We are blessed with a great local fishmonger (The Fish Shop – Camberley) and we eat a lot of fish. This recipe requires some prep work and about 15 minutes of intense cooking. It makes a hearty dish for six people. It’s so yummy the Davinator has been spotted sopping up the last of the sauce with a piece of bread.

You can adjust the mix of seafood – not everyone likes mussels, for example. The shellfish – clams and mussels – do add layers of flavour and I strongly recommend including in the dish. But if you can’t get them, or are nervous about cooking them, you can omit.

This recipe also cooks well with frozen seafood (defrost in advance) if you don’t have access to fresh seafood. I keep a bag of frozen squid rings in the freezer (because you never know when you might have a calamari emergency) and I used the frozen squid in this recipe.

I don’t make my own pasta (yeah – I know you’re all shocked) but for this recipe I like to buy the best quality linguine – squid ink if I can get it. It so happened I couldn’t this time, but it deserves high quality pasta.

Ingredients

95 mls olive oil, plus the oil from the anchovies below

1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes (or more if you like it hot)

500 grams of small clams, scrubbed

500 grams of mussels, scrubbed and de-bearded

1 x 400 gram can of high quality tinned tomatoes

225 mls clam juice or fish stock, if making fish stock from bouillon, make it strong

225 mls dry white wine

1 large bunch of fresh parsley, discard stems, chop leaves and divide in half

I small flat tin of anchovy fillets, drain and reserve the oil

1 teaspoon dried thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

450 grams, peeled and deveined shrimp

225 grams of squid, cut in rings (I use frozen and defrost in advance)

500 grams top quality linguine, squid ink if you can get it

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

Instructions

Okay, it looks like a lot of steps between you and food. Objectively, yes there are a lot but they are done quickly. I’ve done the steps in the order I do them which is all about not wasting any time. Your guests will be sitting at the table with knives and forks in their hands and napkins tied around their necks.

1. Put a large pot of salted water on to boil. When the water is boiling, add the linguine and cook until al dente – about 75% of the recommended cooking time. Reserve a mug of water from the boiling pasta. Drain the pasta. Do not rinse it. Put it back in the cooking pot and put a lid on the pot.
2. Meanwhile, get out a Dutch oven – a big deep heavy cooking pot. I use my big le Creuset for this. Get the olive oil and the oil from the anchovies really hot. You’ll know it’s ready because it will smell sweet and sort of shimmer on the surface. Throw in the chilli – cook it for about a minute. Reduce the heat to medium-high. Add the clams. Cover, shake, give it about two minutes on the heat.
3. Add the mussels. Cover, shake and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Check, all of the shellfish should be open. Remove the pot from the heat.
4. Using slotted spoon, move the clams and mussels to an oven proof dish, Cover and stick in a warm oven for now.
5. Add the tomatoes, the clam juice or fish stock, the wine, half of the parsley and the thyme to pot. Return to a medium high heat. Bring to a high simmer and allow the sauce to reduce by about a third.
6. Put the shrimp and squid in the pot and stir. Add the drained the pasta and stir well. Cook for about 3 minutes – you’ll know because your shrimp will be pink and opaque. Stir in the lemon zest and the rest of the parsley.
7. Take the clams and mussels out of the warming oven. Quickly throw any cooking juice into the sauce. Serve up the pasta and add the shellfish on top.

The Davinator likes a nice red wine with this dish – the shellfish and the spicing mean it will stand up to wine. Personally, I prefer Muscadet but to each his own. And a serving suggestion – it’s always good to have some nice bread on hand for those who want to soak up all the sauce.

These brownies are greeted with cries of delight anywhere I take them. They look dark and dangerous and taste amazing. Made with brown sugar and whole wheat flour though, you can almost imagine they are healthy. There is a little trick to making the chocolate top shine. One of my favourite recipes from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking.

This recipe is quick and fairly easy. The hardest part is leaving the brownies uncut overnight to let the flavour develop. I use a loose bottomed pan and line the pan with parchment paper. There’s a couple of methods for lining; the ‘approved’ collar method which you can see at this link or my super fast ‘loincloth’ method.

The loin cloth method can result in some brownie stuck in the corners but has the benefit of speed and simplicity. Basically, it’s two pieces of parchment that cross over. Cut two pieces of parchment; one slightly wider than the width and one slightly wider than the length. Each piece should be long enough to cover the bottom and come up the sides with extra roughly 3 times width (or length) of the bottom. Lay the ‘wide’ piece in first and crease the bit of overlap in the corners. Then do the ‘length’ piece, doing likewise with the bit of overlap in the corners. Not always perfect coverage but the brownies will still come out easily.

