Dessert Day - the ANZUS edition

That's right, yesterday was Dessert Day. And this time, Deidre and I had an extra special guest - my BFF Kat, who's in Melbourne for a week! And FINE, she's still Australian. But she's been living in New Zealand for like a millionty years now, and I really wanted an excuse to refer to us as the ANZUS trio...

ANYWAY.

The day started with me determined to get to the meeting point before the others. I left home 15 minutes before we were due to meet - said meeting point is about two minutes walk from my house - and arrived to find both Deidre and Kat already there. Obviously, my reaction was "DAMMIT!!!", because I was so determined to not do my usual "leave the house when Deidre texts me to say she's already there" routine. Womp womp.

We were typically vague about what we were actually going to make, and did the usual stand-around-in-the-supermarket-Googling-recipes-on-our-phones routine. We ended up deciding on cinnamon rolls and a chocolate swiss roll. After some Googling, we decided on Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls and Smitten Kitchen's naturally gluten free chocolate roll cake.

There was also an awkward moment in which I was totally in the way and a voice behind me said "Excuse me, ladies", and I turned around to see two police officers with a shopping trolley, and my immediate reaction was "OH GOD, WHAT DID I DO???" rather than "Oh, they can't get past me". Awkwardness followed, because OBVIOUSLY.

ANYWAY.

We started by making the roll dough (we only made a half quantity because 50 cinnamon rolls = TOO MANY CINNAMON ROLLS), except we didn't have the necessary enormous saucepan, so we tipped the liquid into the many cups of flour rather than the other way around. This may explain why it didn't rise as much as expected. Or it could be because my yeast is a bit shit and needs replacing... Either that or gluten free stuff just doesn't rise the way it should...

So we left the dough to think about what it had done, and got on with making the swiss roll. It was surprisingly easy, right up until the point where we had to take it out of the tin and roll it up in a wet tea towel to cool. Then there was much "Oh God"-ing and "WHAT IF IT BREAKS??"-ing, but luckily Kat's argument that it would be delicious even in crumb form was a convincing one and we pressed on successfully.

Then it was time to assemble the cinnamon rolls. We cut back quite dramatically on the quantity of butter we used, because REASONS, and mixed the sugar and cinnamon together before sprinkling it on:

Then it was time to roll! It was less stressful than anticipated, possibly because we'd rolled the dough out on baking paper, so we were able to use that to get us started:

Then it was into the pan! I think we were all a little hesitant about whether or not they'd work, because they still weren't doing the whole rising thing very well despite the presence of both yeast AND baking powder. But we ploughed on regardless:

While they were in the oven, we whipped up something that vaguely resembled the glaze that Pioneer Woman's recipe called for. We skimped on the butter again, used milk instead of coffee, and used maple syrup instead of maple flavouring. Once they were out of the oven, we drizzled the glaze over the top:

Then it was time for the most terrifying part of the day - unrolling, filling, and rerolling the swiss roll. It was pretty much as scary as anticipated, especially when a couple of cracks developed. But we managed get it assembled without the entire thing falling apart - WIN! (The tea towel seemed appropriate, given Kat's presence)

And so to the verdicts:
- The cinnamon rolls are pretty damned tasty, but had a slight gluten free aftertaste. They were definitely better warm - the cooler they are, the more they taste like a big greasy gluten free mess.
- The chocolate swiss roll? AMAZING. I might reduce the amount of cream next time because there was more cream than cake involved. But it was fabulous - light and fluffy and completely and utterly delicious. My mum rated it 25 out of 10, which gives you some indication of how tasty it was. Basically, y'all should go make one immediately.

Which one would you go for?

K xx

Dessert Day: the "It takes HOW long?" edition

So Deidre came over yesterday for yet another installment of Dessert Day. And in keeping with our previous Dessert Days, the weather was HORRIFIC. Seriously, you guys. Every single Dessert Day is either a millionty degrees, insanely humid, or pouring with rain. I don't know how we manage it, I really don't...

