David in the kitchen.

Baking Advent Calendar day 18

Some days are made for exotic bakes and some are made for comfort baking. Todays baking plan was bread and and I decided that it felt like a comfort day, a day for some good old fashioned white crusty bread. Normally when I bake bread it’s with wholemeal or spelt flours and there’s often some nuts or seeds in there as well. Today is different though and I’m sharing a loaf of sour cream bread for Baking Advent Calendar day 18.

I don’t make white bread that often and to be honest if you looks at most home bread baking books you probably won’t find many recipes for it. White bread tends to get looked down on and I’m sure that we’ve all experience the shop bought, homogenised loaves that have caused this to happen. The fact is though that a well made, crusty white loaf can be as rewarding as any bread. It’s particularly good for sandwich making and this loaf would be perfect for a bacon sandwich on Christmas morning.

This is a quick and easy recipe that requires the minimum amount of dough kneading

Ingredients

125g cold sour cream
2tsp salt
2tsp caster sugar
7g fast action dried yeast.
550g strong white bread flour

Method

In a large bowl mix the cream with 150ml cold water and 100ml boiling water, add the salt, sugar and yeast, then mix in the flour until it forms a ball. Cover and leave to sit for 10 minutes.
Turn the dough onto floured surface and knead for 20 seconds. Return the dough to the bowl and leave for another 10 minutes. Repeat the 20 second kneads twice more with10 minute rests in-between. Than leave the dough to rise for an hour.
Line the bottom of a 19cm loaf tin.
Pat out the dough to about 2cm and then roll it in into a scroll.
Place the dough into the tin, don’t worry if you have to squish it to do this, and leave to rise for another hour.
Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 and bake the bread for 45 minutes.

Baking Advent Calendar day 17

We’re well into the Christmas baking now so it’s time to start thinking about what you can make ahead of time. One of the bakes that I always do about a week beforehand is sausage rolls and that’s what I’m sharing today for Baking Advent Calendar day 17. These can be baked and frozen now, then taken out to be served warm on he day. If like me you want to have them with Christmas morning drinks just remember to take them out of the freezer to defrost the evening before.

Sausage rolls are an all year round favourite but always seem particularly good at this time of year. I always try to make the festive ones a little bit special by adding some chopped dried fruits and toasted fennel seeds to the mixture. For many years I fought shy of making my own rolls. Primarily this was down to how fiddly the puff pastry was to make and at this time of year there just seemed to be better baking projects that I could be spending my time on. Then my partner introduced me to the Delia_Smith quick flaky pastry recipe and I’ve never looked back. This recipe is so easy and seems to produce great pastry every time. Over all the recipes makes approximately twenty rolls.

Ingredients for the pastry

225gm plain flour
170gm margarine – this has to be a block, not soft tub margarine
pinch of salt
cold water

Method for the pastry

Cut a 170gm piece of margarine. Wrap in foil then place in the freezer for 30 minutes
Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl
When you take the margarine from the freezer partially unwrap it. Still leave some foil on for you to hold it by. Dip the unwrapped end in flour and then grate the margarine. Keep dipping and grating until the while frozen pieces is done. This should leave you with a pile of grated margin sitting on top of the flour.
Use a pallet knife to cut it into the flour. Once done add a little water and work the dough into a ball with your hands. I find this takes about two table spoons of water.
Wrap the pastry in cling film and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Ingredients for the sausage rolls

450g good pork sausage meat
I medium onion grated
1tsp fennel seeds crushed
small amount of dried fruit – I used chopped dried figs and currants in mine
1 egg beaten

Method for the sausage rolls

Make the pastry as above
Heat the oven to gas mark 7 and line a baking tray.
Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl
On a floured surface roll the pastry out to an oblong. Try to get it as thin as you can.
Cut the oblong into three, divide the sausage meat into three and lay it in a strip along each of your three pieces of pastry.
Brush one edge of each pastry strip with the egg and then gently roll the pastry until it encase the sausage meat. Use the edge with egg wash on to seal the strip.
This will form one long sausage roll. Cut into approximately inch long segments and place them on the baking tray.
Once all roll are on the tray brush them with egg wash and bake for 20 minutes.