Ingredients

225 grams unsalted butter

425 grams light or dark brown sugar

65 grams Dutch process cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon strong instant coffee granules

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

4 large eggs

170 grams whole wheat flour

350 grams chocolate chips – dark chocolate, semi sweet (for Americans traditional Nestle Toll House morsels) or milk chocolate if you’ve got a real sweet tooth

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 170C, 150C if you’re using a fan oven. If you have the option, don’t use the fan in the oven. These brownies do like a more gentle bake.
2. Line your pan or pans. The original recipe calls for 9″ by 13″ (23 cm by 33 cm). I prefer a square pan for this recipe and sometimes make a small square (15 cm by 15 cm) and a medium square (23 cm by 23 cm). If you don’t have exactly the right size pan, do some arithmetic. Here’s how to solve this equation: the area of pan (length times width) is 23 cm x 33 cm = 759 sq cms. My two smaller square pans: 15 x 15 = 225 sq cms and 23 x 23 = 529. 225 + 529 = 754 sq cms.
3. Place the butter in a microwave bowl. Melt the butter, then stir in the brown sugar. Put the butter and sugar back in the microwave and heat it to the point of bubbling. I do this in 30 second bursts to keep in from making a big sticky mess in the microwave. Heating the butter and sugar this second time gives the top it’s beautiful shiny look.
4. Mix the coffee granules with a tiny bit of hot water to make a paste.
5. Add the coffee paste, cocoa, baking powder, salt and vanilla to the butter and sugar mixture. Whisk together and check the temperature with your finger. It should feel like hot bath water. If (improbably) it’s too hot, leave it for five minutes.
6. Combine the flour and the chocolate chips. Coating the chips in the flour helps to distribute them more evenly in the batter.
7. Whisk in the eggs, then add the flour and chocolate chip mixture. Stir well to combine, scraping up from the bottom of the bowl to make sure all the mixture is incorporated.
8. Put the batter in your pan or pans and place them in oven. Bake about 30 minutes until your cake tester gives you crumbs. The top should look set and start to crack.
9. Leave overnight if you can or at least until completely cooled.

Enjoy.

I don’t like beetroot, why do I keep trying to cook with it? I refuse to be defeated by a vegetable and a root vegetable at that. Also, I was traumatised by beets as a child. My parents believed that if they put food on a plate at supper time; we children should eat it. They tried various stratagems to get me to eat the beets.

Most of my generation will recognise these; ‘just one bite’, ‘how do you know you don’t like them’, ‘you’re going to sit here at the table until you eat those beets’, ‘I’m going to warm up the beetroot for every meal until you eat it’.

Basically, this was a running gun battle that happened most Thursday nights (Thursday menu was meatloaf, mashed potatoes, cole slaw and beets). I didn’t (don’t) eat meatloaf or beets and so battle was joined.

However, I’m an adult (allegedly) and I’m not going to let the beetroot win. Hence, my quest to find something that makes beetroot fun to eat.

Claire, one of the lovely dressers at Smartworks, found this recipe for me. And I think we’ve cracked it. I’ve made a few tweaks. The Davinator said ‘OMG, this is it, you have made beetroot taste amazing’. Even I like this soup.

It’s a relatively simple recipe but I suggest all the usual precautions when peeling, cutting and cooking with beetroot. Wear rubber gloves, don’t let the peeled beetroot touch anything that is porous or you can’t scrub with lots of hot water and strong soap.

One health warning – excessive consumption of beetroot is not recommended for those with a history of kidney stones or kidney disease.

Time to make soup.

Ingredients

1 – small onion

30 grams of butter

1 medium potato

2 medium parsnips

4 small or 2 large beetroots

800 mls of vegetable stock or other light stock

2 tablespoons of cooking brandy

Sour cream or full fat Greek yoghurt for serving

Instructions

1. Melt the butter in a deep soup pot. The recipe makes enough for 6 starter size portions of soup. But you’re going to want the deep pot later.
2. Peel the potato, the parsnips and the beetroot. Cut into rough dice, about 2 cms. The smaller the dice, the quicker it cooks.
3. Rough chop the onion and add to the melted butter. Cook over a low heat until translucent.
4. Add the cooking brandy to the onions. Increase the heat to high and burn off the alcohol.
5. Add the stock to the pot. I actually use vegetable stock cubes and put them and the hot water directly in the pot. Bring to a boil.
6. Once the stock is boiling, add the potato, parsnips and beetroot. Cook at steady simmer until the vegetables are soft. Cooking time will depend on how small you have diced the vegetables. The quicker you can cook the beetroot the more purple your finished soup will be. Start checking after about 15 minutes. Mine took about 30 minutes.
7. Take out your trusty stick blender and puree the soup.
8. Put the soup in the serving bowls, add a big dollop of sour cream or yogurt and enjoy.