ANYWAY. We started out making the dough for this chocolate and cinnamon bread thing. In typical Dessert Day fashion, we kludged it a little - my local supermarket only stocked milk powder in 2kg bags, so we left that out, we didn't have any guar gum, and we used Schweppes soda water instead of San Pellegrino, because we're not made of money, yo.

As we went to clear off the bench and get started, Deidre found the magazine section from Sunday's newspaper, which had Ryan Gosling on the cover. Obviously, he became a Dessert Day spectator:

So we made the dough, which resulted in much "Hmm"-ing and "Seriously? TWO TABLESPOONS OF YEAST??"-ing and "Cream cheese???"-ing, and set it aside to rise for an hour. Then we got started on cooking the quinoa for these savoury treats while we started putting together the ingredients for these mint chocolate chip cookies. At which point we promptly discovered that the box of baking soda I've been baking with since approximately 1997 was no longer with us. So while Deidre took care of the quinoa, I marched the three blocks back to the supermarket in search of more.

Discovery of the day: my supermarket only stocks baking soda in 1kg boxes. A KILO OF BAKING SODA. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be passing that thing down to Little Miss A in my will...

Deidre and me with the box of baking soda. Totally to scale.

ANYWAY. So I got back and after we spent five minutes cackling hysterically about how much baking soda we had, we progressed with the cookies. They're pretty easy, and if you live in Australia and are deprived of Andes Mints (I had a packet of their baking chips, purchased at a Walmart in rural Virginia), I'm fairly certain you could replace them with 1 cup of dark chocolate chips, and replace the vanilla with mint essence, and end up with more or less the same result.

Once the cookies were in the oven (I highly recommend using a cookie scoop if you have one. It would have taken FOREVER otherwise), we went to check on the bread dough. Despite its two tablespoons of yeast and having been placed in a warm spot for an hour, it hadn't risen at all, leading us to the conclusion that in the future, we're going to prestart the yeast no matter what a recipe says. BECAUSE OF REASONS, DAMMIT.

Then we read the line in the recipe that said "Place covered bowl of dough in refrigerator overnight" and went "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, NO." So we proceeded to the next step, and rolled it out into a square. We cut up the cold butter as ordered, put it in the dough, folded it up, and rolled it out again, all as directed. The result - rather predictably - was this:

MMMMMMM, BUTTER CHUNKS.

Thankfully, the cookies came out of the oven at about that time, so we left the dough to think about what it had done while we taste tested them:

Word to the wise: the walnuts seem like a weird addition to a chocolate-y, minty cookie, but DO NOT LEAVE THEM OUT. They cut through some of the sweetness.

Ryan approved:

Yes, we're mature adults. 

Back to the incredibly confusing dough. We covered it in a truly frightening amount of cinnamon, then crumbled the chocolate ganache over it, then plonked on a bunch of chopped almonds:

Yes, that's the butter showing through the layer of cinnamon...

Then we rolled it up, which led to much "Oh God, is this even going to work??"-ing, and let it pull itself together for a few minutes while we whipped up the cheesy quinoa bites. Which, I have to say, were really quick and easy and turned out much better than I thought they would!

Sadly, this was the best photo I took of them

WIN.

Back to the dough, we spent a couple of minutes pondering what the hell "Gently coil roll" meant, and settled for folding it into three and smushing it into a loaf pan. We then checked the next step of the recipe, and went "IT HAS TO SIT FOR HOW LONG????". 90 minutes, it turned out.

*sigh*

So we went and ate our cheesy quinoa bites in front of the final episode of Pride & Prejudice, followed by a decent chunk of An Ideal Husband before putting the bread in the oven. FOR AN HOUR. Which allowed us to finish An Ideal Husband with five minutes to spare.

The recipe then said to leave the bread until completely cooled before you cut it, but LOL NOPE.