Baking Advent Calendar day 16

I was at my fathers house at the weekend and I noticed that he had a picture on the wall from a trip that we made to New York a few years back to celebrate my 40th birthday. Two other friends came with us and the photo dad has was taken by one of them. In it my dad is watching me as i take a photo of the Flatiron building. Seeing the photo for the first time in years got me to reminiscing about the trip and you won’t be surprised to hear that most of my memories are food related. We were only in the city for four days but crammed so much in while we were there. We’d done some planning before we went but it was the unexpected things that are some of the strongest memories. Every corner that we turned seemed to have something that you recognised. Maddison Square Garden, The Chelsea Hotel, The Alqonquin Hotel and Radio City Hall were all places that I walked past by chance and had to go in

We got very friendly with the barman in out hotel and on a couple of evening took cabs to restaurants that he had recommended. One of the restaurants was an Italian. We had to queue to get in but the result was some of the best food that I’ve ever eaten. Those memories prompted me to get New York Cult Recipes off the shelf and that’s why we’re having Italian style cheesecake for Baking Advent Calendar day 16.

You might have expected a New York style cheesecake but I find that I prefer the lighter texture of the Italian. The difference between the two being that the New York uses cream cheese where as the Italian uses ricotta.

Ingredients for the crust

125g plain flour
0.5tsp salt
50g ricotta cheese
50g unsalted butter, softened
100g icing sugar

Ingredients for the cheese filling

450 ricotta cheese
100g caster sugar
25g plain flour
2 eggs
pinch of salt
lemon juice
0.5tsp vanilla extract

Ingredients for the decoration

100g strawberries
icing sugar

Metod

Preheat the oven to gas mark 8. Mix the crust ingredients until combined. I used a food processor but you can do this by hand.
Butter the base and a third of the way up the sides of a 20cm spring form cake tin.
Spread the crust mixture across the bottom of the tin.
Whisk the cheese filling ingredients until smooth then pour into the tin on top of the crust.
Bake for 15 minutes. When it comes out of the oven the centre of the cheesecake will still be wobbly.
Leave in the run to cool.
Decorate with strawberries and a little icing sugar before serving.

Baking Advent Calendar day 15

My partner was supposed to be going out to meet a friend for a pre Christmas drink and bite to eat this evening, but then circumstances changed and now said friend is coming here and they’re eating in. This was all well and good until a I got a panicked call to say “there’s no cake in the house, can you bake something”. So it’s a case of thank goodness for emergency ‘go to’ recipes as we have apple cake with lemon & chocolate flecks for Baking Advent Calendar day 15.

This is another recipe from Honey & Co The Baking Book , the same book that I shared the pistachio and orange cakes from on day 10. For this recipe Sarit & Itamar describe it as the cake that they would choose above all others and as one if the favourites in their restaurant. It’s always popular here as well, there something about the subtle aniseed of the fennel seeds that works so well with the other flavours.

So there’s a cake on the cooling rack in my kitchen and hopefully the panic is over.

Ingredients

2tbsp whisky
Zest & juice of one lemon
2 small apples diced, skin on. Pink Lady apples work well.
40g dark chocolate
2 eggs
160g caster sugar
130ml vegetable oil
150g paling flour
1.5tsp baking powder
1tsp ground nutmeg
1tsp ground fennel seeds
pinch of salt

Method

Heat the oven to gas mark 4, grease and line a 1kg loaf tin.
Mix the whisky in a bowl with the lemon juice and zest. Dice the apples and toss them in the whisky & lemon mix
Chop the chocolate into slivers
Whisk the sugar and eggs until pale. Slowly pour in the oil and continue to whisk until combined.
Mix all of the dry ingredients together and them fold them into the egg & sugar mix until combined.
Fold in the apples along with the whisky and lemon. Then fold in the chocolate.
Pour into the lined tin and place in the oven.
Bake for 35 minutes, then turn the tin around and bake for a further 15 minutes. If your oven runs hot it might be advisable to cover the cake with foil for the last part of the bake.
Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then turn onto a rack.

Baking Advent Calendar day 14

A busy weekend of preparing for Christmas and seeing my family has made me realise just how close it’s getting. Cards are arriving and we’ve exchanged presents today with some family members who we won’t be seeing over the holidays. It’s definitely time to start thinking about Christmas food.

