from Santa's kitchen
Ingredients
Bake in a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan.
Method
Preheat your oven to 35o°F.
In a large mixing bowl combine flour, baking soda, and salt.
In a small bowl mix together a handful of chopped walnuts and a few pinches of sugar. Set aside to be used as the topping later.
In another bowl (or a stand mixer) cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time. While mixing, scrap down the sides of the bowl. Add in sourdough starter, honey. mashed bananas, and olive oil. Add in the vanilla. Then, add in the flour mixture slowly, pausing to scrape down the sides if necessary. By hand, fold in the remaining walnuts and lemon zest. Pour the batter into the 9″ x 5″ baking pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Sprinkle on the reserved chopped walnuts and sugar.
Bake for 55-65 minutes. It’s better to undercook this than overcook: you want it moist. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes and then gently remove onto a wire rack to fully cool.
Ingredients
2 large eggs
245g (1 cup) whole milk
61g (1/4 cup) Greek yogurt (optional)
250g (1 ½ cups, stirred down) sourdough starter
4g (1 teaspoon) vanilla (optional)
180g (1 ½ cups) all purpose flour, or a mix of all purpose and whole wheat flour
6g (1 teaspoon) baking soda
4g (1 teaspoon) baking powder
50g (1/4 cup) granulated sugar
63g ¼ cup or ½ stick) melted butter
Method
Beat eggs in a medium bowl. Acid milk, optional yogurt, sourdough starter and optional vanilla. Stir to incorporate.
Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Add dry mix to the egg mixture, mixing well. Stir in melted butter. Wait about 30 minutes to let your sourdough starter get going just a bit.
Lightly grease a hot pan. Drop the batter onto the griddle and cook until light brown and bubbles start to appear on top, then flip to cook the other side. Refrain from flipping multiple times.
You might need to adjust the amount of milk depending on the stiffness of your sourdough starter and your preferred batter consistency. The above Ingredients work well for ray liquid starter, if yoU’re using a stiff starter you .night want to add around 1/2 cup more milk.
Overnight fermentation option:
Another option for these pancakes is to let the batter ferment overnight in the same way the waffles are done, above. Combine the milk, sugar, and flour with the sourdough starter the night before. In the morning add the baking soda, baking powder, salt and vanilla. Then separate the egg yolks from the whites, whisk the whites to stiff peaks and slightly scramble the yolks in another bowl. Fold both in right before making the pancakes.
MAKES TWO LOAVES
[450g] 900g Unbleached stoneground white bread flour
[50g] 100g Whole wheat flour
[375g] 750g Warm water (keep 50g aside to add with the salt)
[100g] 200g Sourdough levain (100% hydration)
[10g] 20g Fine sea salt
The levain is just a larger version of your sourdough starter that will be incorporated into your dough instead of commercial yeast. Add mature starter, flour & water in a ratio of 1:2:2 (100% hydration means equal quantities of flour & water). Depending on the temperature, it should be ready to use after 6-10 hours when it is bubbly and doubled in size. Should float when dropped in water — “float test”.
The only ingredients in the bread are flour (preferably unbleached stone ground), water & salt (fine sea salt). Measure everything by weight.
When the levain is ready measure the desired amount and gently mix into 700g of water (keep 50g of water aside to add later with the salt). Add the water and levain mixture to the flour and mix with your hands until just incorporated (no kneading). Leave for about 30 minutes. The autolyse process helps to hydrate the flour, develop gluten and add flavor as the enzymes in the flour are activated.
Properly mix in the salt and remaining 50g of water. Use the pincer method to distribute gently and evenly through the dough. If not using an electric mixer work the dough for about 5 minutes in the bowl to start developing the gluten.
This is the first part of the rise. Fold 4-5 times every 30 minutes starting about
30 minutes after the final mix. Use wet hands to prevent dough from sticking and a plastic dough scraper to clean the sides of the bowl and your hands. Handle the dough very carefully in the last folds so as not to deflate the dough. The dough should double in size and become nice and bubbly with a domed top. If you don’t have time to do folds every 30 minutes then do a longer mix at the start to develop gluten and a few folds towards the end of bulk ferment time to build structure in the dough.
Gently slide dough onto an unfloured surface using wet hands. Sift flour over the top of the dough and cut into two equal portions with dough scraper. Dust dough scraper and hands with flour. Flip over onto floured side and fold sides over into the middle to form a round shape with flour on the outside. Flip over again so that the joined side is at the bottom and gently shape into round
using bench to create some tension in the skin, which will help to create a nice crust.
Leave the pre-shaped rounds to rest for 20-30 minutes. The edges of the dough should remain nice and rounded. If the edges flattens out too much the dough probably didn’t bulk ferment long enough. At this point you can put it back in the bowl to ferment longer before shaping.
Flip rounds over using minimal flour. See shaping demonstration. Aim is to make a nice tight round with lots of tension in the skin without breaking the skin and deflating the dough. If some dough sticks to your hands scrape it off and make sure your hands are clean before handling the dough further – wet dough attracts more dough!
