Quick French Bread

I had honestly not given crusty bread much thought until we some time ago ate, no, devoured crusty toasted bread smeared with basil pesto at a restaurant. My family enjoyed it enough to order a second platter. That pesto smeared bread made me want to bake some and eat it with all my favorite toppings! With fresh tomatoes, garlic, basil, EVOO, salt and pepper or sauteed herbed mushrooms, Romesco or the simplest of spreads even from a jar, this would be good. The possibilities for the toppings are limited only to your creativity, imagination and convenience - exactly what lured me into baking a French bread.

Looking at most recipes for quick French bread, this is simply your basic white bread sans the fat, shaped into a log and baked. If you are looking for bread with all those gorgeous irregular holes, this isn't really the recipe as it doesn't have that high percentage of hydration. So essentially, a wet slack dough, which is not as easy to handle, gives you a hole-y bread. I had in fact baked one with higher hydration percentage aeons ago. It looked gorgeous, but something in it did not really work for me. Pictures of such bakes normally end up as just pictures in my feature posts. Ouch!!

Though a slow rise version or one using a pre-ferment would undoubtedly win flavor-wise, its comforting to have these quick versions in your repertoire. Sliced thin, baked or toasted on the griddle ( I like it that way) with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, crispy there and chewy here, this seemed to be reasonably good. One I shall be baking again.

Recipe based on this recipe from All Recipes with slight modifications, hopefully alright. Still sharing this as it made some decent bread.  I have added vital wheat gluten to the flour and omitted the egg wash. I have mixed the dough in my bread machine.

I was able to make a 9'' - 10'' log with the recipe proportions below, feel free to double the recipe if your oven can accommodate. 

Ingredients:

All-purpose flour - 195 grams / 1 1/2 cups Vital wheat gluten - 1.5 tablespoons Instant yeast - 1 teaspoon Salt - 3/4 teaspoon Water, lukewarm - 120 ml / 1/2 cup Egg white - 1 whisked with 1 tablespoon water for brushing on top (optional, I did not use)

Directions

1.	Combine all the ingredients for the dough and knead on a lightly floured surface for about 8-10 minutes or till fairly soft, smooth and elastic. (If using active dried yeast you will need to proof it) Add extra water or flour teaspoon by teaspoon as needed till your dough reaches the consistency.
2.	Place the dough in a greased bowl or dough rising bucket, and turn once. Cover, and let rise in a warm place until doubled. This may take 30-40 minutes or more depending on the atmospheric temperature. Go by the indicator as your guide. Note down how long this takes as it may help approximate the time needed for the second rise. Grease your baking sheet or tray generously with oil. Keep aside.
3.	Once the dough doubles, punch it down. Lightly flour your work surface, transfer the dough onto it. Cover, and let rest for 10 minutes. Roll into a rectangle depending on the size of your baking tray. Roll up, starting from the long side. Moisten edge with water and seal. Taper ends. Place the loaf seam side down on the baking sheet. Brush off any excess flour with a large brush. Let rise in a warm place till it doubles.
4.	Place the loaf seam side down, on the prepared baking sheet. Let rise in a warm place until doubled, 30-40 minutes. A safe bet would be around the same time as the first rise. Towards the end of the second rise pre-heat  oven to 190 degrees C/ 375 degrees F.
5.	I always do a terrible job of slashing loaves, but if you really want to, carefully without deflating the loaf, make 3-4 diagonal slashes before you bake the bread. Bake for about 30-35 minutes or till the internal temperature of the bread registers 200 F.  The bread doesn't brown a lot (unless you use egg wash). The most reliable way to do this would be to approximate the baking time and check the internal temperature. Remove the bread from the oven, cool to room temperature before slicing.

The bread goes stale really fast as it has no fat in it, therefore best eaten the day it is baked. But in case you are left with some try throwing it in a savory bread pudding.

Please note: Some recipes for quick French bread are made with slightly wetter dough and a shorter knead time. The shorter knead is for the gluten to develop during the longer rise. The dough when slacker can't hold its shape as it bakes in the oven, hence the second proof is only till the dough 'almost' doubles. My dough wasn't wet or even tacky, so have let it double before baking.

Steam in the oven (by throwing ice cubes on the floor of the oven or sprtizing water on the walls) when you start baking supposedly helps make a crispy crust. I am way too chicken to attempt doing this, so will be content with the crusty enough crust I got. The original recipe calls for all purpose flour, I shall be trying that too. Less yeast, cool water and all that! If things work better, shall update here.

Which is your favorite quick crusty bread recipe? And what according to you really makes a great one? Tell me!

No Knead, Easy & Quick Pizza - It Can't Get Easier!

Its no secret that I love Peter Reinhart's Napoletana Pizza Crust, but I still keep looking out for and trying out new recipes. A good dependable recipe and a good pizza for all the times you need one. Peter Reinhart's recipe when you have the luxury of planning well ahead, flexibility to make pizza anytime over the next 3 days.  How about one when you need pizza in a real hurry without any prior planning?

