Cheese & Smoked Paprika Croissant Twists

It’s been a whirlwind start to the year…looming redundancy, starting a patisserie stall at a local farmers market and now looking to expand. Most day’s I don’t know whether I am coming or going let alone take photos of food I am making and sharing them with you.

Hopefully I will have news soon about our new business venture but I will wait until we have something signed and sealed and then I will share all our plans with you. I can say though that I hope to be cooking every day.

I have bought a commercial dough mixer this week,  how exciting is that? It’s been a chore as demand grows making croissant dough, puff pastry, shortcrust – sweet and savoury, special pork pie and Cornish pasty pastries en-mass by hand. This week should be a breeze with the new machine and I will be dabbling with an Easter loaf recipe too.

I introduced these cheese & paprika twist to the market last week and sold out! Here is the recipe below.

Ingredients

1 and 1/3 cups luke warm water

1.5 tsp instant yeast

450g flour

200g butter

2 Tbsp sugar

200g cheese, grated

1 heaped tsp smoked paprika

Method

Pre-heat oven on fan bake 200C and line 4 baking trays with baking paper.

Place the luke warm water into a small bowl and add the yeast. Let it dissolve.

In a large bowl add the flour & sugar then mix in the water and dissolved yeast. Bring everything together to a soft dough (tacky but not sticky). Knead dough for 3 minutes.

I use commercial slabs of butter which make it easier so I suggest you slice the butter block into 6 if you can.

Roll the dough to approx 20 cm x 60cm. Lay 3 slices of butter at one end and fold it over towards the middle so butter in enclosed.

Lay the other 3 slices of butter ontop of folded dough and bring the opposite end over to cover butter. Press around edges to seal butter in and turn so open ends face you.

Gently press down along the dough then roll to existing size 20 x 60cm.

Rest in the fridge until butter it cold and hard ( several hours)

Remove dough from fridge and repeat the process 2 more times, resting in fridge between both rollings.

Cut dough in half and roll each half to approx 20 x 40 cm.

Sprinkle with grated cheese and paprika.

Longways, cut 6 strips. Roll each strip up enclosing the cheese and put onto a baking tray covered in baking paper.  4 to a tray so they have plenty space.

All twist to prove till double in size (this will depend on how warm your kitchen is).

Bake for 12-15 minutes

Enjoy!

Salted Caramel Doughnuts & Salted Caramel Apples on Stick – Happy Halloween!

I’m still on my salted caramel crusade, I think I probably just need to buy a box of the Bohemian chocolates that we sampled at the Chocolate Festival in Wellington and get over it. I mean a batch of doughnuts and caramel toffee apples in one weekend for a household of two is ridiculous and hubby doesn’t eat fruit and also decided he didn’t like salted caramel either… a little strange I know. I became the good neighbour, fobbing off my wares, sharing the love and the calories…cough..cough, that’s what friends are for right? I fried these doughnuts this time but I have been known to bake them in the past just like a bread roll and they are still rather good.

The toffee apples are for Halloween, it’s a funny treat isn’t it? An apple a day keeps the dentist away they say, I’m sure the dentist has a heart attack over these apples but no more so than when we get to pay our dentist bill. I went last week, just a routine check and teeth clean by the hygienist and it cost more than a whole orchard of apples and the toffee together, I should have taken him some toffee apples so we could all have broken out in a cold sweat together.

Ingredients – Doughnuts, makes 8

350g plain flour

70g brown sugar

1tsp instant yeast

165ml luke warm milk

1 free range eggs

70g butter, melted

vegetable oil for frying

Method

Combine the flour and sugar in a bowl.

Add the yeast to the milk and put aside for a few minutes until it starts to ferment. Then whisk the yeasty milk together with the eggs and melted butter. Add to the flour mix and combine into a dough ball.

Knead the dough for 8-10 minutes and press dough out on a floured working surface to approximately an inch thick.

Using a medium & very small cookie cutter, cut the doughnuts out with the large cutter and the cut the centres out of each doughnut with the small cutter. Place the doughnuts and the ‘whole’ separately on an oiled tray to prove, leaving enough space between them to double in size.

Oil the top if the doughnuts and cover the whole tray with a plastic bag, you’ll need to use 2 trays

Re-knead any dough left over and cut out further doughnuts.

Once dough is doubled in size they are ready to bake.

