Bagels

I love waking up on Friday mornings (the start of the weekend in Qatar) and knowing there's not much to do but hang with the little chefs. The most energetic we get is to pop over to the pool for an hour or so. Lately, I've been baking a lot on Fridays, so today I'm boiling and baking bagels. I'll prepare the dough and let it rise while we're swimming and an hour or so after we get home we'll be sitting down to the heavenly smell and delicious taste of New York style bagels.

The beauty of bagels is that you can play around with the flavours depending on what kind of mood you're in. I like to top my bagels with sesame seeds or sunflower seeds. I quite often make them with chapati flour, which is an indian unrefined flour for a healthier version. And if I'm in a sweet mood I'll make them with mixed spice, cinnamon and some raisins (they're delicious topped with cream cheese).

 

Try these, you'll be amazed how easy they are to make.

New York Style Bagels

• 2 teaspoons of dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 1/4 cups of warm water, you may need a little more
• 3 ½ cups (500g) of bread flour, you can use plain flour, but they won't be quite as chewy
• 1 teaspoon of salt

Method

Mix the water, sugar and yeast together and let it sit for a few minutes until frothy.

Put the flour and salt in a mixer with a dough hook (if you're lucky enough to have one), or into a bowl, add the yeast mixture and bring together, add more water if the mixture seems too dry. Knead, with the dough hook, or on a floured surface for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic.

 

Put into an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap, leave for an hour to rise (the dough should double in size). Punch the dough down and let it rest for 15 minutes.

Divide the dough into 12 balls. To make smooth even balls, cup the ball of dough in your hand and roll it around the work surface, gently pulling the dough into itself as you roll.

Poke a whole in the middle of each ball and while stretching the hole shape the bagel into a 'bagel shape'. Put onto an oiled baking tray, cover with a damp tea towel and rest for 15 minutes.

Heat the oven to 210 degrees celcius (425 degrees fahrenheit)

Bring a large pot of water to the boil and put the bagels in 3 or 4 at at time and boil for 2 minutes on each side. Remove and drain. If you want to top the bagels with toppings, brush with beaten egg yolk and water (1 egg yolk + 1 tablespoon water) and dip into your topping of choice. Today I'm using sesame seeds for us and leaving them plain for the little chefs.

Place the bagels onto a greased baking tray and bake for 20 minutes until golden and cooked through.

My advice...slice one of them open, smother in butter and scoff. There is nothing quite so tasty as a freshly baked bagel, hot out of the oven.

Crumpets anyone?

I'm bored! And no, that's not the children saying it, it's me. One good thing about boredom though is I tend to experiment in the kitchen. So the other day I was walking around Lakeland (you brits will know it - for others, it's a kitchen shop with loads of gadgets and cooking stuff), and I saw crumpet rings. I'd never even considered that crumpets were something you could make, rather than spend a small fortune on imported ones. How much fun to try though....so I bought the rings.

I googled the recipe and cobbled together a bowl of batter based on a couple of good recipes. There is something very satisfying about seeing a lovely yeasty batter, oozing and bubbling like it's alive - which I guess in a way it is.

I heated a frying pan with the crumpet rings in it, well greased (important point), and starting cooking. The first batch didn't quite work out, the batter was too thick and they didn't have the lovely holes that crumpets should, so I added a little bit of water to the mixture. Too much it seemed as the mixture ran out under the rings. So I added some more flour back in (this could have gone on for a while), and whisked and the next batch were perfect.

They do take a little while to cook, but the result is worth it - light, crunchy golden brown goodness. The first one didn't even make it to a plate, I just globbed on the butter and devoured it while standing at the oven cooking some more. I was a little more refined with the next few, and ate them drizzled with golden syrup. The recipe made about 16, so I've popped some in the freezer to toast for brekkie tomorrow, I can't wait!

Crumpets

• 450 grams white plain flour (if you have bread flour, replace half of the plain flour with that)
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 300mls lukewarm milk
• 300mls lukewarm water

 Method

1. Sift together the flour, salt and cream of tartar.
2. Mix the milk, water, sugar, baking soda and yeast together and set aside for 5 minutes to become frothy
3. Pour the liquid into the flour and mix well with a whisk. Cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place for an hour. Give the batter a stir and you're ready to cook.
4. Heat a frying pan over medium low heat for about 5 minutes to heat fully, pop the well greased crumpet rings into the pan for a minute, then spoon in the batter. The batter will be thick, but shouldn't be too thick. Within a minute or so, little bubbles should have appeared on the surface of the crumpets, if not, the batter is too thick and you need to add a little water.
5. Cook the crumpets for about 12 to 15 minutes, you can remove rings once they're set (about 5 minutes) and pop them into another pan to speed up the cooking process. Once the crumpets are cooked, flip them over and cook the top side for 2 minutes or until it is a nice toasty golden brown. Enjoy!!