9, Final proof
Gently place the shaped rounds seem side up into proofing baskets or bowls lined with dishcloths and sifted with flour (rice flour or maizena work well). Leave to proof at room temperature for 2-4 hours depending on temperature. You can also proof overnight in the fridge so that the loaves are ready to bake first thing in the morning (ideal fridge temperature is 8-10 degrees so that fermentation doesn’t stop completely). Cold loaves are easier to score and tend to have better rise in the oven – “oven spring”. Fully proofed loaves will have risen quite a bit in the basket (depending on the flour used) and when you press the dough with your finger it should rise back slowly. To do the “finger test” dip index finger in flour and gently press the dough. If it rises
back slowly it is ready. If it springs back very quickly and leaves no indent it can go a bit longer. If it stays indented and doesn’t spring back it’s over proofed. An overproofed loaf will also look quite bubbly and rise a lot in the proofing basket. You can still bake an overproofed loaf, but it won’t have much oven spring and it might even deflate in the oven.
Put your cast iron pot or Pyrex dish with lid (Dutch oven) into the oven and preheat to maximum temperature for about an hour. When the oven is at max temperature take the cast iron pot out of the oven and remove the lid. Take the proving basket out of the fridge. Line a board with baking paper (be careful of wax paper!) and gently flip the dough over onto the boards. Score each loaf with a nice confident slash using a sharp knife or lame, With support from the baking paper gently lower the dough into cast iron pot (if not using paper scatter some semolina at the bottom of the pot). Put lid on and straight back into the oven. Use heavy oven gloves at all times!!
Turn the heat down to 245 degrees C. Bake for 20-30 minutes at high heat and then remove lid, turn down the heat to 200 degrees and carry on baking for 30-40 minutes. The crust must be nice and caramelized, but not burnt.
Turn out onto cooling racks and leave for at least 30 minutes to complete the cooking process.
Makes 2 loaves
Ingredients:
500g Eureka White Bread flour
500g Eureka Wholewheat or Brown bread flour
800-850g luke warm water
180g levain (100% hydration sourdough starter)
22g fine sea salt
Formula:
Mix the levain in the morning to be ready for baking by late afternoon/early evening.
Late afternoon mix flour and water together to autolyse. Leave for 3C min — 1 hour before adding the levain and the salt.
Imcorporate all the ingredients very well and start to build gluten in the dough either mixing by hand (10-15 min) or gently with a bread mixer (3 min).
Th e dough needs 3-4 turns before you leave it in a cool spot in the kitchen (21 degrees) overnight. Be very careful of temperature! If is too hot the dough will ferment too quickly and be ruined by the morning.
Thee next morning the dough should be bubbly and well rounded on top. Turn it out gently with wet hands onto a slightly wet surface. Using your dough scraper cut the dough mass into two equal halves. Gently turn and shape into 2 rounds using minimal force, just your dough scraper. Leave to rest on the bench for 15- 20 minutes.
Prepare your loaf tins with oil or non-stick spray. Line with baking paper.
Gently shape and roll your loaves into tubes about the same length as your tins. Roll in a mixture of semolina and mixed seeds. Place in tins and cover with a dishcloth. Leave to proof in a cool area of the kitchen for 2-3 hours (depending on temperature) or proof in the fridge until ready to bake. The bread should double in volume during the final proof.
Heat the oven to 240 degrees. Turn down to 220-200 degrees when the bread goes in. Bake for about 1 hour until a skewer comes out clean.
DATE BALLS Tuis magazine
400 g butter
250 ml sugar
10 ml vanilla
500 g dates chopped
2 egg yolks
salt
2 packet marie biscuits crushed
fine coconut
butter, sugar vanilla and dates in a saucepan
low heat, untill melted
bring up to the boil for 10 – 15 min
add salt and yolks
take off the heat add the biscuits
let it cool roll into balls
let rolled balls sit on paper for a short while for butter to drain
roll in coconut
keep in fridge or freezer or in airtight container
Spiced cookies with white chocolate
300g flour
2ml ginger
2ml ground allspice
5ml ground cinnamon
180g butter
150g light brown sugar
1 egg
Sift flour and spices together
Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
Add the egg and beat well
Mix in your flower mixture by hand (I dont)
Wrap dough and leave in fridge for hour
Roll into balls or cut shapes (fish shape for Liam)
Bake for 12-15 minutes at 180
Decorate with melted white chocolate
Spice cookies (inspired by Danish cooking) XMAS BAKING
250g butter softened
250g castor sugar
2 eggs
5ml each ground cardomom and cinnamon
2ml each cinnamon and nutmeg
pinch of ground cloves, white pepper and salt
4 x 250ml flour and a little extra for dusting
Preheat oven to 180 line 3 baking trays
Beat butter and sugar together till light
Beat in the eggs one at a time until well combined
Add flour and spices to egg mixture, a cup at the time
Roll dough into walnut size balls or roll out and make star shapes
Bake for 10+12 min until light brown
A light dusting of powdered sugar is a delicious extra