Showing posts with label Baking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baking. Show all posts
I think you would have to be living under a rock in recent weeks not to see all of the highly decorated focaccia loaves on the internet. Very pretty to look at for sure. I have only just dipped my toes into the world of Sourdough. I recently mastered making the starter successfully along with a few bakes with the started and the discard. You can see my tutorial on how to make a Sourdough Starter here.
I am ever so pleased as I have finally mastered this skill! I have also managed to store it and bring it back to life again with great success, and if anything it is even better now than the original one! Apparently you can keep these things going for years and years. I watched a program on the television about San Francisco, the birthplace of sourdough and in the original factory they were still using the starter that they had been using since the 1800's!! Now to me, that's amazing!
All of those highly decorated focaccia are very pretty to look at for sure, but for my first one I wanted to really keep it simple. You begin by making a sponge . . . using some of your starter, some oil, honey and flour. Once that is bubbling away you add the remaining ingredients and knead it. Kneading is such a catharic exercise in mindfulness. I could do it forever . . . my mind just settled on nothing but what's going on beneath my hand. You can feel the dough changing as the gluten begins to develop and you end up with a lovely smooth ball, elastic in texture and slightly tacky.
You then pop it into an oiled bowl, cover with cling film and set it aside to rise for about 2 hours. I am always so surprised when I see the dough rising, with no yeast involved. Its like magic to me.
Once risen you punch it down and press it out onto a baking sheet with sides, then cover it lightly with a tea towel and let it rise again for a further hour.
A the end of that time you get to make little dimples all over the surface of the bread with your fingers, divots . . . . ready for you to brush with olive oil . . . the olive oil collects into the divots adding some scrumptiousness . . .
I kept it simple for this first time and just brushed it with a plain olive oil, albeit an excellent quality one and added a simple sprinkle of coarse sea salt.
If you wanted to you could brush it with an herby olive oil and sprinkle on extra herbs, or a pesto olive oil. I think I will do a rosemary one next time.
Its actually very similar to pizza dough except thicker, so I reckon there is no end to what you can top it with, or dress it up with. I am not really into all that fancy decoration stuff though. It might look pretty, but I prefer to keep things a bit simpler myself.
At any rate this is a beautiful focaccia, just nicely crusty on the outside and with a beautiful crumb . . . and just a slight sourdough tang . . .
We enjoyed some squares of it simply dipped into some more of that great olive oil. I may make sandwiches with the rest.
How to Make a Sourdough Focaccia
Yield: 1 (10 by 15-inch) Focaccia
I was pleased with how this turned out. Once you master this, you can experiment a bit with other flavours and additions.
Ingredients:
To Form the Sponge:
- 150g sour dough starter (3/4 cup)
- 120ml warm water (1/2 cup)
- 30ml olive oil (1/8 cup)
- 1/2 TBS honey
- 70g bread flour (1/2 cup)
To finish the bread:
- 60ml olive oil (1/4 cup)
- 280g bread flour (2 cups)
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
You will also need:
- A good extra Virgin Olive oil to brush
- coarse sea salt to sprinkle
Instructions:
- You will be doing this in three parts. First you will need to make the sponge. Combine all of the ingredients for the sponge in a bowl and leave to ferment, covered for an hour. You will know it is ready when the surface is covered with bubbles of a variety of sizes.
- Once your sponge is ready add the second amount of ingredients, mixing all together well. Tip out onto a lightly floured board and knead for 5 to 8 minutes until you have a dough which is smooth and soft and slightly moist.
- Tip the dough into an oiled bowl, turning it to coat lightly with oil. Cover with plastic cling film and set aside for 1 1/2 to 2 hours to rise. It should double in size.
- Punch down. Lightly oil your baking tray. (10 by 15 inch with sides.) Press the dough out onto the tray to fill it. If the dough pulls back, leave it for a few minutes and then press it out again.
- Cover lightly with a clean tea towel and leave to rise for another hour at which time it should double in size again.
- Preheat the oven to 230*C/450*F/ gas mark 7.
- Dock the dough in the pan by making little divets all over it with your finger tips. Brush with a good olive oil and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
- Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven until golden brown. Place on a wire rack to cool in the pan. Cut into wedges or squares to serve.
Have you tried sourdough yet or been tempted to? If not, I can highly recommend. Once you get the hang of it, its really quite simple and there is no end to what you can do with the starter itself, and its discard!
Did you have a job picking local strawberries when you were a teenager? I am pretty sure that if you lived in a fairly rural location you probably did.
Local strawberry growers depended on teens hungry for extra money back in the day! I did it for a few weeks every summer for a couple of years. It was a back breaking labour spending the day crouched low to the ground and in hot sun.
You picked long and hard for a few dollars a day, but we were grateful for the work. The farmers would actually send a truck to pick you up and take you to the strawberry fields.
I wonder if teens still pick berries for money? Or do our farmers have to rely on immigrants. I don't know. You would have thought all that picking would have soured my taste for berries, but nope.
