Here's to Mixed Up Blondies

Over the years I've tried a number of different combinations when I bake blondies, the brownie like bar cookie that has butterscotch instead of chocolate as the dominate flavor. I've done Big Blondes, Irish Blondes, Dumpy Blondes and California Blondes. This time I decided to go with Mixed-up Blondes. Mixed-up because I combined the basic blondie recipe with some of the aspects of the Dumpy Blondes, particular the sweet-salty combo you get by adding in potato chips and pretzels, with the Irish wholemeal flour that I used for the Irish Blondes, the fruit I added made them almost like California Blondes.  I added a few macadamia nuts, but not very many since I was almost out of them, some pecans, some dried cranberries, toasted coconut, and, of course, chocolate chips. At the end I added about 2 tablespoons golden raisins, to. Truly a mixed-up bowl of add-ins.

The resulting cookie is moist, sweet, and has some salty elements, some fruity elements and some nutty elements. I'll be taking them to a party tomorrow to honor a friend, Jean Anderson, who died last year. We're celebrating her birthday and I know she would have enjoyed these cookies.

Mixed-up Blondes
A variation of a recipe by Jill O’Connor in Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey, Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth.

1 cup (2 sticks) non-dairy margarine
3 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup Irish wholemeal flour (or whole-wheat flour)
¾ teaspoon baking powder

Add-ins: 
1 cup pecan halves
1/4 cup macadamia nuts
1/2 cup sweetened toasted coconut
1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries
1 cup pretzel pieces (I used small ones and broke them up)
1/2 cup sea salt potato chips, lightly crushed
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons golden raisins

Use cooking spray to lightly coat a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.

Melt the butter and brown sugar together in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until the butter and sugar are blended and completely melted and starting to bubble gently. Remove the pan from heat and let the mixture cool slightly. Mixture should be room temperature before you proceed.

Preheat to 350 degrees F. Position oven rack in the middle of the oven.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla and salt. Slowly whisk the cooled butter and sugar mixture into the eggs just until combined. Whisk in the flours and baking powder to form a loose batter. (Make sure the batter is cool before stirring in the remaining ingredients, otherwise the chocolate will start to melt before the bars are baked.)

Stir the nuts, coconut, dried cranberries, pretzel pieces, potato chip pieces, chocolate chips and golden raisins into the cooled batter. (I usually mix together all the Add-ins in a bowl before adding to the batter...it prevents a clump of one ingredient here, another ingredient there...you get a better distribution by mixing before adding.) Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula.
Bake until the top is shiny and slightly crackled and feels firm to the touch, 30 – 35 minutes. A wooden skewer inserting into the batter should come out with moist crumbs clinging to it. Let cool on a wire rack to room temperature, then turn out onto a board and cut into bars and serve.
Makes 15 large or 30 small bars.

Porridge Into Bread With The Babes

A day late with the November bread, but it was worth the wait. Our Kitchen of the Month this time is Kelly of A Messy Kitchen. She chose a wonderful, hearty rye bread that starts the old fashioned way, with boiling water poured over the rye flour and grain flakes, for a pain bouillie.

I didn't have rye flakes, but I did have Bob's Red Mill Mixed Hot Cereal grain flakes so I used those. I also substituted some King Arthur Flour Irish Wholemeal Flour for some of the all-purpose flour. Could have sworn I had caraway seeds, but they were hiding from me, so the raisins were all on their lonesome in the paste. Never have had a use for a mortal and pestle, so don't own one. Instead I forced the raisins through the smallest holes of a grater, which seemed to work well.

This is an interesting bread because you shape it into two loaves that touch in the bread pan, because the rising after shaping is in a cold oven, and because the baking is done starting with a cold oven, too, although I didn't do that last part.

I love the crust which is chewy and delicious.

I'm not going to include the recipe because you can find it (and some great photos) on Kelly's post and I actually followed the recipe, with the exceptions noted above and, because I read comments from fellow Babes, I preheated the oven to about 325 before putting the loaf in to bake, hoping to bake it through before it burned. The oven-spring didn't happen but we love this bread!

I gave some to friends, one of whom had lived in France for many years. She said it was her favorite of all the breads I have shared. She loved how flavorful it is. The crumb is pretty nice, too.