Ever since I have discovered how easy it is to make pizza from scratch at home, ordering pizza in is something I can't digest. Good money spent on not-so-good stuff.  If I had my way and some cheese at home, I will have good pizza ready in, say, an hour and a half, sauce, dough and all? My kids wanted to order pizza one day and yours truly all but kicked my legs and cried, imploring not to do so. The trade off - my 11-year-old budding foodie would get to make the dough. The young food enthusiast these days has been contemplating gastronomy as one of his future choice of academic options! Food love, one trait he has inherited from me!

The deal I suppose was good enough for him to be content with eating dal-roti-subzi for the moment. The next day saw us all set to make pizza, the sauce ready to go on it, the elusive cheese reassuringly sitting in the fridge. A pizza from this no-knead flatbread was the plan. Sure made my son happy as he made it successfully!

Tough for a kid or a beginner to fail when the dough is as simple as gathering all ingredients in a bowl and beating 20 strokes with a wooden spoon. The sticky dough goes directly on your pizza pan,  prepare the toppings while it rises .The sauce can preferably be made before you make the dough as it also needs to cool. Rest the dough for 30-40 minutes and bake. No fuss, no knead, quick and easy!

The reliability of old tried and tested recipes always tempt me to play around, this time the playing around restricted to simply dividing the dough into 3 parts and baking it with sauce and toppings in a very hot oven. Really simple but also works really well! 

I tried this with a potato, onion, garlic and EVOO topping too which was OK-ish, but the classic tomato sauce and cheese will always be a favorite!

Watch me make this pizza. Also check my video about yeast below. 

The recipe below makes 3 8-9'' pizzas, depending on the thickness of the crust.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 210 grams/ 1.5 cups approximately

Salt - 3/4 teaspoon

Garlic powder - 1/4 teaspoon (optional)

Instant yeast - 1 teaspoon (Use 1 1/8 teaspoon if using active dried yeast)

Olive oil - 1 1 /2 tablespoons

Lukewarm water - 3/4 cup / 180 ml

More extra virgin olive oil for greasing the pans
Homemade Pizza Sauce
Toppings of your choice.

Procedure : Generously grease 3 9'' round or square pans or two large sheet pans with extra virgin olive oil. Enough oil (say about a teaspoon per pan ) will give your pizza a golden and crisp crust, easy release too. Keep aside.

Sift together the flour, salt and garlic powder. Keep aside. Take the water, oil and yeast in a medium sized bowl, tip in the flour mixture. (If using active dried yeast, mix it with lukewarm water, 1/2 teaspoon sugar, allow to stand till frothy, 5-10 minutes, add the oil and the rest of the ingredients) With a wooden spoon, stir to bring it all together, then beat 20 strokes. The dough will be sticky. Divide it into three equal portions, you must eyeball correctly or weigh for uniformity in baking time and thickness of the crust of each pizza. Dump each portion on one pan. With greased hands, push the dough on the pan to make a 9'' round (about 5 mm aprox). (or smaller ones for a thicker pizza. I like mine with a thin crust). Try to keep the thickness uniform throughout (one of mine got a bit thicker in the middle). Keep in a warm place (cover if possible, taking care that the lid does not touch the crust or the area immediately around it) for about 25-30 minutes (may be 40-45 minutes when its not hot) or till the dough is puffy, not necessarily double.

Pre-heat the oven to 250 degrees C (or higher if you can set in your oven) in the meantime. Spread the sauce and the vegetables on it and bake for 13-15 minutes (couple of minutes longer for a thicker crust) or till golden brown around the edges (watch carefully towards the end as you don't want it to burn or turn into a cracker) Remove from the oven carefully, top with more sauce and cheese, bake another 2 minutes till or the cheese melts. Remove, allow the cheese to set for a minute, slice and serve immediately.

Not a bad crust for a super easy, tasty and quick pizza, what do you think? Way better than the one you will get in 30 minutes! So next time you need pizza on a whim, you may not really want to reach out for the phone...head to the kitchen instead!

The pizza is yeast-spotted!

Double Chocolate Granola

From the great revolt of 1857, to the states of matter, to decimals and fractions and finally back to obsessing over my neglected blog and less used oven. Am feeling elated and so liberated!! We are done with the final exams but still need to attend school for a few days - bliss! No exams, no homework, kids out of my hair for a few hours ...but only to come back home together and create double the trouble and bedlam as if making up for all the lost time. Sigh! You can't really have your cake and eat it too!

The pandemonium of the holidays comes with restless kids and their never ending hunger pangs...a common manifestation of very frequent, little big bursts of boredom. Heavens! What do I feed them all day! Needless to say, there is always a desperate need and demand for chocolaty somethings which never fail to make them happy! Though granola is one of my favorite things to have in the jar, my daughter normally wrinkles her little nose at the sound of the word. But wait, a chocolaty chocolate granola could be one of the answers!

Scouting for a recipe for chocolate granola, I landed here and made this several times since! A little less cocoa, a little more chocolate, and then I found what we liked! Being a low fat, non-sugar loaded snack which keeps well for days, you can tweak and experiment endlessly with granola till you figure out what you like best! Small batches in my microwave for experimentation and then a large batch in the big oven...so that we always have a bit of chocolate goodness in the guise of granola!

