Beer, mustard and cheese bread recipe, inspired by Welsh Rarebit

Are you familiar with the British pub classic, Welsh Rarebit? It's a slice of toasted bread topped with a melted cheese, mustard and beer concoction. Excellent, if rich, comfort food. Those three flavourings are all present in this soft yeast bread that's been a favourite for years - I even included a recipe in my first cookbook. It's soft and tender, with plenty of gutsy flavours going on. It's obviously not a bread that you'd toast and slather with jam, but with some extra cheese or a slice of good country ham - oh yes!

See also Felicity Cloake's post How to cook perfect Welsh rarebit in the Guardian to give you some insights into the dish that inspired this bread. 


Beer, mustard and cheese bread
(Õlle-juustuleib)
Makes 2 loaves



500 ml dark beer (ale, porter, stout - all work; 2 cups)
50 g fresh yeast or 2 envelopes fast-action instant yeast
3-4 Tbsp light syrup (golden syrup or corn syrup is fine; about 80 g)
2 tsp fine salt
150 g hard cheese, coarsely grated (Cheddar's good, or any Estonian cheese :))
600-650 g all-purpose flour*
1-2 tsp English mustard powder (I use Colmans)
100 ml vegetable oil or 75 g butter, melted and cooled

Use a large mixing bowl.  If using fresh yeast, then crumble it into lukewarm (37C) beer and stir until dissolved. Add the syrup, then fold in the grated cheese and about half of the flour. Add the salt, mustard powder and knead in the rest of the flour. Finally add the oil/melted butter. 
(If you're using the fast-action instant yeast, then simply mix all the dry ingredients, then add the beer, syrup, cheese and mix, finally adding the oil/butter). 

* A note on the amount of flour. I've successfully made this with 600 g flour, which is about 1 litres or about 4 heaped cups.  You may need a little more - you're aiming for a soft, dropping consistency.

Cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel, place the mixing bowl into a warm and draught-free location and let the dough raise until doubled in size. This will take about an hour.
Transfer the dough onto a lightly floured worktop. Lightly knead the dough and divide into two equal parts. Form into oblong loaves and transfer into buttered or lined baking tins. (I've used 22 cm/2 litre bread tins to make high loaves and 30 cm/3 litre bread tins to make smaller loaves).
Bake in the middle of a pre-heated 175 C/350 F oven for about 45 minutes, until well risen and golden brown on top.



Alternatively, you can free-form the loaves and bake them on a baking sheet, as above.

More unusual takes on Welsh Rarebit:
Welsh rarebit lamb nachos @ Endless Simmer
Cheddar, beer and mustard pull-apart bread @ Smitten Kitchen (an idea not so dissimilar to this)
Welsh rarebit souffle @ Amuse Bouche

Estonian Soda Bread Recipe

If you think you've already seen a recipe for Estonian soda bread here @ Nami-Nami, then you're not mistaken - I indeed blogged about it some three years ago. However, that recipe was with ricotta/curd cheese, and this one uses kefir or cultured buttermilk. There isn't such a huge taste difference - and they're both quick to make and delicious to eat. Caraway seeds are a traditional flavouring, but if you're not keen on that spice, you can leave it out.

It's best served warm - I usually devour it with some butter and honey (see photo above) or lingonberry jam.

The original recipe is from an Estonian cult baking book, Ida Savi's "Saiad, pirukad, koogid" (1989). I haven't changed it, really, as if it ain't broke, don't fix it :)

Estonian Soda Bread
(Odrajahu-hapupiimakarask)

a 23x23 cm square tin, buttered

250 ml cultured buttermilk, kefir or fermented milk (1 cup)
1 large egg
1 tsp salt
1 tsp caster sugar
2 Tbsp vegetable oil or melted butter
1 tsp caraway seeds
175 g barley flour (about 300 ml, I used wholemeal)
90 g wheat flour (150 ml)
1 tsp baking soda

Pre-heat the oven to 200 C/400 F.
Sift both flours and soda into a bowl.
Whisk the egg with salt and sugar, add the kefir, oil/melted butter, caraway seeds and the flour mix. Stir until just combined.
Pour into a buttered tin and bake in a pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes, until the soda bread is golden brown on top.

Rye bread with hazelnuts, raisins and dried cranberries

I've been baking my own naturally leavened (aka no-yeast) rye bread again, using just rye flour, and I'm very pleased with the results. I always make two large loafs - one plain (well, I do add caraway seeds and linseeds to the dough), the other flavoured. Last weekend I added some hazelnuts, dried cranberries and raisins to the mixture. Absolutely delicious!