Now I know you want to bake this, even if it does seem a bit different. Think of the toast and sandwiches! Would be a great bread for stuffing, too. To be a Bread Baking Babes Buddy, bake the bread, share via email with Kelly your experience, include a photo for the round-up and she will send you a Buddy badge. Get the email to her by November 29th for the round-up. No blog? No problem. Post a picture of your bread on Flickr or another photo sharing site (if you use Snapchat, don't us a filter, OK?) and tell about your bread baking experience. Be sure to email Kelly and give her a location/link for your post.

Also, be sure to visit the other Bread Baking Babes to see what beautiful breads they have baking.

Experiment #1

Well, the GI situation has encouraged me to try some diet changes, including going caffeine free, dairy free and gluten free, plus no red meat. Although this is a pretty dramatic change for me, I'm looking on it as a chance to expand my baking skills.

Yesterday I tried my first GF cookie recipe. I took the Giant Party Cookies recipe and substituted non-dairy margarine for the butter and made up a GF mix which included white and brown rice flours, tapioca flour, cornstarch, oat flour, millet flour and xanthan gum. I didn't remember to write down the amounts I used, so I can't actually give you the recipe for it, but you can used a GF mix...just be sure it contains xanthan gum or add your own...about 2 tablespoons.

I also took out the nuts, substituted white chocolate chips for half the dark chocolate ones, added 1/4 cup dried cranberries and 1/3 cup golden raisins, plus increased the oatmeal by 3/4 cup so that the cookies wouldn't spread too thin.

The cookies were great and Sweetie, who can eat anything, really liked them. I even made some individual sized cookies ( 6 to a baking sheet) that are still oversized, but perfect for those non-party snack attacks. Yay for #1 GF recipe. Will probably try making bread next.

GF Giant Party Cookies

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

2 ½ cups Gluten Free flour mix
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) non-dairy margarine, softened
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup brown sugar, light or dark, packed
2 tsps. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1½ cup quick rolled oats
1 cups (6-oz. package) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup  white chocolate chips/chunks
½ cup golden raisins
1/4 cup dried sweetened cranberries (sub dried apricot pieces and raisins for nuts)


Combine flour, salt and baking soda in a small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl and beat until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape bowl and beaters. Gradually beat in flour and beat until mixed. Beat in oatmeal. Mixture will be stiff. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

Line a 12” pizza pan or large baking sheet with foil. Spray with cooking spray. Put 2 cups of the dough on the foil. Using floured fingers, shape dough into desired shape, circle or heart, square or oval. Make shape about 10” in diameter. Exaggerate the shape since cookie will spread.

Bake one sheet at a time in middle of oven for 15 - 18 minutes until golden brown. Let sit on sheet for 10 minutes, then slide shape on foil onto a cooling rack. Continue to bake the rest of the dough. You can make regular drop cookies with the remainder of the batter if desired.

If desired, once the cookie has cooled, decorate for a party! Mix 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar and enough milk to make a thin icing and drizzle over the cookie in a random pattern. While it is still wet, sprinkle cake decorations (sprinkles, dragees, mini chocolate chips,colored sanding sugar) over as desired.

So Many Posts and So Many Views and Irish Blonds

Sometime yesterday when I wasn't watching the number of all time page views for this blog passed 500,000! I started in October of 2006 and I will soon have posted 1,000 posts, so it shouldn't surprise me to reach that many page views, but it does.

When I started, blogging was a fairly new thing, especially food blogging as a specific category. Over the years it has grown and grown, sort of like the food shows that now saturate the TV airwaves. Some bloggers have become more commercial, either by accepting ads on the blog, by using the blog to further a business, or by having give-aways of merchandise of interest to food bloggers and foodies. I did that for a while, having drawings to give away copies of some nice cook books. After a while, though, I decided that I didn't really want to have my blogging be anything other than posting recipes and things about my life, including participation in a few baking groups I belong to or have belonged to. It has become for me a sort of diary and digital recipe box, along with a way to be creative with photographs, writing, and the alterations of recipes.

Today's recipe is a perfect example of that creative impulse. While working on my new Index ...which may take a while...I came across a recipe I had baked for blondies, the anti-brownie. For some reason my mind started turning to how I could incorporate some Irish elements into the recipe, including Irish whiskey. Now I know that chocolate and Irish whiskey go well together since one of my all time favorite cake recipes is for a chocolate Bundt cake with Irish whiskey in it. Putting it effectively into a blondie recipe might be more difficult. Redheads and women with dark hair and fair skin are often the types we associate with Ireland, but they do have blonds, too. Hence, Irish Blonds.