Heat approximately 300ml of vegetable oil to 190C in a heavy bottom pan, enough to be half the depth of the doughnuts. If you don’t have a themometre just do a test with a little piece of dough to check when it is hot enough. Its should slowly brown.

Add 2 to 3 to the pan and fry the doughnuts for approximately 1 minute then turn and fry for the same amount of time on second side.

Remove from saucepan with a slotted spoon and allow doughnuts to cool on kitchen paper.

Make the caramel at this stage and once it is ready the doughnuts will be cool enough to dip.

Ingredients – Caramel

1 cup brown sugar

100g butter

3 Tbsp water

1tsp salt

Method -Caramel

Combine the sugar, butter & water in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar has melted, stirring constantly.

Increase the heat and bring the caramel up to 146C (you will need a sugar thermometre)

Once it has reached temperature turn the heat off and lett it settle for a minute then dip both the doughnuts & apples into the caramel.

You can add an extra sprinkle of salt to the caramel if you wish.

Roasted Strawberries in Vanilla Syrup with Scones

Roasting fruit is the perfect cooking method that allows the fruit to retain it’s colour, shape and flavour. I always roast my rhubarb and making the strawberry tarte tatin last week I was wishing for more baked fruit but not necessarily in a pastry case. Jamie’s method of cooking fish ‘en papilotte – in a parcel’ came to mind and I decided this should give the strawberries the same texture and flavour as the tarts. I just use vanilla syrup to sweeten the strawberries slightly, if you don’t have syrup, use seeds from a vanilla bean or half a teaspoon vanilla paste and a tablespoon of sugar. It’s a great alternative to jam for your cream teas, less sugar and still the full aroma of the fresh strawberry.

Ingredients

1 chip/punnet strawberries (approx 12 small)

2 Tbsp vanilla syrup (I used Equagold)

Method

Pre heat oven to 180C

Wash & hull the strawberries and place in a bowl with the vanilla syrup, toss the strawberries through the syrup.

Take enough greaseproof paper to make a parcel to hold your strawberries.

Place the strawberries on one half of the greaseproof paper with the vanilla syrup. Fold the other half over the strawberries and then fold the three open sides over twice to make a parcel. Click Here for a YouTube demo, it’s done a little differently and I make my parcel round the fruit but it gives you the idea.

Place strawberry filled parcel onto a baking tray and roast for 12 minutes. Strawberries should just start to soften but hold their shape still. Don’t over roast or you will end up with a ‘mush’.

Allow to cool and serve with scones and cream

Ingredients – scones

200g Self Raising Flour

50g butter

1 Tbsp icing sugar

150ml milk

Method for Scones
Preheat oven to 200C degrees centigrade.

Place flour, butter and sugar into a bowl.

Using your fingers, rub mixture together until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Or use a food processor.

Form a well in the centre of bread crumb mix and add the milk, kneed gently to form a soft dough.

Transfer scone dough onto a floured board and press the dough out with hands (rather than using a rolling pin) until it is about 2cm thick.

Use a round cookie cutter to cut out the scones or slice the scones, it should make 8

Place on a baking tray and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. If you tap the bottom of one they should sound hollow when cooked.

Turkish Silverbeet & Feta Gozleme

During a recent trip to Sydney we found ourselves in a market place in Roselle and I was fascinated by a food stall where three Turkish ladies were very skillfully preparing giant Gozleme. I say skillful because even though it appeared a very easy concept when I prepared my own I realized that the transferring of a large soft filled dough was trickier than it looked. I would recommend making smaller sizes at first or get an extra pair of hands to help you lift the filled dough to pan.

So what is a Gozleme? It’s a pizza like dough rolled really thinly then filled traditionally with spinach and feta cheese or spicy minced meat. Of course you could add your own fillings but I would recommend starting with the feta and spinach, or Silverbeet as I have here and build on that. We added cumin seeds and spring onions to our first one but hubby is keen for the spicy meat filling next time we make it. You will been a large frying pan, flat griddle plate or the flat plate on your BBQ. I have made round Gozleme because I was using a caste iron pan but I have given the method for rectangle because it is a little easy.