This post is by special request. Karen, one of the (many) lovely volunteers at Smartworks West said my no-knead brioche was the best bread she had ever eaten and asked for the recipe. No baker or author can resist that kind of flattery, so here it is.

The lovely volunteers and staff at Smartworks are enthusiastic test subjects for my baking. The Davinator is very grateful as it is clear that I can bake more than he should eat (note should not could). He could eat it all but it’s not good for his waistline.

This recipe is based on one from Cooks Illustrated – one of the very few cooking websites worth paying for. Some genius at Cooks Illustrated has freed us all from tedious kneading of butter into dough – spoonful by painful spoonful – by deciding to MELT THE BUTTER, cool it and then incorporate it in the batter. Inspiration, sheer inspiration. I’ve adopted this technique into many different recipes and honestly, it almost always works. It simplifies and speeds up recipes.

I’m hoping I’m not done by the advertising standards folks – it’s not genuine ‘no’ knead but it’s very little kneading. I do the kneading it in my Kitchen Aid. If not in a Kitchen Aid then it’s ‘stretch and fold’. Here’s a video to illustrate stretch and fold. It does require more elapsed time although in terms of time invested, but not much more input time than machine kneading.

Some really helpful specialist equipment; a Kitchen Aid, your trusty shower cap and a baking stone. It took me some time to adjust to using a stone and it does take the oven longer to get up to temperature but it makes a difference. I think it evens out the oven temperature. Allow an extra 15 minutes to pre-heat the oven. I know that my Kitchen Aid will knead this heavy dough, exercise caution if using another stand mixer. Dough has burnt out many a mixer motor.

Time warning – this recipe really likes at least an overnight rise in the refrigerator. And it can go for 24 hours if that works with your timing. Start on Saturday morning to have brioche for Sunday brunch.

Time to get baking.

Ingredients

Strong white bread flour – 500 grams

Yeast – 2 1/4 teaspoons

Salt – 1 1/2 teaspoons

3 eggs for dough, 1 egg for glazing

Water, room temperature – 60 mls

Caster sugar – 60 grams

Unsalted butter, melted and cooled – 115 grams

Instructions

1. Melt the butter in the microwave. Put to one side.
2. Combine flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Use your Kitchen Aid bowl if you’re going to machine knead.
3. Whisk the eggs, water and sugar together in another bowl. Whisk in the butter.
4. Add the egg and butter mixture to the dry mixture. Combine well with a wooden spoon until all the dry flour is incorporated and a dough forms. Cover with a shower cap or plastic wrap and leave for ten minutes. Letting it rest helps the gluten develop.
5. Time to ‘knead’. Fit the dough hook to your Kitchen Aid and knead on the lowest setting for 8 minutes. Or undertake the ‘stretch and fold’ process four separate times, leaving 30 minutes between each set of stretching and folding. When complete, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 16 to 24 hours. Yes, hours. Alternatively, you can leave the dough in a cool place for several hours, then refrigerate over night.
6. Flour your work surface and turn out the dough. Divide it in two pieces. Working with the first piece, make it into a disk about 10 cms across. Fold the edges toward the centre of the dough and it will form a ball. Flip the dough ball over. Flour the top lightly, make sure your hands are clean and dry. Dough sticks to dough. Hold your hand flat to the top of the dough ball. Apply as little pressure as possible and make small circular motions on the top of the dough. It should form into a smooth taut ball. Repeat with the second. Cover the completed rounds loosely with plastic and let them rest for five minutes.
7. Get your 900 gram loaf pan ready. (Roughly 21 cms by 11 cms if measuring). I line my pan with parchment paper or a loaf pan liner. You can grease the pan with butter but this can vary your outcome.
8. Flip your dough balls over and the process in step 6. Flatten to a 10 cm round disk, form a ball, flip it over and firm it up with the circular motion. Place the balls, seam side down, in the prepared loaf pan. Cover with a shower cap or loose plastic wrap and let it rise at room temperature for 90 minutes to 2 hours, it should double in size.
9. Preheat your oven to 175C, 30 to 45 minutes before you’re going to bake. I don’t use a fan oven for bread, but if yours only does fan then lower the temperature to 160C and keep a close eye on the top of the bread.
10. Beat the remaining egg with a pinch of salt. Remove the plastic wrap and brush the top of the loaf with the egg wash.
11. Place the loaf in the oven (on the baking stone if using). Bake for 35 to 45 minutes. Internal temperature should be 90C and brioche should be golden brown. It’s worth taking a look at the bread fairly frequently – if the top browns quickly, cover loosely with foil.
12. Remove from the oven, tip out of the pan onto a wire rack to cool. Try and let it cool completely before serving. I know it’s hard, the kitchen smells of fresh brioche and you’re staring at the lovely golden loaf…… And enjoy.