This granola is quite chocolaty no doubt, but mind you this is not meant to be dessert! But then you can always make it more chocolaty, as it is just a matter of  heating the liquid ingredients and dark chocolate together, mixing it with oats and baking them till crisp. Mix in more of the almost powdery chocolate to it when still warm so that it coats the oats, and then some more little chunks when its almost cool, but very slightly warm. Let the chocolate melt just enough to get the granola into little chocolatey clusters. Finally stir in toasted nuts of your choice. Friendly granola allows me to divide the whole batch into a lesser chocolate and no nuts part for me and add more chocolate to the rest. Hubby wants to keep a box of this with a tiny spoon in his office to eat as a bite of dessert when the sugar craving hits!

Here is how we go. The below recipe makes enough to make one small batch in your 8-9'' round tin. Double if using a much bigger tray or pan. But remember, make it just one single thinnish layer.

Based on the recipe from the The Wannabe Chef, with modifications.

Ingredients:

Quaker oats - 95 grams (please read note)
Granulated sugar - 2 tablespoons
Cocoa powder - 3/4 tablespoon
Dark chocolate - 3 tablespoons / 40 grams approx
Vegetable oil - 1 tablespoon
Water - 1 tablespoon
Honey - 1 tablespoon
Pure vanilla extract - 1/4 teaspoon
Grated dark chocolate ( or tiny bits of it at the bottom of your chocolate tin) - 2 tablespoons

Add ins
Dark chocolate chunks - 2 -3 tablespoons
Toasted walnuts or almonds - 1/4 cup or more

Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees C / 320 degree F (read note). Line your baking tin with parchment. Weigh the oats, keep aside. Measure the rest of the dry ingredients and put directly into a medium sized heavy saucepan. Then the rest of the liquid ones, again directly into your saucepan. The oil first, then the honey (slips out of the spoon like a dream), water and vanilla. Heat the ingredients in the saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly juts until the chocolate melts. Take off the heat. Tip in the oats. Mix well to combine. You will have a moist but crumbly mixture. Spread this on your prepared pan in a single layer.

Stirring thoroughly every 10 minutes to re-distribute the mixture, bake for about 30-35 minutes (or may be 5 minutes more) or till the oats turn crisp. To test, take your granola out from the oven, take a spoonful of it, it will still feel soft. Allow it to cool for 3-4 minutes and taste. It should be crisp. If its not crisp enough, bake again for about 3-4 minutes, check again.

When done and the granola is still on the tray right out of the oven, add about 2-3 tablespoons of grated chocolate and stir. It will melt coating the granola. Allow it to cool further and when barely warm, add about 2 tablespoons of finely chopped chunks of chocolate. The chocolate will melt just enough to clump some of the granola but still remain as bits of chocolate. Stir in the toasted walnuts when the granola is completely cool. Store in an airtight container.

Here is some oats and chocolate goodness for you!

Please note: When I bake granola, I first sieve the oats to remove the fine powdery part and reserve it for another use. The oats here are first sieved, then weighed. You could alter the quantity of sugar and honey to your taste. This is not very sweet. I personally like eating granola as is, but my kids love to eat this as is and with chilled milk too.

I prefer toasting nuts separately and adding them at the end. Sometimes, if the granola takes longer to bake, the nuts would have got over toasted. If adding dried fruit, add that to the cooled baked granola.

I have baked this at 180 degrees C / 350 degree F as mentioned in the original recipe for about 20-22 minutes. This works fine too, but baking at a lower temperature for longer will give you crisp granola with lesser chances of it getting a burnt taste within minutes. And remember, its tough to see the color change when its chocolate.

This is now another staple in my home and shall be made regularly, so more updates here if any!

Grissini - And The Winner Of The Giveaway!

One of the things I do enjoy, but pay relatively less attention to while eating out are the humble bread sticks. I am sure I am not the only one who is guilty on this count. Well, not really anyone's fault as they are mostly placed quite inconspicuously on your table along with breads and dips. You would have savored barely a couple of these and your choice of appetizers land, shifting focus. Not fair at all, I think. They are just bread sticks but are surely meant to be savored with all the due attention things as crispy and crunchy as these deserve?

I have made these earlier, a chewy version with onions and another with part whole wheat  which were really good too, but the latter need prior planning with a pre-ferment in the picture. Now it can't really hurt to have a quicker, equally good version in your repertoire...for all those emergency or spur-of-the moment needs for some nice bread sticks.

These thin bread sticks or Grissini come from Susan's inspiring blog Wild Yeast.  Apart from making a great make-ahead appetizer, a bouquet of these add visual panache to your dinner table says Susan - indeed! One word of caution though, have plenty on hand, put them on the table only at the last moment as these break quite easily. Don't underestimate the ability of these sticks to disappear quickly as you may tend to grab one (even as you chide your hubby or child not to do exactly that) each time you pass by...