In thinking about Irish baked goods I remembered that they often contain currants (as in current scones and tea brack for instance), so I decided to soak some currents in Irish whiskey, then use the whiskey that didn't soak in as part of the liquid in the recipe. Irish recipes also often contain golden raisins, so I decided to use some of them. I like walnuts in blondies, so those were included, too. Part of the all-purpose flour was replaced with King Arthur Flour Irish whole-meal flour, too. Then I added white chocolate chips, not because they are Irish but because the recipe now sounded like one that would do well with white chocolate.

While they were baking I took a cock-eyed photo of late afternoon light on the farm by the back fence. The fragrance of these cookies baking was too intoxicating to stay in the kitchen.

Sweetie might have just been dazed by smelling them baking when he said it, but he declared these the best bar cookies I've ever made. They are very chewy...think nuts, currants, raisins and the whole wheat flour making them more than usually chewy...but still soft except for the edges by the pan sides. They are fruity sweet instead on overly sugar sweet because I reduced the sugar a bit. You can really taste the Irish whisky, especially in the currants, but it is complementary rather than assertive in flavor. You might enjoy these, too. Believe me, you don't have to be Irish to enjoy them.

Irish  Blonds

A variation of a recipe by Jill O’Connor in Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey, Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth.

SOAKER:

1/2 cup currants soaked in
1/2 cup Irish whiskey

BATTER:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour or Irish whole-meal flour

¾ teaspoon baking powder

MIX-IN INGREDIENTS:
1  cup nuts – I used walnut pieces, coarsely chopped

1 cup white chocolate chips

1 cup golden raisins

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Use cooking spray to lightly coat a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.

Melt the butter and sugars together in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until the butter and sugars are blended and completely melted and starting to bubble gently. Remove the pan from heat and let the mixture cool slightly.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla and salt. Drain the Soaker currents over a small bowl. Set the currents aside and put the liquid drained off into the egg mixture.Slowly whisk the eggs mixture into the cooled butter and sugar mixture just until combined. Whisk in the flours and baking powder to form a loose batter. (Make sure the batter is cool before stirring in the remaining ingredients, otherwise the chocolate will start to melt before the bars are baked.)

Stir the nuts, white chocolate chips, golden raisins and the drained currents into the cooled batter. (I mixed all of the "mix-in" ingredients together in a very large measuring cup before adding to the batter. That way I knew that there wouldn’t be a clump of nuts here and a clump of white chocolate there, but rather a nice mix of all the goodies.) Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula.

Bake until the top is shiny and slightly crackled and feels firm to the touch, 30 – 35 minutes. A wooden skewer inserting into the batter should come out with moist crumbs clinging to it. Let cool on a wire rack to room temperature, then cut into bars and serve.

Makes 15 large or 30 small bars.

Breakfast Buns

Bread baking has been on the back burner lately, but I noticed that some mornings I would love to have just a little something to go with the morning cup of coffee and fresh fruit. I decided to put together a breakfast bun that would work, and to put in some healthy ingredients, too. Most of all, it has to be yummy because when you can only have a small amount of bread, it should be delicious bread, right?

For starters I cooked up some oatmeal...1/2 cup rolled oats and twice that amount of water...and set it to cool. I also mixed some yeast, water, a tiny bit of sugar and some flour to make a poolish. It all sat out on the counter while I went to the gym, collecting wild yeast if I was lucky.

Later in the day I mixed the cooked oatmeal, the poolish, some milk, and egg and some more water together. In a bowl I mixed all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, salt, a little more yeast (in case no wild yeast were around that were strong enough), and a touch of cinnamon and added those to the liquid mix to make a nice dough.

After the dough had time to rise, I turned it out onto a flour board and kneaded in dried cranberries, chopped pecans and golden raisins. Those were stretched into a large rectangle, most of the rectangle was given a light coat of butter, a sprinkle with brown sugar, and also with cinnamon. I rolled it up, jelly-roll fashion, and cut it into buns.

The buns went into a 9 x 13 pan and lightly covered. They rose over time and then were baked in a 350 degree F oven until golden brown.

So now I had a dozen breakfast buns. There is about 1/6 of the usual amount of oatmeal one might eat at breakfast, whole grain, cinnamon for antioxidant and flavor value, dried fruits and nuts, milk and egg and only about 1/3 tablespoon of butter per bun, with even less sugar. Fairly healthy as buns go and very tasty. For one of the buns I added a small amount of an icing of confectioners sugar mixed with hot water. That made it a little too sweet, so I think in the future I'll stick with the 'plain' buns. Each bun went into it's own bag, then into the freezer for future enjoyment on those days when they will be the perfect thing to go with coffee and fruit.

