Friday 27 September 2013

Seedy cheesy crackers - Bread Baking Babes September 2013

This month Bread Baking Babe Tanna from My Kitchen In Half Cups chose us a recipe to bake crunchy crackers. I never managed to get crackers crunchy, so was very happy to have a go. The original recipe asked for a mix of white whole wheat and unbleached all purpose flour, but any mixture of flours of your choice would do.
I immediately thought "CHEESE" when reading the recipe. Crunchy seedy crackers NEED cheese. I decided to top the first batch of the crackers with grated gruyère. Big success! The smell, the taste, fantastic! No extra topping needed.

The second batch unfortunately ended up in the bin.
The dough had sat in the fridge for a couple of hours, being very cold rolled out beautifully, but being in a hurry I grabbed flaked sea salt in stead of cheese (what was I thinking) for the topping. I overdid it big time. Way too salty, inedible (but soooo crunchy and good looking).

I'll definitely bake these crackers again. With different mixtures of flours and different toppings, but the seedy cheesy crunchy variety will be baked and eaten over and over again here!


Recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour:

Binned ....
DOUGH
1 tsp instant yeast
170 gr Whole Wheat Flour
60 gr Strong White Bread Flour
60 gr AP flour
1 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
14 gr ground flax seed
14 gr sesame seed
10 gr olive oil
188 gr water

TOPPING
mixed seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, poppy, flax, etc.)
grated gruyère cheese

METHOD
Put all dough ingredients in the pan of a bread maker and choose "Dough" program (mine takes 2.20 hours, including first rise).
Take the dough out and divide in half. Working with one piece at the time, roll it into a rectangle as thinly as you can. The thinner the dough the crunchier the crackers! If the dough fights back; give it 10 mins. rest and roll again. Put the other half of the dough in the fridge (in a plastic bag) to use later. I found rolling the cold dough was even easier!

Turn the dough onto a piece of baking paper and spritz with water. Sprinkle with a quarter of your seed mixture. Lay a piece of baking paper on top and press the seeds in with a rolling pin. Turn the dough over, peel off baking paper and repeat, but also add gruyere cheese. Again top the dough with baking paper and press in seeds and cheese with a rolling pin. Peel off the top layer of baking paper.

Transfer the dough -with baking paper underneath- onto a baking sheet, prick it all over with a fork and cut the crackers into your desired shape and size (with a pizza cutter or normal knife. If you want to see a proper cracker cutting gadget check out Tanna's!) . 
No need to separate the crackers, they easily brake apart after baking. Let the crackers rise (covered/in a plastic bag) for 30 - 45 minutes, while you preheat your oven (170ºC fan). They'll get just a bit puffy.

Bake for 20 minutes until the crackers are a medium brown. Turn off the heat, wait 15 minutes then put the oven door ajar and let the crackers cool completely. When they're completely cool, break apart and .... ENJOY! 





Sunday 15 September 2013

Sûkerbôle - Back to the Future Buddies


Carola from Sweet and Thats It chose this recipe for "Fryske sûkerbôle" or in Dutch "Fries suikerbrood" as the very first bake of a new baking project she initiated: Back to the Future, Buddies.

For all us Buddies who have joined in later, or have missed one or more (or a lot of) baking projects by the Bread Baking Babes and of course for any keen baker who likes to bake together. If you'ld like to bake along, have a look here.

Being Dutch, but living in Scotland, I was very excited to find we are baking a Dutch recipe this time. Originally it was posted by Bread Baking Babe Monique of Living on bread and water back in September 2008.

Since sûkerbôle is something typical Dutch, it is not available here for me to buy, so I had tried baking it before. With mixed results. Well, this recipe definitely worked out better! 
Luckily Carola gave us a hint a few days back how to make your own ginger syrup (recipe) but you can also use the syrup from a jar of stem ginger.

This really tastes like sûkerbôle as we know it from back home! I think the secret's in the 
homemade ginger syrup ....








My version of the recipe for two small loaves (for original 2008 recipe visit Living on bread and water or Carola's 2013 version at Sweet and Thats It)

For the dough:
7 gr instant active yeast
250 gr all purpose flour
250 gr strong white bread flour
10 gr salt
2 large beaten eggs (130 gr)
45 gr of ginger syrup
155 gr warm milk
75 gr melted unsalted butter, cooled

Put all ingredients in this order in the pan of your bread maker and choose the "dough" program. (I know, some of you might feel this is cheating, but hey, I don't have a mixer, so it is a pretty good alternative.) When the program is done, take the dough out and divide in two. Leave to rest for 10 mins. (covered). Flatten the dough into two 1 cm. high rectangulars, the short side the length of your bread tin. I used single use tin foil ones, very practical.

For the filling:
1,5 tsp ground cinnamon
150 gr broken sugar cubes

Divide the filling over your dough and roll up (tightly!) from the short side. Place the dough in the well buttered bread tins.

Topping:
milk for brushing
broken sugar cubes to sprinkle

Brush the dough with a little milk and sprinkle with some more broken sugar cubes.
Cover and let rise for about 40 mins.
When well risen, bake in a preheated oven at 180C (fan) with steam. After 10 mins. cover the loaves loosely with tin foil. After 20 mins. turn back the oven to 160C. Bake for another 10 to 15 mins.
Remove the loafs from the tins and place on a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy on its own, or -preferably- with butter!