A really simple recipe made with a simple pizza dough, which will take 90 seconds to make in a food processor or with about 8-10 minutes of kneading by hand. The recipe uses water at room temperature and less yeast for a slower rise, meaning better flavor. You could get creative with the toppings and make a variety of these. But be sure to use enough salt in the dough (specially if not using salt as a topping) as inadequate salt may make your grissini taste flat.

Sea salt, chilli flakes, zatar, ground pepper, mixed Italian herbs could be a few you can use by way of toppings. The original recipe makes a whole lot of them, I have halved the recipe and saved half of the dough in my freezer to bake a small pizza or more grissini. Though grissini is not difficult to make, it does take some time and patience to roll, cut and shape, then bake multiple batches if using the average Indian home size oven.

Ingredients: (for half the recipe on Susan's blog, original recipe from Baking Illustrated)

• Flour - 312 grams
• Water at room temperature - 198 grams (aprox 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons)
• Instant yeast - 1 teaspoon
• Salt - heaping 3/4 teaspoon (will use a tiny bit more next time)
• Olive oil or any neutral tasting oil such as sunflower - 1 tablespoon
• Topping of your choice (suggestion - a mixture of coarse Kosher salt, coarsely-ground pepper, and chopped fennel seed as suggested by the original recipe, or just salt and pepper or salt and Italian herbs)
• More oil for brushing

Method:

1. Sift the flour, yeast, and salt to make sure the salt is evenly distributed.(Or place in the bowl the food processor. Pulse a few times to combine.)
2. Add the water and oil, mix till the dough comes together. (Combine the water and olive oil in a liquid measuring cup. With the processor running, add the liquid to the dry ingredients in a steady stream)
3. Knead on a lightly floured surface till smooth and elastic, about 8-10 minutes( If using a food processor, process until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 90 seconds.)
4. Place the dough in a lightly oiled container or dough rising bucket. Cover the container and let the dough ferment at room temperature until doubled in volume, about an hour or so ( the time may vary, so go by the level of the dough as the correct indicator)
5. While the dough rises, prepare your baking sheets, line them with parchment. Keep the toppings, some oil, a silicon brush and a pizza cutter ready.
   
6. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C / 350F.
7. Divide the dough into two equal pieces. Take one piece of dough, keep the other covered.
8. On a floured counter, roll the dough out into a rectangle to suit the size of your baking tray. I have rolled the dough about 3-4 mm thick, rectangle about 10''/7'', cut into 1.5 cm wide strips. ( Susan makes each of  them about 12 x 8 inches, cut into 16 equal strips). As Susan says, the exact dimensions are not critical, but be sure to cut and roll each piece into strips approximately the same thickness and width for uniformity in baking and to help you approximate the baking time for the next batch.
   
9. Using a pizza cutter, cut the rolled dough into strips of equal width. Remove each strip, place slightly apart. Fold each strip over itself (according to Baking Illustrated, this makes it stronger). On an unfloured surface, roll the strip into a long snake, try to keep the thickness uniform again.
10. Place the snakes evenly spaced across the width of the parchment-lined baking sheet. They won't very dramatically increase in size as you bake, but do not place too close or the sticks will grow into each other, have softish sides.
    
11. Lightly spray or brush the grissini with olive oil and sprinkle on the topping. 
12. Bake at 350F for 25 – 30 minutes, until light golden brown. Do not let them brown too much.
13. Cool on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container.

Serve them as is or with your favorite olive oil dip or even marinara sauce.

So these grissini from Susan's blog go to Susan's weekly Yeast Spotting!  Thanks Susan, you are an inspiration!

On to the giveaway results for the announcement made here. Thanks to everyone who left a comment and for all your wishes! The randomly chosen winner for the giveaway of Alice Medrich's Chocolate Holidays  is......

Nilanjana Majumdar!

Congratulations Nilanjana and here's wishing lots of chocolate happiness and fun trying out recipes from the book! Please email me your mailing address to sumadotrowjeeatgmaildotcom. The book will soon be on its way!

Paneer Tikka Tart

Like me, if you had thought that a tart concept can be done with either with home made/ store brought old fashioned buttery crusts or phyllo pastry or puff pastry, you will be happy to know that you can make something nice with the humble yeast dough as well. Meaning, you don't have to slave over making phyllo or puff pastry (or be lucky enough to easily buy them) or master the art of baking the perfect pie crust and still get away with making something that classifies as a tart and a pretty good one at that. Without having to plan ahead for it. As in you can get up in the morning or come back from work and still decide to bake yourself a tart. Easy and quick.

I have realized that when you bake something like a pizza or tart with a slow-risen base like Peter Reinhart's pizza dough, you can get away with minimal and the simplest of toppings as the very flavorful base takes center-stage here. And when you bake with the faster ones, you are better off allowing the topping to take center-stage. Bake with a flavorful base and flavorful toppings, danger is you will end up making it every now and then, for very given excuse. Did I tell you that Peter R's crust has become a real real favorite with me and have made it at least about 5-6 times by now?