You might think that I would want one every day, but today I had coffee, fruit and some plain yogurt and it was just enough breakfast. Normally I'd give you the recipe, but I didn't really measure a lot of the ingredients, so I'll have to see if I can figure it out and post it later.

Michigan Cherries in Soda Bread

On a recent visit, Big Sis brought a bag of wonderful, tangy, chewy, dark red dried cherries from Michigan. One of our sisters lives near Traverse City and they are famous for their cherries. It was an excellent hostess gift!

With such a bounty in hand, I had fun thinking about how to use those cherries. What I finally decided on was to use them in one of my favorite quick breads...Irish Soda Bread. Now my ancestors did use dried fruit in baking, but I think it was often raisins, currants, and prunes. Beautiful dried cherries like these would be pure luxury...and they were in this bread. I also added some golden raisins (more traditional) and the two went very well together.

Soda bread goes together quickly, especially because it does best with minimal handling. The craggy top is nice and crunchy while the interior is buttery and soft with bits of the fruit here and there. I was out of buttermilk, so I put some freshly squeezed lime juice in some milk to 'sour' it. Worked beautifully. In very little time I had some nice warm soda bread to go with a cup of Irish Breakfast tea. Now I'm going to think about what else I want to make with the rest of the cherries. Hmmm.

Irish Soda Bread with Golden Raisins and Dried Cherries
makes one medium loaf

1 cup (about) whole milk
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
4 oz. (½ stick) cold butter, in thin slices
¼ cup golden raisins or currants
¼ cup roughly chopped dried cherries
 
In a small bowl combine the milk and the fresh lime juice. Let sit to 'sour' the milk, at least 5 minutes.
Sift the dry ingredients over the butter and cut in well with a fork or pastry blender. Add the raisins and dried cherry pieces; mix well.

Add the soured milk and mix just until moist - don’t over handle. You may need to add 2 - 4 more tablespoons of milk.  Some dry stuff is OK but the dough should be sticky.

Pat into a round on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Cut a cross on top. Bake 45 minutes at 3500 F. Cool a bit before slicing.

By the way, today we painted the door for the front entry and installed it and the handle and lock set, so now the entry itself is finished!

Late Rye Bread Worth the Wait

This lovely Rye Bread that has nostalgic meaning for Kitchen of the Month Elizabeth requires kneading and this month when the Bread Baking Babes...and many Buddies...posted their versions, I was still letting the old arm heal, so no kneading allowed.

Now we are into the 6th week post-injury and I'm supposed to start using it more, so I HAD to make the Fennel Molasses Rye Bread as part of my rehab :)

I'm not a huge fan of fennel or even caraway, so I added some pulverized dried orange peel instead. The molasses gives the bread a fantastic flavor. I used mild, not blackstrap, but it worked just fine. For the raisins I used golden raisins because thats what I had on hand. The dough is lovely and easy to work with. I decided to make rolls and they are extremely delicious!

This recipe is a keeper for sure. Thank you Elizabeth! I know I'm late to the BBB party, but it was worth the wait.

Molasses Fennel Rye Bread

based on Jack Francis' recipe for Molasses-Fennel Bread served at "Clark's by the Bay" restaurant in Collins Bay, Ontario (near Kingston) - now sadly closed
makes two round loaves (or 8 large rolls)

¼ c (63gm) lukewarm water
1½ tsp ( 6 5gm) active dry yeast
4 tsp (17gm) sugar
4 Tbsp (85gm) blackstrap molasses
1¾ c (438gm) water, room temperature
1 Tbsp (6gm) fennel seeds
½ tsp (1gm) ground dried ginger
1 c (103gm) rye flour
1 c (122 gm) whole wheat flour
½ c (59gm) wheat germ
2 c (254gm) unbleached all purpose flour
1 Tbsp (18gm) salt
¼ c (36gm) Thompson raisins
up to ½ c (64gm) unbleached all purpose flour for kneading

Mixing In a smallish bowl, whisk yeast with the lukewarm water (do the baby's bottle test on your wrist) until it resembles cream. Set aside.