Filling the Biscuit Tins

I was born in the wrong era. I should have been born in the 50s when donning a frilly apron and spending all day in the kitchen baking was the way to fill the biscuit tins.

 

I have really fond memories of baking day with mum. Once a week she'd pop the oven on, get out her lovely old kenwood mixer with porcelain bowls and start mixing. At the end of it she'd have filled tin after tin with gorgeous home made biscuits (cookies for you American folk).

 

My favourites were:

• afghan biscuits - delicious chocolate treats with sweet chocolate icing and a piece of walnut (never figured the walnut thing out, we always took it off to eat them)
• hokey pokey biscuits - delightly soft and chewy golden syrup morsels, popped onto the tray as balls and squished down with a fork, they look and taste so wonderfully home-made
• melting moments - which did what it said on the tin, and 'melted' delicately in your mouth. The trick was to shove the whole biscuit in, and let it dissolve while munching - a bit gross if you were watching, but hey, we were kids, and we didn't care (actually I still don't when it comes to scoffing bickies)
• and finally, shortbread, so soft and buttery and divinely crumbly (mum would cut it into squares - I like to cut it into shapes, but then I don't have 6 kids to deal with and clean up after, so have lots more time)

It was the little chefs last day at nursery and school this week, so the 3 of us baked the teachers thank you gifts. Actually little chef number 2 got bored in the first 5 minutes so he went upstairs to play the Wii, followed about 10 minutes later by little chef number 1. That's ok, as much fun as it is baking with them, it's a teensy bit slower, and I had a lot to cook. I had so much fun recreating my favourite biscuits. I dusted off the Edmonds cookbook, a NZ institution - every household has one, so all credit for these recipes goes to the Edmonds team. I plugged in my fire engine red Kitchen Aid (I love my KA) and baked the afternoon away.

 

So here's the recipes.

 

Afghans

• 200 grams butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 2 cups cornflakes

Method

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
2. Sift flour and cocoa together and stir into creamed mixture
3. Fold in conflakes and put mounds of mixture onto a tray lined with baking paper
4. Bake at 180 degrees celcius (350 degrees fahrenheit) for 15 minutes.

5. When cold ice with chocolate icing - mix 2 cups icing sugar with 2 tablespoons water and 1 tablespoon cocoa

 

Hokey Pokey biscuits

• 125 grams butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Method

1. Heat butter, sugar, golden syrup and milk in a pot until butter is melted and mixture is nearly boiling, remove from heat and allow mixture to cool to lukewarm
2. Sift flour and baking soda together and add to cooled mixture, mix well
3. Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls and place onto a try lined with baking paper. Flatten with a fork

4. Bake at 180 degrees celcius (350 degrees fahrenheit) for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown.

 

Melting Moments

• 200 grams butter, softened
• 3/4 cup icing sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup cornflour (cornstarch)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• buttercream icing or raspberry jam

Method

1. Cream butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy
2. Sift flour, cornflour and baking powder together and mix into creamed mixture, stirring well
3. Roll dough into small balls the size of large marbles and place on a tray lined with baking paper, flatten slightly with a fork
4. Bake at 180 degrees celcius (350 degrees fahrenheit) for 20 minutes.
5. Cool and sandwich two biscuits together with buttercream or raspberry jam

oops - no photo here, there aren't any left over - excuse me while I wipe the crumbs off my chin.

 

 

Shortbread

• 250 grams butter
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 cup cornflour
• 2 cups flour

Method

1. Cream butter and icing sugar together till light and fluffy
2. Sift flour and cornflour together and mix into creamed mixture
3. Knead well
4. Roll out to about 1.5 cm thickness (it mightn't roll well, mine started to break apart, so as I rolled it, I squidged it together)

5. Cut shapes out or cut into squares, pop onto a tray lined with baking paper, and prick all over with a fork
6. Bake at 150 degrees celcius (290 degrees fahrenheit) for 30 minutes until golden brown

I packed them all into jars and popped labels on, this one was for little chef number 1's  teacher Mrs Daniels - a great big thank you.

Little Chef's

I'm not the only one in the house that loves cooking - I have two little chefs who enjoy mixing, stirring, chopping, and most importantly, eating. So this week we spent lots of time in kitchen making cakes and cookies, and I just have to share little chef #1 cooking up some fabulous butterfly cakes. I tried to convince her to make banana cakes - I was thinking about the school lunchboxes the next day, but I couldn't turn those puppy dog eyes down when she wanted to cook chocolate cake.  I'd share the recipe, but really... it's on the box. Yep, I'll admit it, when it comes to kids and chocolate cakes, cooking with Betty (Crocker that is) is the way to go.

So here's little chef#1 breaking eggs, don't you love the chef's hat!

And pouring the batter after mixing

And her favourite part, didn't we all love this bit when we cooked with mum

and the finished product - how cool are these

They didn't last long!  The butterfly pan was my christmas present from the little chefs, painstakingly picked out amongst all the other cooking stuff at my favourite kitchen store - I love how much thought went into it.