Month: June 2008

Whole Wheat Seed Bread

Bread Baroness Tapuzina

I have always wanted to make a hearty multi-grain bread, but never found a recipe that inspired me to make it until a few days ago. I finally found a recipe that incorporated all of the things I wanted in my bread: flax seeds, rolled oats, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. I used pomegranate molasses instead of sugar in this recipe. It turned out beautifully. It is a hearty bread, full of seeds and has a very nice moist crumb. I will definitely make this again.

 

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Whole Wheat Seed Bread
Servings: 1 large loaf
Ingredients
  • 2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
  • 2 1/4 cups dark whole wheat flour
  • 50 g fresh yeast
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 6 tablespoons sunflower seeds
  • 6 tablespoons flax seeds
  • 6 tablespoons shelled pumpkin seeds
  • 2/3 cup rolled oats
  • 2 cups water
  • 4 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
  • 2 egg white
  • Egg yolks + water for egg wash
Instructions
  1. In a large bowl, combine the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, yeast, and salt.
  2. Seed and Oat Mixture
  3. In another bowl, mix the seeds with the oats.
  4. In a saucepan, combine the water and molasses and warm the mixture over low heat until a thermometer reads 120 to 130 degrees F (50 to 55 degrees C) .
  5. First Knead
  6. Add the liquid to the flour mixture with the egg white. Mix together until a soft dough forms. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for 10 minutes; then shape into a ball. Lightly oil a large stainless steel bowl. Add the dough and turn to cover the dough with the oil. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and let rise in a warm place for 2 hours until doubled in size.
  7. Ready for Second Rise
  8. When the dough has risen, punch the dough down with your fists and add all but 2 tablespoons of the seed mixture working it into the dough. Shape the dough into a baton. Place on a silicone covered baking sheet and cover the baton with a tea towel and let rise for 1 hour until doubled in bulk.
  9. Oven Ready
  10. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). Brush the top of the bread with the egg wash and sprinkle on the reserved seed mixture. Bake the bread for 30 minutes or until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Remove the bread from the pan and cool on a baking rack.

Ice Cream – Middle Eastern Style

Desserts Fruit Fruit Dessert Ice Creams/Sorbets Baroness Tapuzina

L to R: Roasted Apricot-Almond Ice Cream and Tehina-Pistachio Ice Cream

It is quite hot here now and I thought it was time to pull the ice cream maker out again. I took a look at my long list of ice cream recipes and really didn’t see anything that tickled my fancy, so I started thinking about what ingredients are available right now and one of them was fresh apricots. As most of you know by now, I love to experiment with different ingredients and I didn’t want to make some ordinary apricot ice cream, so I thought about what spices would go well with apricots…. ras al hanout. I got the idea for this ice cream from a recipe from a fellow blogger, Mike’s Table. He is hosting a blog event called “You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream for Frozen Desserts“. I can’t wait to see the other entries.

The other ingredient I have wanted to experiment with for quite a while is raw tehina (sesame paste). I didn’t want to use sugar to sweeten the tehina because it just didn’t sound right to me, so I decided the perfect sweetener in keeping with its Middle Eastern roots would be date honey, also known as silan in Hebrew.

The apricot ice cream came out nice and creamy with a strong fruity taste, although perhaps not quite as acid as I would have liked. Next time, I will try adding some dried sour apricots as well.

The tehina ice cream is creamy and has a smoky sesame flavor that is reminiscent of halva. It is not too sweet and the pistachios add a nice crunch. Next time, I will add some chopped dates to the mixture.

They are both delicious ice creams and will be added to the top of my ice cream recipes.

