 180-190 degrees C for about 25-30 minutes.

The bread turned out very nice, and had a really rich flavour for the amount of butter that was in it. I didn't have a brioche mould so I just baked it in a cake tin, it didn't give too bad a shape. After rising the little pear-shaped ball was beginning to slide a bit, but a bit of egg wash sorted it all out.I will attempt it again as soon as I find out how to make it with patisserie cream and, believe me, I will!

Eggy goodness!

In other baking related news I just came back from the library with four borrowed baking books to devour. My library doesn't have a huge selection, but I could have spent hours agonising over which ones to get. In the end I got two bread machine books, a dessert book, and the Avoca Cafe cookbook. I think I shall have a baking day tomorrow, so expect to see more from me soon!

The bread with the hole in it

Yup, more bread! I've just been on a kick lately. I decided to make bagels after re-discovering my love for them covered in peanut butter while I was in the Bagel Factory the other day. It is the food of the gods! Granted they don't really toast their bagels very well, but it still tasted good. I'm way too picky about my food, I hate to have it just the way I like it, and when people don't toast bagels properly it really irritates me. Plus it's impossible to buy wholegrain bagels in anywhere, and they're the type I like, so I figured I might as well try to make my own.
It was really weird; the day after I made them I discovered that the Daring Baker's challenge for this month was to make bagels! Of course theirs were made without the help of a bread machine and they all turned out looking and tasting, I'm sure, spectacular. It's really worth checking out their entries and seeing their photos if you have the time :)

They weren't exactly perfect circles, but circles nonetheless

This time I had to go online to get a recipe, the only one I had looked really complicated and confusing. I could see it ending badly. All Recipes provided me with a recipe for bread machine bagels that seemed to have worked out for lots of people, so I figured I'd give it a go. I did require some alterations though, based on other people's comments I added an extra 100ml/ 1/2 cup of water, left the to rise for at least 30 minutes rather than 10, and I substituted half the white flour with wholegrain. I had some trouble converting the American measurements to metric because tablespoons and teaspoons differ slightly - I was ending up with too much sugar, but a bit of guesswork and Google sorted it our in the end.

Close up!

Recipe: Whole Wheat Bagels

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups/ 300 ml warm water/ (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons/ 9g salt
• 2 tablespoons/ 15-20g white sugar
  
• 1 1/2 cups/ 205g strong with bread flour
• 1 1/2 cups/ 205g strong wholemeal bread flour
  
• 2 1/4 teaspoons/ 9g active dry yeast
• 3 quarts/ 3000ml/ a big pot of boiling water
  
• 3 tablespoons/40g white sugar/
  
• 1 tablespoon/9g cornmeal
• 1 egg white

Method:

1. Place water, salt, sugar, flour and yeast in the bread machine pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select Dough setting.
2. When cycle is complete, let dough rest on a lightly floured surface. Meanwhile, in a large pot bring 3 quarts of water to a boil. Stir in 3 tablespoons of sugar.
3. Cut dough into 9 equal pieces, and roll each piece into a small ball. Flatten balls. Poke a hole in the middle of each with your thumb. Twirl the dough on your finger or thumb to enlarge the hole, and to even out the dough around the hole. Cover bagels with a clean cloth, and leave to rise for at least 30 minutes.
   
4. Sprinkle an ungreased baking sheet with cornmeal. Carefully transfer bagels to boiling water. Boil for 1-3 minute , turning half way through. Drain briefly on clean towel. Arrange boiled bagels on baking sheet. Glaze tops with egg white, and sprinkle with your choice of toppings.
5. Bake in a preheated 375 degree F (190 degrees C) oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until well browned. Turn bagels over halfway through cooking.
   

Now where's my peanut butter?

Overall I was happy with the way these bagels turned out. I was a little anxious because of the confusion in converting the measurements - my weighing scale isn't very accurate so weighing out 9 g's of ingredients was impossible, but it was okay in the end. I forgot to add the sugar to the pot of boiling water, I don't know if this effected the bagels or not, I didn't notice anything wrong with them, but I would say it probably did. After seeing bagels that have been topped with seeds etc. I think I'll give mine a topping next time, it makes them look finished. Ideally bagels are meant to first sink in the water and then float when they're cooked, none of my bagels sank, I gather from reading entries by the Daring Bakers that a lot of theirs floated too. I'm not sure what makes them sink, but I know I want mine to! Oh well, maybe next time...

Two kinds of muffins...

English Muffins = <3

"I can hardly eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. "
- Algernon Moncrieff (The Importance of Being Earnest)

Yay for yeast! I've been trying more savory breads now that I've realised that yeast isn't that hard to use, so I decided to make English Muffins... well, my brother wanted them so I decided to make them. He read The Importance of Being Earnest and had to have them.
Fresh bread just tastes so damn good, no matter what kind it is. These were really nice straight off the pan while they were still hot, you didn't even need to toast them!

I found 'baking' them on the pan really strange and I was paranoid that they wouldn't cook all the way through, some of them were really thick. But they worked out fine, better than fine. Though I did absentmindedly start tapping on some of the ones waiting to be cooked and knocked the air out of them >_< The recipe came from 'Essentials: Bread by Linda Doeser. It's a good book for people like me who are just starting to make bread using a bread machine. All the recipes come with pictures, which I love, and the instructions are pretty clear.

I didn't really change the recipe at all except I used half wholegrain flour and half white, and I didn't have any rice flour so I just used plain (it's only for decoration anyway).