The final verdict on all the things:
Cheesy quinoa bites: could easily have other vegetables added to them. And probably more cheese.
Mint chocolate chip cookies: ZOMG, AMAZING.
Chocolate cinnamon bread thing: Tasty, but a ridiculous amount of work (and sitting around waiting for it to do things that never happened) for the ultimate end product. Also, a very confusing recipe. Also also, with all that cinnamon and a ton of nuts, my brain kept expecting it to contain apple rather than chocolate. But that's probably just me.
An Ideal Husband: Far more serious than either of us remembered. Also, whatever happened to Minnie Driver?
Ryan Gosling as a Dessert Day witness: He fell over once or twice, but didn't judge us for squealing about how gross it was to touch raw egg. So I'd call that a win!

K xx

Pizza and thriftiness

So, who here likes pizza? Oh, hey, pretty much everyone ever.

If you're like me and love pizza, but hate how much it costs, you should go and check out the guest post I wrote for my high school BFF over at Must Be Thrifty, where you can learn just how much it'll cost you to make your own pizza from scratch, including the dough (it's really not that hard!). You won't regret it!

K xx

Challenge recipe 10: The essential white loaf

Like I said at the weekend, I crossed another challenge recipe off the list on Sunday. If you've got no idea what I'm talking about, you can go here and read about the challenge, the rules I've set and what I've made so far. Anyway, let's get on with the show.

Here's the book:

Now, anyone who's been around me when an advert for Twinings comes on might be a little surprised by this. It's true - I can't stand Nigella Lawson. I don't think anyone really wants to eat food that's been described as 'slutty', and all her cupcakes look like she's forgotten to double the recipe for the cake part, so has filled up the top of the patty pan with icing (see above). Oh, and all her quantities are in weight, because apparently there's no such thing as cup measures in the UK... *sigh* But I was given this book as a birthday present last year, and the rules of the challenge state that I must make use of it.

I've not had a lot of good experiences with celebrity cookbooks in the past. The quantities tend to be completely bizarre, or the cooking times are utter bollocks, or the recipes call for esoteric ingredients that are either disgusting or which cost a fortune. Anyway, I went with bread for the savoury recipe, figuring it was kind of hard to mess that up. Aaaaah, hindsight. What a wonderful thing...

Anyway, here's what you'll need:

Start by weighing out 500g of bread flour:

And clearly I need to get a decent set of kitchen scales. I suspect these are less than accurate...

Add in 7g of yeast (in normal people land, this is 2 teaspoons)...

...and a tablespoon of salt. Yes, you read that right. A TABLESPOON.

Then add in around 300mL of warm water. Nigella recommends that you add 200mL and stir it through, then add a little more if required. I wound up needing at least 250mL, so I'd probably just go with 1 cup in the future!

Mix the water through with a wooden spoon. According to Nigella, you want it to be "a shaggy mess".

Once that's done, add in a tablespoon of softened unsalted butter:

Mix the butter through, and then dump the whole lot out on to the (clean!) bench:

Knead the so-called "shaggy mess" for about 10 minutes, or until it's smooth and stretchy. You may need to add a little more flour - just sprinkle it on the bench and it'll be gradually (ARGH - TWININGS ADVERT FEATURING NIGELLA ON TV...) absorbed into the dough.

Coat the inside of a mixing bowl with a little olive oil, and turn the dough in the oil to coat:

Cover the bowl with Glad Wrap/cling film/Ceran wrap, and put the bowl in a warm place for an hour or two. I put it in the laundry (read: the cupboard in the bathroom that contains the washing machine and the dryer) because the dryer was running and it was the warmest place in the house.

After 1-2 hours (aka all of Prince of Persia and half of Wolverine. I have such quality taste in movies!), the dough should have roughly doubled in size.

Punch it down (which is great anger management!), and then knead it for another minute. When you're done, form it into a loaf shape (or put it into a loaf tin if you own one):

Place it on a baking tray (if you don't have a loaf tin) and cover it with a tea towel to rise again for about half an hour.

While it's rising, preheat your oven to 220 degrees C. Decorate the top of your loaf as you wish - I went with adamantium claw slices (hey, it was only appropriate, given my choice of movie watching! Also, Wolverine attacked it with both hands. OBVIOUSLY...) and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.