I adore strawberries above all other berries. I don't think there is a way I could ever not like them, and here in the UK we grow some of the best.
One thing we all really loved during strawberry season every year was when my mom would make us Strawberry shortcakes for dessert.
Mom's strawberry shortcake was the highlight of strawberry season! You can find that recipe here.
I remember one year we happened to be travelling in the states and we visited my mother's Uncle Arnold in Connecticut.
They had chickens in their garden which we delighted in being able to feed and we had a lovely dinner with them, complete with Strawberry Shortcake for dessert!
Strawberry shortcake during berry season is a Maritime/New England tradition!
This Strawberry Shortcake Recipe I am sharing with you today differs a bit from the usual recipe in that rather than plain cream biscuits it uses a nut swirled biscuit!
I adapted this recipe from one I found on the Yankee Magazine site. The original recipe was for Pistachio Swirl Strawberry Shortcakes.
I didn't have pistachio nuts, but I did have plenty of pecans, so I used them in their place.
Just look at that lovely nut swirl in the biscuit! It adds a lovely touch and another level of flavour.
The biscuit dough itself is also a tad bit different. Cream biscuits but with some cornmeal (polenta) added for an extra bit of crispness!
They bake up nice and short and flaky!
Biscuits made with cream are simply lovely. Please be aware, I am not meaning biscuit in the British sense here! These are not cookies.
These are scone-like, North American Style Biscuits, and they are gorgeous!
We grow our own strawberries in our garden. They come in dribs and drabs, however, and I usually have to augment them with store bought berries if I am making something like this.
I am never able to pick enough at any one time.
Our berries are a lot smaller and sweeter than the store ones, but altogether they make for a pretty delicious combination!
The berries are only lightly sweetened.
When you have really good berries, you don't need to over sweeten them. The strawberry flavours shine through beautifully!
You can sweeten the whipped cream as well. I don't because I am a diabetic and I figure there is enough sweetness in the berries and those biscuits.
The British normally don't sweeten their cream anyways and I have gotten quite used to that.
At first I thought it was a bit strange, but I actually prefer it that way now!
Don't overwork your biscuit dough. The single greatest cause of tough biscuits is overworking the dough. Just stir everything together and then pat it out lightly to a rectangle.
The filling is very easy to make as well, but you will need a food processor or blender of some sort to blitz the nuts and sugar together to combine.
A bit of butter goes into the mix, and then you spread this filling onto the patted out biscuit dough. Roll it up, cut it into slices and bang!
You have nut swirls biscuits ready to bake into deliciousness!
Crisp, short and crumbly, perfect for this dessert . . .
cut in half once cold, and then layered with sliced berries and the whipped cream.
You owe it to yourself to try this version of shortcake at least once during this strawberry season. Trust me on this!
Pecan Swirl Strawberry Shortcakes
Yield: 8
A fresh spin on an old classic, with crisp cream biscuits swirled with a sweet pecan swirl, and filled with fresh ripe strawberries and whipped cream.
Ingredients:
For the biscuits:
- 140g plain flour (1 cup)
- 115g cornmeal (2/3 cup)
- 1 1/2 TBS granulated sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 240ml double cream (1 cup heavy cream)
For the pecan swirl:
- 90g raw shelled and toasted pecan nuts (90g)
- 1 1/2 TBS granulated sugar
- 2 TBS butter, at room temperature
You will also need:
- 50g granulated sugar
- 2 pounds strawberries, washed, hulled and sliced
- 300ml double cream (1 1/4 cups)
- 2 TBS icing sugar
- icing sugar to dust
Instructions:
- First make the biscuits. Preheat the oven to 190*C/376*F/ gas mark 5. Line a large baking tray with baking parchment. Set aside.
- Measure the flour, corn meal, sugar. baking powder, and salt and give it a good whisk to combine. Add the cream and stir it togehr with a spatula until you get a soft dough. Set aside.
- To make the filling, put the nuts into a small food processor with the sugar and pulse until finely ground combindwith some larger pieces. Add the butter and pulse again to combine.
- Pat the dough out on a lightly floured surface to a 12 by 9 -inch rectangle with the long edge facing you. Spread the pecan filling over this to within 1 inch of the top edge, spreading it out evenly. Roll up tightly from the long edge like a jelly roll. Cut the roll into 8 equal slices. Place, evenly spaced and leaving plenty of room around them for expanding, on the prepared baking sheet. Press lightly to flatten just a tiny bit.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Scoop off onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely before proceeding.
- Mix your berries with the granulated sugar and let sit for about 10 minutes to macerate.
- Whip the cream together with the icing sugar until it forms soft peaks.
- To serve, carefully slice the biscuits in half through the centre. Place the bottoms onto serving plates. Top with a portion of berries, a dollop of whipped cream and the biscuit tops. Dust lightly with icing sugar and serve immediately.