It was an impulse purchase of a kilo of dried black eyed beans (black eyed peas to Americans) that inspired me to make my own baked beans. And since the very first batch not a single can or jar or snap pot of Heinz has been seen at Braybourne House. My recipe has been through several iterations and I am confident in calling it ‘my own’.

I’m not waging war on convenience food -it is essential in a busy life. But understand what you exchange for convenience; it’s not just money, it’s taste and quality as well.

There I was staring at that kilo of dried beans thinking – what was I thinking? What should I do with these? An hour or so spent browsing the internet resulted in me rejecting many many recipes. I was astonished at how many American recipes for ‘slow cooked beans’ or ‘crockpot baked beans’ used tinned baked beans. Basically, the recipes just sexed up the canned beans.

This recipe starts with the true basic ingredients; a pork hock and dried beans. You can cut out steps by using a ham hock and tinned beans. My version has you cooking the pork and soaking the beans overnight – so starting from scratch doesn’t add much if any prep time.

If you want to make beans on Saturday, you need to have your ingredients and start your prep on Friday night. A slow cooker works well but you can also put these in a cast iron Dutch oven (big heavy stock pot) and put them in the oven. Instructions for both methods are below. You could cook them on hob, but then you’d need to be around to stir them regularly. Nobody has that much time on their hands.

Elapsed time is long but actual time spent prepping etc is very low. It’s a recipe that makes a lot of beans but they freeze beautifully. I freeze lots of containers with two servings. So that’s for two with breakfast but only one for the Davinator with a jacket potato or on toast.

You could do this as a vegetarian dish. Omit the bacon and the pork hock, use a couple of vegetable stock cubes to add some flavour during the slow cooking process. Add these midway through the cooking process. Salt and beans are not friends until after the beans have fully absorbed liquid.

Ingredients

One pork hock (it’s the ‘shank’ part of the leg, sometimes described as a pork knuckle). Or a ham hock. If using the ham hock, do not roast it)
600 grams of dried beans
100 grams of bacon lardons
2 small onions
3 cans of tomatoes (400 grams each)
3 tablespoons of black treacle, molasses or brown sugar
2 teaspoons dried mustard powder
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon celery salt
1 teaspoon chili flakes

Salt to taste but only when cooking is finished.

Instructions

1. The night before prep your beans and pork.
2. Put the oven on about 125C. Place the pork joint in a roasting tin. Score the skin deeply in a number of places. Use a small rack if you have one to put the pork on. The pork can cook for 8 to 10 hours but a minimum of 6 hours. So put it in the oven when you go to bed and take it out the next morning.
3. Now the beans. I use the ‘hot soak’ method for my beans. There are three ways to prep dried beans and they tend to divide otherwise mild mannered cooks. Hot soak gets rid of the most sulphur and its sulphur that gives beans a bad reputation for shall we say digestive effects. Hot soak also works nicely overnight. Here’s a link to an assessment and detailed description of the various methods from the Bean Institute.
4. Put the beans in a big deep pot, cover with twice as much cold water as there are beans. Bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 3 minutes. Turn them off and leave them overnight.
5. Now you can go to bed and try to get over the knowledge that there is a Bean Institute. And they care a lot about beans.

Next day…….

1. Get out your slow cooker or Dutch oven. If using the oven method, preheat your oven to 150C.
2. Put the lardons in the bottom of the pot.
3. Peel the onions, halve and place in the pot.
4. Drain the beans, rinse, pick out any bad ones. Add the rinsed beans to the pot.
5. Add the tomatoes, molasses and spices. Stir into the beans. Adjust the amount of water so the mixture is covered with about 3 cms of liquid on top. I usually rinse out the tomato tins and use that water.
6. Take your roasted pork shank and nestle it in among the beans. If you’re feeling decadent, deglaze the pork roasting pan with hot water and add the juices and pork fat the beans.
7. If using a slow cooker or crock pot; put the lid on it, turn it to high and leave it for 3 to 4 hours. Likewise with the oven method; cover it and put it on the bottom shelf of the oven for 3 to 4 hours.
8. Check the beans for ‘doneness’ after the initial cooking time. The meat should be falling off the bone and the beans soft, approaching creamy. Turn the heat to low and cook for another hour. Leave the lid off if it seems like there is too much liquid.
9. Your beans are nearly ready to eat now. Carefully remove the pork shank, remove the skin, bone and cartilage and shred the meat. Return the meat to the beans and stir it in. I usually find and remove the onions as well. Add salt to taste at this point.