When Madhuli invited us to bake tarts for an event at Chef At Large, I wanted to play around with a quick yeast dough base and top it with something delicious and indulgent too - the festive air squarely to blame. Hmm... may be a tart topped with mint and coriander chutney, loaded with some flavorful paneer tikka? Why not? A bit of work with the tikka and some time to marinate the cheese and veggies, but the dough is a breeze as always these days with my bread machine! 

The paneer tikka turned out good and I had a tough time keeping the kids away till I put it all together and took the mandatory pics, but it sure made me happy! This said, the base and the tikka is only a suggestion, feel free to use your favorite pizza base and your favorite tikka topping!

Paneer Tikka Tart

You will need :
One recipe pizza base (recipe below)
Paneer Tikka
Coriander and mint chutney - 4 tablespoons plus more to serve on the side.

Getting ready : To make the tart, make sure the paneer and veggies are marinated and ready to go on the tawa before you make the dough. Generously grease your baking tray or trays with oil. I place my pizzas and tarts on the back of my 9'' square/round tins, for ease to slice them later.

Paneer Tikka : Adapted from a Sanjeev Kapoor recipe. Good quality paneer, needless to say makes a lot of difference. I used Nandini, Milky Mist is supposed to be good too. Do use home-made paneer if you have it on hand. Do not cube the cottage cheese too small or it will be difficult to thread the cubes through a skewer or flip them when directly placed on the tawa.

Ingredients:
Cottage cheese/ paneer - cut into 3/4'' cubes - 200 grams (about 1 1/2 cups)
Green or colored capsicum, cubed - 3/4 cup
Onion, peeled and cubed - 1 cup (divided use)
Firm plum tomatoes, de-seeded and cubed - 1/2 cup

For the marinade: Please vary the amount of spices to taste and preference

Fresh, thick hung curd or ready set curd - 6 tablespoons
Oil - 1 tablespoon
Red chilli powder - 1 teaspoon
Turmeric powder - 1/4 teaspoon
Ginger, freshly grated - 3/4 teaspoon
Garlic, freshly grated - 1 teaspoon
Chaat masala - 3/4 teaspoon
Tandoori masala - 1 teaspoon
Kasuri methi, crushed - 1 heaping teaspoon
Gram flour - 1 tablespoon
Salt to taste (go easy, the chaat masala is quite salty)

More oil for grilling the paneer and vegetables

Procedure : Whisk together all the ingredients for the marinade in a wide bowl, gently toss in the paneer and capsicum cubes to coat with the marinade well. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours. You could toss in the onions and tomatoes later (after you fish out the paneer and capsicum), there will still be marinade left. I did not add them earlier as they will leave out more water, wanted the paneer generously coated with the marinade.

Heat a non-stick pan, brush oil generously using a silicon brush. Thread the paneer and the vegetables through skewers (or just place directly, flipping now and then using 2 spoons) and cook on medium-low heat, turning them to cook all sides till a nice golden and done (this will not take more than a say, 3-4 minutes) Do not over-cook as this will make the paneer tough. Reserve.

Coriander and mint chutney
Fresh coriander leaves, roughly chopped - 1 1/2 cups
Fresh mint leaves - 3/4 cup
Green chillies - 3-4
Sugar - a tiny pinch
Lemon juice - to taste
Salt - to taste

Blend everything using little or no water. Check and adjust seasoning. Reserve.

Tart base, adapted from Purple Foodie original recipe from Popina Book Of Baking  I have used yogurt in place of the egg, stepped up on the salt and yeast, and added a bit of garlic to the base.

Pizza dough base:

All purpose flour / maida - 220 grams
Instant yeast - 1 1 /4 tsp ( if using Active dried yeast, proof first and then carry on)
Salt - 3/4 teaspoon
Sugar - 1 teaspoon
Extra virgin olive oil (or any flavorless oil like sunflower or canola oil) - 2 tablespoons
Garlic, grated - 2 pods
Yogurt - 1/4 cup OR 1 Egg
Warm water - 70 -80 ml (start with the lesser amount, add remaining, by the teaspoon if needed)

Procedure : Mise en place. Sift together the flour and salt. Take the oil and garlic in a small pan, warm the oil. Take off the heat. If using crushed garlic, you can discard it once the flavor is infused into the oil. Take the warm water in a wide medium sized bowl, mix together all the dough ingredients and knead to form a soft, smooth dough, about 8-10 minutes. If using a bread machine dump all ingredients together and knead on dough cycle for 10 minutes.  Lightly grease your dough rising bucket, place the dough in it, turn it once to coat the dough with oil. Cover and let rise in a warm place till double in volume, about 40 minutes to one hour.

Towards the end of the rise period, pre-heat oven to 190 degrees C / 375 degrees F. Gently punch down the dough, divide into 2 equal portions. Dust your work surface lightly with flour. Roll one portion of the dough about 5-6mm thick and about 7 '' inches in diameter. This will give you a slightly crisp, bread-y base. Place the rolled dough on the greased tray. Spread about 1 1/2 - 2 tablespoons chutney and place about 1/4 cup cubed onion on it evenly. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or till the edges turn a nice golden brown. If you bake longer, the base will be crunchy-crisp. Remove from the oven, cool for about 10 minutes. Brush with more chutney, top with half the warm paneer tikka, sprinkle some chaat masala, cut into wedges and serve immediately.