Recipe: English Muffins

Ingredients:
350ml hand-hot milk
450g strong white bread flour (or 225g strong white flour plus 225g wholemeal bread flour)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp caster sugar
15g butter, softened or diced
1 1/2 tsp easy-blend dried yeast
ground rice or rice flour, for dusting
Oil, for greasing

Method:
Pour the milk into the bread pan. Sprinkle the flour over the liquid to cover. Place the sugar, salt, and butter in 3 corners of the pan. Indent the flour without exposing the liquid and add the yeast. Set the bread machine to dough setting and press start.
Remove the finished dough from the pan and knock back gently on a lightly floured surface. Roll out to 1 cm thick. Stamp out rounds with a plain 7.5 cm pastry cutter. Gather up trimmings, knead together, leave to rest for 3 minutes. Re-roll and stamp more muffins.
Place muffins on a baking sheet dusted with rice flour. Dust the tops with ground rice. Cover with oiled clingfilm and set aside to rise in a warm place for 25-30 minutes, until doubled in size. Remove clingfilm. Lightly oil a griddle or heavy frying pan and heat well. Cook the muffins in batched, over a low heat, for 6-7 minutes on each side (I cooked them for about 10-15 each side). Serve warm, or toasted.

I think this recipe turned out really well, I made them twice in two days! It probably just has something to do with my undying love for English muffins, but even so it's definitely a good one :)

... and the other kind of muffin...

The Classic Muffin

I've been longing to make blueberry muffins for ages, they're just the sort of thing that everyone's made. But blueberries are so damn expensive in Ireland, it's insane. Thankfully Dunnes was selling them for about two euro per 125g because they were reaching their sell-by date, score :)
The recipe is from Delia Smith's 'Summer Collection'. I love all her recipes, she explains things in great detail and doesn't leave anything to guesswork. Plus it made some friggin' tasty muffins, so thumbs up from me. Though this recipe makes a freakishly small amount of muffins, so doubling it is a good idea.

Mmmm, crunchy topping

Recipe: Blueberry Pecan Muffins

Ingredients:
150g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
40g caster sugar
110 ml milk
50g butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
110g small blueberries
50g pecans Finley chopped
50g pecans Finley chopped, for topping.
Demera sugar, for sprinkling

Method:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C/ 400 F
Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the egg, sugar, milk, melted butter, and vanilla. Sift the dry ingredients into the egg mixture. Fold in the dry ingredients quickly, about 15 seconds. The batter should look lumpy, do not over mix.

Fold in the 50g of chopped pecans and blueberries lightly. Spoon into prepared muffin, sprinkle with chopped pecans and sugar. Bake on a high shelf in the oven for 20-30 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Ummm, they're healthy because they have fruit in them ;)

This was the first time I've ever had proper, home-made blueberry muffins, and they are so much better than shop-bought ones. In my experience the blueberry part of the muffin is just a kind of blue smudge that looks like there was once a blueberry there, but these had proper chunks of fruit in them, lots of flavour. The topping of brown sugar and pecans in amazing; the pecans toast and the sugar caramelises. It's not the best muffin I've ever had, but it's up there.

Focaccia With Herbs and Cheese

Mmmm, freshly baked bread

I decided to be brave and make my first yeast bread! And I can gladly say that it was a success. Okay, I used my bread maker to form the dough, but other than that it was my own work ;) I can really see myself getting hooked on bread-making. I've been avoiding a lot of savory things as I thought yeast and kneading would be too hard for me at this stage, but it turns out I was wrong. Working with dough is extremely satisfying, making the indentations after the first rise was the best part.

The recipe came from ‘The Bread Machine Book’ by Linda Doeser. I can't really comment on it since this is the first thing I've made from it, but it has very nice pictures and I'm eager to try more. I made some slight alterations to the recipe, substituting cheddar cheese for mozzarella and I sprinkled mixed herbs on along with the salt.

The sea salt and rosemary give a nice finishing touch

Recipe: Focaccia with mozzarella and rosemary

Ingredients:

210 ml hand-hot water

1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing

350g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting

½ tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp easy-blend dried yeast

140g mozzarella cheese

Topping

2 tbsp olive oil

Fresh rosemary springs

Mixed herbs

Coarse sea salt

Method:

To make the dough: pour the water into the bread pan. Add the oil. Sprinkle over the flour to cover. Place the sugar and salt in 2 corners of the pan. Make and indentation in the flour without exposing the liquid and add the yeast.

Fit the bread pan in the bread maker. Set the machine on dough cycle.

When the cycle has finished remove bread pan. Lightly oil a round, shallow, 25-cm/ 10-inch cake tin and flour the work surface. Remove the dough from the pan and knock back. Sprinkle over the mozzarella and kneed gently to mix. Roll out into a 25 cm/ 10 inch round and place in tin. Cover with lightly oiled cling-film and leave to rise in a warm place for about 20 minutes.

Remove cling film. Make deep indentations all over the bread with your fingers. Cover with lightly oiled cling film and set aside to rise in a warm place for another 15 minutes.

Remove cling film. Drizzle the olive oil over the surface of the dough, then sprinkle with mixed herbs, rosemary springs, and sea salt. Bake in a preheated over, 200 degrees Celsius/ 400 F, for 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly. Serve warm.An obligitory cross-section

Overall I thought this was a great bread, very moist and moreish. The flavours are subtle, though I do prefer stronger ones, and it had a nice, light texture. Everyone seemed to like it and it made a good accompaniment to dinner.