Enjoy! Thank you to my Twitter friend Anne (@anneforensics) who noticed the hand crafted baked beans in my cooked breakfast tweet and asked for the recipe.

This recipe needs a good sourdough starter. And you need time and patience and to trust your judgement on the proving and rising. But it’s worth the effort. There are a number of links in this blog to other parts of the baking community; sources for baking stuff, detailed descriptions of creating a sourdough starter and a link to a really good book on bread but it does not start with ‘make sourdough starter’.

Try different types of chocolate chips and dried fruit. Two combinations that worked well for me; 1) milk chocolate chips and raisins and 2) dark chocolate and dried cranberries. The Davinator loved this bread so much he said ‘don’t leave any in the house, I can’t stop eating it’. And it even tempted the ‘no carbs’ crowd into trying it. It’s rich and tasty but it’s not sweet. There’s no added sugar, just some chocolate morsels and dried fruit.

Always use top quality cocoa and chocolate chips in baking. Cheap chocolate is waxy and unpleasant. A good European brand like Callebaut makes a difference.

This recipe is a little hard on the nerves but worth the effort. As the basis for my experients, I used a recipe from Emmanuel Hadjiandreou’s book ‘How to Make Bread’ .

The recipe calls for 200 grams of sourdough starter because it’s a heavy dough. You need to take a view on the strength of your starter; if it’s on the watery or weak side then use more. Adjust the amount of water so that you have, in total, 420 grams of starter and water. Here’s a good article on making and feeding your sourdough starter from King Arthur Flour. A great thing about King Arthur is that they have live on line chat during US east coast business hours. They’ve helped me unsnarl a couple of knotty problems in the past.

I’ve gone for kneading in the mixer, but you can also do ‘stretch and fold’ or traditional hand kneading. Don’t be tempted to make a double batch in your Kitchen Aid, it may burnout the motor.

Recipe

Specialist kit

Three pieces of equipment help with ‘traditional’ sourdough; a proving basket, a baking stone and a baking peel. None is mandatory. If you don’t have a proving basket, line your largest loaf pan and do the second prove in it. If you don’t have a baking stone, use your sturdiest baking sheet. The peel is generally useful and once you’ve got one you won’t know how you did without it but a lightweight tray or a big spatula can do the trick. One more link to an online source of baking equipment. – Bakery Bits.

Ingredients

200 grams (7 ounces) small pieces of dried fruit such as raisins, currants or dried cranberries

80 grams (3 ounces) chocolate chips; milk, dark, semi-sweet or white but good quality

330 (12 ounces) grams plain white flour

8 grams (generous teaspoon) salt

20 grams ( 3/4 ounce) good quality cocoa powder

200 grams (7 ounces) strong sourdough starter

220 mls (7 3/4 ounces) tepid water

Method

1. Combine the dried fruit and chocolate chips in a small bowl and set aside .
2. Whisk together the flour, salt and cocoa powder in another bowl (dry ingredients)
3. Put the sourdough starter and the water in your mixing bowl. Break up the starter so that it’s well mixed in with the water. Put the dough hook on your mixer.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the water and starter – start the mixer and let it run for 8 to 10 minutes. You should have a good elastic dough.
5. Transfer to a well floured work surface. Knead in the chocolate chips and fruit mixture by hand.
6. Put the dough in a well greased mixing bowl, cover the bowl with a shower cap and leave until it has at least doubled. I left mine to rise overnight in a very cool room. It can take four to eight hours
7. Once it has doubled, back to the well floured surface. Flatten to a rectangle and place in your well floured proving basket. If you’re using a loaf pan, line it with parchment paper. Leave the dough for the second prove. If you can be patient, you’ll get better risen bread. It’s hard to over prove sourdough. Try for doubled, although you might not get there.
8. Pre-heat the oven to 220C. One of the downsides of using a baking stone is that it takes longer for the oven to heat up. Place an old roasting pan on the bottom of the oven and put 250 mls (one cup) of water to one side.
9. Put a piece of baking parchment on your peel or on a lightweight baking sheet. Tip out the dough onto the parchment and slide on to the baking stone. Pour the water into the roasting pan. Bake the loaf for 30 minutes.
10. Test with your thermometer (>90c) or tap to see if your loaf sounds hollow.

I know it’s difficult but try and let the bread cool for at least 30 minutes before you cut into it and eat. Bake on, folks. Please ask questions via email, social media or the comment function.

Recipe #2 from from Chapter 2 ‘Quick Breads’ , King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking.

