Honey n oats whole wheat bread

If you are regular to my blog you know how much I enjoy baking, specially breads. Proofing, mixing, rising, baking, the entire process makes me feel relaxed. This time I baked a whole wheat bread. You may have heard baking a whole wheat bread is tougher than a baking white flour bread. What's so different about whole wheat flour and white flour. The answer lies in a single word 'gluten', to understand the flour one should understand what gluten is.

Pizza margherita with no cook pizza sauce

I always find it really difficult to click  food photographs while two pairs of eyes are following me and silently asking when the food will be served. It is the one of the reason I avoid clicking my food during dinner time apart from the fact that I am much more comfortable shooting in day light.

Usually I cook and click when nobody is at home, I keep myself busy with my ingredients, camera, light and of course cooking. It's easy when I bake a cake or stir up a curry, those can be served later. But when it comes to food like pizza, which needs to go directly to the plate from the oven, I feel hesitant whether to click first or to serve. And the fun part is if I don't click before I serve the food, both the man and the little one will give me a curious look. And often I have been asked why didn't you click what you cooked?

This time things worked for me and my new personal pizza pan set saved me from my click or serve dilemma. I found these great 7 inch personal pizza pans from Home Goods. It's a good place to collect props for your food photography. Sometimes you get lucky and find something very useful like a set of four 7 inch personal pizza pans I got. Two of the pizza went straight to plate and two for my camera, end of the day a happy me.

So, it was the basic of all pizza, the margherita pizza for our dinner, and that too with a no cook pizza sauce. A quick easy one but loaded with flavors and "yammmy" as my little one says.

Things needed to make Pizza Margherita:

• A recipe for pizza dough  click here.
• No cook pizza sauce (recipe follows)
• Tomato slices
• Fresh mozzarella
• Fresh basil leaves
• Olive oil

Things needed to make no cook pizza sauce:

(adapted from finecooking.com and thekitchn.com)

• Tomato: 600 gm
• Garlic: 2 cloves
• Fresh basil: 1 tbsp
• Olive oil: 2 tbsp
• Honey: 1 tbsp
• Chili flakes: 1-2 tsp (optional)
• Salt to taste
• Black pepper powder for seasoning

Steps of making no cook pizza sauce:

1. Use fully ripe tomatoes or canned tomatoes for best result. If using whole tomatoes, dice the tomatoes and discard the seeds. Chop fresh basil.

2. Put all the ingredients for sauce in a blender and blend to a smooth paste, do not add any extra water. Check seasoning and adjust accordingly. I added a teaspoon of chili flakes to spice up the sauce, it is optional.

Assembling the Pizza:

1. Preheat oven to 475 F.

2. After punching down the dough, divide the dough into two equal halves. If you are using a 14 inch round pizza pan then work with one half. You can keep the other half for future use. Wrap the dough with cling film and store in refrigerator, for 2-3 days. Or you can divide the dough into 4 parts, as I did, for 4 personal 7 inch pizzas.

3. Dust the pizza pan (you can also use baking sheet) with flour or cornmeal, spread the dough on the pan evenly. Brush dough with olive oil. Cover the dough with a cling wrap and let it rise for 30 min at room temperature.

4. After 30 min the dough will rise again, spread the tomato sauce, arrange sliced tomato and fresh mozzarella and basil. As tomato releases water, after slicing the tomato shake off all the seeds and excess juice.

5. Cook the pizza in the middle rack for 15-20 min (if using a 14 inch pan), or for 10-12 min (if using a 7 inch pan) in the preheated oven. When the cheese bubbles up and few brown spots appear the pizza is done. Garnish with some fresh basil and serve hot.

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Pita and roasted red pepper hummus...

Pita and hummus, a Mediterranean food combo that has turned global now. As I'm already tardy on posting this particular post I don't want to discuss about the history and details of pita and hummus. If you are interested please go through this link below, it has a nice discussion both on pita and hummus. http://www.criticalskeptic.com/2012/05/08/post-4-the-history-of-pita-bread-and-hummus/ 

When I started baking bread at home, pita was the first bread I began my journey into the world of bread baking addiction. Thanks to Subrata da, who explained the process of pita making to me and provided endless encouragement to bake the first one. 

One can bake pita using an oven or on stove-top, I have explained both the options. I found the stove-top pitas retain their softness much longer and better than the oven made pitas.

Things needed to make Pita:

• Bread flour: 2 cups
• Active dry yeast: 2 tsp
• Warm water: 1 cup
• Olive oil: 1 tbsp
• Salt: 3/4 tsp
• Sugar: 1 tsp
• Extra flour to dust

Steps of making Pita:

1. Proof yeast. Add yeast and sugar to the warm water, mix well and cover for 10 min. It will turn frothy and will bubble up. Use a deep bowl to prevent spilling.