Repeat with the other portion of dough. I bake simultaneously in my microwave and OTG.

Make ahead : Make the chutney, marinate the paneer and veggies. Refrigerate both. Make the dough when needed and you are ready to go!

The paneer-tikka tart is Yeast-spotted!!

Rustic Apple Galette - A Guest Post By Sweatha Pai

Experiments, emotions and experiences with food - Sweatha Pai has it all for you! Her yummilicious blog -  Tasty Curry Leaf. An extremely avid baker with a vast repertoire of mouth-watering egg-less and vegan bakes, desserts, yeasted bakes and a whole lot of Middle eastern cuisine, her space tempts you to try them all! Did I just stress Middle Eastern? Wait! There is Turkish, Vietnamese, Korean, Mexican, Italian, English and American to name a few cuisines she dabbles in. Well! That leaves very little of global cuisine she hasn't tried yet! Mind you, all of these are egg-less and some even vegan!

I bet her family just doesn't know what boring and mundane means when it comes to food! You bet I also don't want her to know what I cook for my family everyday - yaawn!! So the next time you feel adventurous and want to try something new, you know where to head to!! I have drooled over her Herbed Sour Cream Biscuits,  Oatmeal Crisps, and Caramelized Onion , Rosemary And Tomato Flatizza .. these have to be tried!

Do read the err...personal mail she has written to her blog here
 
Ooops! Sweatha is supposed to do the talking here! Here she is tempting you with a delicious cinnamon laced Apple Galette, made all the more tempting as its easier too! Thanks Sweatha for your very generous and kind words for me, not sure if I deserve all that, but you sure made my day!

What do you cook for a baking and dessert queen? When you see that she is an expert baker and dessert specialist and has conquered some of the excellent cakes and bakes in her blog, what would you cook/bake for her when she has invited you for a guest post?

Actually I was ready when Suma invited me for a guest post. The first idea was obviously a cake. A simple eggless chocolate cake for Cakes n More. Then  as usual I had the doubt.A simple chocolate cake for a person who has conquered exotic breads and bakes!. Of course it will be good, but is it enough? Matt Preston boomed in my head, "Is this dish enough to take you to next level?" "Is this dish worthy of Cakes n More standards?" Racking my brains I decided a galette is my safest bet. Its rustic,can be made slightly roughly without the decorative rules that come with a pie and its perfect for the dessert queen and also perfect for me on a chilly night.And as usual my amateurish clicking skills can be forgiven as well.

A galette is a general term in French cuisine covering most thick round flat breads or free form crusty cakes.It is definitely similar to Italian crostata and can be called haphazard pies.These days of course the term refers to rustic pies with a rich and flaky crust stuffed with fruit or veggies,the common and popular one being apple galette. Basically, you are making a rustic or free style pie using buttery pie crust.I have also baked an apple galette for dear Suma with little variations here and there. You do not need to know rocket science to make a galette, except of course little of pie science.

Ingredients:
Crust:

All Purpose Flour: 1 cup
Salt: 1/8 tsp
Cold Cubed Unsalted Butter: 1/3 cup or round off 6 tbsp (5 tbsp and 2 tsp)
Ice Cold Water: 2 to 3 tbsp

Filling: 
Apples: peeled,cored and thinly sliced : around 1.5 cup or 2 apples
Brown Sugar: 2 tbsp divided
Lemon Juice: 1/2 tsp or a big squeeze of lemon for tossing with the apple slices
Cinnamon: 1/4 -1/2 tsp as per taste
Powdered Ginger: 1/8 -1/4 tsp as per taste
Fresh grated nutmeg: a pinch or more as per taste
Almond powdered: about 1 tbsp (optional)


Preparation:
For the crust, mix together flour and salt and cut in cubed butter with a fork and mix in till it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add in 1 tbsp water at a time and mix in till the flour is moistened.

Here the key thing is you should not overwork the pastry. Try mixing the butter gently with a fork or just your finger tips and add just are minimum of water as needed to moisten the flour. There should be water to support butter as a binder but just enough.Also make sure the butter and water are ice cold. This is needed to prevent the development of gluten in the flour. Gluten will make the crust tough. Overworking the dough or warm ingredients will produce a tougher or crusty crust. We want a soft, slightly crumbly,flaky and buttery pie crust.

Once the dough is formed wrap it in plastic and refrigerate it. It can stay in the refrigerator for maximum 3 days. In case you are not baking the tart/galette/pie immediately, it can be frozen for upto 2 months.

While the dough is resting, prepare the filling. Slice the peeled and cored apples, toss it with lemon juice to prevent darkening and then mix it in with 1 tbsp of brown sugar, powdered spices and almond meal or flour or powdered. 

Almond meal is completely optional. I just added it to absorb extra juices if any overflow during baking. You can use flour,cornstarch arrowroot powder etc instead or completely leave it out. Let it sit for sometime while the flavours are mingling.Always do the taste test and adjust the sugar and spices to get what you like.

Take out the dough, divide it into two balls, refrigerate one while working on the other.