I made this recipe three times. Came out much the same each time. I have concluded I don’t like corn muffins. I shouldn’t be surprised by this because I don’t really like polenta, grits or corn bread. I’ll eat corn tortillas, corn chips and corn on the cob but apparently baked goods with corn meal are not my thing. However, I’ve mastered the recipe and share it for the sake of completeness. And for those readers who might like corn meal baked goods.

Important – corn meal is the yellow stuff. Corn starch or corn flour (UK) are white and primarily used as thickening agents. This recipe calls for corn meal. You might struggle to find it in your local supermarket but as always – the internet is your friend. Buy one bag, you may find yourself not a big fan of corn meal.

The Davinator (never met a baked good he didn’t eat) liked these and I ate them also although he did compare their texture to scones. My second and third attempts produced a fluffier outcome – less dense, more muffin like – but the taste has remained constant. I’ve modified the original recipe and it’s below with my adjustments. In both metric and imperial measurements.

No mocking but I did use a piping bag to fill the muffin cups because I wanted to make some mini-muffins, much better for taking to my charity job at Smart Works. A muffin small enough to eat in one bit is guilt free after all.

Ingredients

170 grams (6 ounces) – unsalted butter, melted

190 grams (6 3/4 ounces) – white flour

275 grams (9 3/4 ounces) – whole yellow cornmeal

50 grams (1 3/4 ounces) – caster sugar (granulated)

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

2 large eggs

340 mls (12 ounces) – milk

50 grams (3 tablespoons) – honey

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 200C (180 fan) (400F). Melt the butter and have ready.
2. Prepare your muffin tin – this makes a dozen normal sized muffins or 6 normal sized and a dozen mini muffins.
3. Whisk together the sugar, flour, cornmeal , baking powder and salt in your mixing bowl.
4. Using the beater attachment, turn the mixer on and add the butter as the mixer is going.
5. Do the same with the milk and the honey.
6. Beat the eggs in one at a time, don’t overbeat.
7. Fill the piping bag. Or use your ice cream trigger scoop and fill the muffin tins.
8. Normal sized muffins need 20 to 23 minutes in the oven. 12 minutes is sufficient for the mini muffins.

These are nice with butter and jam (what isn’t when you think about it) but also good with peanut butter and or Nutella. Bake away and enjoy.

It’s still January (just barely). I’m back to the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking quest after a busy and tumultuous holiday season. Also, I started my non-exec and ‘consulting’ job. But that’s in my parallel universe. Here, it’s all about that bread.

I was trying to be methodical and start at the beginning of the cookbook but I fell at the first fence. The first chapter is ‘breakfast’. It’s essentially pancakes, waffles, crepes and granola. The problem here is that the Davinator prefers savoury breakfast – unless it’s a croissant and then he’s all over it with the butter and jam. So, I parked the first chapter until I have keener ‘consumers’. Maybe pancake day…..

I’ve jumped to the quick bread chapter which has twelve muffin recipes. And decided I must go in strict order. So, it’s ‘Sour Cream Muffins’ to start. Here we go.

I have, however, a couple of minor criticisms of the KA Whole Grain Baking cookbook.

The first is that in their quest to make whole grain taste good, the recipes call for an array of specialised ingredients. A few of these are practically impossible to find in the UK – so if I can’t get it, I’m assuming readers will be unable to source. I’ve decided to ‘substitute’ those difficult ingredients. If substitution doesn’t work, I’ll punt on those recipes until I can get my hands on the real thing. One thing I couldn’t find -‘white whole wheat flour’. I tried a mix of white and whole wheat flour and that came out fine in this recipe.

The second is that the recipes are tailored to American taste buds. After I’ve made them the first time, I start reducing the sugar. In some recipes, I’ve cut the sugar by 1/3. I’m careful with this because sugar also affects the basic chemistry of baked goods, beyond making it sweet.

I made these muffins with frozen blueberries and I suspect they would be fine with any frozen or fresh fruit. My frozen blueberries (from Sainsburys I confess) were on the large size, so I would probably try smaller berries or smaller pieces of fruit the next time.

Recipe

Ingredients – makes 12 muffins

150 grams (5 ounces) whole wheat flour

140 grams (4 1/3 ounces) plain white flour (not self raising)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

55 grams (2 ounces, 4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted

180 grams (6 1/3 ounces) of sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

225 mls (8 fluid ounces) of sour cream or full fat greek yoghurt

220 grams (8 ounces) frozen blueberries

Instructions

1. Combine the first five ingredients; flour to salt, in a bowl. Stir together.
2. Put the melted butter in the bowl for your mixer. Add the sugar. Beat to combine (don’t you love the melted butter trick).
3. Scrape down the bowl, beat in the eggs one a time and combine well.
4. Add the vanilla and the sour cream. Beat until incorporated.
5. Add the dry ingredients from step 1. Mix on low speed until just combined. (Do not overbeat quick bread, it will punish you).
6. Stir in the frozen fruit. Make sure that the bottom of the batter has mixed in properly.
7. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for an hour. You could leave it longer but I think the frozen fruit will deteriorate if you leave it for too long.
8. Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan) (375F).
9. Prep a muffin pan with paper liners lightly coated with non-stick spray or grease the tin.
10. Fill the muffin pan – I use my ice cream scoop. Put a generous scoop full in each muffin cup.
11. Bake for 22 to 26 minutes. They will look lovely and brown on the top when complete.
12. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin, then tip out to cool on a rack or on the counter top. Don’t let them cool in the tin; that’s how they get hard crust on the sides and bottom.