Let me know if you're interested in the recipe.

EDIT 8 July 2009: Well, looks like I'll need to post the recipe indeed :) It's a longer post, but I'll do it a.s.a.p.!

Mustard bread for mustard lovers

You're probably wondering why the bread on the photo looks so yellow. No, it's not me and K. mishandling the white balance on our camera. It's just that this bread is so exceptionally yellow in colour (mustard powder + ground turmeric), as well as mustardy in flavour (whole-grain mustard + mustard powder + mustard seeds). Definitely (or perhaps?) too mustardy to be your daily bread, but it would make a lovely loaf to accompany a simple vegetable soup, and perhaps even a cheeseboard.

The recipe is adapted from an Estonian supermarket food magazine Toit & Trend.

Mustard Bread
(Sinepisai)
Makes 1 loaf



250 ml (1 cup) lukewarm water
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 Tbsp whole-grain mustard
400 g plain/all-purpose flour
1 packet active dry yeast (app. 11 g)
3 tsp mustard powder (I used Coleman's English)
0.5 tsp ground turmeric
0.5 tsp salt
1 egg, whisked, for brushing
2 Tbsp brown mustard seeds, for topping

Mix the water, oil and whole-grain mustard in a large bowl.
Mix the flour, dry yeast, mustard powder, turmeric and salt in another bowl, then stir into the water mixture and knead, until the dough breaks loose from your hands (or dough hook, if using a mixer).
Cover the bowl with a clingfilm or a clean kitchen towel and leave to prove for an hour in a warm, draft-free place. It should pretty much double in size.
Knead the dough once again, then form into a round loaf. Transfer the loaf into an oiled oven sheet, cover again with a piece of clingfilm or a kitchen towel and leave to prove for another hour.
Cut few slashes on top with a sharp knife, then brush with egg and sprinkle with mustard seeds.
Bake in the middle of 200 C /400 F oven for about 30 minutes, until the bread is lovely golden and crispy on top.
Let it cool for about half an hour after taking out of the oven, then slice as thinly or thickly as you like.

Other bread recipes @ Nami-Nami:
Estonian Soda Bread with Ricotta Cheese
Tender Potato Bread (a Daring Baker challenge)
Fennel Seed Bread
Georgian Cheese Bread Hatchapuri

Estonian Soda Bread with Ricotta Cheese

When I say "Soda Bread", will you think of Ireland? Wikipedia seems to do so, and there are plenty of Irish Soda Bread recipes out there in the foodblogosphere (Elise, BakingSheet, Kalyn, Andrea, SmittenKitchen, Tea). There's even a Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread !!

However, soda bread is a traditional bread here in Estonia as well. Although nowadays most Estonians think of rye bread when they think of bread at all ('bread' in Estonian - 'leib' - actually only means rye bread; when you use wheat flour, you'll get 'sai' and not 'leib'), traditionally barley played a more important part in the staple diet of Estonians. I recently discovered this rather coarsely ground organic Estonian barley flour (Eesti Mahe), which is excellent - with a lovely nutty taste and even lovelier texture.

Soda bread is of course best eaten warm, with butter and drizzle of runny honey, for example. But as this soda bread contains curd cheese (you can substitute ricotta), it was soft and tender on the following day as well. And the best thing about soda bread is - apart from its lovely flavour - that it can be on your table within 30 minutes or so.

Estonian Soda Bread
(Odrajahu-kohupiimakarask)

Makes one 23x23 cm bread

200 g ricotta* or curd cheese
2oo ml milk
1 egg
200 ml (115 g) barley flour
100 ml (70 g) plain/all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp rapeseed or olive oil

(Add 2 Tbsp sour creme, if using ricotta cheese)

Combine ricotta/curd cheese, milk, egg, salt and sugar in a bowl. Combine barley and wheat flour with baking soda, then fold into the ricotta and egg mixture. Pour in the oil and mix until combined.
Butter a spring form with butter, or line with parchment paper (I use 23x23 cm skillet, lined with paper). Spoon the batter into the form and bake at 200 Celsius for about 25-30 minutes, until the bread is lovely golden brown.

I'm a Daring Baker: Tender Potato Bread

I am late with this month's Daring Baker project, but that's not because I haven't been daring. I've spent quite a lot of time being daring in a kitchen last weekend, which wasn't mine (I'll tell you more one day), and I simply couldn't muster up enough energy to bake tender potato bread before the deadline. Today I stayed home, relaxed, and finally completed the challenge.

