A bread with a difficult name!

Mandira: I have eaten bread all my life but never baked it. Recently Lakshmi introduced me to Focaccia. I wasn’t too kicked about it. A bread with a name I couldn’t pronounce wouldn’t be easy to make I was sure. As it turned out, I was wrong! Not only was it easy, it was pretty quick too! So without further ado, we present to you the bread of the month-Focaccia!

Lakshmi: I insist there be further “ado” or the likes of it  :D . 

Mandira and I first met at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. We were two harrowed individuals, with a particular “forever” expression of “What have we gotten ourselves into?”. We bonded on our first rural camp visit where we were one of the four girls to be banished to a remote ”pada” called Dhengarchuan in a village called Dharama in Chattisgarh. We bonded over several things from missing loos, scary bears, 10 unsuccessful ways to avoid yet another steaming cup of sugar water that goes by the name chai, explaining how we continue to live inspite of having rice portions that looked like ”starvation unto death protests” to people living in the village, 100 unsuccessful ways to avoid bamboo delicacies specially served to guests and so on. But we never ever broke bread together. And we never ever ever ever discussed cooking or baking. Our only discussion on food was to come up with innovative ways to thrash the stuff that was dished out at the Canteen in the name of food. 

Thank god for the internet, Gmail and WordPress – our “buddiness” has grown, we’ve moved beyond our temporary obsession with social work and some related and unrelated sarcasm to doing more useful things like baking together!

Now after all that unrelated “ado” that hopefully made for some good reading, let’s get back to the Focaccia. Follow this link for Focaccia pronounciation. Foe-Ka-Che-Ya. I’ve made several focaccia recipes but this is the one that I use most frequently followed by a Poolish Whole Wheat Focaccia (that takes more planning in advance).  

Ingredients and Method: The ingredients and method can be found here 

Source: Lakshmi found this recipe at Delicious Days.
 

Lakshmi’s notes: I have made this recipe multiple times with success each of those times. Its super delicious, rustic looking focaccia, with a crunchy crust and airy texture. 

The dough is super sticky and super loose. It looks like a cartoon monster of sorts – a big blop. You won’t be able to knead it. Oil the container that you use for proofing the dough well.

The bread can be made after a few hours in a warm place outside. But the most important thing about getting the perfect flavour in this recipe is to get the dough to rise slowly. Cold fermentation helps in getting that crunchy crust. I would recommend keeping the dough out for 2 hours or until doubled in volume, followed by overnight refridgeration, followed by 1- 2 hours outside in a warm place. I was in Bangalore when I made it this time - at amma’s place. And the outside seemed far too cool for the dough to rise if it was kept immediately in the fridge and taken out later two hours before bake. I kept oscillating between putting it in the fridge and keeping it outside. I wasn’t sure if it would rise inside the fridge (which it usually does, slowly, when I’m in Chennai ). So I kept it for 2 hours until it doubled outside and then put it in the fridge overnight. When I took it out the next day the dough hadn’t risen a millimeter beyond last night. Thank god, I proofed it before it went inside the fridge!!!  

I add 1 tbsp of honey to the tepid water before dissolving the yeast. Apart from feeding the yeast, it also helps retain sweetness in the bread. Yeast sometimes tends to mop around if there’s too much to eat. If your yeast is of the lazy variety (!!!), who’ll slouch around instead of working on the dough, I’d recommend adding the 1 tbsp honey after the yeast has frothed and has been dissolved in the tepid water. I have usually not had any issues with fresh yeast or dry yeast that’s less than 2 weeks old refridgerated. Beyond this yeast, I think yeast just gets spoilt with the cold comforts of refridgeration.

Traditionally Focaccia is topped with sea salt and rosemary.  But you can top Focaccia with almost anything you fancy. This link provides an idea of when to top focaccia with what. It helps you develop combinations based on your taste and preference. The recipe we followed has no final proofing, so it can be topped with almost anything just before bake. I usually don’t add lots of veggies, instead I roast them separately and top while serving.  My favourite is garlic and rosemary or basil with 4-5 tbsp olive oil. 