On a lightly floured surface or  plastic sheets, roll out the dough gently into a circle of about 1/4 inch thickness. Once this is done, transfer it to the lined baking sheet and start layering on the apple slices in whatever way you like leaving an inch or half  around the edges free.You can go for nice designs while layering like arranging in overlapping concentric circles or whatever way you prefer.

Once done, fold the edges inward on top the fruit. Sprinkle little brown sugar on top and dot it with additional butter if you like. Once this is done you can brush the folded edges with milk/melted butter and sprinkle some more brown sugar on top. 

Repeat the steps with the second dough ball as well or freeze it for later use. One galette serves 2 or just 1 if you are a dessert person!You can even go for smaller galettes which is what I did with my other dough ball and got two bite sized galettes.

Bake in a preheated oven at 375 F or 180C for about 30-35 minutes or more until the pastry is golden brown, the fruit  bubbles and a warm aroma of comforting baking spreads all over. The mini ones took barely 25 minutes to finish. So just keep an eye on from the 24th minute onwards.

Take out cool completely or till you can control yourself. Then attack.

Oops I forgot to tell you about the sauce. Its a simple custard sauce using ready made custard powder. Something quickly put together when you are in a hurry to consume the galette. I just followed the instructions that came with the packet and within minutes it was ready. But of course the barring one, the galettes were over within minutes my daughter set her eyes on them. She did not even need the sauce. 

Galettes can also be served along with the usual accompaniments of ice cream,whipped cream or even dessert sauces or simply glaze with jam and serve. 

"Will this dish take me to a higher level? " Matt booms. "Yes of course, I definitely believe so Matt if you excuse the use of  custard powder. Now its upto you Suma." 

 

Herbed Pull-Apart Bread - A Guest Post By Sumana Deepak

Few things make the day of a food blogger like meaningful comments do. One such meaningful comment lead me to Sumana's blog, Sum's Cuisine. A fellow Bangalorean and a Kannadiga, it was so easy to connect! Food bonds undoubtedly, but when we cook, eat and blog about similar kind of grub, its even better! I have not met Sumana yet, but very much look forward to meeting her some day and also eat a meal at her place, only now its Sweden!! Her blog Sum's Cusine has lots of Authentic Karnataka Cuisine , eggless bakes and lots more! Her Eggless Zebra Cake , Spicy Biscotti,  Avarekalu Kadubu, Gorikayi Matodi Palya  among so many others make me wish I had visited her when she was still here, sigh!!

Here comes Sumana with an amazing Herbed pull apart bread - spicy mint and cilantro chutney encased in a soft yeast bread , baked in a bundt pan...I can almost smell the aroma!

  
Over to Sumana...

When Suma asked me to do a guest post for her lovely, delicious blog, I was more than delighted! She has such a beautiful blog with so many amazing delicacies. And I just love her witty writing. I make sure I don’t miss her post for two things - a nice write up and a nicer delicacy! Every time I want to bake something, I’d definitely look up in her blog for something.

So when she asked me to guest post for her blog, my first thought was a cake, but for someone who has baked almost half a century of varieties of cakes and cup cakes, finding another cake to match was a difficult task! So here I am with a yeast bread, another of her passion.

This is herbed, garlicky pull apart bread, with herbs like mint and coriander. It can be made with Italian herbs too, dried or fresh. The recipe is adapted from Champa’s pull apart loaf here, but halved and baked in a bundt pan. Love the shape a bundt pan gives to a bread! It is a very tasty bread.

Herbed Pull Apart Bread from here

Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 1 ½ cups
Warm water - ½ cup
Salt - ½ - ¾ tsp
Sugar - 1½ tsp
Oil - 1 TBSP
Active dry yeast /Instant Yeast - 1 tsp
Green chilies - 1 chopped fine
Mint leaves - 6 chopped fine
Cilantro - 1 TBSP chopped

To make a paste:
Oil - 1 Tbsp
Salt - to taste (about ½ tsp or less)
Green chilies - 2 chopped
Mint leaves - 1-2 Tbsp
Cilantro - 1-2 Tbsp
Garlic - 1 clove

Method:
Dough:
• In a bowl, take warm water, sugar. Add yeast to it. Let it stand till it froths. If using instant yeast, can proceed to next step without proofing.
• Add the remaining ingredients to it and start making a dough. When all the flour has been absorbed, knead it for 10 minutes or until it is smooth and elastic. It should not be sticky or tacky. If it is, add 1 TBSP flour at a time and knead it.
• Place in an oiled bowl and turn it once to coat all the sides.
• Cover and let rise in a warm place. About 45 minutes to an hour or till double in bulk.
• Meanwhile, grease a bundt pan with oil on all sides. Set aside.

Spice paste:
• In a food chopper or blender (small jar) or mortar and pestle, take all the ingredients mentioned in 'For paste' and mince them so that it is a coarse paste with some oil. Don’t add any water. Adjust the salt if necessary and set aside.