This month, Tanna of the My Kitchen in Half Cups blog decided we should have something baked and savoury, for a change. Since joining the ranks of Daring Bakers earlier this year I've made Jewish Purist's Bagels, a fancy Strawberry Mirror Cake, a delicious Milk Chocolate & Caramel Tart a la Eric Kayser, very comforting Sticky Buns & Cinnamon Buns, and elegant Bostini Cream Pies. This month we baked bread. And not any bread, but tender potato bread. The recipe is from Home Baking: Sweet and Savory Traditions from Around the World, a book by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, and can also be found here on Tanna's blog.

And so this afternoon I peeled some potatoes, boiled them until tender, drained and pressed through a fine sieve. Then mixed and stirred and kneaded and waited and folded and formed, and finally enjoyed some lovely moist potato bread with a beautifully chewy-soft texture:



I made a large focaccia and some small potato buns (sprinkled with caraway seeds). K. and I enjoyed the bread alongside a bowl of hot borscht (same recipe, just cabbage-less), and were feeling very happy indeed.

Thank you, Tanna, for a lovely challenge - and sorry for completing it a bit late..

Fennel Seed Bread Recipe

In one of my regular lunch joints, Bestseller Cafe in Viru Keskus (Tallinn), they sometimes serve soup with large chunks of fennel seed bread. Although I'm in somewhat uneasy terms with things aniseedy and liquoricey, I do like that spicy bread a lot. And therefore I couldn't help but try the fennel seed bread recipe that Clivia posted last month. Granted, I changed the recipe - originally from a Swedish baking guru Anna Bergenström - a little (omitting sunflower seeds, making two loaves instead of one, adding salt later in the process, etc), but it's still thanks to Clivia that I've discovered another keeper-recipe. Tack, Kristina!!!

Fennel Seeds (Foeniculum vulgare Mill., apteegitilliseemned ehk ristköömned) are a great spice to use in baking, bread, compotes, pickles and liqueurs, but can also be used to season fish dishes, salads and sauces. If you're interested in fennel seeds' medicinal properties, then you should remember that the seeds are also good for your digestive system and can ease the symptoms of a bad cough.

Fennel Seed Bread
(Apteegitilliseemnesai)
Makes 2 loaves



25 grams fresh yeast
1 Tbsp honey
400 ml tepid water
600 g plain flour (1 litre/about 4 cups)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp fennel seeds, slightly crushed

Crumble the yeast into a large bowl, add honey and stir, until yeast and honey melt into one. Add the tepid water, stir again.
Now add most of the flour, as well as salt and crushed fennel seeds. Stir with a wooden spoon until combined, adding more flour, if the dough is too wet. (I kneaded the dough for 5 minutes in my KitchenAid, then another 2 minutes by hand).
Cover the bowl with a clean towel or clingfilm and let dough rise in a warm, draft-free place about one to two hours, until double in bulk.
Punch down dough. Divide it into two equally sized pieces. Form each dough piece into an oblong loaf on slightly floured surface.
Line a baking sheet with a parchment paper, and lift the dough pieces onto the baking sheet.
Heat the oven to 250 C, and let the dough rise for another 15-20 minutes.
Bake the loaves in the middle of the 250 C oven for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 150 C and continue baking for about 20 minutes longer, until the bread is light golden brown, and the bread sounds 'hollow' when you tap onto the bottom.
Let cool on a metal rack, loosely covered with a towel.

Bagel is a doughnut with rigor mortis?*

* p. 90 in Claudia Roden's book The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day (Penguin Books, 1996). Sounds cool, doesn't it?

My first challenge as a new member of the Daring Bakers was to make bagels. Not just any bagels, but Real Honest Jewish Purist's Bagels according to a recipe chosen by Jenny of All Things Edible and Freya of Writing At The Kitchen Table.

Bagels, in addition to being a doughnut with rigor mortis (alias chewy and dense and just a bit hard), were the staple bread of the Jews in Eastern Europe, especially in Poland (though they originate in Southern Germany). Since then bagels - especially lox and bagels - have become the most famous Jewish food in America, and a popular breakfast dish for non-Jews as well. I've never had the New York bagels, which are supposedly the best in the world (something in the water, apparently), but I did have some in Scotland over the years. I began with the six-packs available at one of the large supermarkets (not too bad to my novice bagel-tastebuds), and during my last year in Scotland I often picked one up from the Bagel Factory kiosk at the Waverley train station (so much better that the supermarket ones; I always opted for the salt beef & gherkin topping). Until I've tasted the NY bagels, I rely on Clarissa Hyman's description of a perfect bagel in her The Jewish Kitchen: Recipes and Stories from Around the World (Conran Octopus, 2003): "I am a purist when it comes to bagels: they should be crisp and glossy on the outside, soft but still satisfyingly chewy inside".

