Spiced Pumpkin Rolls for Thanksgiving | We Knead to Bake # 33

Its autumn and season of apples and pumpkins. Thanksgiving which is celebrated on 26th November every year in the US makes full use of autumn produce - pumpkins, orange sweet potatoes, apples, cranberries etc. So its only apt that we decided to bake spiced pumpkin bread rolls to ring in autumn for We Knead to Bake by Aparna. Of course though pumpkin is available year round in India but still its the season of pumpkin and Jack O lanterns.The recipe adapted from BeyondKimchee is super simple and the bread made with and shaped like a pumpkin makes it gourmet.  This makes it real special.

Ingredients:

Warm Milk: 1/3 cup

Honey : 2 tbsp

Instant Yeast: 2 tsp

Pureed pumpkin: 8 tbsp

Melted Butter: 1.5 tbsp

Egg: 1 OR Ener G egg : 1.5 pkd tsp + 3 tbsp of Water

All Purpose Flour: 1.5 cups + 4 tbsp more

Cinnamon: 1/2 tsp

Ground Dry Ginger: 1 tsp

Allspice Powdered : 1/2 tsp

Salt: 1 tsp

Preparation:

In a bowl, add in warm milk. Add honey and yeast and mix well and leave aside for 5 minutes until it froths. 

In a processor bowl, add in flour, salt and spice powders and blend well. Add in the yeast mix, pumpkin puree , melted butter and egg.

Knead well until you have asmooth elastic dough thats sticky but which pull away from the side of the bowl. You can add more flour if needed.

Turn it out onto a counter dusted with flour and knead with hand for another minute. Shape it into a big ball and place it in a greased bowl, turning around to coat well. 

Loosely cover and let the dough rise for an hour or so until double in volume.

Gently deflate the dough on a dusted counter and divide it into 8-10 small but equal sized pieces. Shape each piece into a round ball. Flatten it slightly and then using sharp scissors make 8 cuts at equal distances from each other from the edge of the ball to the centre, leaving the centre uncut to resemble a flower.

Place these flowers on a lined/greased baking sheet and let these rise or puff up a bit for about 45 minutes or so.Poke a deep hole in the centre of the flowers to insert a "stem". Brush the flowers with milk or egg wash. Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. 

Take out the rolls and brush with melted butter  or honey for more shine. Cool and insert halved pecans into the hole for "stem". You can also use cloves, spring onion greens or celery stalks instead of pecans as stems.

A simple spiced healthy bread shaped like autumnal pumpkin. Firm crust and soft crumb.  A regular sandwich bread which is made gourmet. The breads turns soft the next day. You can actually make it more spicier or more sweeter by altering the spices and adding more honey or sweetness.

Yeasted Banana Sandwich Bread | We Knead to Bake September '15

I love banana bread though I never tried yeasted version. So when Aparna suggested yeasted version from KingArthurFlour for this months challenge I did try it out and it was perfect with nutella and peanut butter.

I halved the recipe and got a mini loaf which went well with tea.

Ingredients:
Lukewarm Milk:4+ tbsp
Wheat flour: 1 cup
All Purpose Flour: 1/2 cup
Vital wheat gluten: 3/4 tsp
Soft Butter: 1 tbsp
Instant yeast: 1 tsp
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Honey: 1.5 tsp
Banana: 3/4 cups chopped +/-(12 tbsp)

Preparation:

In a bowl, mix together the flours,gluten,yeast and salt. Add in honey,butter and milk (3 tbsp at first) and start mixing together adding milk little more if needed. Once a sticky dough is formed, fold in the chopped bananas and continue kneading until you get a smooth soft almost non sticky dough.

Mine was ok -ok. The bananas got mashed and added to the stickiness.I needed barely 5 tbsp of milk.

Shape it into a ball and place in an oiled bowl and let it rise for another 1.5 - 2 hours until it doubles.At this stage you can refrigerate the dough and let it rise in the fridge overnight. If this is done, take it out atleast 20-30 minutes before the second rise.

Gently deflate the dough and place it in a greased loaf tin and let it rise under a loose wrap for an hour until it assumes the shape of the loaf and hopefully rises above the corners of the tin.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180C, brush the top of the bread with milk and sprinkle optional toppings like oats etc.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or more until the top is golden brown. Take out let it cool completely on a wire rack.

The bread is not sweet. Maybe it will be if the bananas used are overtly sweet. The bread can be used as a sandwich bread with even savoury spreads or gravies.
Else you can serve it with maple/butterscotch syrups, nutella and other sweet preserves/spreads.

You can even spice it up with cardamom, cinnamon etc and include nuts as well while kneading the dough. And obviously you can replace the bananas and go for oranges pineapple etc to get a different flavoured bread. Make sure you adjust the sweetness quotient as per your choice.

Mexican Cemita Buns | We Knead to Bake #30

'Cemita' in Spanish refers to sandwich or the bread it is served in. Cemita buns are sandwich rolls/ buns from the city of Puebla in Mexico. These are brioche like egg -rich burger buns and a popular street food in Mexico. The cemita rolls are served with avocado, cheese and salsa rojo or your choice of accompaniments. 

We baked the cemita buns this month for We Knead to Bake by Aparna. The  recipe is adapted from Serious Eats - and ofcourse it was seriously perfect.