2. In a large deep container, add flour, salt and olive oil, mix well with a spatula. 

3. Make a well at the center, add yeast and mix.

5. Turn the dough to a floured surface. Knead dough, dust flour as you knead. But do not use too much of flour. Knead for 10 min.

6. Grease a large deep container, put the dough in the container. Turn dough to grease from all side. Cover and let the dough rise for 1-2 hrs or till it doubles. After the dough rises to double punch it down.

7. For the oven method: Divide the dough into 8-10 equal portions. Keep the dough in a greased container, cover with a damp cloth. Let the dough rise for 30-40 min. As the dough is rising pre-heat oven to 400F. It is preferable to use a pizza stone to bake pita, but a baking tray is also good enough. Put the baking tray or the pizza stone inside the oven while it is heating up.  Dust working surface with flour, roll each dough into round flat disk of 1/4 inch thickness. Put the rolled dough on the hot baking tray or pizza stone. Bake for 3-4 min, it will puff like a football. If you want brown spots on the pita, broil for 1-2 min.

8. For the stove-top method: Divide the dough into 12-14 equal portions. Keep the dough in a greased container, cover with a damp cloth. Let the dough rise for 30-40 min. Dust working surface with flour, roll each dough into round flat disk of 1/8 inch thickness. Heat a heavy bottom pan, a cast iron skillet works best. Put the rolled dough on the hot pan, it will start to bubble, turn the bread and wait it puffs up to a round football.

I made roasted red pepper hummus to go with the pita breads. You can make a plain hummus also. the process in same. Adding extra flavor like roasted red peppers, or jalapeno, or sun-dried tomato, chipotle, artichoke makes the hummus more versatile. Flavoring options are endless, try different flavors each time you make them.

Things needed to make Roasted Red Pepper Hummus:

• Canned chickpea/garbanzo beans: 1 can
• Tahini: 2 tbsp*
• Lime juice: 3 tbsp
• Garlic: 1 clove (chopped)
• Olive oil: 2 tbsp
• Red bell pepper: 1
• Salt to taste
• Black pepper powder to taste

(*Tahini is a paste made from toasted white sesame seeds and olive oil, I have added the recipe for your reference)

Steps of making Roasted Red Pepper Hummus:

1. If you are using canned chickpea, strain the chickpea and reserve half of the liquid.

2. If you are using dry chickpea, soak the chickpea overnight, wash them well, cook till soft (preferable using a pressure cooker). Strain the chickpea and let it cool down and reserve the liquid.

3. Roasting a red pepper. Pre-heat oven to 350F. Wash a large red pepper, wipe it dry with a kitchen towel. Grease the pepper with olive oil. Cook the pepper in the pre-heated oven for 20-25 min, turning once or twice. Broil for 5-7 min, till black spots appear on the pepper.

Take it out of the oven, keep it in a paper bag for 15 min. Cut off the stem, peel the skin, discard seeds and membrane from inside. Chop the roasted pepper into small pieces.

4. For the hummus grind all the ingredients in a food processor, till creamy and smooth. Add the reserved liquid as required while grinding, but not in excess.

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Tahini recipe:

(Recipe courtesy about.com)

Sesame seed: 5 cup

Olive oil: 1 and 1/2 cup

Toast sesame seeds for 5-10 min, take care not to brown the seeds. Cool down and make a paste with olive oil. Make thick but pour-able paste. The above mentioned measurement will yield 4 cups of tahini. Store tahini in an air tight container in the refrigerator. It will stay good for 3 months. 

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You can cut the pita bread into small pieces and serve along with hummus or other dips. Or you can cut the pita bread into two halves, put filling of your choice inside the pockets and enjoy your pita pockets.

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Pull apart bread...the second

By now many of you must be acquainted with my bread baking addiction. Once you are in the world of yeast, flour, measuring cups and baking tools, it is difficult to resist to bake the next one. 

This time it was a pull apart bread.

I like pull apart breads, as it is fun making and is a snack in itself. Various different fillings between the layers add flavors to the bread, making the bread versatile and individual pieces of the bread can be pulled apart rather than cutting it.

Generally pull apart breads are shaped like a loaf or a round, but you can give it any shape and use numerous combination of filling to your pull apart. The first pull apart I posted was with roasted garlic and sun-dried tomato. This one was flavored with roasted red bell peppers, cheese and fresh parsley. I added beer to the dough to make the dough softer and flavorful. The addition of beer was a great success. The bread was fluffier, softer and the dough took less time to rise. Though adding beer to the dough was a success, can't say the same for the choice of cheese this time. The cheese I used for the filling was store bought cottage cheese and I feel it is not a good choice for pull apart bread. First of all it does not impart any extra flavor and secondly the pieces of cheese exposed on the top turned very hard after baking.

