Friday, January 29, 2010

Rye Muffin with Raisins

 

This is the season of rye for us as we still have lots of leftover rye Rye Raisin Muffinflour. As it was a week day and we were too lazy to bake bread, we have decided to bake something quick for our next few days' breakfast. Something that came to mind was wholesome muffin. Thus, we started surfing for some rye muffin but apparently it was not a common thing. In the end, we managed to find a recipe from allrecipe.com. The recipe below will give you 4 large muffins.


Ingredients:

  • 1 cup rye flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • 2 tablespoons canola oil
  • 1/3  cup raisins

Steps:

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
  3. In a separate bowl, combine the water, honey and oil.
  4. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in raisins.
  5. Place dough into muffin trays until two-thirds full as this muffin doesn’t rise much. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
  6. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack.

Overall, we find the muffin is wholesome and something different from your ordinary muffin. It’s a good switch once in a while when you had had enough of white flour muffin. This muffin is also not as crumbly as other muffin. Another good point about this muffin is that it used simple ingredients and suitable for full vegetarian folks as where as folks that have allergy to egg, wheat or milk.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Banana Rye Yeast Bread

As it has been a while since we last bake a loaf of yeast bread. Today, we decide to bake a loaf of banana rye yeast bread so that it can be used as our sandwich bread for the coming week. The recipe is adapted from About.com: Bread Baking. We like this recipe as we find it to have certain elements of nutrition and at the same time it is versatile.

Ingredients:
  • 3 medium bananas (mashed into 1 cup)
  • 1/2 cup warm milk
  • 1/4 cup warm water
  • 2 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
  • 1 cup rye flour
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar, packed
  • 1 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 cups all purposed flour
Steps:
  1. Combine yeast, warm water and milk in a small bowl. Stir until all well mixed and leave for 5 minutes.
  2. Place a cup of mashed potatoes into a large bowl and stir in the yeast solution.
  3. Then, add in rye flour, brown sugar, oil, and salt.
  4. Gradually, mix in the all purpose flour to make a thick dough that can be kneaded by hand.
  5. Place the dough out onto board and knead for 5 minutes.
  6. On another large bowl, grease the bowl with a small amount of oil. Place the dough in the bowl and flip the dough to cover the dough with oil.
  7. Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise for an hour and half in a warm place until it has doubled.
  8. After an hour and a half, remove the dough from the bowl and place on a lightly floured surface. Punch down in the dough to release the air from the bread and knead out bubbles for 5 minutes.
  9. Shape the dough into a 8 inches log and place into a lightly 9 x 5 grease loaf pan.
  10. Cover the loaf pan with plastic wrap and let it rise for another 50 minutes.
  11. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F and place the loaf pan in center of oven for 10 minutes, then at 325 degrees F for 45 minutes. For the last 15 minutes of baking, loosely cover the pan with aluminum foil.
  12. You can test if the bread is done by thumping the bottom of the bread and it should sound hollow.
  13. Let the bread cool on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes before slicing it
The bread is just out from the oven and it is looking great. Let it cool down a bit and we will post some photos. Can't wait to try it!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Whole Wheat Beer Bread

For this week, we are thinking of exploring something different from the ordinary kind of bread. On top of that, we are looking for a bread recipe with simple ingredients and at the same time it can be prepared in a very short time. This lead us to discovering the whole wheat beer bread from allrecipe.com. Since we have some beer in the fridge in preparation for the cold winter, we do not mind using a can for this recipe. It sounds interesting and best of all it can be ready in less than an hour.

Ingredients:
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 (355 ml) can or bottle beer
Steps:
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, combine all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt and brown sugar.
  3. Pour in beer, stir until a stiff batter is formed. It may be necessary to mix dough with your hands.
  4. Place dough into prepared greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
  5. Put in the preheated oven for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.
Overall, the bread turns out good. We guess the use of beer kind of substitute the yeast that usually exists in bread. However, the size of the bread may not be suitable to be used as a sandwich bread. Anyhow , it is good to go on its own.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Mashed Potato Savoury Muffin

Potatoes....potatoes...potatoes....what else can we do with you! We have tried baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, tuna potato fishcake, potato bread and potato biscuit. While we were surfing for some recipes that have potatoes as one of the ingredient, hubby came across some recipes for potato muffin. That sounds pretty interesting.