Mandira’s notes: I got this bread right in the second attempt. The first time I tried keeping it in the fridge overnight and then baking it (after keeping it in a warm place for about 2 hours) but it didn’t rise too much. The next time I tried it I placed the dough in a warm place for about 5 hours and then refrigerated it -mainly cause I dint want to bake at 10 pm!!. I baked the bread the next morning(after keeping it out for 2 hours) and the results were good. I modified the recipe and replaced about 50% of the all purpose flour with wheat flour(atta). I found the bread a little dry on the inside and I think this can be improved by adding more water and adding a teaspoon or two of olive oil in the dough itself, instead of only pouring some on top prior to baking.

I used garlic and oregano to top the bread.

Sponge cake with a twist

This is an all time favourite. It’s simple (Lakshmi: !!!!!!!, its not simple until you know how to get it right), quick and low on calories and it is a cake! Does it get better than this?

Ingredients

• Eggs – 4
• All Purpose Flour – 100 gms
• Sugar – 100 gms
• Baking Powder – ½ tsp
• A few drops of vanilla essence

Method:

• Grease and line an 8″ cake tin. (Note that one needs to use a cake tin, not glassware. Glassware in this recipe does not work too well because glass is slippery)
• Sieve the flour and the baking powder together, three times.
• Break the eggs in a bowl. Add sugar and whisk over a pan of warm water till the mixture becomes thick and frothy and a definite trail is left when the whisk is removed.
• Fold the sieved flour a little at a time till all the flour is used us. Tip: Sieve flour and fold with a flat ladle to avoid lumps.
• Add the essence and mix well. Tip: This cake is very eggy, add essence enough to remove the eggy smell.
• Pour the mixture into the greased tin and bake at 170 Deg C for around 20 minutes till the cake is well done and golden brown on top. Tip: Oven timings may vary. Do not peep in before the first 20 minutes, or until the top starts to turn brown unless you want a sunken center.
• Keep till the cake is golden brown on top and well set. To test, press the cake lightly. If it springs back, the cake is done. Do not do a toothpick or tester in the center test!!
• Remove from oven immediately and allow to cool. Use a knife to loosen the sides and take cake out of the pan.

Source: This recipe was learnt by Mandira during one of her summer vacation hobby classes. This is the basic recipe but since sponge cake lends itself it may variations, you can make whatever you choose to make out of the basic cake!

Lakshmi’s notes:

I got this right only the third time, I did not make any modifications to the recipe – just used my brains to follow instructions more carefully and paid more attention to the consistency of batter.

This particular recipe has just about half the flour-sugar content for 4 eggs as compared to other recipes. How you whisk the eggs, how much and consistency is of great great great importance. Well whisked eggs+sugar will seem thick but also increased in volume and frothy.

Fold the flour in – DO NOT WHISK in any direction what so ever. Fold using a spatula kind of flat ladle. Fold ever so lightly so you don’t break the air or hurt the volume.

When a recipe says whisk over warm water it means a water bath and not a double boiler. Do not keep water over flame. I did this and I am assuming there are few people out there who’d be as dumb as I was when I made this the first time. I got a naan like “something” with depressions and humps all over.

While whisking eggs, start at a slow speed, then move to high. Whisk for 5 whole minutes. You need to get that trail or you will end up with a sunken center like I did the second time.

This recipe is to be followed exactly – do not adapt or modify or reduce or increase anything. Follow as is unless you enjoy disasters in the kitchen. I din’t use a precise measuring scoop the second time. The third time I did – voila, cake rose even in center.

I’ve inserted my other tips thanks to my 2 disastrous attempts in the recipe.

Overall a delicious cake that has a beautiful crust and texture. As an added bonus, I think its like a toy – it springs back when pressed!!! It really does – – and its quite entertaining.

Mandira’s notes: The sponge cake can be converted into a pudding. There are loads of combinations that can be worked out with the cake. I made a crisp base using a packet of Glucose biscuits,a table spoon or two of butter, 2-4 tbsp of sugar and cold milk. Crush the biscuits. Soften the butter and using sufficient amounts of cold milk, make the crushed biscuits and sugar into a dough. Place this dough in a thin layer in a bowl and set in the fridge for 10 minutes. Using this as the base, cut and place pieces of the sponge cake. Pour over sufficient quantities of custard to cover all the cake pieces.

This cake was a major ego booster for me. It gave me the opportunity to teach Lakshmi a thing or two about baking- a rare occurance. Great stuff to gloat about!

Pizza-licious!