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Roasted Apricot-Almond Ice Cream
Ingredients
  • 12 ripe apricots
  • 2 teaspoons ras al hanout
  • 1 tablespoon sugar plus some for sprinkling
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • 1 cup double cream
  • Small squeeze lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1/2 cup whole milk
  • 1/2 cup whole almonds with the skins
Instructions
  1. Roasted Apricots
  2. Preheat oven to 220C (425F). Cut the apricots in half, remove the seed, and place the halved apricots, cut side up in a baking dish. Sprinkle them with sugar and the ras al hanout. Roast them in the oven until they are caramelised (as shown in the picture above). Let them cool for 20 minutes. Puree the apricots, honey and any juices from the baking dish in a food processor or blender. Transfer to a bowl and mix with 1/2 cup of the cream, lemon juice and vanilla. Mix well and set up in an ice bath with a strainer on top.
  3. Ice Cream Base
  4. Meanwhile scald the remaining 1/2 cream and 1/2 cup of whole milk, talking care not to boil it. In the bowl, beat the egg yolks and 1 tablespoon of sugar until creamy. Temper the eggs with a scoop of the hot cream and slowly add the rest. Place the egg-cream mixture in a clean saucepan and cook at medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of spoon.
  5. Pour the cooked custard through the strainer, discarding the solids, into the cooled apricot mixture and whisk all together. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface to prevent a skin from forming and put in the refrigerator for about six hours.
  6. While the custard cools, toast the almonds on a cookie sheet in a 200C (400F) oven for about 5-10 minutes, shaking them halfway through to prevent burning. Once they have cooled, cut the almonds in half.
  7. When the custard is cold, place it in a ice cream maker, and follow the manufacturer's instructions. Add the almonds during the last minute or two of churning. Transfer to the freezer and eat when ready.

 

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Tehina-Pistachio Ice Cream
Ingredients
  • 1 cup raw tehina raw sesame paste
  • 2 cups full fat milk
  • 1 cup double cream
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 1/2 cup date honey silan
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 3/4 cup roasted pistachios roughly chopped
Instructions
  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan, taking care not to boil. Remove from the heat and add the tehina, mix well, cover, and let steep for about an hour. In a bowl whisk the egg yolks and date honey.
  2. Rewarm the milk mixture and strain into the yolk mixture, constantly stirring, using a spatuala to extract as much of the milk-tehina mixture as possible. Discard the solids.
  3. Tehina Ice Cream Base
  4. Place the egg-tehina mixture in a clean saucepan and cook at medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of spoon. Strain the mixture once again, and cool over ice-cold water. Chill in the refrigerator, add the double cream and churn it in an ice-cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

Cherry Heaven

Israel Travel Baroness Tapuzina

I was so excited when I purchased my new computer because I new it would make blogging so much better. However, a few days after I hooked everything up, my monitor blew up, literally! I was sitting a my desk, reading my email and all of a sudden I heard a pop, the monitor turned black and a puff of smoke came out the top of it! So, I have been monitorless for a while. Now, I am up and running again and I have a few things to tell you about while I was monitorless.

Just picked Queen Anne cherries, Bulgarian cheese, sheep cheese, Gouda cheese

I went to a cherry picking festival at Kibbutz Rosh Tzurim with my husband and a colleague from Germany. We drove 45 minutes to the beautiful Judean Hills which always reminds me of the rugged terrain in Provence. The festival had booths with people selling kosher charcuterie, local wine and pottery. They also offered a free tractor ride around the kibbutz.

It was very hot, but there was a large crowd eager to pick big juicy red and Queen Anne cherries. We picked cherries, or rather my husband had a great time climbing trees picking the cherries, and my colleague and I had fun eating them! Don’t worry, we kept plenty to bring home with us. The Queen Anne cherries were tastier than the red ones. I was really impressed that my husband could still climb trees considering he hasn’t climbed one in over 40 years!

The trees were covered with netting so the birds couldn’t eat the cherries. This kibbutz packs and sells its cherries for the shuk (open market) and the local supermarkets. The cherries that were available for picking at the cherry festival were the last of the crop. They were juicy and sweet, especially the ones my husband picked from the top of the tree. Unlike the older trees that grew as nature intended, the new ones were espaliered, like apple trees, to make the fruit easier to pick.

We packed a nice picnic lunch consisting of:

Baby greens, dried apricots, cranberries and walnuts with a mustard vinaigrette
Stuffed grape leaves
Roasted eggplant slices
French bread
Bulgarian cheese
Sheep cheese
Smoked Gouda cheese
Olive oil potato crisps
Pomegranate iced tea
Just picked Queen Anne cherries
Dried fruits and nuts
Chocolate-hazelnut cookies

Other people at the festival came up to us and complimented us on our beautiful picnic. One woman even took a picture of it with her mobile phone. We though this was a rather ordinary picnic and had a laugh about it.