Ingredients – makes 4
3 cups high grade flour
1.25 cups luke warm water
2 tsp instant yeast
One bunch of Silverbeet, finely sliced
4 spring onions, finely sliced
2 tsp cumin seeds
200g feta cheese, crumbled
Olive oil for frying

Method
Place the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the middle.
Put the yeast into the well and pour the warm water over the yeast and leave to dissolve for a 2 minutes until dissolved.
Stir together and knead into a soft dough and knead for 5 minutes until the dough is glossy.
Divide dough into four and place each piece on a floured tray with plenty of space for dough to double in size. Cover tray with a plastic bag and make sure the bag doesn’t touch the dough.
Stand in a warm place for 20 minutes or until dough doubles in size.
Roll each piece of dough into rectangles so that the dough is paper thin, approx 12 x 6 inches.
Divide the silverbeet, feta and spring onions into four and top half of each dough rectangle with the ingredients, feta first then silverbeet and onions.
Sprinkle cumin seeds over each filling.
Fold dough over to enclose filling and seal edges together.
Heat a griddle or barbecue plate or caste iron pan over a medium-high heat.
Place a thin layer of olive oil on the griddle and place the Gozleme on top.
Cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until base is golden.
Brush uncooked side of gozleme with olive oil.
Turn over and cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until golden and crisp.
Remove to a serving plate and cut into wedges.
Serve with lemon or lime wedges.

Easter Citrus Loaf with a Marzipan Centre

For those who are familiar with the German Christmas cake Stollen you will understand where this idea comes from. European Christmas treats are my favourite but what does that have to do with Easter? Well in NZ I find it too warm over Christmas for all those hearty winter cakes so I don’t tend to make many or buy any over that period but as the summer comes to a close here in New Zealand my UK brain still ticks over and thinks winter….and that means Christmas….and that means lots of marzipan, fruit cakes, spiced biscuits. The problem is, its only April here so I have decided to roll my Christmas goodies into Easter which will be dangerous to the waist line as I will no doubt eat my fair share of chocolate too!

This is an easy sweet dough mix with the addition of a little butter and milk for a richer brioche crumb. It’s perfect just cooled from the oven but if you can’t manage it all in one day it’s also good lightly toasted the next.

Ingredients
3 cups high grade flour
1 & 1/4 cups warm milk
1 tsp instant yeast
1 1/2 tbsp honey
50g candied/glacé citrus peel
20g butter, chopped
200g marzipan
Extra flour for rolling
1 egg for glaze

Method
Place the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the centre.
Add the yeast and warm milk to the well in the centre and allow the yeast to dissolve for a minute.
Add the honey and citrus peel and bring the ingredients together to form a soft but not sticky dough. If it is too dry add a little more milk or likewise if too wet add a little more flour.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes.
Press the chopped pieces of butter into the dough and continue to knead for another 5 minutes.
It gets a little greasy at this point but eventually the butter melts and combines fully into the dough.
Place the dough back into the bowl and cover bowl with a plastic wrap to stop it drying out.
Let the dough prove till double in size. Once double in size roll the dough out into a flat oblong 14inch x 6inch, a bit like a fat baguette.
Roll the marzipan into a cylinder shape to fit the length of the dough and place in the centre.
Fold the dough over the marzipan and press closed at one side, the seam is at the side rather than underneath.
Preheat the oven to 200C and flour a baking sheet.
Place the loaf onto the floured baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap but ensure it doesn’t touch the loaf otherwise it will stick.
Let the loaf to prove again till doubled in size.
Whisk egg and brush top of loaf with egg which will give it a nice golden shine.
Bake for 35 minutes. It should sound hollow when tapped so you know it is cooked.
The topping it just a sugar icing with a few extra citrus peel scattered over the top.

Apple & Ginger Brioche Scrolls

The combination of ginger and apple has been banging around my head for a few weeks and finally this weekend I managed to satisfy my imagination and tummy at the same time making these brioche style rolls. I have used quite a bit of ginger in this recipe as I like to the hot bite of ginger but if you prefer it a bit milder then used less.

I can be quite impatient waiting for bread dough to rise, a bit like the watch pot never boils but as I had finished rolling these up and putting them in the muffin tins my surfing buddy called. It was like Malibu surf out at Muriwai, for those not familiar with Muriwai that means a drop in waves from a regular 5-7 foot to a mini 2 foot, perfect for a lazy Sunday surf after a busy week at the office and a wedding catered for on Saturday. So no pot watching…well dough watching today, the dough had risen perfectly by the time I came out of the surf, in the oven and ready to eat after a shower, maybe even two after all that exercise. Then enough time to fit a siesta in before getting dinner on.