Bake it for 35 minutes or until it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Let it cool for five minutes or so, then transfer to a cooling rack. You can either eat it while it's still warm or leave it until it's cooled completely. I went with the former:

The verdict? It was...okay. Ish. I mean, yes, the recipe works. But it's totally not how *I* would do it.

With my almost five years of history in the brewing industry, I took one look at this recipe and went "BUT WHERE'S THE ADJUNCT????" Yeast needs something to feed on, so most baking recipes that use yeast tend to involve a teaspoon of sugar to get it started, or use milk rather than water (lactose sugars). Sure, the bread rose. But it rose reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally slowly. If I were making it again, I'd start the yeast with a cup of warm water and a teaspoon of sugar, and put it somewhere warm for 10 minutes BEFORE mixing it with the flour.

I know homemade bread is never going to be anything like the store bought stuff or what comes out of a bread machine. But this mostly tasted like yeast. And was really stodgy. The first bite I took gave me the thought "Hmm. This tastes like a brewery farted in the dough." And to be honest? That's not really a thought I want to have about my food. So I wound up throwing out half the loaf.

Needless to say, my opinion of Nigella has not improved... Has anyone had any good experiences with celebrity chef recipes??

K xx

Experiment 2 - pizza dough

Right - the dreaded unpacking is done, and despite the giant pile of empty boxes in the living room waiting to go to the dumpster when it's not -3 degrees outside, my new apartment bears some resemblance to tidiness and normality!

And so I declare it time to return to our regularly scheduled programming. Baking. Whatever. Let's make some pizza!! Here's the cast of characters:


Start by placing 1 cup of warm water in a bowl. It needs to be warm rather than hot, otherwise you'll kill the yeast. And that leads to badness...

Next up, grab the yeast. You can use the stuff in the sachets, but this massive tin of yeast was on sale.

Place 2 teaspoons (or 7g, which should equal 1 sachet) of yeast into the warm water, along with 1 teaspoon of caster sugar.

Give it a stir:

Mmmm, looks delicious, no?? :S Then cover it and place it in a warm place for about 10 minutes or until it's frothy. I stuck it in the microwave, being the only warm place in the house!

While the yeast's doing its yeasty thing, place 1 teaspoon of salt into a large bowl.

Then sift 2.5 cups of plain flour into the bowl:

And give it a mix to combine:

Then take the yeast out of its warm place and marvel at the frothy weirdness that's occurred.

Dump the yeast into the bowl and mix it through the flour and salt mixture until it forms something vaguely resembling dough.

Dump the resulting mixture onto a floured surface

Then knead the dough until it's smooth and elastic - it took about 10 minutes of solid kneading.

Then coat the sides of a large bowl with olive oil:

Place the dough into the bowl, and turn it once to coat the dough in oil.

Then cover it and stand in a warm place for about an hour. Or, in my case, two hours while you go to the gym... It should roughly double in size:

Dump the dough back onto a floured surface:

And knead it again until it's smooth:

Cut the dough into four equal portions:

Roll the dough out into 15cm rounds. Or, in my case, some kind of vague shape that may or may not measure 15cm in some direction or other... I really do need to work on my rolling pin skills!

Cover the dough in pizza sauce, and then add a thin layer of cheese to hold the toppings on:

Add the desired toppings. In my case, capsicum, cherry tomatoes and sweet corn:

Top it off with a little more cheese (okay, normal people would add a 'little' more cheese. I like cheese rather too much for my own good...)

Then stick the pizza in the oven at 220 degrees for around 15 minutes:

Then pull it out of the oven and leave it to sit for a couple of minutes before cutting it. Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum:

And that's all there is to it! Making the dough is a bit time consuming, what with the leaving it to sit and expand, and the kneading and all. But it was totally worth it. And not just because I conquered my fear of yeast. Well, maybe not the way it smells. But baking with it, at the very least!

Next up, decorating techniques. Beginning with a practice run using instant mashed potato, of all things!!

K :) xx