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour: 2.5-3 cups (I used 2.5 cup + 2-3 tbsp)

Cream: 1/2 cup

Milk: 1/2 cup

Eggs: 2 (1 pkd tbsp of Ener G + 4 tbsp of water)

Instant Yeast: 1 tsp

Salt: 3/4 tsp

Sugar: 1.5 tbsp (4.5 tsp)

Milk : for brushing

Sesame seeds: 1/3 - 1/2 cup 

Coarse sea salt: sprinkling (optional)

Preparation:

Combine flour (2.5 cups), cream,milk, eggs, yeast, sugar and salt in a big bowl of processor. Process until a sticky dough that rides around the blade is formed about 45 seconds. Add extra flour in tbsps if too sticky.

Transfer to a large bowl - optionally greased (I didn't) - cover and let it rise for about 3-4 hours until 1.5 times the original size

Flour the working surface and also flour the dough and transfer the dough to the counter. 

Lightly press down the down and shape into a thick rope shape. Cut this into equal 6 portions with a scraper or knife.

Shape into smooth rounds by stretching tops to form a skin. and arrange these on a lined baking sheet  with an little space between them. Cover and  let these proof for 45 minutes or so until they have risen a bit.

Brush with milks and sprinkle the top with generous amount of sesame seeds -I used black and white. Lightly press the seeds down into the dough. Bake at 230C/450F for about 15 minutes until done and tops turn golden brown.

Cool completely on a wire rack before using. Mine was done in 12 minutes and it looked perfect. I waited for half an hour or so before consuming one just like that and yup it worked. 

It was like regular sandwich bun regarding to texture. Maybe eggs might add extra richness as I had used egg replacer.  I am very happy with how the  buns turned out.

Lets hope over to Aparna's  and see who all enjoyed baking cemita buns.

Bagels, Bagels, Bagels | Baking Partners Aug '15

It was so long since I baked bagels. I had baked wholewheat bagels long back and since then the original has always been on my to-do list. I regretted not making these earlier when I tasted the perfect bagels all thanks to Baking Partners August challenge given by Swathi. The recipe is adapted from Peter Reinhart's artisan Bread Everyday.

Ingredients:

Honey : 1 tbsp

Instant Yeast: 1 tsp

Coarse Kosher Salt: 1.5 tsp ( or 1 tsp regular salt)

Lukewarm water: 1 cup + 2 tbsp

Bread Flour: 3.5 cups (3.5 cups All purpose Flour + 3.5 tsp of Vital wheat gluten)

Poaching liquid

Water: 4-6 cups

Honey (optional) : 1.5 tbsp

Baking Soda: 1 tbsp

Salt: 1 tsp

Preparation:

Day 1

Stir in the honey, yeast and salt into water in a small bowl.

Place the flour in a big/deep bowl and add in the wet mix.

Stir in with a sturdy spoon for about 3 minutes until well blended to form a wet coarse dough mass. 

Rest for 5 minutes.

Transfer to a lightly dusted surface and knead by hand for another 3 minutes to  smooth out the dough.

Place the dough in a clean, lightly greased bowl, and let it rise for an hour at room temperature covered tightly with a plastic wrap.

After this you can refrigerate it overnight or shape into bagels and then refrigerate.For shaping bagels read below

While the dough is rising, prepare a baking sheet with lining and lightly grease the lining.

Divide the dough into 6 pieces. Take each piece and shape into a loose ball with a cupped hand on wet surfeace and not floured unlike the first kneading. Water will help provide the enough traction for the dough to form into a ball. 

Poke a hole through the centre of the ball to create a donut shape.

Holding the dough with both thumbs in the hole. rotate the dough with your hands, gradually stretching it to create a hole 2" in diameter.

Place the bagel on prepared sheet, spray the top lightly with oil. Repeat the process until all bagels are ready. Cover the pan with a plastic wrap and refrigerate it overnight or for upto 2 days.

Day 2: Baking Day:

Remove the bagels 1.5 hours before you plan to bake them. If you had chilled as a whole dough then shape it into bagels and let them proof before rising.This proofing is optional and you can directly go to the next step.

Check immediately whether they are ready for baking using the float test. : Place a bagel in a small bowl of cold water.

If it sinks and doesn't float back to the surface, shake it off, return to the baking and let it rest/proof for another 30 minute before repeating the test again.

One bagel passing indicates all bagel passing. Now they all are ready to be boiled and baked.

If you are not ready for baking then return them to the refrigerator so that they don't overproof.

When you are about to bake the bagels, bring the water to boil, reduce to simmer, stir in honey, baking soda and salt. 

Gently lower each bagel into the simmering poaching liquid adding as many as will fit the pot, they should all float to the surface withing 15 seconds. After a minute,use a slotted spoon to turn each bagel over. Poach for another 30-60 seconds,then use the slotted spoon to transfer it back to the pan, domed side up.Mine were done within 15 seconds per side. 

Sprinkle on a genourous amount of toppings as soon as they are out of the water.I used regular white and black sesame seeds.

Bake in a preheated oven (preheat the oven to 500F/260 C 30 minutes prior to baking, transfer the bagel to oven,reduce the temp to 450F/ 232C) for 8 minutes.Then rotate the pan and also check the underside of bagels. If they are getting too dark, double the baking pan. Bake for another 8-12 minutes until they are golden brown.