What is your favourite way to enjoy Strawberries during the season?? I love a good strawberry pie and of course I could just sit and eat them out of hand.
I remember one time when we were visiting my in-laws when my children were growing up, they ate so many berries that my FIL told them that when we went to wake them in the morning there would be nothing but big fat strawberries laying in their beds! OH but that didn't half give them a thrill!
If I was a much better, more dedicated to my craft, you would never see photos like these.
I would take the time to pipe the cream into the buns so that everything looked all nice and pretty, setting the shot up perfectly with teapots and cups and tea clothes, etc.
That's not me. I tend to just show you things as they are.
Simple without too many frills and not overly fancied up. Not that there is anything wrong with fancying things up a bit. That's just not me.
Besides today, by the time I got these done, it was getting late, I was losing the light and to be honest I was beat, beat, beat.
I actually started these about 6:30 this morning. I had three other recipes to do for another site and so I had to fit them all in while I still had the light with me.
But you don't want to know about all of that . . . you want to know about these tasty buns. Cornish Splits.
I am sure you have all heard of Cream Teas, or Cornish Teas/Devon Teas.
A delightful repast of fresh scones served with butter, jam and clotted cream, washed down with cups of hot tea.
Well, before they ever included scones, these lovely light yeasted buns were the original stars of a Cream Tea.
I am not surprised. Light as air, only slightly sweetened, like soft yeasted pillows of deliciousness.
Perfect for spreading with soft butter and jam, and topped with lashings of clotted cream. Just a slight dusting of icing sugar garnishing the tops.
I can well imagine how delightful they would be with hot cups of tea.
We don't drink tea for religious reasons, and somehow, I don't think herbal tea would be quite the same with these.
These are such a simple make/bake. Seriously.
One kneading and rising. Shape into balls, a quick rise and then bake.
The rolls are lovely and light textured and I imagine very nice just on their own, split, toasted and spread with butter . . . and maybe some jam . . .
Yes, I do love jam.
You can eat the while they are still slightly warm if you wish, in which case I think the butter would melt into the beautiful texture of those light airy buns . . .
Mmmm . . . warm bread and melted butter. Lush.
We enjoyed them cold, split and filled to the hilt with the strawberry jam and whipped cream.
We have not been able to get out shopping so there was no clotted cream.
The whipped cream was very nice however.
The jam, Bonne Maman . . . not having any homemade jam, I used the next best thing . . . . which is Bonne Maman . . .
Bonne Maman is a favourite of mine. Next best thing to homemade.
The French make beautiful jams . . . and breads for that matter . . .
Dusted with icing sugar, these were exquisite.
Traditional Cornish Splits
Yield: 8
Classically Cornish teatime treats. Light and airy yeasted buns, served split, spread with butter and topped with lashings of jam and cream. If you fill them with clotted cream and golden syrup, they become Thunder and Lightening, a real favourite with kiddies everywhere!
Ingredients:
For the buns:
- 305g strong bread flour (2 1/4 cups)
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 4 1/2 tsp easy yeast (bread machine yeast)
- 1 TBS white sugar
- 2 TBS butter
- 300ml whole milk (1 1/4 cup)
To serve:
- softened butter to spread
- Softly whipped sweetened cream, or clotted cream
- strawberry jam
- icing sugar to dust
Instructions:
- Fit a stand mixer with a kneading hook. Measure the flour, sugar, salt, yeast and sugar into the bowl of the stand mixer and mix to combine.
- Warm the milk in the microwave with the butter for about 30 seconds. Just long enough to melt the butter. You don't want any of it to be hot, just blood warm.
- Start drizzling the milk/butter mixture into the bowl of the stand mixer, with it turned on low, until it is all added and incorporated. Keep the motor running until you get a soft, slightly tacky dough. You may need to add a bit more flour. (Today I needed to add another 35g/1/4 cup).
- Tip into a greased bowl and cover with plastic cling film. Set aside to prove for an hour or so until it doubles in size. Turn onto a lightly floured board and divide into 8 equal pieces. (I shape it into a circle and cut it into 8 wedges.) Shape each piece into a ball and place onto a large baking sheet you have lined with baking paper. Dust lightly with flour, cover with a tea towel and set aside to rise for 15 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5.
- Bake the buns in the preheated oven for between 15 and 20 minutes until a pale golden brown. If you tip one over it should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. If not, return to the oven for a few more minutes.
- To serve. split almost all the way through on the diagonal. Spread the bottoms with softened butter, top with plenty of strawberry jam and a nice thick dollop of whipped double cream or clotted cream. Dust the tops with some icing sugar and serve immediately.
- These can be served slightly warm or cold. Best served on the day. Don't fill until you are ready to serve them.
I sent half of these next door to my neighbour. She and her son have been ever so good to us throughout this pandemic, always picking up bread and milk, even if we have not asked for it, and she won't take any compensation for it. I figure the least I can do is to bake them treats every now and then!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan@aol.com
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