How did mine compare? They're far from perfect, I must admit, but then we have both eaten quite a few of them, so they're far from disaster as well. They're glossy alright, and definitely chewy. But shapewise, I found them a bit flatter than I remembered, and they weren't as smooth as I wanted.

May I present my first ever bagels - vesikringlid alias 'water kringles' in Estonian - with four types of toppings:


Starting from the top left corner, moving clockwise: caraway seeds, Maldon sea salt, Kalonji black onion seeds (also known as nigella seeds, read more here), sesame seeds.

The shape of the bagels - a small circle with no beginning and no end, and with a hole in the middle - represents the eternal circle of life. There are two ways to get the all-important hole: a dough-centric (you roll the dough into a long 'snake', then press the ends together) and a hole-centric way (roll the dough into a small ball, press your finger through to make a hole). I used the hole-centric way of making holes:



Then you boil the bagels first in some water which has been seasoned with syrup or sugar (malt syrup would be the first choice, but I used dandelion syrup instead; mine were all 'floaters', I must admit), then brush with egg wash and sprinkle with your chosen topping (see first photo above), and then bake until golden in the oven. (And then cool, halve and schmear with your choice of topping).

I got 22 reasonably-sized bagels instead of the 15 prescribed ones:



Although the Daring Bakers were allowed to get all creative with the fillings, we opted for the popular lox & bagel topping (bagel, smoked salmon, cream cheese and a sprig of dill). Note that this is not the 'traditional' bagel filling. Quoting Clarissa Hyman again, "The bagel met its life partners, smoked salmon and cream cheese, in the New World. ... [this is] a marriage made in heaven. Which is why the egg and bacon bagel will always end in divorce". I wanted to be on the safe side, so smoked salmon and cream cheese it was:



Clarissa suggests few other schmears in her book, which I'll keep in mind for the future bagel-baking extravaganzas: avocado & egg schmear, cheese & dill schmear and Liptauer schmear.

Now, I wonder what the next Daring Baker challenge - hosted by Peabody - will be like?

The Greek Easter Bread Tsoureki, 2007

Pretty, isn't it? It's the traditional Greek Easter bread tsoureki, using the little known spices mastic and mechlebe/mahlepi (you can see them both here) and usually garnished with red eggs*. I've made tsoureki before (twice, actually), to a great acclaim from a number of Greeks, and it has become a regular feature at my Easter table.

The recipe I've used on the previous occasions was an adapted from Paul Hollywood's book 100 Great Breads, and it (the adapted version, that is) worked just well. But as a kind friend had sent me a copy of Theodore Kyriakou's widely acclaimed book, The Real Greek at Home: Dishes from the Heart of the Greek Kitchen, then I decided to test another recipe for tsoureki instead this year. After all, Kyriakou is the Chef of the The Real Greek restaurant in London and hailed as the Greek chef and expert on the Hellenic cuisine in the UK. So his recipe should definitely please, no?

Well, it failed to do that. I should have got suspicious about the amount of spices. Whereas Hollywood used two pieces of mastic and a pinch of mahlepi per half a kilogram of flour, then Kyriakou used 3 pieces of mastic (that's fine), but a whopping 1.5 tsp of mahlepi - that's quite a difference from a pinch! This meant that these spices (plus the addition of star anise infusion) didn't just give a hint of musky spiciness to the bread, but utterly and totally hijacked the flavour, especially mahlepi. And whereas I love the subtle hint of mastic and mahlepi, then too much is simply too much. Also, Kyriakou's version asked for the inclusion of six whole eggs in the pastry, which may have explained the toughness of the resulting bread. Ok, I may have slightly over-kneaded the pastry, which explains why the bread looks a bit stretched on the photo above, but believe me, this was the least of the problems. It was just, blah, as some foodbloggers would say..

The moral of the story? Well, when something doesn't need fixing, then leave it alone. As simple as that.. Next year I'll try my old and trusted (that is, tested) recipe again :-)

The read egg on the photo was provided by the 5-year old Gretel. See here for more details.