My max oven temperature was 250C and I preheated the oven at this temperature. Then placed the baking tray and reduced it to 220 and then cooked for 7 minutes as they started browning at this stage.

Then rotated the pan and reduced the temperature to 200,doubled/insulated with another baking tray  and then continued for another 5-6 minutes before they started burning.

Take out and let these cool on wirerack atleast for another 30 minutes before slicing and serving them with your choice of spreads or as such.

Perfect bagel. I loved it as such. Serve it for breakfast or if you don't mind as anytime snack with your choice of dip or spread.

The texture was not too soft crumb with a firmer crust. similar to sandwich bread but firmer/thicker and it had perfect soda aroma that makes sure its different from other breads.

Lets see who all  baked bagels this time with us. Hop over to Swathis Post grabbing a bagel...

Meloui | Moroccan Breakfast Pastry

Rghaif is the general name given to leavened or unleavened bread/pastry in Morocco. These are made using mostly all purpose flour, wheat, semolina flours etc and are usually sold as street food. They are typically used to break fast during Eid -ul - Fitr as well. 

When Ramadan was around the corner, I saw as usual several delicacies flying around in the blogging world. This time I did try out the yeasted Moroccan Ramadan breakfast pastry/ pancake called Meloui from here.

This simple yeasted pastry is made using all purpose and semolina flours and it is shaped by rolling the strip of dough like a carpet/rug. I didn't master the art of folding a meloui but yup it came out well and tastewise was yum. Its usually served with honey-butter sauce, but I preferred spicy side and went for another Moroccan side zaalouk  made using eggplant.

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour: 2 cups

Fine ground Semolina: 2 cups

Sugar: 2 tsp

Salt: 2 tsp

Instant Yeast: 1/4tsp

Warm Water: 1.5 cup approximately.

Folding and shaping the pastry

Vegetable oil

Soft Butter

Fine semolina

Preparation:

Mix the dry ingredients of flour,semolina, saugar, salt and yeast in a bowl and add in enough water to form a dough that is soft and easily kneadable. You can add more water/flour as needed to prevent it from being dry / sticky respectively.

Transfer it to an oiled (not floured) counter and with oiled hands knead it somemore time to get a smooth and elastic dough.

Pinch off palm sized pieces of the dough and shape into a round ball. Place it in an oiled/lined baking sheet / bowl and let it rest for atleast 20 minutes covered with plastic wrap.

Take each ball and with oiled hands/ with oiled rolling pin roll it out on counter -preferbaly oiled- to a circle as thin as possible. 

Dot it with butter and then semolina.

Fold this circle in thirds like a letter- fold top third/left third to the centre, then bring the bottom third/right third up to cover the first fold. We will be getting a rectangular piece.

Dot this strip of dough with more butter  followed by semolina.

Then fold again into thirds like a letter. 

You will end up with a very narrow strip of rectangle.

Flatten this strip to remove any air bubbles and sprinkle more semolina.

Then roll it up like a rug/coil pinching the loose end of the dough to the coil to seal it.

Place the rug/roll upright on an oiled tray and cover with a plastic wrap.

Continue this process with all the other dough pieces.

Take a coil/roll and flatten it into a 1/8" thick disc using hands or rolling pin (carefully so that the folds don't disappear within the circle) and cook on a preheated pan/tawa on medium  heat. Turn the sides several times after few seconds till both sides are dotted with brown spots and cooked properly.

Serve warm with sweet syrups or spicy sides like I did.

The shape looked like naan and it was nicely layered inside - this especially if you could flatten it with hand and not rolling pin. the texture was bready and it was very filling. The eggplant side was perfect with this and that post will be up soon.

Noon Chai / Pink Tea | Creamy Salty Kashmiri Tea

After talking about bolani and imagining Afghanistan, its time we enjoy a hearty beverage from our own Kashmir. A few days back on International Tea Day I had posted the Kahwa recipe. This time its going to be another one equally popular called Noon chai or Gulabi chai or Sheer chai or plainly Pink tea. 

The word 'Noon' means salt in Kashmiri and few other languages. It is a custom in Kashmiri households to drink this tea 2-3 times a day along with Kashmiri breads and pastries. The recipe is easy except that a little bit of patience is needed with this as it needs to be on constant boiling. To get the auhentic pink colour its better we get the authentic Kashmiri tea leaves. I tried the recipe from here using the regular green tea leaves. Though the taste was AWESOME the colour didn't pop out that much.

Ingredients:

Kashmiri Tea Leaves/Green Tea Leaves: 1 tbsp

Water: 4 cups

Baking Soda: 1/4 tsp

Cardamom Powder: 1/2 tsp

Star Anise: 1

Sugar: as per taste 

Milk: 1 cup +/ - as per taste

Salt: 1/4-1/2 tsp

Garnish:

Pistachios & Almonds: few chopped

Preparation:

Put water to boil in a sauce pan. When it comes to rolling boil, add the tea leaves and baking soda. Reduce the heat a little and let it cook until the water it reduced to 3 cups. This will take about 20 minutes atleast.