Who can resist oven fresh pizzas?? Here’s a step by step guide to make your very own, home baked pizzas. The original recipe is a result of research and experimentation carried out by Lakshmi who is obsessed with pizzas. It has been posted at The Yum Blog (her other blog) earlier.

The recipe yields a crust that is “neither too thin, nor too thick”and “crisp on the outside, soft inside” which works with us very well.

Pizza with Wasabi-Olive Oil Sauce Topped with Spinach, Onions, Tomatoes and Peppers with Mozzarella Cheese

Makes: Two 12 inch Pizzas

Ingredients

For the Base/ Crust/Pizza Dough

• Water – 1 cup
• All Purpose Flour – 2 1/2 cups (plus extra for dusting)
• Corn Flour – 3 tbsp
• Sugar – 1 tsp
• Honey – 1 tbsp
• Active Dry Yeast – 2 tsp
• Salt – 1 tsp
• Olive Oil – 3 tbsp
• Dried Herbs of Choice – 2 tbsp (optional)

For Topping

• Sauce of choice – 2 tbsp (or Olive Oil)
• Toppings of choice – 1 1/2 – 2 cups sliced and sauted (tossed in 4-5 tbsp of sauce of choice if you like)
• Cheese of choice – 1/2 cup (grated) (or 6 tbsp for each pizza)

Method

1. Warm 1 cup water. Water that you can dip your finger in is warm enough. Dissolve the sugar, add honey and yeast. Let it stand for 5 minutes. Dissolve the yeast.
2. Mix All Purpose Flour, Corn flour, Salt and Basil. Dissolve one cup of the flour mix to dissolved yeast. Add the second cup and combine by whisking in one circular direction with your hand. Add the remaining flour and whisk into a dough. Add the olive oil 1 tbsp at a time while combining into dough. The dough will be loose but well combined and smooth. The dough is not kneaded.
3. Divide the dough into two. Cover and let it rise in a warm place until its almost doubled. This should take about 1-2 hours.
4. Flour the pizza pan. Preheat oven to 250 degrees C.
5. Take one portion of the dough onto the pizza pan and using your palm pat into thin circular disk till it covers the pan. You can use a rolling pin. Dust with adequate flour while stretching. If the dough bounces back, let it rest for a while and stretch. Cut out any extra edges. The edges of the base should be slightly thicker. Using a fork prick all over the base.
6. Spread 1 tbsp of the Sauce. Spread Toppings. Bake for 10 – 15 minutes or until the crust turns golden or cheese starts to brown. Or bake the base for 5 minutes. Take out spread the sauce and toppings and bake for an additional 5 to 15 minutes. Your method will depend on choice of sauce/ toppings (the amount of water or liquid content) and how hot your oven can get.
7. Take out from oven and let pizza cool down before transferring to serving plate. Repeat with the remaining dough.
8. Slice into pieces and serve.

Whole wheat pizza with Garlic Olive Oil Sauce topped with Sun dried tomatoes, jalapenos and coloured peppers with cheddar cheese

Lakshmi’s notes:

Whisk the dough together. Do not knead like you do for rotis unless you want a tough chewy crust.

You can replace half of the AP flour with wheat flour. Be sure to increase the water by 1/2 cup. Pay attention to the dough consistency while determining water content, it needs to be loose. If you’re using 100% whole wheat you’ll need 1 cup of water for 1.5 cups of flour.

Dough kept overnight in the fridge (at least 12 hours) and rested about an 1 hour outside before baking produces better results. Reduce yeast to 1 tsp in this case. Its not necessary to allow dough to double before refridgeration, about 1 hour of rising time is sufficient.

Allowing the dough to rise too much can result in a bready pizza base rather than a thin crisp one. Dough that’s risen too much when rolled out thin will yield a hard biscuit and not a crust.

Incorporating more than the needed amount of dough while rolling out the pizza crust can lead to a very hard crust. Use only as much as needed to prevent dough from sticking while rolling out.

Pizza topped with corn, onion, tomato, bell pepper and loads of cheese

Mandira’s notes: I used a corn, onion, tomato and bell pepper topping, with loads and loads of cheese. The pizza turned out well. The only thing that went wrong was that I used Fun N Food Pasta and Pizza Sauce. That’s what killed the pizza. The sauce is so sour that its distracting. So whatever you do, don’t try this sauce. A thin layer of good old tomato ketchup would work better. I used Brittania cheese cubes because that’s what I had in the home but mozzarella would probably have been better.