Waiter, there's something in my ... bread: seenekarask or a mushroom loaf

Andrew of SpittoonExtra is hosting this month's edition of Waiter there is something in my ..., and the theme is bread. In ideal circumstances, I would have wanted to make a proper Estonian leavened rye bread. However, as I only just returned from London on the wee hours of Monday morning, and was busy celebrating my birthday yesterday, I didn't have time to start the rye bread. Yet as I was still keen to make something local, I decided to adapt an old recipe for a simple local loaf bread, karask.

Karask is a type of bread in Estonia and Finland that doesn't use yeast nor require leavening; instead, baking powder or baking soda is used to raise the bread (so it is a bit like the Irish soda bread then). Usually karask is made with barley flour (mine uses plain wheat flour), and a popular local version uses curd cheese to flavour and moisten the bread (I've also got recipes using leftover potato mash to give bulk to the bread). I made mine with mushrooms - one of my favourite ingredients, as most of my loyal readers would know by now (just see here), and added a generous handful of fresh herbs..

The texture of the bread is quite heavy, so if you're into light and fluffy breads, then this karask is not for you. However, it will be perfect for those of you who like mushrooms (and there are many fungiphiles or mushroom lovers out there, believe me!) It's at its best when served warm, straight out of the oven, sliced thickly and buttered with a slightly salted butter. Yet it is also delicious cold on the following day, and would make a lovely picnic dish, as it cuts into neat cubes or slices when cold.

Enjoy!

Seenekarask or Estonian quick mushroom bread
Serves 6



250 fresh mushrooms (I used a mixture of brown and white champignon mushrooms), quartered
1 large onion (ca 100 grams), finely chopped
1 Tbsp oil

150 grams plain flour
60 grams porridge oats
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
200 ml milk
100 grams butter, melted
5 grams flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

30 grams cheese, grated

Heat the oil in a heavy frying pan, add mushrooms and onions and fry on a moderate heat for about 5 minutes, until mushrooms have browned a little and onions have began to soften. Remove from the heat and cool.
In a large mixing bowl, mix the flour, oats, baking powder, salt and herbs. Stir in the milk and melted butter.
Pour into a buttered (and/or lined) loat tin and sprinkle grated cheese on top.
Bake at 200 C for 35-40 minutes, until the loaf is cooked (due to high mushroom content, the loaf remains moist).
Slice and serve.
As I said, the loaf is at its best when still warm, but remains delicious and flavoursome until the next day.

Here are links to my previous Waiter there is something in my ... entries:
March 2007 (EASTER BASKET, hosted by Johanna): a selection of various Easter delights.
February 2007 (PIE, hosted by Jeanne): a great Russian puff pastry and fish pie, Salmon Kulebyaka.
January 2007 (STEW, hosted by Andrew): my version (in collaboration with Anthony Bourdain:) of the French classic Boeuf Bourguignon.

UPDATE 26.4.2007: Read Andrew's round-up of sweet and savoury bread recipes

Georgian cheese bread: Hatchapuri/Khachapuri

Photo from April 2008

I - finally - made some hatchapuri. Hatchapuri, for those of you who don't know it, is a famous Georgian cheesebread. Somehow - not sure where I got the guts to do that! - I ended up wholeheartedly defending Georgian cuisine in general and hatchapuri recipe in particular over at Kuidaore during my very early blogging days. Il Forno's Alberto wrote about hatchapuri (or khachapuri, as he spells it) already in early 2004. More recently, my fellow Edinburgh blogger (until I moved back home, that is) Melissa so eloquently wrote about it on The Traveler's Lunchbox. There's a recipe in the latest Nigella book, as well as Darra Goldstein's almost scholarly book The Georgian Feast. This very cheesebread is positively 'in' at the moment. However, as both of these books of mine are still in sort of transit from Edinburgh to Tallinn and I won't get my hands on them until Christmas, then I had to look elsewhere for a suitable recipe. The simple recipe below is adapted from an Estonian food enthusiast who writes under the name of Volks Vaagen, who has got it from a Georgian lady called Natalya.