Enjoy. One recipe down, eleven to go.

Rye bread is not difficult to make. Nor is sourdough. You need time and patience and the correct ingredients. You also need bread consumers that like both rye bread and sourdough. A sourdough rye loaf might go over like a lead balloon with anyone who’s been brought up on sliced white loaf. However, if you have fans of rye and sourdough or adventurous eaters, bake away, I say.

This blog post does not have instructions on making or maintaining a sourdough starter. There are specialist blogs on that topic. I will confess to keeping 3 different starters in the fridge; white, whole wheat and rye. Mine are mature and I feed them once a week. I try to use at least one starter every week which means we eat a variety of sourdough breads and prefer the taste. Here is a link to the King Arthur Flour sourdough instructions.

The Davinator also loves rye bread – thus the sourdough rye recipes that follow. Plenty of recipes do not specify or require rye starter for rye bread. I’ve experimented a bit and I think it gives a better depth of flavour, particularly for breads that use a combination of white and rye flours. The first of two recipes is below. Its very reliable but patience is a key ingredient. Sourdough rises at its own pace. Leave it overnight for the first prove. You won’t be tempted.

Raisin & rye sourdough recipe

Ingredients

(For starter sponge)

100 grams of rye sourdough starter

150 grams of rye flour

200 mls cold water

(Remaining ingredients)

200 grams rye flour

6 grams of salt

200 grams of raisins

150 mls hot water

Instructions

1. Combine sourdough starter, 150 grams of rye flour and 200 mls of cold water in a larger bowl than you think you need. Mix thoroughly, then scrape down the sides of the bowl. Cover with a shower cap. Leave to rise overnight. An overnight rise means you don’t need to find a warm draft free spot to accelerate the rise.
2. Wait.
3. Prep a large loaf pan (2 pounds or 900 grams). Either line with parchment or vegetable oil. I’m a fan of parchment but both work.
4. Boil your kettle. Put 150 mls of hot water in a measuring cup. Now make a cup of tea while your hot water cools slightly. When you can drink the tea (even with milk) it’s time to go to step 5.
5. Combine the remaining rye flour, salt and raisins and stir well. Dump the dry ingredients on top of the sponge. Pour the hot water over the top and stir quickly to combine the ingredients.
6. Spoon the dough into your loaf pan. Smooth the top with a scraper. Cover loosely with a shower cap.
7. Allow the dough to rise for two hours.
8. Pre-heat the oven to 240c degrees and put a shallow roasting pan on the bottom.
9. When oven comes up to heat, place the dough in the oven, lower the heat to 220c and pour 200 mls of water into the roasting pan.
10. Bake for 30 minutes. If you test with a thermometer, it should be over 90c. Or the loaf will feel hollow when tapped.

A few thoughts on this recipe: use the darkest rye flour you can find. It makes for great flavour. And like all ‘true rye’ recipes, there’s no kneading. The hot water step is important. It seems fiddly but if you don’t do it, your bread goes mad and overflows the pan during the second rise.

It’s worthwhile having a good book or two on bread. It helps with various forms of bread anxiety. One of my favourites in Emmanuel Hadjiandreou ‘How to Make Sourdough’.

What is your favourite?

Food is love.  Make food and gift it at Christmas – it’s a gift of love.  

This blog is about making stollen, a lovely brioche type dough with fruit, nuts and marzipan.  It comes from Saxony in Germany and has brothers, sisters and cousins in many European food traditions.  Nobody has time to waste at Christmas, so I’ve worked on my recipe so that it has fewer separate process steps.  This recipe has more yeast to help the rich heavy dough rise.  

Stollen likes to age but the Davinator has proven that it can be eaten on the same day.  Thanks to Felicity Cloake of the Guardian who did a LOT of stollen research that I used in developing the recipe below. 

This recipe makes four 500 gram (one pound) loaves) that are a perfect size for gifting. To make a single large loaf, divide in half.  

Marzipan is one of those foods that divides people.  Marzipan is completely optional in this recipe.  And I’ve included two ways to roll it into the dough.  