Meanwhile, in a bowl large enough for the dough to double, pour the rest of the water. Stir in sugar and molasses. (If the molasses is stiff because of a chilly kitchen, use warm water instead of room temperature.) Add fennel seeds and ground ginger. Dump in flours, wheat germ and salt and stir with a wooden spoon until the flour is mostly absorbed.

Add the yeast mixture (it should be quite foamy - if it is not after a period of 20 minutes have passed, either the yeast is dead or the water was too hot or far too cold. Check the due date on your yeast container. If the date hasn't passed, try again.) stir to form a rough dough. Cover the bowl with a plate and let sit on the counter for about 20 minutes.

Kneading Scatter a little of the flour for kneading onto a wooden board. Turn the dough out onto the board.

Wash and dry the mixing bowl. (Please do not be tempted to skip this step.)

Hand knead the dough 10 to 15 minutes, adding the smallest amounts of additional flour if dough is sticky. You don't have to use up all the flour. When the dough is springy and silky to the touch, knead in raisins.

Proofing Form the dough into a ball and put it in the clean bowl; cover it with a plate (there is no need to oil the bowl!) Let the dough rise in a no-draught place at room temperature (or in the oven with only the light turned on if you want) for about an hour or until it has doubled in size. Gently deflate dough. Recover with the plate and allow to rise until doubled again.

Gently turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board; cut it in half with a dough scraper if you have one, with a knife if you don't.

Shape into two round balls and place them (not touching) on a parchment papered pan or a cornmeal dusted peel. Dust the tops with flour. Cover with a clean tea towel followed by a large plastic bag overtop let rise until double in size. (about an hour if the temperature is around 20C)

Baking Place a breadstone, if you have one, on the middle to second from the top rack and preheat the oven to 400F.

If you want, slash the top of the rounds with a very sharp knife. Liberally spray the tops with water. Put bread in oven and immediately turn the oven down to 350F. Bake the bread on the middle to second from the top rack for 35-40 (I bake it for 45 50- 30-35) minutes until the bread reaches an internal temperature of 205-210F or until it is hollow sounding on the bottom. It's a good idea to turn the bread after about 20 minutes of half way through baking to allow for uneven heat in the oven (remove parchment paper at the same time).

Remove to cool on racks. Please wait until the bread is cool before cutting it. It's still baking inside! If you like to eat warm bread, reheat the bread after it has cooled.

 

We enjoyed these rolls with some butter, barely cooled from baking, then again this morning for breakfast. Awesome!

Fruits and Nut Braid

For a number of reasons I needed a vacation, so Sweetie and I took one last week and visited some grand and natural wonders in southern Utah and northern Arizona.

You would be hard pressed to find more spectacular scenery, especially if you like rocks. We were able to squeeze in Las Vegas (well the airport anyway),

Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks.

and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon

as well as a number of National Forests. We even took an unplanned trip past the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by heading in the opposite direction to where we wanted to go on our last day in Utah.

If you ever find yourself in the area, I can highly recommend two B&Bs. In St. George which is about 1 1/2 hours north of Las Vegas, we stayed in the Green Gate Village Inns,

which is a collection of buildings from the late 1800s which have been renovated beautifully. The accommodations were excellent and the breakfasts were lovely.

At the Purple Sage Inn in Kanab, further east near to Zion, Bryce and the Grand Canyon north rim, it was almost like staying in your own restored Victorian. The details were exceptional from unusual and beautiful bath and sink fittings to gorgeous wallpaper to lovely light fixtures to fine china on the table for breakfast. I fell in love with the kitchen and can imagine how great it would be to cook in a kitchen that is so well laid out and planned.

The front parlor is welcoming and we found that it was cool enough for a fire in the fireplace. The innkeeper, a native of Kanab, is hospitable, friendly and enjoyable to talk with...plus she is a great cook. Even though we had interesting conversations with other guests at the St. George B&B, at the Purple Sage it was somehow more like sitting around your own table and talking with new friends.

In the evening conversation was lively in the living room around the fireplace, too, although there are plenty of places to just hang out and read or spend some quiet time if that is what you prefer.

Now that we are home, the sourdough starters were fed and I decided to make a braid similar to one I made last year. Somehow the combination of golden raisins, cranberries and pecans seems right in the fall. This time I used some sourdough starter instead of dry yeast and I substituted maple syrup for the brown sugar. After all, maple syrup is a fall/winter kind of ingredient.

The braid baked up beautifully and is delicious with a cup of tea, toasted. We also enjoyed it as sandwich bread today as part of a turkey sandwich. Since it isn't very sweet it worked quite well.