After all of the sweet indulgence of the last few days I’m switching back to a savoury bake for Baking Advent Calendar day 14. As we get closer to Christmas this is a bake that I always do as I know that there will be a lot of cheese in the house. Cheese and olives are a great combination and having those olives in a thin crispy breadstick seems even better. These breadsticks work well with a cheeseboard at the end of a meal, but are just as delicious if offered as something to nibble on with a glass of something good. Another of the advantages of this bake is that the breadsticks store well so they can be baked well in advance if you want them for the big day.

This recipe makes 18 breadsticks

Ingredients

500g strong white bread flour
10g salt
10g instant yeast
400ml tepid water
2tbsp olive oil
500g pitted green olives

Method

Put the flour, salt & yeast in a mixer with a dough hook. Add three quarters of the water and xix on a low speed. As the dough comes together slowly add the remaining water as you continue to mix.
Mix for 5 to 8 minutes until the dough is wet and stretchy. Add the olive oil and mix for a further 2 minutes. Than add the olives and mix until well distributed.
Place the dough in a bowl and leave to prove for one hour.
Line a baking tray with parchment and heat the oven to gas mark 7.
Dust your work top with quite a lot of flour and tip the risen dough onto it. Then sprinkle more flour onto the dough and gently stretch it to a rectangle. The dough may seem quite wet but don’t worry, it’s meant to be that way. You are aiming to tech the dough to a rectangle that can be cut into approximately eighteen 10cm long strips.
Place the strips on a the lined tray and bake for 10 to 15 minutes. I find it best to do six strips at a time as they will expand during baking. Don’t worry if the sticks look crooked or are not all the same shape. Just tell people there are a ‘rustic’ bake
Leave to cool on a wire rack

Baking Advent Calendar day 13

For Baking Advent Calendar day 13 lets talk about cupcakes. Normally these are far from being my favourite baked item. The shop bought variety always feel as if far more thought has been given to the design and look of them as to what the finished item will actually tastes like. I find they are usually an over abundance of sweetened cream balanced on top of an often unexciting cake.

I’d never bothered to bake any at home until I saw that AgathaChocolats had put a chocolate cupcake challenge on Twitter. Agatha is a confirmed chocoholic and her challenge was to post a picture of your chocolate cupcake bakes and she would pick a winner.

I decided that I wanted a cupcake where the cake itself was the key flavour with the topping complimenting it. With that in mind I opted for rich dark chocolate cakes topped with a swirl of vanilla cream and I’m pleased to say that my cakes were picked as the winners.

This recipe makes 18 cakes. If that’s more than you want just half everything

Ingredients for the cakes

200g dark chocolate, cut into pieces
250g unsalted butter
4.5 tsp cocoa powder
6 eggs, separated
225g caster sugar
165gm plain flour
pinch of salt

Ingredients for the icing

125g unsalted butter
150g icing sugar
1 tbsp milk
tsp vanilla extract

Method for the cake

Preheat the oven to gas mark 3 and fill a muffin tin with paper liners.
In a saucepan melt the pieces of chocolate with the butter and cocoa powder
Whisk the egg yolks and the sugar until thick and pale
Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form
Combine the flour and salt in a bowl, then gradually add them to the egg yolk and sugar mix
Pour in the chocolate mix while stirring, then gently fold in the whisked egg whites.
Pour the batter into the paper liners in the muffin tin and bake for 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Method for the icing

Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth. I find this works best in a food mixer.
Add the milk & vanilla and beat again
Once the cakes are completely cool either pipe the icing on top of the cakes if you want a swirl or just use a spatula.
I then sprinkled some edible petals on top for a final touch.

Baking Advent Calendar day 12

I’m very well aware that a baking blog is not really the place to discuss politics, so I’ll restrict myself to saying that yesterdays UK election left me somewhat depressed and as a result I think that a sweet treat is called for. That’s why we’re having raspberry cream eclairs for Baking Advent Calendar day 12.

I always used to think of eclairs as one of those shop bought or restaurant only baked items. That dates all the way back to childhood when the mixture of crips chocolate on top and cream in the middle always made them my first choice. Then a couple of years ago I discovered how to make choux pastry and they became something that could be indulged in at home as well.