Now, before we proceed, remember that just like there are loads of different pizzas, there is a huge range of hatchapuri breads out there. The type and name of your cheesebread depends on where in Georgia you're trying to bake and/or eat it. There's Imeruli hatchapuri (flat, round bread, using imeruli cheese), Acharuli/Adjaruli hatchapuri (a suluguni cheese bread 'boat' topped with raw egg and then cooked; sometimes also referred to as Georgian pizza), Achma hatchapuri (a very rich and layered cheesebread) , Megruli hatchapuri (has cheese both inside and outside the bread), Svanuri hatchapuri (also known as chvishtar), Rachuli hatchapuri, Phenovani/Penovani hatchapuri (with a flaky pastry, formed as a triangle), Ossuri hatchapuri (filled with cheese and mashed potatoes), Guruli hatchapuri (thick and crunchy, with lots of cheese, formed as a log).
I'm pretty sure the list is not exhaustive (I'll report back when I compile a definitive list of various hatchapuris:)

You should really use imeruli/emeruli cheese or suluguni cheese for this recipe, although brynza cheese would work, too, as it is similarly salty. I used suluguni here. Suluguni is a whole milk cheese from Georgia (as in the Caucasus, and not in the US, obviously) , which can be grilled (I'm thinking of using suluguni instead of halloumi in the recipe for roasted red peppers with cumin-scented halloumi). Luckily, there's a considerable Abkhasian Georgian community in Estonia, and they've set up a small suluguni cheese factory in Kehra near Tallinn. It's not readily available in supermarkets, but you can easily buy that at local markets here. If you live in the US or UK, then try the Russian stores. Or see what alternatives Melissa and Alberto recommend.

I'm pretty sure it would be a fantastic accompaniment to Chakhohbili, the Georgian chicken stew with loads of herbs and wine. There's garlic in the cheese filling of this hatchapuri, which gave a real extra kick to the flavour. Feel free to leave it out, if you prefer a milder taste sensation.

Georgian cheese bread Hatchapuri
(Hatšapuri)
Yields 6 generous wedges.



For the dough:
250 grams sour cream
150 grams butter or margarine, melted
1 egg, slightly whisked
350 g plain flour (or a bit more, if necessary) (about 600 ml)
a pinch of salt
0.25 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sugar

For the cheese filling:
200 grams suluguni cheese, coarsely grated
1 egg, whisked
2 Tbsp sour cream
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped (optional)

Mix sour cream and melted butter. Add salt, baking soda and sugar, whisk in the egg and add flour in installments. Knead slightly, until you've got a soft & pliable dough. Divide into two, roll each into a large circle (25 cm or so).
Grate the cheese, mix with egg, sour cream and chopped garlic.
Place one dough circle on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Spread the cheese filling on top, leaving about 1 cm from the edges clean. Cover with the other dough circle, press the edges firmly together.
Brush with egg or sour cream, pierce with a fork here and there. Bake at 200C for 20-30 minutes, until hatchapuri is lovely golden brown colour.

A beautiful raspberry focaccia

What to do with a punnet of luscious Scottish raspberries? My Japanese friend Ryoko came for dinner last Friday, and I wanted to do something with raspberries that are everywhere at the moment - raspberries being one of the few berries that really thrive in the Scottish climate.

And then I saw this recipe in the August 2006 issue of the Finnish Pirkka magazine. Nicky's recent post about focaccia had left me longing, and this recipe seemed to fill the gap. I had all the ingredients in hand, so I rushed to the kitchen, rummaged in my cupboards, measured ingredients into a bowl, kneaded, waited, tried to be artistic with raspberries, waited some more, and finally emerged with this beautiful raspberry focaccia.

If you serve it with Brie, then you're also combining the pudding & cheese courses, so it's a lovely ending to any dinner party.

Raspberry focaccia
(Vaarika-focaccia)



(Click on the photo to enlarge)

300 ml lukewarm milk (or water, if you prefer)
25 grams fresh yeast
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp runny honey or sugar
1 tsp ground cardamom (seeds from approximately 20 pods)
4 Tbsp olive oil
700-800 ml plain flour (I used Doves Farm organic)

Topping:
300 ml fresh raspberries
1 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp vanilla sugar
50 grams butter

Crumble the yeast into the lukewarm liquid, then add salt, honey (or sugar) and ground cardamom. Add flour in 2-3 batches, mixing with a wooden spoon as you go. When you've added all the flour, pour the olive oil onto the dough and knead with your bare hands for 7-10 minutes, until the dough doesn't stick onto your hands and the bowl too much. You may want to sprinkle some more flour, but don't go overboard, as then you'll end up with a tough bread afterwards. Less is more!

Cover the bowl with a clean towel or clingfilm and leave to rise in a warmish corner of your kitchen for about 30 minutes, until the dough has almost doubled in size.

Dip the raised dough onto a slightly floured surface, knock out the air and form into a flat uneven circle. Lift onto a baking sheet that has been covered with parchment paper. Make indentions with your fingers, then scatter raspberries on top, pushing them into the indentions (click on the photo to enlarge). Sprinkle with sugar and vanilla sugar, dot with butter.