I made the dough for the base time for the very first time and so I dint want to experiment too much. In terms of herbs, I stuck to good old oregano. I let the dough rise for around 6 hours and then kept it in the fridge. I rolled out one of the bases a little thin which made it hard and crusty. Fortunately the other one turned out fine.

Baked Samosas

Baked Samosas mean freedom of standing over oil. Samosas make fabulous appetizers and cocktail snacks. The original recipe has been handed down to Arundathi of My Food Blog by her mother who got it from her friend Vasumathi Shah. You can see that this is a recipe that likes to travel.

Makes: 20-24 Medium Samosas

Ingredients

For the Outer Covering

• Whole Wheat flour – 1 cup (use finely ground chapati flour)
• All purpose flour – 1 cup
• Butter – 1/4 cup
• Salt to taste
• Water to knead
• Extra Flour for dusting

For the Filling

• Onion – 1 (large) finely chopped
• Green Peas – 1/2 cup parboiled
• Potatoes – 4 (medium) boiled and mashed well
• Pudina – 12-15 leaves finely chopped
• Coriander – 2 twigs finely chopped
• Ginger – 1/4 inch finely chopped
• Garlic – 2 cloves minced
• Peanuts – 1/2 cup roasted
• Turmeric – 1/4 tsp
• Chilli Powder – 1/4 tsp (adjust to taste)
• Salt to taste
• Oil – 2 tsp

Method

1. Mix the flours and the salt in a large bowl.
2. Soften the butter and combine well into the flour mix in the bowl.
3. Add water little by little to make a firm dough. You do not need to knead it too much. Knead it till the dough comes together to form a ball.
4. Pat the dough into a circle and leave it to rest for 20 minutes.
5. Prepare the filling. Heat some oil, saute the ginger and garlic till garlic turns golden. Add onions and saute till translucent. Add Pudina, Coriander, Turmeric and Salt. After the water has reduced, add the boiled and mashed potatoes. Add Chilli Powder. Mix well and keep on flame for a minute. Cool the filling.
6. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. Grease an oven dish with 1 tbsp Oil or Butter.
7. Divide the dough into 20 – 24 balls, each about 1 inch in diameter.
8. Take one ball and shape the samosa with the filling. Samosas can be shaped in two ways: – Roll into a triangle. Place some filling in the center. Bring edges together and seal them to form a pyramid. Pictorial here.
   - Roll into a circle. Cut half way to center on one side. Fill in the filling in one semi circle. Shape into cone. Seal edges. Pictorial here.
9. Repeat with rest of the dough. Place samosas on greased oven dish and Bake at 220 for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

Serve hot with chutney or sauce of your choice.

Source: Original recipe has been posted by Arundathi at her food blog. Recipe has been modified to replace half of the All purpose flour with Whole wheat flour. Filling varies and in our humble opinions samosa fillings are meant to be creative.

Ensure the following:

1. The choice of filling is yours and it can be modified. The filling should be dry, mashed and should not be wet or high in water content. The filling should be cooked. Stickling to the filling in the original recipe will give you very authentic samosas. We used our creative juices.
2. The dough is not to be kneaded too much. Letting dough just come together ensures that your baked samosas have a flaky crisp exterior rather than just crisp or very hard ones. You know your dough is ready, when you can easily roll it out.
3. Dough must be allowed to rest for sometime, it helps to form gluten and it helps in rolling.
4. If your oven does not heat evenly from all sides, you will need to turn the samosa mid way for even baking on both sides.
5. Do not line your baking sheet or container for crisp results.

Lakshmi’s notes:

Half of the butter can be safely replaced with oil. It gives the same results though the samosas with more butter taste richer. Vegetables represent Indian sizes, a medium onion in India may be just half an onion elsewhere, please use your discretion to interpret how much is required. Oven timings may vary, watch out for the first time to note timings for your oven. About 2 tbsp of filling is an approximate amount of filling for each samosa. Leaving the dough to chill overnight in the fridge gives better results. Pat the dough into a disc before chilling. Bring dough to room temperature before rolling. Samosas can be made well in advance, since they’re baked, they don’t lose their crispiness.