Assembly:
• When the dough has doubled, punch it down. On a lightly floured or greased surface, divide the dough into 12 small portions.
• Take one dough ball and flatten it to about ½" thick. A rough oval shape will be fine. Repeat with the remaining dough balls.
• Place one dough ball in the pan, top it with little bit of the paste and spread it. Make sure you use the paste evenly to coat all the dough balls.
• Arrange the dough balls in the pan in two layers, with paste coated between them.
• If you have any more paste remaining, you can spread it on the top.
• Even if the dough is not full in the pan, it will get full after the final rise.
• Cover loosely with oiled plastic wrap and let it rise till the dough is double. About 45 minutes to an hour.

Baking:
• Towards the end of the rise time, preheat the oven to 375 F or 190 C.
• Bake for 15 minutes. Rotate the pan and reduce the temperature to 350 F or 180 C. Bake for 5 - 8 more minutes or until the top is golden brown.
• Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then invert it on the wire rack to cool completely.
• Pull the bread when completely cool if you can resist the smell that long. I pulled it when it was still warm, just like Champa did :).
• It tastes great!

Notes:
• To make a 9x5 loaf, double the recipe
• Keep the pan vertically and stack the pieces one on top of another till finished. Keep it back horizontally and adjust the stack and bake for 25 min at 190 C and 5-8 min at 180 C.

Thanks so much Sumana for this lip-smacking good bread! Its really sweet of you to send this treat my way!

Herbed Potato Rolls

As I continue to learn my way around my bread machine, here I come with some bad pictures of some nice Herbed Potato Rolls I tried. Used the dough setting of my bread machine to knead the dough. Just dump all the ingredients, set the dough cycle and then later just shape them into rolls, let them rise again and bake - what fun! Made this bread twice more, once in time for the kids to take them to school for the snack break. Once as a loaf with mint, coriander and cumin.  And all I had to do was set the dough cycle on the delay start timer to have the dough ready by 5.45 am. To have a machine do all the dirty work at your bidding to get some fresh home-made bread - am loving this! Freshly baked, the thyme specked rolls were quite moist and tender, smeared with some soft salted butter, they were yum!

These rolls have potato flakes in the dough which makes them tender without any perceptible taste of the potatoes. Apparently, potato flour adds starch to the bread, which will attract and hold water, making the bread moister, help keeping it fresh longer. You could also use potato flour which is dried ground potatoes. Very handy to have them in the pantry indeed! I normally don't like using potato flakes in my cooking, but I guess it will be a staple in my grocery list from now on. Milk powder in place of milk helps get the color, protein milk imparts without fear of milk going sour specially when you use the delay start timer or during long rise periods. The protein helps enhance the structure in high rising loaves. Source - KAF Book.

Here goes the recipe adapted from the King Arthur Flour site. Rosemary and poatoes are supposed to be a match made in heaven, but  I have to admit, rosemary is just not my thing. I normally have dried thyme on hand and it invariably makes its way into my breads! I know you will hate me for writing the procedure and even the list of ingredients in bread machine order, but I guess I have a long way to go before I can give you both ways of making this and the last thing I want to do is write incorrect instructions, I hope you will bear with me and also correct me if I am wrong!

Ingredients

Water (at room temperature) - 1 1/4 cups / 10 oz/ 280 grams (Use lukewarm if making dough by hand)
Olive oil or vegetable oil - 2 tablespoons
All purpose flour - 3 cups / 13 oz/ 365 grams
Non -fat Dry Milk powder  (I used Nandini skimmed milk powder) - 2 tablespoons
Potato flakes ( I used Vegit Aloo Mash) - 1/2 cup / 1 oz/ 28 grams OR Potato flour 1/4 cup (1 1/2 ounces), read note 
Sugar - 1 tablespoon
Dried herbs, I used thyme - 1 teaspoon (alter to suit your taste)
Salt - 1 1/4 teaspoon
Instant yeast - 1 1/2 teaspoons (Use 2 teaspoons if making this by hand)

Procedure : Place all ingredients into the dough pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select the dough cycle and press Start.Check the dough consistency 7 minutes into the first kneading cycle. The dough must be soft and smooth, very slightly tacky. Add water or flour one tablespoon at a time to adjust the dough if needed ( I did not need to). When the cycle is complete, grease your hands, transfer the dough to a lightly greased surface. The dough will be slightly sticky. Fold the dough over a few times to expel any excess carbon dioxide. then divide dough into 12 equal pieces. You could let the dough relax for 10 minutes to help shape easily.

Grease your baking trays or tins . I used one 9'' round tin and another 10x6 tray. Shape the pieces of dough into rolls. Or roll each piece into a 10'' rope, coil each rope and tuck in the end so that it pokes up in the middle. Place the rolls 2 inches apart, place it in a warm place to rise for about 45 minutes or till double.

Towards the end of the rise period, pre-heat oven to 190 degrees C / 375 F. You could brush the tops of the rolls with beaten egg (I did). Bake for 15-20 minutes or till golden brown. Mine took about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven, cool completely before serving.

These rolls are being Yeast Spotted

Note: Potato flour can apparently be substituted with equal quantity of cornstarch or cornflour, do try that if you do not get potato flour/flakes.