Back in our home country, we are familiar with desert muffin such as chocolate chip muffin, banana muffin, etc. I have never imagined a savoury kind of muffin. Apparently, savoury muffin is common here in Canada. Since Canadians seem to love their potatoes, of course they will bake mashed potato savoury muffin. Savoury muffins are a colourful accompaniment to soup, stew or chili.

Ingredients:
  • 1/3 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/4 cup cornmeal
  • 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1 cup mashed potatoes
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup freshly chopped parsley
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped red pepper
  • 1/4 cup chopped onion
  • 1/4 cup chopped cheddar cheese
Steps:
  1. In large bowl, whisk flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, salt, pepper and oregano.
  2. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, potatoes and milk.
  3. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients.
  4. Stir in parsley, red pepper, cheese and onion using wooden spoon and mix until all combined.
  5. Spoon into 6 giant muffin cups.
  6. Place in a preheated oven at 400 degrees F and bake for 18 - 20 minutes or until bamboo stick inserted in centre comes out clean.
  7. Transfer to rack and let it cool for 10 minutes.
Source:
Canadian Living Magazine October 2006

Overall, the muffins turn out nice and colourful. It tastes very different from our conventional muffin and hubby called it "western vadai". I would say it's a healthy version of vadai since no oil/butter was involved in the whole process. Guess we need some time to get use to the Canadian taste bud. On the other hand, we truly hope that we have not forgotten how tasty food were back home. Our biggest fear is that we are not able to enjoy all the yummy hot & spicy food back at home after being deprived of the real hot stuff all this while.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Flaky Potato Biscuit

This week seems like a potato bread. Since we have some leftover mashed potatoes sitting in the refrigerator and we have had enough of mash potatoes, we were thinking of doing some baking with the mash potatoes. Finally, we decided to try an all time Canadian favorite food- the potato biscuit. I would it is something like scone but with a crusty skin. It is great for breakfast/tea serve with butter/jam. Alternatively, it can also be served as a side dish for your lunch/dinner.

Ingredients:
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1 1/2 cups leftover mashed potatoes
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1/4 cup cold water
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • extra milk for brushing the tops
Steps:
  1. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
  2. Gradually stir in melted butter.
  3. Next, mix the mashed potatoes into the dry ingredients and it's fine that you have some chunks of potatoes in the mix.
  4. Make a well in the mixture, and stir in egg, water and milk using a wooden spoon until you get a loose dough.
  5. Put the dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead for 6-8 minutes until the dough holds together. Along the way, you may add some flour to reduce the stickiness.
  6. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
  7. Divide the dough into 12 pieces and shape the dough into a ball.
  8. Place the dough onto a baking sheet with parchment paper and flatten the dough into a 3/4 inch circle.Brush the tops with a bit of milk.
  9. Bake for 18- 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until bottoms are golden.
I would say this is a great way to use up the leftover mashed potatoes and above all, it can be used for breakfast, lunch, tea or dinner.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Crusty Potato Bread

This week's theme revolves around potatoes as we bought 10lb of Russet potatoes last week. Thus, we are baking crusty potato bread this week.

Ingredients:
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 cup mashed potatoes
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons active dried yeast
  • 2 teaspoons sugar
  • 3 cups bread flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3 tablespoons butter
Steps:
  1. Boil peeled potatoes in boiling water for 20-30 minutes. Mash the potatoes.
  2. Place milk and water in a microwave and heat to lukewarm in a bowl.
  3. Stir in sugar and yeast and set aside for 5 minutes.
  4. On a separate bowl, sift bread flour, whole wheat flour and salt.
  5. Mix butter and mashed potato into flour using hand.
  6. Pour wet ingredient into dry ingredient and mix until all well blended.
  7. Place dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 8 - 10 minutes until dough becomes smooth.
  8. Place the dough into a greased bowl and cover with cling wrap till double in size for about an hour.
  9. Punch dough down and place into a greased bread pan.
  10. Cover and leave in a warm place until dough is level with top of pan.
  11. Bake at 400 degrees F for 45 minutes and cool on a wire rack.
Overall, we find the bread is soft in the inside and crusty on the outside. However, the bread is lacking in potato flavor. Probably we should increase the amount of potatoes in the future.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Cranberry Scone

During a dinner gathering with our Canadian friends end of last year, we were served with some wonderful home made scones. However, our Canadian friends later told us that it is called biscuit and not scone. We were pretty confused then.