Mandira’s Notes:I made these samosas with soup for dinner. We din’t want to do any elaborate cooking yet wanted to eat something “different” and this recipe fit the “simple n quick”bill very well. I added a few tiny cubes of paneer to the filling and instead of adding the pudina in the filling I used it to make a chutney to serve with the samosas. I am not fond of peanuts, so I skipped those all together. I substituted the butter in the dough with refined oil.

PS: people, please note how neat lakshmi’s samosas are and how totallllly outa shape mine are!

Cookie in the cookie jar

Rosie and Maria run a monthly event themes around Sweet and Simple bakes. Each month they present a recipe for people to try that month and post it on their blogs if they have one on the 1st of the subsequent month. The recipe to try in June 08 is Double Chocolate Cookies.

Who can resist chocolate? We tried our hand at cookies this weekend. Mandira made the original recipes, while Lakshmi substituted the egg to make eggless double chocolate chip cookies.

Ingredients

• Maida (all purpose flour) – 250 g
• Cocoa powder – 50 g
• Baking soda – 1/2 tsp
• Softened butter (unsalted) – 175 g
• Brown sugar – 200 g
• Caster sugar – 100 g
• Vanilla essence – 1tsp
• Chocolate chips – 300 g
• Eggs – 2 (lightly beaten)
  OR Butter – 25g (Substitute for Eggless version of these cookies)

Method

1. Keep the butter out of the fridge for sometime till it softens.
2. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda. Keep aside.
3. To the softened butter, add the caster and brown sugar, a little at a time and beat together till the mixture is well blended and light.
4. Lightly beat the eggs separately. Add these eggs to the butter-sugar mixture and beat well. Add the vanilla essence and mix. (Skip this step for Eggless Cookies)
5. Fold in the maida, cocoa powder and baking soda gradually to the mixture. Ensure the entire amount gets mixed well with the butter-sugar-egg batter to get a smooth dough.
6. Place this dough in the fridge for an hour, till it become firm.
7. Remove from fridge and make equal size balls of the dough. With a spoon or your palm slightly pat the tops of each of the balls to flatten them a bit.
8. Place on a baking sheet and bake in the over at 200 degree C for approximately 10-12 mins (till the edges begin to darken).
9. Remove from over and cool. Cooling allows the cookies to firm up and take a definite shape.
10. The recipe should give you 20-22 cookies ,depending on the size.

Source: The original recipe is at Sweet and Simple Bakes recipe and we are delighted to announce that the recipe is indeed as simple and good as we hoped it would be!! In fact, its better than good!

Lakshmi’s notes: I replaced the eggs with butter and the cookie held pretty well and were overall not crumbly.

I made double the recipe and used only 300 g of chocolate chips. I did not double them. There were still a lot of chocolate chips in each cookie!!

The eggless version’s dough will be quite firm after chilling. Use a melon baller or a scoop to scoop out portions and flatten to shape for cookies before baking. If you find it too firm, it will help to put a few tablespoons of milk to soften the dough.

The cookie spreads while baking, so flatten just a wee bit to shape before baking. When cookie spreads out too thin, the edges tend to crumble. So try a couple of cookies first to see how much they spread in your oven and shape the subsequent batches accordingly. This will also help you figure how much space to leave between each cookie so they don’t stick to each other while baking.

I made double the quantity – way too much for two people, do so only if you plan to be generous and distribute. We have approx 10g of butter in each eggless version of the cookie – tasty as they may be don’t indulge.

Mandira’s notes: I made half the quantity and comfortably made 11 cookies. I used the tray (the one that has thin rods and gaps in the middle..donno what they are called) to bake the cookies and that wasn’t a smart move. The dough is rather soft even after refrigerating. So when its put in the oven, pieces of the cookie will melt and fall off giving you odd- shaped cookies. They will taste as good but you’d be unnecessarily compromising on the look of the food. Its therefore best to use baking trays. In case you don’t have them, you can spread an aluminium foil over the rack-with-the-gaps and that should work just as well.

I especially bought chocolate chips for making these cookies but unfortunately when I opened the packet I discovered the shopkeeper had sold me old stock that had a strange after taste. On the my mother’s suggestion I added finely chopped walnuts instead of the chocolate chips. The walnuts went very well with the chocolate cookies.

I couldn’t find brown sugar so I substituted it with castor sugar. The results were the same.

Don’t expect the cookies to turn out very crisp. They are meant to be a little soft.

I took the cookies to office and everyone in the department loved them!! So its thumbs up for this recipe!