Ingredients-makes 8
3 cups high grade flour
2 tsp dried yeast grains
1/2 cup warm milk
50g butter, soft
2 small eggs
3 tbsp castor sugar
1 apple, cored and grated
2 tbsp brown sugar
3 tsp ginger powder
2tbsp sugar & 2tbsp water for the sugar glaze

Method
Preheat oven at 180C and cut 8 squares of baking paper to fit 8 muffin tins.
Place the flour and castor sugar in a bowl and make a well in the middle.
Put the yeast into the well and pour the warm milk over the yeast and leave to dissolve for a 2 minutes. It will start to bubble.
Stir the milk into the flour, it will be quite dry at this stage.
Add the butter and eggs and bring the ingredients together to form a bread like dough. If it is too sticky (depends on egg size) add more flour so you can knead the dough without it sticking to your hands.
Knead for 5-8 minutes, the longer you knead the better.
Put the dough back in the bowl and cover with a plastic bag to stop dough from drying out. Rest for 10 minutes.
While the dough is resting, place the grated apple into a bowl with the brown sugar and ginger and mix together.
Roll the dough out to 12 inch x 8 inch with the longer side closest to you.
Spread the apple and ginger mix over the dough.
Roll the dough up, away from you, into a sausage shape so that once rolled it still measure 12 inch.
Slice the dough into 8 rings and place each one in the middle of a square of baking paper. Put each one into a muffin tin/cup and allow dough to prove and double in size.
Bake for 25 minutes, until golden brown.
Remove from the oven and set aside.
Put the sugar and water for the glaze in a pan and bring to the boil for 1 minute.
Brush brioche rolls with sugar glaze and its best to eat them warm.

Diesel is a little exhausted after all the baking and surfing too!

Summer Sandwich Series – Hot Smoked Salmon with a Lime Kelp Cucumber Pickle

Here is the next sandwich in my series, smoked salmon with a fresh zingy pickle to go with it. The sharp zesty pickle compliments the richness of the salmon. I hadn’t eaten hot smoked fish much until I moved to New Zealand but the Kiwis are mad on hot smoking and living out by the beach there always seems to be someone out catching or smoking fish. We are very lucky, we have very generous friends who often drop off a fish or two, sometimes raw, sometimes already smoked. In fact our old electric oven which we were about to throw away got converted into an outdoor smoker by our neighbour, it’s very effective and you have to love the Kiwi ingenuity of it.

The salmon for the sandwich was bought from the local farmers market, smoked with lime and a local Horopito leaf. The Horopito has a peppery taste to it and has been used by the Maori as a medicinal and culinary herb for centuries.

Ingredients for Cucumber Pickle
1 cucumber, peeled
1 tsp Lime Kelp Seasoning – Pacific Harvest
1 inch fresh ginger, finely grated
Juice of one small lime
Handful coriander leaves, chopped
1tsp honey or brown sugar
Pinch of chili powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Method
Use the peeling to peel the cucumber into ribbons.
Add all ingredients except cucumber to a bowl and combine.
Add cucumber ribbons and toss through dressing.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Assemble sandwiches immediately as you want the cucumber fresh and crisp
The rest of the sandwich is the hot smoke salmon and slices of avocado.

Auntie Pat’s Malt Loaf & Taste of New Zealand Winner

Firstly, the lucky winner for the double pass to Taste of New Zealand is Alli or perhaps know as LittleKiwi who is going to donate them to her Mum, congratulations and I hope she enjoys the event. Do tell us all about it! I have emailed you directly for address details of where to send the tickets.

My Auntie Pat used to make this amazing malt loaf which we devoured as kids, which was rather unusual that we loved it because it was quite ‘wholesome’ compared to other cakes we would have enjoyed. I don’t remember the recipe exactly, I just remember her soaking the all bran, sugar and fruit in milk before it was mixed into the cake mixture. Perhaps she used All Bran because there wasn’t as much specialty flours around in those days, I must asked her next time we are home.

So the concept of the cake is certainly Auntie Pat’s, I used All Bran too as I am certain that is what gave it the ‘malt loaf’ taste. Instead of white flour I have used spelt, chopped figs instead of sultanas and added pumpkin sees for crunch.

It’s a lovely tea cake, served with a smear of ‘real’ butter and a pipping hot cuppa.