Bake at 200C for about 30 minutes, until focaccia is lovely golden brown.

The bread was wonderful & amazing - very soft-textured, with a wonderful cardamom scent, tasty with just a hint of saltiness, and the sweet, yet tart, raspberries giving a nice juicy burst. I served it with some Brie cheese (we used Organic Cornish Brie ), as recommended by the magazine, but it would also be lovely on its own.

It must have been good, because Ryoko treated me to an one-hour reflexology* session in return:)



* She's very good! She does home visits in the Edinburgh area, so if any of you is interested, then drop me a line and I'll put you in touch with her.

Mail order tsoureki: kaló páscha

I celebrated Easter last weekend with paskha, the typical festive dessert back home in Estonia. This weekend I helped a Greek friend in need to celebrate Orthodox Easter. On this occasion the Greeks eat a special sweet bread - tsoureki. I baked a rather nice one in Edinburgh last year, devoured in minutes by a bunch of Greek students, and consequently got a mail order request to make one again for this Easter. The large and beautifully aromatic tsoureki was flown to an undisclosed destination in mainland Europe. Thank you, C.D,. for acting as a courier on such a short notice!

The recipe is based on two Paul Hollywood's recipes - one from his book 100 Great Breads and another from UKTV Food. I keep having problems with Hollywood's recipes and I'm not sure they have been double-checked properly by the pastry chef himself. His recipe for mint & halloumi bread seemed also a bit awkward, though the bread I ended up baking was delicious. His two tsoureki recipes are even more confusing. The only constant seems to be the amount of flour (500 grams) - the amount and list of other ingredients vary rather wildly. Hollywood cannot really decide whether he wants 2 eggs in his tsoureki or none, whether to use 30 grams of dried yeast (!!!) or 15 grams of fresh (it should be other way around, surely!?). And adding 15 grams of salt to 500 grams of flour seems also a wee bit too generous. I want my guests to come back for more, so I've tweaked the recipes accordingly.

For example, I've omitted the raisins altogether, as according to my Greek sources there should be none in a tsoureki (raisins may be a Cypriot twist). I've reduced the amount of salt and butter. I didn't use the red eggs that are traditionally used to decorate tsoureki - although this is strictly necessary only if you eat the tsoureki on the Easter Sunday. This time I also managed to get hold of mastic and mechlebe - two new spices in my kitchen. Although I don't know how to describe them, they did give a very pleasant and unusual flavour to the end product. You should be able to find them from health food shops or shops specialising in Greek and Middle Eastern produce.

But definitely one beautiful sweet bread.

Greek Easter bread TSOUREKI
(Kreeka lihavõttesai "tsoureki")
Makes one large plaited loaf



500 grams strong white flour
75 grams golden caster sugar
50 grams softened butter
1 large orange, zested
0.5 tsp salt
a pinch of mechlebe (sour cherry pits - about 10), pounded finely
a pinch of gum mastic (ca 2 pieces), pounded finely
a generous pinch of ground cinnamon
1 egg
25 grams fresh yeast
150 ml lukewarm water
150 ml lukewarm milk

For brushing:
1 egg, beaten

Mix the flour, sugar, salt, orange zest, cinnamon, gum mastic and mechlepi and soft butter in a large bowl. Crumble the butter into the dry ingredients.
Mix the fresh yeast with a small amount of lukewarm water until combined, add to the dough.
Add the egg, lukewarm milk and water and mix everything together with your hands.
Dip the dough onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes, until the dough doesn't stick to your hands anymore (you may have to add some more flour).
Put the kneaded dough back into the bowl, sprinkle with some flour and cover with a clean kitchen towel.
Leave to rise for one hour in a warm place, until the dough has doubled in size.
[Or, if you insist, leave to rise at room temperature, go for a cocktail with friends at Dragonfly @ Grassmarket and then for a meal at Hanam's, a new Kurdish & Middle Eastern restaurant @ Tollcross. Return 4 hours later and continue].
Knock the dough down and dip onto a slightly floured surface again and divide into three. Roll each dough piece into a long strip and plait the strips together. Lift onto a large baking sheet and leave to rise for an hour, until doubled in size again.
Brush with beaten egg and bake in the middle of 200˚C oven for 25-30 minutes, until tsoureki is nice and golden brown.

