Pear, Apricot & Almond Bread

Inspired by Eileen's delicious Apricot loaf and Jamie Oliver, I bring you my latest no-recipe bread creation!

Flour, water, yeast, salt and sugar

Create your own retention pond (man-made lakes for you marketing folk)

Knead (poorly) and let rise.

Step 4: Caramelize Pears in butter


Add Amaretto and Corn Syrup. I was looking for honey, but I couldn't find any. Hence the Corn Syrup.



Add some dried apricots while you're at it. Oh, and some Apricot Jam. I wanted to add marmalade too, but I went with...

Zest du L'orange

I ended up reducing it for over an hour by continuously adding water. The pears were really resilient and refused to soften! When done, reserve and allow to cool.

After dough has doubled in size, knead some of the gooey fruit mixture into it along with sliced almonds.

It goes into a greased pan.

Alternatively, roll out some dough and create some sort of bread turn-over with the filling.

The Loaf took about 70 minutes at 350 degrees.

The "turn-over" took 50 minutes at 350.


Yum, yumm!

In retrospect, the bread is a bit dry, perhaps over-cooked. Sixty minutes next time along with some butter or olive oil in the dough to keep it moist. Maybe some almond extract in the dough as well.

Naan bread from scratch!

This was from the 14th. Again, I just didn't get around to posting this until now.

I love naan bread and since I can now make some pretty good curry, I figured I'd try making my own naan bread :)

Of course, I looked to the Internet for guidance, and I found this video of how to make naan bread. It called for 200g of flour, which was problematic as I don't have a kitchen scale. Again, looking on the Internet, I figured that 200g flour = 1.25 - 1.5 cups of flour. I used something in between. I found that the dough was really dry and I had to keep adding milk and yogurt to make it work, but maybe I just used too much flour :p.

It didn't turn out quite like naan bread, but it was quite tasty! I really like bread, especially fresh bread :). I don't think I rolled the dough thin enough. I didn't want to roll it too thin b/c the video warned me not to.

Naan bread and curry from scratch!!!

A closer look at the naan bread

Once I perfect the naan bread, I'm opening up my own Indian restaurant.

A variety

This one doesn't have pictures. (sorry) It should but it doesn't ... I was too busy cooking and then quite a bit of eating took place. So here are a few of my latest creations.

Rosemary herb flatbread. I took a basic dough recipe ... flour, water, yeast and some oil I think. I added some ground rosemary (using my mortar and pestle - which, as a pharmacist, is always handy) and some random herbs from the cupboard. Then it rose in a 200 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Then I stretched it out by hand onto my preheated pizza stone. I let it sit there for a while to rise a bit, then brushed it with milk for a crispy glazed top. Then I baked it until crispy and just barely browned. Some leftover pasta sauce served as a wonderful dipping sauce. A perfect alternative to the usual array of late night snacking food.

Then I had a friend over who is doing some diet where you cut all the carbs out. Why anyone would want to do this is beyond me! Alas, I said I'd make dinner for her. So I opted for a veggie beef stirfry minus the noodles/rice. I used my handy Tupperware(R) mini-chopper for all the veggies -- it really cuts down on the prep-time. After stirfrying, I added an oyster sauce-sesame oil-soy sauce-honey mixture to it all. I managed to scrape together a few morsels for lunch the next day.

Lastly, I got up early to make muffins this morning. I took my standard banana chocolate chip bread recipe and made muffins instead. Flour, baking soda and powder, salt, butter, eggs, sugar, chocolate chips and banana. I find it much easier to used previously frozen bananas and simply slice them open. Already all squished up - no mashing required. When I arrived, I discovered someone else decided to bring muffins as well. I am proud to say that, despite a plethora of muffins, my tray was completely gone! Hooray for that.

Bread Stuffed with Stuff

There is only one picture of "Bread Stuffed with Stuff" unfortunately. Begin with standard bread recipe:

1. Poof Yeast in warm water
   
2. Add sugar, salt, pepper, melted butter, olive oil and garlic
3. Slowly add in a mixture of 1/2 flour and 1/2 semolina until it all comes together
4. Knead with a minimal amount of effort
5. Coat with olive oil, cover with a damp cloth and allow to rise for an hour

While rising prepare stuff for stuffing:

1. In butter, sauté/cook/whatever purple onions, garlic, shallots, oyster mushrooms, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and as much freakin' basil as possible.
2. In another bowl add some chopped tomatoes. But good tomatoes; none of that hot-house blight.
   
3. Combine everything together and reserve.
4. Preheat oven to 450 and place the baking stone in it.
   

Fusion:

1. Now that the dough has risen, place it on the hot baking stone and push and poke it into a large disc much larger than the stone..
2. Fill the centre with filling.
   
3. Add Cheese! Preferably good mozzarella or Feta
   
4. Fold dough back on top as shown in picture.
5. Brush olive oil on top of thing.
6. Place stone and bread thing back into oven.
7. Bake until golden brown and crispy.

Eat:

Do

1. Open mouth
2. Place food in mouth
3. Close mouth
   
4. Chew
5. Swallow

Loop

Pizza Roll

I made my standard focaccia recipe today, except I included a pair of large eggs into the dough. I kneaded it quite well hoping to increase its elasticity for my next task: stretching the dough really thin.

While the dough was rising, I took the opportunity to sauté some purple onion, garlic and shallots in some butter. I added bit bit of lemon juice, parsley, basil and salt to the mix as well.

After the dough rose, I divvied it up and ran it through the newly-purchased pasta flattening attachment for the Kitchen Aid Mixer. When the dough was satisfactorily thin and sectioned into long rectangular sheets, I applied a layer of tomato sauce, the onion mixture and some mozzarella cheese. I then rolled the dough like one would for a jelly roll and placed it on a greased cookie sheet. I brushed a layer of olive oil on top of the created and baked it in a preheated oven for 15 or so minutes set at 350 convection bake.

Yummy.