Recipe

Ingredients

200g dried fruit; I use a mix of sultanas, cranberries and cherries. 
80 ml cooking brandy or dark rum 
320 ml semi-skim or whole milk
25g dried active yeast
300g unsalted butter, 50g to glaze later
850g plain flour, plus a bit extra
100g caster sugar
 12g salt
1 tsp ground nutmeg or other spice of your choice – but not cinnamon
4 egg yolks
50g mixed peel
50g flaked almonds
300g marzipan
Icing sugar (confectioners sugar) to glaze

Instructions

1.  Put the dried fruit to soak in the brandy.  Any dried fruit works but the individual pieces should be no larger than a sultana (raisin to Americans). Put a piece of plastic wrap over the top. 
2. Warm the milk to room temperature.  If you’re a mom, no hotter than a baby’s bottle.  You want the milk warm so that it doesn’t shock the yeast, but not so hot that it kills the yeast.  Add the yeast and one tablespoon of flour to the milk and stir well.  Cover with a shower cap or plastic wrap. 
3. Melt the butter.  Cover with a shower cap. 
4. Leave all three  bowls of ingredients for about 30 minutes.  Go wrap some presents or hang some ornaments on your Christmas tree. 
5. Combine flour, caster sugar, salt and spices in a large bowl.  I use nutmeg and I know that works.  You can experiment with other spices but avoid cinnamon.  Cinnamon is a yeast assassin.    Hence, the cinnamon roll was born (because the cinnamon is ON the dough not IN the dough).  
6. Add the milk and yeast mixture.  It should be foamy and smell yeasty now.   Stir it in.  Now add the butter and the egg yolks.   You will have a shaggy dough but it will come together. 
7. Prep a large bowl, oil lightly.  I use coconut based oil spray.  
8. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  Set a timer and knead for 10 minutes.  If you don’t use a timer, you will be tempted to cheat.  This activity is also known as the ‘stollen workout’. 
9. Put the kneaded dough into the oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap or a shower cap.  Leave to rise in a warm draft free place for 45 minutes.  The yeast to dough ratio is high so it should rise relatively quickly,  It won’t double in size but should be puffy. 
10. Drain the dried fruit.  Drink the leftover alcohol (if desired) but don’t put it in the dough.  Strong spirit is another yeast assassin.  
11. Put your dough out on a lightly floured surface.  Pat it into a big rectangle.  Spread your flaked almonds and peel on the dough.  Now spread the marinated fruit on top.  Roll it up and knead in the fruit, nuts and peel.   This is kneading to incorporate ingredients not to develop gluten so stop when they feel reasonably mixed in. I use candied ginger as well (Davinator favourite).  
12. Put the dough back in the bowl and let it rise for another 30 to 45 minutes.  
13. Get your marzipan ready.  You need four chunks of 75 grams.  Knead the marzipan (like its play dough or clay) until soft and pliable.  You can either have a roll of marzipan in the centre of your dough (traditional) or you can have a thin layer that is a sort of a spiral in the centre (less traditional but seems more attractive to people who have reservations about marzipan).  First method is to roll each chunk into a log about 8 to 10 inches long, say an inch in diameter.  Second method is to roll your  marzipan into a rectangle about 8 by 8 inches. 
14. Your dough should be puffy again.  Separate into four equal parts for your four loaves – each one will weigh 500 to 600 grams.  Back to the lightly floured surface.  Roll out each portion of dough  into a rectangle.  If using traditional marzipan, place the log at the end nearest to you and roll the dough up into a long fat cylinder.  Sort of giant cigar shape.  If using the flat marzipan, place on the rectangle and roll up the dough. 
15. Place the loaves on baking sheets covered with parchment paper. Cover with plastic wrap. Let the loaves rise for 30 minutes to an hour and preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan). 
16. Bake for 35 minutes,  the loaves with be golden brown on top.  I try and use the bottom of the oven because it seems the stollen likes a gentle hear. 
17. Take the loaves out.  Brush with melted butter and dust with icing sugar.  Repeat this step at least 3 times but if you forget how many, do it a couple more times.  No one ever said no to butter and sugar at Christmas.  I have a fine mesh ‘sugar shaker’ and this is it’s highest and best use.  
18. Wrap your stollen in parchment paper, then foil and leave to rest for a day or so.  Keeps beautiful in the refrigerator for at least week.   I’ve put mine in a cool dark cupboard (essentially had to hide it from the Davinator) and it was lovely a month later. I forgot about it.  But it seldom hangs around for that long. 

Enjoy with butter or cheese or just as it comes.   Also lovely with my Christmas chutney. 

Merry Christmas, all.