So my inference is- grabbing a bottle of beer from the man's stock was a good choice, but using store bought cottage cheese (just because it's going to expire within three days) was not at all good. I will recommend using  mozzarella or cheddar or monterey jack or goat cheese etc as the filling.

Here I have tried my best to explain the baking procedure with step by step pictures. You can also check the other pull apart bread recipe.

Things needed to make Pull Apart Bread:

• Flour: 3 cups
• Active dry yeast: 2.5 tsp
• Warm water: 3/4 cup
• Sugar: 1 tsp
• Salt: 2 tsp
• Butter: 5 tbsp (divided)
• Beer: 1/4 cup
• Garlic powder: 1 tsp
• Red bell pepper: 1 large
• Cheese of your choice 
• Fresh parsley (finely chopped): 3-4 tbsp
• Honey: 1 tbsp
• Freshly ground black pepper: to taste
• Extra flour to dust

Steps of making Pull Apart Bread:

1. Proof yeast. Mix yeast, warm water and sugar, cover and wait for 10 min, till it bubbles up.

2. In a cup or pan warm beer and 3 tablespoon butter, cool down and bring it to room temperature.

3. In a large bowl add 1 cup flour, salt, garlic powder, beer and butter mixture, mix well. Add the proofed yeast. Mix well. Gradually add the rest of the flour till the mixture comes together and no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl. Drop the dough on a lightly floured working surface. Knead for 10 min. Dust flour as you work, so the dough does not stick to your hand.

4. Grease a large container, put the dough in the container. Turn the dough to coat oil from all sides. Cover and let it rise to double in size, about 1-2 hrs depending on the room temperature.

5. As the dough rising prepare the filling. I roasted a red bell pepper. Pre-heat oven to 350F. Clean and wash the bell pepper. Pat dry the pepper and coat well with EVOO. Place on a baking sheet and cook for 20-25 min in the pre-heated oven. Turn the pepper in between. Broil for 5-7 min. Switch off oven and keep the bell peppers in a paper bag. Let the peppers cool down. Peel the skin off, discard seeds and pulp. Chop into small pieces.

6. Mix roasted peppers, cheese, honey, chopped parsley, black pepper powder. You can always use some other filling for your pull apart bread.

7. After the dough doubles in size, punch down the dough. Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface.

8. Melt rest of the butter and brush melted butter on the rolled dough.

9. Spread filling on the dough.

10. Cut the dough into thin long strips.

11. Stack the strips one above the other.

12. Cut into the stacked dough into pieces.

13. Grease a 9X5 inch loaf pan. Arrange the cut dough pieces in the pan, cut side down.

14. Cover the pan with a wet towel and let the dough rise for 30 min.

15. Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Bake for 30-35 min on the middle rack. Let cool down on a wire rack. Enjoy your pull apart.

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Homemade burger bun...

Lot of people have asked  me, why do I need to make bread at home when they are readily available in stores. My answer is unless you try your hand at it you will never know. First of all, I love baking, though a late starter, I have fallen for it completely. And it gives me an immense pleasure when all the effort comes together and I end up with a perfect well done bread.

And  the second reason, which I feel far  more important that the first one. Just go through the ingredients list of the bread you have bought. I'm sure you will need to Google for a lot of them, as you probably haven't heard of them before. Unfortunately most of them are preservatives to increase the shelf life of the bread.

Like most of the kids  of her age, my daughter loves burgers. Every-time we pass by a burger joint, she feels hungry, even if it's just after the lunch or dinner. So when on Mother's day my little one surprised me with a beautiful ceramic paper weight shaped like a star fish and  a few pretty  looking cards saying "Mom I love you", I promised her the best burger as her treat.

I followed the braided bread or challah bread recipe to make the dough. This dough, can be used for making several different breads, like burger buns, dinner knots, sweet cinnamon rolls etc. Today it was burger buns time.

Things needed to make Homemade Burger:

For the Burger Bun:

• Bread flour: 4 cups and more to dust
• Dry yeast: 2.5 tsp
• Sugar: 1/2 tsp
• Water (warm): 1 cup
• Salt: 1/2 tbsp
• Honey: 1/4 cup
• Eggs: 2
• Butter or olive oil: 1/3 cup
• Egg wash: 1 egg + 1 tbsp water
• Sesame seeds to sprinkle (optional)

Steps of making the Burger Buns:

1. Proof the yeast: Take the yeast, 1/4 cup warm water, sugar in a deep bowl, mix well. Cover and let the yeast stand at room temperature until foamy (about 10 min). The water should be just warm to touch, not hot.