Baking: Mint and Halloumi Bread

I bought Paul Hollywood’s 100 Great Breads few months ago when I was in a serious bread-baking mood. I had used his recipe for the Greek and Cypriot Easter bread Tsoureki during the Orthodox Easter this May, though back then I didn’t manage to find mahlepi (sour cherry pits) nor mastic (gum resin from mastic tree) anywhere in Edinburgh. I’ve since then managed to buy some in a small Greek shop in London, Bayswater* and am looking forward to baking with these unusual spices (Hollywood has recipes for Cypriot village bread koulouri, and Cypriot Laganes Bread, and I’m also looking forward to trying tsoureki again, this time with all the seasonings; I’ve found several recipes using mahlepi and mastic in Susanna Hoffman's The Olive and The Caper, and Claudia Roden mentions these as well).

Paul Hollywood’s book is alright, with quite a few interesting looking and unusual bread recipes that I’m tempted to try. It has a short introductory chapter about the history of bread and some useful breadbaking hints and tips, but it’s a book for wide rather than specialist audience. I suspect lots of the recipes have been simplified, which is good, especially if you’re looking something easy to bake on a spur of the moment late at night. However, I have a feeling that recipes have not always been properly tested and the editing is poor as well. Think of the above mentioned mastic and mahlepi. On page 78 Hollywood specifies that ‘mastika and mechlebe are spices and seeds used in many Greek/Cypriot dishes. They have a similar flavour to fennel or aniseed, which you can use to replace them. However, most good health food shops will stock them’. But in the Index of the book there are entries for ‘meclebe’ and ‘methlepi’!?!? How did they get the spelling wrong twice and didn’t it occur to them that ‘meclebe’ and ‘methlepi’ are the same thing and should actually be spelt ‘mechlebi’, as it was in the recipes? Or maybe mahlepi, as it is usually spelt in English.

Incorrect spelling and amounts aside, the recipes are tempting. The first recipe I tried was Halloumi and Mint Bread (p 80). I quite enjoyed the recipe, though again, I think the recipe wasn’t correct. Trying to mix 2 packets – that’s 500 grams – of chopped halloumi cheese into a dough made with 500 grams of flour is ambitious. I also think that 20 grams of dried mint (that’s 4 commercial glass spice pots!!!) is outrageous, especially as on the accompanying photo the bread is anything but full of mint (I simply omitted the ‘0’ from the recipe). I’ve also more than halved the amount of salt in the recipe, as cheese is quite salty already**. I suspect that Paul Hollywood’s recipe was originally for more than 1 loaf and while reducing the amount of flour, amounts for some of the other ingredients have remained unchanged. But the bread itself is easy and tasty, soft and dense at the same time and duly recommended. I think I’ve got the amounts correct here.

Halloumi and Mint Bread
(Halloumileib)
Adapted from Paul Hollywood's book 100 Great Breads

500 g strong white flour
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp olive oil
30 g fresh yeast
2-3 dl warm water
250 g halloumi cheese cut into small pieces
a generous tbsp of dried mint

Mix flour, salt, olive oil and yeast in a big bowl, adding water gradually (you may need less, as you’re just trying to bring the ingredients together). Knead for about 8 minutes (or 5, if you are using a mixer). Cover the bowl with a clean towel or clingfilm and leave to rise for 1 hour.
Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
Add the cheese and dried mint to the dough and shape into a longish loaf. Lift to the baking tray and leave to rise for another hour.
Dust the top of the loaf with some flour and bake in a preheated 220˚C/425˚F oven for 25-30 minutes. The bread should be golden brown and crisp on the top.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool, and cover with a kitchen towel if you want just slightly softer top.

Here’s a version I made in early June – with 2 packets of halloumi cheese trying to escape the bread :)
And here’s a slightly modified version I made yesterday – using mint as well as some Greek oregano, 1 packet of halloumi cheese (that proved to be more than enough) and some pitted Greek style black olives that I had in my cupboard after making my entry for the Paper Chef # 8 (therefore the dark speckles that you may have mistaken for burnt cheese):

And finally a close-up of the bread – note the salty white dots of halloumi cheese:

It's almost time for lunch now, so I'm going to have some of the halloumi, olive, mint and oregano bread with some tea..

* Athenian Grocery, Greek-Cyprus & Continental Specialities, Wines and Spirits, 16a Moscow Road, Bayswater, London W2 7AX, Telephone 020 7229 6280
** I also had to modify his recipe for Tsoureki considerably, as I was reluctant to use 30 grams of _dried_ yeast and 15 grams of salt per half a kilo of flour again:)