Choux is a very light pastry that only uses butter, water, flour and eggs. Unlike other pastries there is no raising agent involved when you make it. According to legend it’s a recipe that was originally created by a chef in the kitchen of Catherine de Medici in 1540. Although I’m always a bit wary about food history when it tries to be that precise with dates.

This recipe makes 8 to 10 eclairs and they’re good enough to chase away anyones election blues.

Ingredients – choux pastry

100g butter
100g plain flour
0.5tsp caster sugar
pinch of salt
3 eggs, lightly beaten

Ingredients – for filling and topping

200ml double cream
2tbsp icing sugar
200g raspberries
150g dark chocolate
15g butter

Method

To make the choux put the butter in a saucepan with 200ml of water and melt the butter over a gentle heat. Then increase the heat to bring to the boil. Sift the flour, sugar and salt into a bowl. Take the saucepan of the heat and add the flour mix. Stir until it forms a paste. Then beat the mixture until it comes away from the edge of the saucepan and forms a ball. Leave to cool for ten minutes.
Heat the oven to gas mark 6 and line a baking sheet with parchment.
Put the dough into a piping bag with a 1cm nozzle. Pipe a 10cm line onto the baking sheet. Pipe a second line parallel to the first and then a third line that sits on top of these two. This will form one eclair. Repeat 8 to 10 times.
Bake for 25 minutes.
When you takes the buns out of the oven pierce the sides with a sharp knife. This stops them going soggy as they cool.
Whip the cream and fold in the sugar. Add the raspberries to the cream and whip again.
Cut each cooled eclair in half horizontally. Spread raspberry cream on the bottom half. Place the top half back on to form a sandwich.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water and then drizzle it on top of each eclair. For a finishing touch I add some dried raspberries.
Leave the chocolate to set (put them in the fridge if you’re getting impatient by now) and then serve.

Baking Advent Calendar day 11

For Baking Advent Calendar Day 11 I’ve been into what is relatively unchartered territory for me. My partner recently acquired The New Vegan by Aine Carlin and has been trying to persuade me to cook something from it. To be honest I didn’t have a great deal of enthusiasm , but when she pointed out that the book contains baking recipes as well I thought now was the time to take the plunge. I did do a vegan bake to tie in with the vegan week that they had in last years Great British Bake Off but that’s as far as my experience goes. The bake that I opted for today is a spiced molasses bundt bread and it’s currently on a cooling rack in my kitchen. If it tastes as good as it smells I think I might have found a winner.

If you look at the list of ingredients below you’ll see that I didn’t make life easy for myself with this. I like to think that I have a fairly well stocked pantry but it did need a shopping expedition to get some buckwheat flour and blackstrap molasses before I could bake. The second of those items was completely new to me. Apparently it’s a byproduct of sugar cane refining and is only 45% sugar content as opposed to 70% for ordinary molasses. Another unusual ingredient is butternut squash but we did already have one of those in the fridge that needed using up.

Ingredients

170g plain flour
90g buckwheat flour
150g light brown sugar
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
0.5 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp allspice
0.5tsp of grated nutmeg
0.5tsp ground ginger
200g butternut squash puree
60ml olive oil
60ml blackstrap molasses
1 tsp vanilla extract.

Method

To make the puree. Heat the oven to gas mark 6. Cut the butternut squash in half and remove the seeds. Place each half of the squash flesh side down on a baking tray. Add a little water, cover with tin foil and bake for an hour. After removing from the oven leave to cool until the squash can be handled, then spoon out the soft baked flesh. Place the flesh in a blender and blitz to a soft puree.
After making the puree set the oven to gas mark 3 and grease the bundt tin that you are going to use.
Stir the flours, bicarb, baking powder, salt and spices in a large bowl.
In a separate bowl whisk the puree, oil, molasses, vanilla and 60ml of water until smooth.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and gently fold in.
Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes.
Leave to cool for 10 minutes then turn out of the tin

Baking Advent Calendar day 10

To be honest with you when I started this exercise I thought I was being a bit ambitious and that there might be some gaps that I’d have to try and count for, but so far so good and we’ve made it to Baking Advent Calendar day 10 without a break.. Today’s bake is orange and pistachio cakes, or more specially in the original recipe blood orange and pistachio cakes.