Anyhow, after some research, we realized that round-shaped British scones can resemble North American biscuits in appearance. The differences are scones rely on cold butter for their delicate and flaky structure while biscuits are more often made with softening and are crumbly. Scones are normally served with coffee and tea whereas biscuits are served more as side bread with other dishes. Our Canadian friend served it with Indonesian chicken with peanut sauce. It was delicious.

Since we are lacking of some ingredients for the biscuit, we have decided to make scone today. We are just in the mood of baking after receiving a number of good news today. Baking is good at all time either when you are feeling happy or stress. It just gives you happiness....

Ingredients:
  • 3 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 5 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup butter
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 cup dried cranberry
Steps:
  1. Preaheat oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
  3. Add in butter and blend well.
  4. On a separate bowl, mix egg and milk.
  5. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients gradually.
  6. Stir in the dried cranberry and mix well.
  7. Put the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly.
  8. Split the dough to half and roll the dough into an half inch thick oblong.
  9. Cut the dough using pizza cutter into 4 pieces and further divide each piece diagonally to get 2 triangle shaped dough.
  10. Do the same for the remaining half of the dough.
  11. Place the dough triangles onto a greased baking sheet and put into the oven to bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown.
This recipe makes about 16 scones.

We really love scones and it will be perfect to go with a cup of coffee. The scone itself tastes good even without the cranberry.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Cranberry Walnut Biscotti

Since both of us are coffee lovers and biscotti is definitely the food to go with a good cup of coffee, I have decided to try baking biscotti today despite it is not our baking day. I just can't resist the temptation to try something new. I started my online search for biscotti recipe and decided to go for the type of biscotti which require the ingredients that I already have on hand. In case some of you may not know what biscotti are, let me give you a brief description here:

Biscotti are traditional Italian cookies that are very crunchy and ideal for dunking into coffee or wine. In another word, think of them as adults' teething biscuits.

Today, we have decided to bake cranberry walnut biscotti despite the norm is pistachio cranberry biscotti. Anyhow, it was really simple to make biscotti and it took us less than half an hour. We will definitely explore various types of biscotti in the near future.

Ingredients:
  • 2 tablespoons light olive oil
  • 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons white sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
  • 1 eggs
  • 3/4 cup and 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 cup dried cranberries
  • 3/4 cup walnuts/pecans/almonds/pistachios
  • 1 orange rind
Steps:
  1. First, preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together oil and sugar until well blended. Stir in the vanilla, almond extracts and orange rind.
  3. Next, beat in the eggs.
  4. In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking powder.
  5. Gradually stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
  6. Mix in cranberries and walnuts by hand.
  7. Form a log (10 x 2.5 inches) on a cookie sheet that has been lined with parchment paper. Dough may be very sticky; use some flour to handle dough more easily.
  8. Place the cookie sheet in the oven and bake for 35 minutes in the preheated oven, or until logs are light brown.
  9. After 35 minutes, remove from oven, and set aside to cool for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, reduce oven heat to 275 degrees F.
  10. Cut logs on diagonal into 1/2 inch thick slices. Lay on sides on parchment covered cookie sheet. Bake for another 10 minutes.
And there you go, biscotti to go with your favourite cup of coffee. Thinking of biscotti, I really miss those wonderful almond biscotti from Dome Cafe back home. I shall try almond biscotti the next time when I want to bake something simple, delicious and fast.