I'm sending this over to Susan at Wild Yeast for the weekly Yeastspotting event...a wonderland of bread recipes...I highly recommend following the link if you love bread and other yeasted delights.

Festive Braid with Raisins, Cranberries, Pecans, Maple and Orange

1 cup sourdough starter
2 ¼ - 3 cups unbleached bread flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon grated orange zest (colored part only)
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons golden raisins
¼ cup dried cranberries
½ cup chopped toasted pecans
¼ cup maple syrup
1/3 cup warm milk (105 – 115 degrees F)
1 egg, slightly beaten
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

egg wash- 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water
sanding sugar

Place sourdough starter in bottom of stand mixer bowl. Add the maple syrup, warm milk, and egg and mix to blend. Set aside.

Combine 1 ½ cups of the flour, salt, orange zest, raisins, dried cranberries and toasted chopped pecans in large measuring cup or bowl. Mix thoroughly.

Add the dry ingredients and the butter to the yeast mixture. Mix thoroughly.

Add enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Knead using the stand mixer and the dough hook or knead on lightly floured surface until smooth, about 10 minutes.

Place in greased bowl, turning to coat top. Cover and let rise in warm place until double in bulk – about 1 hour.

Punch down dough. Divide the dough into thirds. Make three ropes. Braid on a greased, parchment covered, or silicon mat covered baking sheet.

Cover and let rise in a warm place until double – about 30 -45 minutes. Brush with egg glaze and sprinkle with sanding sugar right before putting in the oven.
Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven for 30 - 40 minutes. Check at 20 minutes. If crust is getting too brown, tent with aluminum foil. Interior temperature should be about 210 degrees F.

Cool on a wire rack.

Optional: Make the Confectioners’ Icing, then drizzle it over the cool loaf. Sprinkle with the additional pecans and some candied cherries to decorate. Let the icing dry before serving.

Confectioners Sugar icing: Mix together 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 1/4 teaspoon grated orange zest and 1-2 tablespoons milk.

I Can Naan

This month the Bread Baking Babes are baking naan, an Indian flatbread that is quick and easy. Lynn of Cookie Baker Lynn is the hostess kitchen this month. Her post is full of naan-sense puns and also the recipes.


One of the advantages of naan is that is is ready to eat so quickly...well quickly for a yeasted bread anyway. I started it this morning and Sweetie and I enjoyed it with our lunchtime spinach soup.

I made the curry and golden raisin version, except I left out the curry and added the caraway seeds from the plain version. Those flavors went really well with the soup. I'm not a curry kinda girl, even a small amount, so this also allowed me to get enthused about making these yummy breads. The outer texture was slightly crusty, with nice browned parts. Inside the bread was puffy and soft and moist with soft golden raisins and the occasional caraway seed.

When making the dough I needed to add more water than in the recipe, but I added the dry yeast without proofing, so that's where the need for extra moisture came from I believe. Usually I have my stand mixer do kneading, but I did it by hand for this and really enjoyed the contemplative aspect of kneading.

Thank you Lynn for choosing this wonderful bread! There is so much of Indian food that I find too spicy or too curry, but this kind of Indian food is easy to make and easy to enjoy.
I'm sending this over to Susan at Wild Yeast for the weekly Yeastspotting round up. If you haven't visited her blog lately do head over. She has lots and lots of wonderful bread ideas for you.

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Naan Bread
from Paul Hollywood's 100 Great Breads - makes 6 naan

scant 4 cups white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
1-1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp olive oil, plus extra for frying
instant or dry yeast - about 1-3/4 tsp active dry yeast
1-1/4 cups water (I added another ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons)
generous 1/2 cup golden raisins
1 teaspoon caraway seeds

1- Put the flour, salt, oil, curry powder, yeast, and water into a bowl and mix together for 2 minutes. Tip out onto a lightly floured counter and knead for 5 minutes, or until the dough is soft and pliable. Let rise for 30 minutes.

2- Line a baking sheet. Incorporate the golden raisins and chutney into the dough. Divide the dough into six pieces, then put on the baking sheet and let rest for 1 hour.

3- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and, using a rolling pin, flatten each piece into a circle, 25.5 cm / 10 inches in diameter. Put back on the sheet and let rest for 5 minutes.

4- Heat a skillet to medium heat and add a splash of olive oil. Shallow-fry each dough until browned on both sides, then set aside to cool slightly before serving.