Keeping the heat to medium or low,aerate the tea using a ladle as this is needed to bring out the pink colour. You can stir vigourously with the ladle also. This should be done for around 20 + minutes. More time you do this while the tea is cooking the better. If the water reduces more than expected you can add more cold water and continue cooking . Also baking soda is used to get the pink colour I suppose. 

Strain the tea to remove the tea leaves and put the clear tea back to the sauce pan on heat. Add in the milk as per your requirements -whether you prefer milk or strong or even creamy tea in which case even cream can be added. Add the spices and the sugar as per taste. 

You can play around with spices adding your choices and even sugar  which is not a part of authentic tea but a new or modern version. 

Boil for some more time and then add salt and take it off heat. Salt brings out the flavours in the tea. 

Serve hot garnished with almonds or other dried fruits along with breads.

I love my cuppa of masala chai in the mornings and when I tried this I loved this equally. You won't feel that its green tea leaves used to make the noon tea.I will definitely be making it again and again and in large quantities as well. In Kashmir this tea in made in large quantities in a samovar for the day. Except for the time it involves and the aeration , but once you taste it definitely you will fall in love with it.. 

Whole Wheat Sweet Potato Bread | Fall Special

I was not familiar with fall or autumn.It was not considered as a season here. Atleast not where I grew up in South India. We were taught there are 4 seasons -Summer, Monsoon, Spring and winter. Actually even when I read books that mentioned autumn I confused it with winter. For me the trees shedding leaves meant onset of winter. When I understood and experienced fall it also showed that my other favourite tuber  "Sweet Potato" was in abundance .

Sweet potatoes for me were something that were easily available. I didn't know they were seasonal. Even now here I see that they are available all the year round, but in abundance from October onwards. Now I calculate fall on the basis of their arrival in the grocery store. I have already tried differenct things with sweet potatoes, but what really puts me in a good mood is a slice of sweet potato bread. Make it a whole wheat bread and you can chomp on it guiltlessly . I have adapted a recipe from Breadworld to make fall special bread given below.

Ingredients:

Whole Wheat Flour: 1 and 3/4 cup

Bread Flour: 1 1/4 to 1.3/4 cup  (All Purpose Flour + Vital Wheat Gluten)

Salt: 3/4 tsp

Nutmeg: 1/4 tsp

Yeast: 1 envelope (2 1/4 tsp)

Sweet potatoes: mashed 1 cup

Water: 2/3 cup

Honey: 4 tbsp

Soft Butter: 2 tbsp

Egg: 1 or EnerG Egg: 1.5 pkd tsp with 3 tbsp of water

Preparation:

Combine flours, salt, nutmeg and yeast in a mixer bowl. Mix together .

Combine mashed potatoes, water, honey and soft butter. Heat to warm and make sure they mix well together.

Add to the flour mix and beat . Add egg. Beat two minutes more.

Add enough remaining flour to get a soft dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 8 to 10 minutes till smooth and elastic. Cover and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Shape it into a loaf and place in a greased loaf pan. Cover loosely with greased plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm area for 30-45 minutes until double. Bake in a preheated oven at 350F/180C for 30-45 minutes. 

Cover with foil after 25 minutes to prevent over browning.

Remove from the pan and brush with melted butter if desired.

                       

Filling and comforting bread. The whole wheat and sweet potato ensures that you are you feel full after eating one slice. I sliced it before it cooled  completely as I couldn't wait to see how it tasted.

Serve it warm with butter or any gravy. The bread is perfect with anything.

Petit Pains Au Lait - French Milk Bread | We Knead to Bake #17

Its been slightly longer than needed since I baked bread. I was running short of instant yeast and used it miserly. It was like I had almost given up baking bread. But now I have hoarded quite a bit of yeast and it was perfect when it was time to bake bread for Aparna's We knead to Bake where this month we were given delicious French milk bread rolls  a.k.a Petit Pains au Lait.

These small milk rolls bread is light but has little and no so huge amount of butter and has milk as the only liquid. They look pretty and shaping these is like an art. I am no artist but I have tried shaping them to the best of my abilities. As usual I halved the recipe but psst.. ended up baking twice. But they definitely got over within an hour.

Ingredients:

Warm Milk: 1/3 cup + more as needed

Instant Yeast: 1/2 tsp

Sugar: 2 tbsp

All Purpose Flour: 1/2cup + 1/3 cup

Bread Flour: 6 tbsp = 1/3 tsp vital wheat gluten + 6 tbsp of all purpose flour

Salt: 1/8 tsp

Butter: 30 gm or 2 tbsp 

Pearl sugar for topping : Optional (I didnot use)

Preparation:

Put the milk, yeast and sugar in a bowl and mix well. Add flour and salt to this and mix until it looks crumbly. You can do this in a food processor bowl or otherwise. Add butter and knead till you have soft smooth,elastic and non sticky dough. You can add more milk if you want to get the required consistency.

Shape into a ball and place in an oiled bowl, turning once to coat it with oil. Cover loosely with a wrap and let it rise until double. This should be done in 1.5 hours.

Turn the dough onto the worktop or kitchen counter. Optionally dusting your palms with flour, gently deflate the dough and divide into 5 equal pieces. Let these rest for 15 minutes.

Roll out each piece into a circle of 4" in diameter. Slowly roll up the circle from end, jelly roll style into a cylider. Pinch the seam closed neatly, place on a greased/lined baking sheet with the seam side down. Cover loosely ad let them rise for an hour until almost double. 