Friday, January 8, 2010

Light Rye Bread

Since we are running out of all purpose flour and on the other hand, having lots of rye flour, we have decided to bake some rye bread this week. Rye is a cereal grain and is closely related to barley and wheat. It is definitely much more healthier than all purpose flour. As human usually associate healthy food with bad taste and vice versa, surprisingly this healthy bread tastes good. It is wonderfully light, soft inside with a crusty crust. A perfect bread for any sandwich or you can just enjoy the bread by itself.

While searching for some rye bread recipe, we have noticed that some unique ingredients required for any rye bread are molasses and cocoa powder.

Ingredients:
  • 1 package active dry yeast
  • 1 1/4 cup of warm water
  • 1/3 cup molasses
  • 2 1/2 cups bread flour
  • 1 cup rye flour
  • 1/2 tablespoon salt
  • 1/8 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/8 cup cocoa powder
Steps:
  1. Combine yeast, warm water and molasses in a large bowl. Stir until all well mixed.
  2. Stir in salt, vegetable oil, cocoa powder, rye flour and then 1 cup of bread flour. Blend well.
  3. Gradually add the remaining bread flour until the dough is not so sticky and not too hard to mix.
  4. Place the dough on a lightly flour surface and knead the dough for 8-10 minutes or until the dough become smooth and elastic. Add flour as needed to make the dough less sticky.
  5. On another large bowl, grease the bowl with a small amount of oil. Place the dough in the bowl and flip the dough to cover the dough with oil.
  6. Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap/damp cloth and allow the dough to rise for an hour and half in a warm place until it has doubled.
  7. After an hour and a half, remove the dough from the bowl and place on a lightly floured surface. Gently press down in the dough to release the air from the bread.
  8. Shape the dough into a 8 inches log and place into a lightly 9 x 5 grease loaf pan.
  9. Cover the loaf pan with plastic wrap and let it rise for another 45 minutes or until the dough raises approximately 1 inch above the pan.
  10. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place the loaf pan in center of oven for about 45 minutes. After 20 minutes of baking, loosely cover the pan with aluminum foil.
  11. You can test if the bread is done by thumping the bottom of the bread and it should sound hollow.
  12. Let the bread cool on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes before slicing it.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

As both of us are sandwich lovers and we especially love our sandwich to go with whole wheat bread/whole grain bread, we have decided to try baking some whole wheat sandwich bread this week. Hubby being daring and adventurous decided to use molasses instead of honey as called for by the original recipe. I would say it's a two-edged sword using the molasses. On one hand it gives a more chewy texture to the bread, on another hand it makes kneading much more difficult as it was just too sticky to the hand. We have to add about 3/4 cup of white flour during kneading to get the perfect dough. Anyhow, the sleepless night, sweat and effort are all paid off when we had our first homemade whole wheat sandwich bread for breakfast this morning.

Ingredients:
  • 3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup molasses
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
Steps:
  1. Combine a cup of warm water with the salt, the molasses, the yeast, the oil and the milk in a large bowl. Stir until all well mixed.
  2. Mix in the flour and stir until the dough starts to pull away from the bowl.
  3. Place the dough on a lightly flour surface and knead the dough for 8-10 minutes or until the dough become smooth. Add flour as needed to make the dough less sticky.
  4. On another large bowl, grease the bowl with a small amount of oil. Place the dough in the bowl and flip the dough to cover the dough with oil.
  5. Cover the bowl with a towel and allow the dough to rise for an hour in a warm place.
  6. After an hour, remove the dough from the bowl and place on a lightly floured surface. Shape the dough into a 8 inches log and place into a lightly 9 x 5 grease loaf pan.
  7. Cover the loaf pan with lightly oil plastic wrap and let it rise for another hour or until the dough raises approximately 1 inch above the pan.
  8. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place the loaf pan in center of oven for about 40 minutes. After 20 minutes of baking, loosely cover the pan with aluminum foil.
  9. You can test if the bread is done by thumping the bottom of the bread and it should sound hollow.
  10. Let the bread cool on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes before slicing it.
Enjoy a healthy wholesome bread. In the coming weeks, we will definitely try baking this bread again but will try using honey then. We will let you know the difference then. Stay tune!