2. In a large, deep mixing bowl add 1 cup bread flour, eggs, honey, butter (or oil, whichever you are using, I used butter), and rest of the water, mix well with a dough whisk (a ladle also works good) till no lumps.

Add the yeast and mix well. Add the remaining bread flour 1/2 cup at a time, until a soft dough is formed that pulls away from the sides of the mixing bowl.  As I do not have a stand mixer, I used my hand to make the dough. You can use a heavy duty stand mixer like Kitchen Aid, in that case use the paddle attachment.

3. Lightly flour the kitchen counter or any work surface ( I used a large wooden chopping board), turn the dough on the floured work surface. Knead the dough, stretch it, fold it, turn it 90 degree and repeat. Knead for 7-8 min by hand. Keep dusting the work surface with flour to prevent the dough from sticking to hand and to the work surface.

4. Grease a large and deep container, place the dough and turn once to grease the top. Cover the container and let the dough rise at room temperature until double is size, about 2 hrs. Punch down the dough and cover the container and let the dough rise again for 1 hr. If you are in hurry you can skip the second rise, but for a better flavor let the dough rise for the second time.

5. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Take out the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Divide the dough into two equal halves.

6. Divide each half into 6 equal portions. Make balls from each portions. Roll the dough with cupped hand until smooth and perfectly round. Place the shaped dough on the baking sheet, with smooth side up. Repeat the same for other portions of the dough and place them at least 2 inches apart from each other. Flatten each dough with the palm. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise for 20-25 min at room temperature. Halfway through the rising press the dough balls very gently to flatten a bit.

7. As the shaped dough are rising, place the oven rack to the center position and preheat oven to 350 F. The oven should be preheated at-least 20 min before baking. Mix the egg and water for egg wash.

8. Brush the rolls with egg wash with a pastry brush and sprinkle sesame seeds. You can skip the sesame seed part.

9. Bake in the preheated oven, in the center rack for 18-20 min or until golden brown in color and firm to touch. Transfer to cooling rack.

I used only half of the dough to make 6 buns. With the rest of the dough I made few dinner knots and mini challahs. The dough recipe is same, but you can make various other breads from this dough.

For the Patty:

• Minced meat of your choice: 1 lb/ 425 gm
• Onion (finely chopped): 2 tbsp
• Garlic powder: 1/4 tsp
• Dried parsley: 1/2 tbsp
• Worcestershire sauce: 1 tbsp
• Smoked Tabasco sauce: 1 tbsp
• Egg: 1
• Bread crumbs: 1-2 tbsp
• Freshly ground black pepper: 1 tsp
• Salt to taste

For making the patty you can use any minced meat of your choice. Even vegetarian options like falafel, or minced soy-granule patty or mixed veggie patty are also good. You can make the burger patty as per your choice. This time I used minced chicken and following is how I did it.

Steps for making the Patty:

1. Mix minced meat, finely chopped onion, garlic powder (or minced garlic), dried parsley, Worcestershire sauce, smoked Tabasco sauce, salt and pepper well. I used smoked Tabasco to bring the smoky flavor as well as increase the spicy level, you can use liquid smoke and chili powder instead. Liquid smoke is readily available in shops like Walmart or Target. For kids, you can avoid chili powder. I added frozen corns and grated carrot to the kid version patty I made for my daughter. An easy way to add some veggies to your kids diet.

2. Now shape the patty into round disks around a diameter of 3 inches or the size to match your burger buns. To shape the meat patty quickly and easily I found out something very simple. We always have different sized lids of jars in our kitchen. Take any lid that matches to the size of burger bun.

3. Line the lid with plastic wrap.

4. Drop the patty mix on the lid.

5. With the help of spoon level the mix and spread it on the lid. Press a little so it takes the shape of the lid.

6. Take a piece of parchment paper, and holding the plastic wrap flip the meat mix to parchment paper, voila you have a perfect round patty ready to cook.

You can grill the patty on an outdoor grill or just shallow fry them on a pan, like I did.

So we are ready with the bun and patty, now the burger needs to be assembled.

To assemble the burger: (these are few suggestions)

• Mayonnaise
• Mustard sauce
• Tomato slices
• Lettuce
• Guacamole
• Onion
• Pickled jalapeno
• Bacon
• Cheese slices
• Grilled mushrooms or bell peppers

 Etc & etc....

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