Here as I said, my rolling out into circles was not correct and hence I ended with uuneven /different shaped rolls. Also I flattened them slightly especially at the centre so that the edges will look rounded when they rise. 

Brush lightly with milk and using a pair of sharp scissors, make diagonal cuts on the top . Sprinkle with pearl sugar. I didnot go this topping though it definitley increases the taste of the rolls.

Bake in a preheated oven at 200C/400F for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. Let them cool on the rack. Serve them warm or at room temperature with coffee or tea.

Yum rolls. First time I made these rolls my daughter snatched these right from the baking sheet. They were just sweet with a firm crust and soft or light crumb.Lets see how others baked theirs. Hop over to Aparna.

Kozhakattai with Tomato Thuvayal | Healthy Tiffin South Indian Style

I used to make fun of my older cousin who couldnt spell 'zh'. I used to make  him say all the words that had the 'zh' in it and we younger cousins had much fun in those 5 minutes till he got fed up. I thought the letter 'zh' or (ഴ) was special to Malayalam and not in other South Indian languages especially Tamil where instead the 'lla' sound was used. That was before I discovered Kozhukkatai. These are steamed rice dumplings popular in both sweet & savoury versions and belong to most South Indian cuisines whether you call them undi, modak, kozhukatta or whatever.

Right from the beginning I didn't like the name or the dish either -both sweet and savoury versions. So the dish never featured in the regular menu. I could manage the sweet ones sometimes but never the savoury ones. But as my tastebuds developed and so did the health fad, I found them a perfect fit within the diet plan. They are not made of fatty all purpose flour, but rice flour. (BTW, they are leaner, healthy cousins of momos). They are steamed and not deep fried. So I started making these and had fairy good ones using the rice flour. But the original ones are usually made by soaking and grinding rice. One such recipe I had bookmarked from Solai's Kitchen. I served it with Tomato Chutney or tomato thuvayal from her site to get a Chettinad Special Tiffin.

Kozhukattai /Steamed Rice Dumplings

Ingredients:

Par Boiled Rice / Idly Rice: 1.5 cups

Salt: as per taste

Oil: 2 tbsp

Mustard Seeds: 1 tsp

Urad Dal : 1 tsp

Chana Dal: 1 tsp

Dried Red Chillies: 6 +/- broken 

Fresh CurryLeaves: few

Fresh Grated Coconut: 1tbsp

Preparation:

Soak the rice in enough water for an hour. Grind to a courser paste in a mixer adding just enough water and salt. Add 1 cup more water to this. Keep aside.

In a deep pan, heat oil and add mustard seeds. When the mustard splutters add the urad and chana dals and let it brown. Add the curryleaves, red chillies and saute for a minute, then add the fresh coconut and saute for  another minute.Then add the ground batter to the pan. Start stirring to prevent it from sticking to the bottom and burning. Continue cooking the batter and stirring with a ladle/spoon till the batter starts thickening and everything is mixed well. Remove from the stove when the batter is of a thick consistency and you can roll out balls out of it. Allow the batter to cool for a few minutes.

Make shapes or balls of the batter or kozhukattais. Steam these in a steamer/idly pot for exactly 5 minutes. Take out and serve warm with chosen side dish. These are flavoured and can be eaten without any accompaniments. I loved the dumplings as such also though. 

Tomato chutney is often an accompaniment to this dish. I tried out the combination and it was gr8. I had tried the chutney or thuvayal recipe from Solai and it was also perfect for the regular breakfast items as well. 

Tomato Chutney

Ingredients:

Tomatoes: 4 medium chopped 

Onions:2 chopped

Red chillies: 3 +/- as per taste

CurryLeaves: handful divided

Seasoning:

Oil: 1 tbsp divided

Mustard Seeds: 1/2 tsp

Urad dal: 1/2 tsp

Salt: as per taste

Preparation:

Chop the onions nd tomatoes into small pieces. Heat about 1/2-1 tsp oil in a deep pan and add few curryleaves and chillies.Saute for a second and add onions. Saute till they turn pink and then add the chopped tomatoes. Let it  cook they the tomatoes are pulpy. Then remove from gas and blend to a fine paste when cooled a bit.Do the taste test and adjust the salt and other ingredients as needed.

Heat remaining oil in another pan and let mustard splutter and the dal brown. Add in the remaining curry leaves and then take it off the stove. Excess oil can be added to the chutney which will help keep it fresh for a longer period of time.

So enjoy filter kaapi with your tiffin while a hot plate goes to  Tried & Tasted -Classic Chettinad Kitchen, an event by Lakshmi.

Baked Apple Oatmeal

Now that rains are full on, its better we stick to comforting dishes. Its nice and heavenly to have something warm,filling and tasty when the rains are lashing outside. Though normally I prefer warm fruity desserts ,sometimes you want a change.I did not want to bake an apple pie, so I decided to go for baked apple oatmeal.But ofcourse this was not a dessert but a breakfast dish with lots of spice and milk. A perfect start for a busy day. I have adapted the recipe from BettyCrocker and it was filling and comforting as well.