As you would expect the flesh of blood oranges is a much darker colour than that of normal varieties and I find that the taste is richer and sweeter. It’s this dark colour that makes blood oranges the best ones to use for these cakes.

Blood oranges are grown in southern mediterranean areas and if their availability in the UK is anything to go by they have a fairly short season. I find they tend to only be in the shops in late winter through to mid spring. If you do go looking for them you’ll sometimes find shops call them blush oranges. Presumably that’s because some people are be a bit squeamish about a food item with blood in it’s name.

The recipe I use for making these cakes is from Honey & Co-The Baking Book by Sarit Packer & Itamar Srulovich. This book is full of recipes that reflect Sarit & Itamar’s Middle Eastern heritage and is a joy to bake from. I’ve yet to visit the Honey & Co restaurant that they own in London but it’s high on my wish list

This recipe makes 10 muffin size cakes.

Ingredients for the cakes

250g unsalted butter
250g caster sugar
zest of 1 orange (ideally a blood orange)
125g ground almonds
125g ground pistachios
4 eggs
250g self raising flour
pinch of salt

Ingredients for the topping

120g caster sugar
1 tbsp cornflour
3 to 4 oranges (ideally blood oranges

Method

Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and grease the baking tray or muffin tins that you are going to use.
Mix the sugar and cornflour for the topping together and put a teaspoon of the mix in each cup of the baking tin. Shake the tin to ensure the sugar covers the base.
Use a sharp knife to cut away the skin from the oranges. Cut each orange horizontally into four slices. Place a slice in the bottom of each cup on the baking tray.
Cream together the butter, sugar and orange zest until pale and fluffy. Add the ground pistachios and almonds and mix. Add the eggs one at a time, mix to combine each egg before adding the next.
Add the flour and salt and mix until you have a smooth batter.
Place the batter into each of the cups on your baking tray.
Place the tray in the over and bake for 15 minutes, then turn the tray around and bake for a further 10 to 15 minutes. This should ensure an even bake.
Leave the cakes to cool in the tray for 5 to 10 minutes then turn them out so that the orange is on top. If you leave them to cool for longer than this it increases the risk of the orange sticking and the cakes not being intact when you turn them out.

Baking Advent Calendar day 9

For Baking Advent Calendar day 9 I’m sharing tahini lemon biscuits. I had a chance for a quick today and as the request was for sweet, but not too sweet, I went for these. Tahini is a paste made from sesame and if that were the key ingredient these biscuits could be quite bitter. However balanced with the sugar and lemon zest the flavour is mellowed and the result is a quite delicate shortcrust biscuit.

If you’re reading this in the US or Canada you’ll probably want to call these cookies. I’ve been asked a few times since I started posting if there is a difference between the two and I really don’t think that there is. We do get cookies in the UK but they tend to be sold in places like Starbucks or Costa and from my experience are closer to cakes in texture than biscuits. It’s also worth remembering that you can get savoury biscuits as well and I’ll be making some of those in the run up Christmas so that we can eat them with cheese.

This one is a perfect midweek quick recipe with the whole thing done and dusted within 30 minutes.

Ingredients – makes approximately 20 biscuits. It depends on what size you want your biscuits to be.

120g unsalted softened butter
120g tahini *
120g caster or granulated sugar
Zest of two lemons
240g plain flour
1tsp baking powder

Method

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and line a baking tray with baking parchment
Cream the butter, tahini and sugar together until pale. Then mix in the lemon zest
In a separate bowl combine the flour and baking powder. Stir this into the wet mixture, mash with the back of a spoon to combine.
Roll out 20 balls of the mixture and place them on a baking tray. Use a fork to gently flatten each ball to a disc about 1cm thick. Don’t worry if they crack at the edges. It will add to the rustic look once they’ve been baked.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. The edges should be golden brown when you take the biscuits out of the oven.
When the biscuits first come out of the oven they will be very crumbly so it’s important that you leave them on the baking tray to cool. Once cooled they will be firm and easy to move.

* As tahini is quite a strong taste it might be worth reducing the amount the first time that you bake these. You can always add more on a future bake.