baking

Naan Bread

- Alex 1 Comment

IMG_0841

This is my go-to naan bread recipe that I use whenever I need a flatbread.  It doesn’t have to go with a curry and they’re quick enough to put together for any mid-week meal.  This recipe comes from The Big Book of Bread which I won a few years ago through the excellent Baking Mad website. This is an English site run by the Allinson flour people but it’s a great resource and worth checking out wherever you are.

Take 300g of strong white flour and add 1½ tsp of dried yeast and 1 tsp of salt. If making this by hand, make a well in the centre and add the wet ingredients. If you’re using a stand mixer, you can get away with just dumping everything in the bowl! Add 4 tbsp of natural yoghurt, 1 tbsp of neutral vegetable oil (the recipe specifies sunflower but we rarely have this at home so I often use peanut oil – you just don’t want anything with a strong flavour so leave your best extra virgin olive oil in the cupboard …). Mix this together and blend in 125mL of warm milk to make a soft dough.

I usually add a 1 tsp of nigella (kalonji) seeds to the mix too. Or you can sprinkle them over the naan before baking. Or you can add a clove of crushed garlic, a teaspoon of ground coriander … you get the idea.

When the dough has come together and been kneaded (by either you or the machine) leave the dough for an hour or so to rise.

Preheat your oven and your baking trays to HOT (I usually go for 220°C fan, the recipe specifies 230°C convection). Make sure you preheat the baking trays – it helps the naan cook more quickly and prevents them from sticking.

Punch down the risen dough, knead it and divide it in to four. Roll out and stretch each quarter into a tear drop shape. The recipe specifies leaving the naan, covered, for 15 minutes. I rarely do that because by the time I finish rolling them out and getting them on trays I figure that’s rest enough. If you’re organised enough, brush the naan with melted butter or ghee before baking.

Baking for 10 minutes – the naan will be puffed up and golden. Wrap them in a clean tea towel and serve.

The naan will keep til the next day but they are better eaten straight away. They are just such an improvement on the shop bought ones that you’ll never go back!

Coffee Poppy Seed Cake

- Alex 6 Comments

Coffee & Poppyseed Cake

You know how sometimes a coffee cake doesn’t have any coffee in it? It’s actually a cake to eat with coffee and the whole thing turns in to a disappointing experience?

Well, this is not that cake. A few weeks ago Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall published some coffee recipes in the Guardian and one of them was this cake, complete with coffee, poppy seeds and a very syrupy glaze/icing.

I can’t remember the last time I made a cake with poppy seeds in, even though I like them (both the poppy seeds and the cakes!) and I’m always thinking I should be a little more diverse in my cake making. Poppy seeds, like sesame seeds, are one of those things that can go off. They need to be stored in cool, dark places and used relatively quickly, otherwise they can go a bit rancid – and that’s not what you want in cake.

This is a simple recipe and is almost a one bowl wonder.

Begin by soaking, for at least 2 hours, 100g of poppy seeds in 80g of mascarpone (the recipe specifies sour cream, but I had mascarpone in the fridge). The poppy seeds soaked up all the mascarpone and it became quite a stiff mixture.

Preheat oven to 170°C and grease and baseline a 22cm spring form tin.

If you’re so inclined you can sift the dry ingredients first: 150g plain flour, 1 tsp bicarb, 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp of cinnamon and a pinch of salt. If you’re making this by hand (that is, without the kitchen trickery that is a food processor or a stand mixer) make the effort. Even with gadgets to hand, I’m starting to do more and more sifting …

Now cream 150g of unsalted butter with 250g of caster sugar, before mixing in three eggs, one at a time. Ensure each egg is well beaten in before adding the next. Mix in a 1 tsp vanilla essence and 40mL of espresso coffee. If you don’t have a coffee maker to hand, make up some really really strong coffee and use that.

Add in the flour a bit at a time, alternating this with the poppy seed/mascarpone mix. Mix until just combined and then spoon in to the tin and bake for 35-40 minutes (until the toothpick comes out clean).

Allow to cool for a little in the tin and then cool completely on a cake rack.

Now, for the icing HFW suggests using 125g of icing sugar (definitely sift this – it makes your life so much easier and your icing a lot less lumpy) and 50 mL of espresso. I did this but we found this icing too runny and, by the time it had soaked through the cake, it made the whole thing far too sweet. So I suggest making your favourite icing and adding a bit of coffee to it. Or dust it with icing sugar before serving – the poppy seeds make it quite an attractive cake even without icing so there’s no need to go mad.

I personally thought that the cake had a good coffee flavour which was accentuated by the cinnamon. The universal opinion was that it was too sweet and I really regretted making the icing.

So while I’ll definitely be making the cake again I’ll be passing on the icing.

Baked Chocolate Mousse

- Alex 4 Comments

chocolate mousse cake

Yet another outing for James Martin’s Desserts*. This time it was his recipe for baked chocolate mousse, which he bigs up as “one of the best in the book”.

Given such a billing I’m not sure why I haven’t made it before … maybe it’s because the recipe looked as though it involved a few too many bowls, or looks like it might be a bit complicated. Well, the first is true, but getting from start to finish is both easy (well, easy if you’re reasonably handy in the kitchen – I wouldn’t try this as your first ever baking exercise) and quick.

Preheat your oven to 180°C and grease and base line a 20cm spring form tin.

Bowl number 1: melt 300g dark chocolate with 150g of unsalted butter. Be brave and use the microwave!

Bowl number 2: whisk 6 egg yolks with 2 tbsp of caster sugar. Martin specifies for 30 seconds but I’m sure I didn’t have a timer on when I did this! Just think briefly! Also I used my KitchenAid for this step because it’s a good, big bowl … perfect for later in the recipe. Stir in the butter and chocolate and mix well.

Bowl number 3: beat 6 egg whites to soft peaks and then whisk in 50g of caster sugar and continue beating until the mixture is very stiff (I used the whisk attachment on my stab mixer). As is always the case when doing this kind of thing, ensure the bowl is clean (grease free is very important) and dry before you start.

Gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate mix. Don’t do it all at once: take generous spoonfuls of the egg white, fold it in well and repeat.

Once well combined, pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for ~ 20 minutes. The top should be set but it will still be a bit wobbly and yes, it will collapse. That’s OK, it’s not a normal cake!

Allow to cool before serving but DON’T put this in the fridge (it will go rock solid which is not the look you’re after).

At the very moment of serving, you can lightly dust the cake with icing sugar (if you do this too early the cake will just absorb the icing sugar and you’ll have to start dusting again). Serve with whipped (or thick) cream and, if you can bothered, raspberry coulis.

We had this at our family Easter lunch and not only was it demolished but I was also asked for the recipe several times. Aside from the washing up, this is easy, tasty and, as an added bonus, happens to be gluten free!

*Also available from Amazon UK, Amazon US and internationally from The Book Depository.