Ingredients:

Oats: 1 &1/3 cups

Raisins/Cranberries: 1/4 cup

Milk:2 cups

Packed Brown Sugar: 8 tsp

Melted Butter: 1 tbsp

Cinnamon: 1/2 tsp (I used apple pie spices)

Salt: 1/8 tsp

Apple Chopped:1 cups finely chopped

Topping: 

More Apples

Chopped Walnuts

Preparation:

Mix together all the ingredients in a suitable casserole dish. It must be slightly loose wet mix. If you feel it is too thick add little more milk.

Bake in a 350F/175C for about 40 minutes until most of the liquid is absorbed and the edges start to brown. 

Take out and cool slightly.

Spoon in bowls, top with choice of garnishings and serve with more milk/apples.

A simple breakfast where we are using the oven to make a hearty spicy comforting oats porridge. It was not overtly spicy or sugary and so play around with spices and sugar.Warm breakfast in case you have enough time. You can even bake it beforehand and chill in the fridge. But do warm this before serving. 

Figs& Banana Smoothie

This is a simple smoothie recipe that I had seen in Tarla Dalal Food magazine. My daughter loved it and hence I thought I would post it here. Its pretty simple and uses dry figs though fresh figs would also work fine. Fresh figs are more preferable to me than dry figs, but the former is very seasonal and expensive and the latter or the dry ones are avaialable anytime of the year. 

Ingredients:

Dry figs: 8-10 soaked in water for about 30 minutes and then chopped

Banana: about 1 cup chopped

Medium thick yogurt: 1/2 cup

Milk: about 3 cups preferably chilled

Sweetener or sugar: 1 tbsp or as per taste

Garnish: cashew halves, chocolate gratings etc

Preparation:

Blend together all the ingredients into a smooth puree. Pour in glasses and serve chilled garnished with cashew halves or chocolate shavings,crumbled cookies  or even soaked halved figs etc. I always prefer chocolate :).

A simple and healthy drink, which is good for all the people. I can see it becoming almost regular fixture in my house. You can go for vegan substitutions in this as well such as soy milk and soy/cashew yogurts

Buttery Pull Apart Buns

While still on the topic of breads, since I had already posted a sweet dessert/breakfast bread ,I thought I could talk about the buttery pull apart buns that I baked recently.Its nice when you prepare the bread dough the previous evening and right next day you enjoy the buttery buns warm from the oven,especially my daughter who loves to eat her bread warm and fresh!  These are golden pull apart buns which I had adapted from King Arthur Flour and they turned out excellent and as I had mentioned were over within an hour. As usual, I had halved the recipe

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour: 3.5 cups

Instant Yeast: 2 tsp

Instant Potato Flakes: 4 tbsp

Dry Milk Powder:3 tbsp

Sugar: 2 tbsp

Salt: 1.5 tsp

Soft Unsalted Butter: 4 tbsp

Warm Water: 2/3 cup

Lukewarm Milk: 1/2 cup

Topping: Melted Butter: 2 tbsp +

Preparation:

Combine all the  ingredients dry first and then butter,water and milk and mix well to form a rough sticky dough. 

Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead well for about 7-8 minutes till you get a soft smooth dough which might still be sticky. 

Shape the dough into a ball and keep covered in a greased container turning once to get coated and let it rise until doubled or for about 1-2 hours.

Divide the dough into equal sized pieces -diving first into half and each half into fours till you get even no: of pieces -16 as per the recipe though it also depends on the size. 

Shape each piece into a smooth ball and place on a lightly greased baking sheet with enough space between them for rising. Cover the sheets with a plastic wrap and let them rise for about 1 -2 hours until they are puffy and start crowing each other.

Uncover the pans and bake in a preheated oven at 350F for about 22-24 minutes until the tops are golden brown and the edges spring back when you touch it. 

Remove the buns from the oven and brush with the melted butter. After 5-10 minutes, turn them out onto the wire rack to cool completely or till consumption.

Delicious buttery buns that can be had for breakfast or with soup or even as a snack warm from the oven.They are very mildly crusty (atleast when compared to regular dinner rolls /pav rolls) with a softer buttery crumb. Heavenly and filling and very comforting. The crumb was a bit denser I felt as there were no big air holes or the spongy texture that is usually associated with dinner rolls. I felt they were a bit on the heavier side compared to fluffy light dinner rolls.It could be because potato flour and milk were used in the dough.

Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

The morning sun is slowly peeping up after days of cold. There is still a nip in the  air and the weather is perfect for a nice cuppa and a slice of cinnamon raisin swirl bread.!

Cinnamon as you might know is my favourite spice. I love cinnamon in sweet as well as savoury dishes. Ofcourse, I will not go out of way and add it to all the dishes that I cook, but I do make sure to use it atleast once a week in my bakes/desserts. Long time back, I was in love with Thomas Cinnamon Swirl Bread and after a bit of googling, found a recipe for the same in Pete Bakes. Since then I have made it twice but am blogging about it now only. A slice of this bread does surely lift your moods.Its like morning raga. I had halved the recipe but still had almost 2 medium loaves -well, 1 big regular and 1 small to be honest)

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour: 6-7 cups

Instant Yeast: 2.1/4 tsp

Warm Water: 2 & 1/4 cups

Sugar: 3 tbsp+ 4 tbsp separate

Salt: 1 tbsp

Butter: 2 + 2 tbsp melted

Raisins: 1 cup

Cinnamon: 1 tbsp

Preparation:

Dissolve yeast with 1 tbsp sugar and 1/2 cup water and let it foam for 5-10 minutes

Stir in remaining water, 2 tbsp sugar,salt, 2 tbsp melted butter, 3.5 cups of flour and all of the raisins and mix well. Knead well adding remaining flour as needed to get a dough which will definitely be sticky. 

Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead for almost 10 minutes till you get a smooth and elastic dough. You can give the dough a break after few minutes for about 10 minutes. This process called autolyse allows the dough to absorb more water and the dough becomes easier to handle. This is what I did and it is not there in the original recipe. 

Once the dough is smooth and elastic, shape it into a ball and keep it covered in a greased bowl in a warm place, turning once so that it is smeared with oil and let it rise until doubled.It almost took 3 hours for me. It was a very particularly cold day that I started the work on the bread. ! 

While the dough is rising, mix together the cinnamon and 4 tbsp of sugar. Keep aside.

Once doubled, punch down the dough,divide into half and roll out each into a rectangular shape whose width is same as the length of your loaf pan.

Here I must remind again that, I had halved the recipe and normally would have got 1regular loaf.But I handled the dough a bit too much and was left with a too long rectangle which I had to cut and re roll into a mini loaf shape.All these took away the perfect smooth top surface of the dough and my loaves look sewed up or patched up.!

Sprinkle each rolled out rectangle with 1 tbsp water and half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture.Instead of water, I brushed melted butter on the surface of each rectangle and then cinnamon-sugar. Roll the dough from the shorter side or the width side and pinch the seams shut. Place the loaves in greased loaf pans,brush with remaining melted butter  and let these rise for another hour.

Bake in a preheated oven at 400F/200C for about 25-35 minutes, with the mini loaf taking 5-10 minutes lesser than the regular loaf. A nice aroma emanates from the oven and you can feel the baking!. 

Take out and place on a wire rack to cool completely. Serve sliced as such or with your choice of sweet spreads as a snack or breakfast or even dessert with ice cream!. Choices are unlimited.

A delectable and mood uplifting bread. The pics were in a hurry. Almost half of the big loaf was over. Lookwise average,but tastewise perfect. 

Oaty Shortbread

These are simple oat shortbread bars that I have tried from Martha Stewart. Buttery  rich, but quick and easy to make they are a perfect tea time delight and also go well as a school lunch box snack. If you have leftover oats at home go for these. I have actually went for one fourth of quantities and still got about 8-10 pieces.

Ingredients:
Old fashioned oats: 4 tbsp+ 1 tbsp for dusting
All Purpose Flour: 6 tbsp
Salt: 1/4 tsp
Confectioners Sugar: 3 tbsp

Cold Unsalted Cubed Butter: 4 tbsp
(If using salted butter, adjust the salt accordingly)

Preparation:

Lightly toast 4 tbsp of oats on stovetop for few minutes till they become fragrant and light brown. Remove from heat and cool. In a big bowl o the processor,blend together cooled oat,salt,sugar and flour to get a fine mixture.

Add in the cubed cold butter and pulse in short bursts till a dough starts forming.

Transfer the contents to a lined and greased baking sheet and shape the dough into a rectangular sheet. You can flatten the dough into shape with hands or with a rolling pin. Sprinkle the remaining 1 tbsp of oats on top of 

dough. You can optionally toast this

Bake in a preheated oven at 375 F/175C  for about 10-15 minutes until the edges start browning.

Once done,take out the shotbread and with a sharp knife, score the lines of top. Cool completely in the pan and then gently remove the shapes from the cookies and voila the shortbreads are ready to be consumed.

A simple shortbread bursting with the richness of butter and just right in sweetness.Can go for a bit more if you like it too sweet.

Coconut Almond Muffins

I remember telling you all that Madhuram has been my role model in baking. But did I tell you which is the first item I baked? Its actually Madhuram's Almond Butter Bread. But no! I have not posted it. Why, because the first time I made it, I made it in a casserole dish and not  a loaf pan. Actually I went out and bought a loaf pan once it turned out excellent and I became more confident. Anyways, if you remember my almond butter post, it was meant for this bread. The very next day of making butter, I went and made the bread and before I remembered to click the pics, it was almost over. But I still had butter left, so I tried a variation of the bread by adding coconut and creating a perfectly vegan recipe and turning it into muffins. Read on..

Ingredients:
All Purpse Flour: 1 cup
Baking  Powder: 2 tsp
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Sugar: 8 tsp+ more as needed

Fresh/Sweetened Grated Coconut: 2 tbsp (optional)

Coconut Milk:  3/4 cup (I used slightly thin coconut milk)
Almond Butter: 1/4 cup

Almonds: for topping

Preparation:

Mix together, the dry items-flour,salt,baking powder and sugar. Stir in coconut flakes and add in milk and sit to get a smooth batter. Stir in almond batter and mix well to get a brown batter. 

Scoop the batter in muffin cups and top with an almond. Make sure you use untoasted almonds, else they may be toasted again while baking and might become bitter.

Bake in a preheated oven at 350F/175 C for about 20-25 minutes or more until the top starts getting brown and a tester inserted comes clean.