We had a very nice time and will definitely go back next year.

Shavuot 2008 – Updated

Bread Cheesecakes Fish Shavuot Baroness Tapuzina

Being away for most of May didn’t give me a lot of time to decide what to make for Shavuot this year. I decided to keep it simple and not over do it. My menu was:

Salad of baby mixed greens with nectarines

Trout stuffed with dried apricots and pistachios

Mashed potatoes with basil

Steamed broccoli

All of the dishes were delicious. I have to admit the trout dish really caught my eye because of the unusual stuffing. I would have never have thought that apricot and pistachios should be stuffed inside of any fish, but it really married well with the trout. The sour apricots and the crunch of the pistachios lent such a nice flavour to the mild flavour of the trout. I will definitely make this again.

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Trout Stuffed with Dried Apricots and Pistachios
Ingredients
  • 25 g/1oz white breadcrumbs
  • 55 g/2oz dried sour California apricots, finely chopped
  • 2 tablespoons parsley or coriander finely chopped
  • 40 g/1-1/2 oz pistachio nuts finely chopped
  • 55 g/2oz melted butter
  • Salt and pepper
  • 2 fresh whole trout gutted and rinsed
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).
  2. <img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3037/2597675181_ce46f4dd53.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Apricot-Pistachio Stuffing"
  3. Place the breadcrumbs, apricots, parsley, pistachios, half the butter, salt and pepper into a bowl and mix well.
  4. Stuffed Trout
  5. Place each of the trout on a large sheet of buttered foil on a baking tray. Spoon half the mixture into each of cavities. Brush the trout with the rest of the melted butter and enclose the foil around each of the fish to form two parcels. Place the tray into the oven for 25-30 minutes. Remove from the foil and serve.

 

I know you are going to say that every French baker is going to sentence me to death for making brioche with whole wheat flour, but I have to tell you that the bread was delicious. Okay, it wasn’t as delicate as regular brioche, but it is was still very tasty.

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Whole Wheat Brioche with Dried Fruit
Servings: 2 loaves
Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup hand-hot water
  • 1 tablespoon dried yeast or 25g fresh yeast
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 6 large eggs room temperature
  • 4-1/2 cups whole wheat flour or white flour for traditional brioche
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 226 g 2 sticks butter, at room temperature
  • 1 cup of mixed dried fruit such as cranberries, raisins, apricots
  • 1 egg mixed with 1 tablespoon milk for egg wash
Instructions
  1. Combine the water, yeast and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
  2. Let stand for five minutes to let the yeast and sugar dissolve.
  3. Add the eggs and beat at medium speed for one minute, until well mixed. At low speed, add two cups of flour and the salt. Mix for five minutes. Add an additional two cups of flour and mix for five minutes. Still on low speed, add the softened butter in chunks and mix for two minutes, scraping down the beater and sides of the bowl, until well blended. Sprinkle in the remaining 1/2 cup of flour.
  4. Use the dough hook or knead the dough by hand for two minutes. Scrape the dough into a large buttered bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight.
  5. The next day, allow the dough to sit a room temperature for one hour. Grease two loaf pans. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and cut in half. Pat each portion into a rectangle, then roll up each rectangle into a cylindrical loaf. Place each loaf, seam-side down, into a greased pan. Cover the pans with a damp towel and set aside to rise at room temperature until doubled in volume, 2 to 2-1/2 hours.
  6. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). When the dough has risen, brush the top of each with the egg wash and bake for approximately 45 minutes or until the top springs back and it sounds slightly hollow when tapped. Turn the loaves onto a wire rack to cool.

Torta di Chioccolata al Forno con Vaniglia e Nocciola (Perugian-style chocolate hazelnut cheesecake)

This cheesecake is to die for! I used Israeli 5% white cheese instead of cream cheese and it was just as creamy, but with a lot less calories. I am not a big chocolate eater, but this was made with 60% bittersweet chocolate and it was just sweet enough. I really liked that this recipe did not call for a lot of sugar and the hazelnuts really make the cake. I felt like I was eating a Perugina Baci. Smacking delicious it was.

Chag Sameach everyone!