Ingredients
200g spelt flour
100g All Bran
1 cup apple juice
100g moscavado sugar
100g pumpkin seeds
1 cup sunflower or canola oil
3 small free range eggs
2tsp baking soda
150g figs, chopped

Method
Preheat oven 180C and grease and flour a medium size loaf tin.
Place the All Bran and apple juice into a bowl.
In another larger bowl add the spelt flour, baking soda, pumpkins seeds and chopped figs.
Once the bran has soaked up the apple juice, add the eggs and oil and whisk together.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir with a spoon until combined.
Pour into the prepared loaf tin.
Bake for 35 minutes and test that an inserted skewer comes out clean. If not leave to bake a little longer.
Leave to cool in the tin before removing.

Green Tea Chocolate Baked Doughnuts

Arfi from Homemade tweeted a picture of gluten free green tea doughnuts and I knew immediately that I had to make them. Her photographs are so beautiful, they give you that instant ‘yum, I want that now’ which I did. Being a busy lady she had only tweeted us a pic and not posted the recipe, but I felt happy to go ahead and create my own with regular doughnut dough, which I bake rather than fry, then fill them with dark chocolate. Of course since it was Arfi’s idea I didn’t feel like to post them till she had but I have sat on the post for a few months now so finally I decided they needed to be exposed to the world so here they are! Hope you don’t mind Arif? Do pop over to Arfi’s blog too, she hasn’t posted her gluten free version yet but maybe you can persuade her if you are gluten free and does have a lovely green tea pudding. if you are like using green tea.

Ingredients
750g plain flour
140g castor sugar
7g yeast (1 sachet)
330ml luke warm milk
2 tsp green tea powder
2 free range eggs
150g butter, melted
100g dark chocolate
1 cup of castor sugar for coating doughnuts
100g butter, melted for coating doughnuts

Method
Combine the flour, green tea powder and sugar in a bowl.
Add the yeast to the milk and put aside for a few minutes until it starts to ferment.
Then whisk the yeasty milk together with the eggs and melted butter.
Add to the flour mix and combine into a dough ball.
Knead the dough for 8-10 minutes then lightly oil the dough and place it back into the bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
Allow to prove for 1-1.5 hours or until more than double in size.
Preheat oven to 190C. Lightly flour 2 baking trays.
Knock the air out of the dough and turn onto a lightly floured surface.
Divide the dough into 12 or 16 depending on whether you want regular or smaller doughnuts.
Roll into balls, trying to keep a smooth top and sides and only a seem underneath.
Take the underside (less smooth side) and press your thumb into the dough and work it into a ‘well’ and place a square of chocolate in it.
Make sure there is enough dough to bring up over the chocolate so it doesn’t squeeze out while baking. Bring the dough over the chocolate and pinch it together. Place seam side down on prepared baking tray.
Give the doughnuts plenty space to double in size without touching each other.
Cover with glad wrap and stand in a warm place until they have risen double in size.
Bake for 10 minutes until golden.
Melt the extra butter in a bowl and the extra sugar in another bowl.
Once the doughnuts come out of the oven dip them while hot in the melted butter, then dip them into the sugar and serve hot.

Apple Dumplings & Caramel Sauce

I had planned hearty winter pies and puddings this weekend, a last dash of winter goodness before we start thinking about trimming down for summer beachwear (usually a lot of thinking and not doing). But the weather really turned on spring this week with warm glorious sunshine, it should have inspired me to make lighter fare but I was still on a roll with my winter waist expanding recipes like these apple dumplings. I had seen a spiced dumpling in the Gourmet Traveller this week and it made my mouth water, always a sure sign it will be on my menu soon in our house Such a simple dish but a very decadent one that reminds me of old fashioned puddings.

Ingredients
4-6 portions
200g brown sugar
1 vanilla bean
80g butter
380ml water
1 apple grated
240g self raising flour
1tbsp castor sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 egg
1/4 cup milk

Method
Place the water, brown sugar and 30g butter in a wide saucepan over a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved.
In a large bowl combine the castor sugar, flour, rest of the butter and spices.
Rub the butter into the flour to form fine crumbs.
Add the egg, grated apple and milk and bring dough together.
Roll golf ball size pieces of dough to form balls, makes 12-14.
Add to the syrup and simmer over a low heat with a lid covering the pan.
Cook for about 15 minutes, turning the dumplings occasionally. The dumplings should puff up and become fluffy.
Serve dumplings with syrup and vanilla ice cream.