Cool for 1-2 minutes in the cup before turning onto the wire rack for cooling completely.

Simple muffins that do taste of almond and coconut. You can also make the same with almond milk or any other milk you prefer. The muffins are just rightly sweet. I felt they wanted more sweetness but my family was okay with the sweetness.You can added sweetened coconut flakes into the batter instead of the fresh grated ones. The muffins I felt were a bit soft,but it could also be because I handled them while still warm. So enjoy the perfectly vegan muffins.

Almond Butter

I had never tried nut butters and could not find while in US. But still I had heard a lot about these and I wanted to see whether they could be made from scratch at home. After a lot of deliberations and also when I found out that I had loads of almonds to be used up, I finally googled for almond butter and based on the ones from Nourishing Cook and Rebecca Wood made mine. 

Ingredients:
Almonds: atleast 1 cup roasted
Extra Virgin Olive Oil/ Coconut/ Vegetable Oil: 1/4 cup + as needed
Honey: 1 tbsp +
Sea Salt: 1/2 tsp

Preparation:
 Blend the almonds and salt to a fine powder in a coffee grinder. Add oil and honey and continue processing till you get a smooth paste which is the 'butter'.

 It should have the consistency of a soft butter or slightly liquidy and will harden a bit when chilled.

I started with about 2 tbsp of oil and 2 tbsp of honey. But as the mix was still thick and bit grainy I kept on adding the honey and then added another 2 tbsp of oil.

Do go by instinct while making the honey and oil and I have added more honey, I wanted a sweeter butter which was just right -not too thick or grainy, but not too liquidy. It sort of solidified upon chilling though did not look as smooth as butter. I have found other recipes where you get a free flowing liquid nut butter, but the oil content is very high. 

Lets see what I could make with this nut butter else that too will languish in the fridge ;)

Onion & Olive Fougasse

Fougasse is a flat oven baked bread originally from Provence, France. It usually incorporates,olives,cheeses anchovies etc and is like a rustic tomato-less pizza from France. In that case you can say it is similar to focaccia from Italy,but what distinguishes it from other flatbreads or focaccia is its shape. It is usually shaped into a leaf or tree like structure and the bread looks like awork of art. It is an excellent accompaniment to meals,soup or even as a teatime snack with a simple olive oil dip. I tried my first fougasse with the recipe adapted from Kingarthur Flour site and it turned out GREAT. This is one bread that surely increases your confidence in baking and is that simple to make.

Ingredients:

Poolish (Starter)

All Purpose Flour: 1 cup

Water: 1/2 cup

Instant Yeast: 1/8 tsp

Dough

Starter: all the quantity mentioned above

All PurposeFlour: 1 cup

Whole Wheat Flour: 1 cup

Water: 1/2 cup

Instant Yeast: 2 tsp

Salt: 1 tsp

Olive Oil: 2 tbsp

Filling

Onions: 3/4 -1 cup thin and long chopped

Black Olives: almost 1/4 cup chopped

Salt & Pepper /Choice of seasoning :as per taste

Preparation:

Poolish: Combine the ingredients,give a nice stir and let it sit overnight covered with a plastic wrap.Most of the water will be absorbed while stirring,but do not add more. 

Next day morning you can see few small bubbles on the top -a sure sign of yeast working its way.Any change in the texture of the poolish is welcome as it indicates yeast is alive.

Dough:

Once the poolish/starter is ready,add in two types of flours and water,stir until just-combined,cover and let it rest for around 20 minutes. To this add, yeast,salt and olive oil and knead the dough for about 5 minutes until fairly smooth,but not elastic. Again, you may feel the need to add more water,but do not do so as it will change the texture of the bread -thats what I feel. 

Keep the dough in a lightly greased bowl cover with a plastic wrap and let it rise for about 1.5 hours,gently deflating it and turning once after half time or 45 minutes.

While the dough is rising,saute the onions -chopped long and thin adding little salt until it starts to brown. You can even caramelize the onion or saute as how you want it. Once done,add in the required seasoning and adjust salt and stir in the chopped olives. Let it cool.

Once the dough is ready,knead in the olive-onion mixture.This will definitely make the dough more sticky and it is a tricky process. I had to literally stick the olive -onion mix onto the dough and fold it again and again. This is a part that took the patience out of me. It took a lot of time to finish the process,but the final result was worth it.

Shape the dough into a simple whole oval and place in a lined baking sheet. I actually divided the dough at this stage into 2 halves and worked with one piece at a time. Cover and let the shaped dough rise another 30 minutes.When ready, using a knife or choice of weapon, cut deep diagonal slashes all the way through the dough on both sides, towards the centre of the dough. Take the dough in your hands and you can see the parts separating in the middle.You can refer the videos here and here to get an idea of shaping. First time it may not come correctly but second time you onwards you can create perfect fougasses.You can freeze one half for later use.

Allow the shaped dough to rest again for another 30-45 minutes.Bake the bread in a preheated oven at 200C/400F for about 18-20 minutes or until the top starts to brown. Take out and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before consuming.

Excellent bread for breakfast,snacking and meals.A bit chewy and slightly dense mostly because of the use of wheat flour. Onions and olives make it all the more hearty. The oniony fougasse is going to BBD#43: Onion Breads at Judy's Gross Eats,an event by Zorra