The Bread Baking Babes are baking again. We used to bake a bread every month but in the past year or so, we’ve been finding life increasingly taking priority over baking bread. So we’ve decided to bake one bread every two months. And this month, Karen picked Dollywood Cinnamon Bread for us to make.

I had never heard of a Dollywood Cinnamon Bread before! So it turns out that Dollywood is a theme park in Tennessee in the US, and owned by Dolly Parton. Their famous cinnamon bread is known as Dollywood Cinnamon Bread. I spent a large part of my college years listening to her songs, many of which are still my favourites. I didn’t know of Dollywood though it’s been around for 40 years or so, I understand.

The original version of this bread is baked daily in century old The Grist Mill (which is over 100 years old/plus they mill their own flour) in Dollywood. It’s served with either vanilla icing or apple butter, and they apparently sell over 350 loaves an hour! You can find Dolly Parton’s Dollywood Cinnamon Bread recipe all over the net.

The recipe below is adapted from Baking in the American South by Anne Byrne    This buttery cinnamon loaf is shaped, sliced, and drenched in a cinnamon, sugar, and butter mixture before baking. What’s not to like about this combination? Naturally, the resulting loaf is so good! Do watch the top to see it doesn’t get burned. My loaf came pretty close to it, as you can see from the images.

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

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We’re at the end of 2024 and I just realised I’ve hardly posted anything last year on the the blog! 2024 has been more memorable for all the health issues I had to deal with. They weren’t very serious, but painful sciatic issues and a fractured knee cap pretty much meant that blogging or even cooking was a priority. Thankfully, I’m mending well if slowly, and have even progressed to baking the occasional bread. So here I am with Cheese, Pesto and Dried Tomato Twisted Buns.

This December Cathy chose Swedish Cardamom Buns for us Bread Baking Babes to make. I’ve made them before in various shapes and flavours and posted these Kanel Snegle with cardamom (Cinnamon Snails). Cathy gave us the option to experiment with savoury flavours if we wanted to, and I did. The result? Cheese, Pesto and Dried Tomato Twisted Buns!

Please see Karen’s recipe for the original sweet version. She has sourdough or overnight regular yeast dough recipes. I adapted the given yeast dough recipe but chose to do a same day bread. The overnight method produces buns with improved flavour. I otherwise stuck mostly to her yeast dough recipe but omitted the sugar.

My bun filling is made with crumbled paneer and basil pesto blended to a creamy paste. I also added chopped oven dried tomato and grated cheddar cheese. This filling can end up being quite salty from the pesto, dried tomatoes and Cheddar so be cautious while adding salt.

What is really special about these twist buns as I call them, is twisting the dough to shape them. If can’t be bothered trying to shape them and want to keep it simple, you can roll the dough jam/ jelly roll style. Then cut them into rounds much like for Cinnamon Rolls and you’ll have snail shaped buns.

There are a couple of other different ways to shape these bus. A search on Youtube for “shaping cardamom buns” will throw up plenty of short but detailed videos. I used an easy method that is described in the recipe below. You can halve the given recipe for 6 Twist Buns instead of 12.

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

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A Kimchi Omelette is an Omelette made with Kimchi. If you’re new to it, Kimchi is a fermented salty, mildly sweet, sour and spicy Korean condiment. The most common kind of Kimchi is made with salted Chinese cabbage, white radish, carrot, spring onion greens and a variety of seasonings. This condiment can be made with other vegetables too. Kimchi tends to have non-vegetarian ingredients usually, but I have a vegetarian version that I make all the time.

That last sentence would tell you that I like Kimchi, at least my version of it. I must add I’m the only one in my home so there’s usually Kimchi to spare in my fridge. Now the nice thing about Kimchi, if you like it, is that it is so versatile. Kimchi is better known across the word as a popular Korean banchan or side dish. However, Kimchi can be used to cook up other easy-to-cook recipes. Think Kimchi fried rice, Kimchi pancakes, sandwiches, noodles, dumplings, stew, and the list goes on.

One of the easiest Kimchi recipes I know is a Kimchi Omelette. It’s great for a quick meal that’s also low on carbs, if that’s a consideration for you. You can have it for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Do you need a recipe to make an omelette? All you really need are eggs, some kimchi, fat to fry the omelette, and salt and pepper if absolutely necessary. Kimchi tends be well salted and spicy in itself. I see recipes calling for other stuff to the omelette like grated zucchini, broccoli, tomatoes, herbs of choice, grated cheese or feta, mirin, more scallions or spring onion greens, etc.

I like to keep things simple while cooking, most of the time. So my Kimchi Omelette is just mostly eggs and Kimchi. There are a couple of things to keep in mind while using Kimchi in an omelette, though. It’s a good idea to squeeze out most of the liquid in the Kimchi to prevent runny omelette mixture. Season with salt and pepper or chilli flakes with a little caution. Kimchi is quite generously salted and can be spicy.

I tend to add a bit of cornstarch dissolved in water (or milk) to eggs for omelettes with vegetables. This ensures the omelettes don’t fall apart while cooking and handling in the frying pan. If you have killer omelette making skills you can leave this out. I like my eggs well cooked, so I cook my omelettes on both sides. You can cook ours on one side only if that’s your preference.

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Thekua or Thokwa, also known as Thikari/ Tikri and Kajoor/ Khajuria, is a deep fried sweet from the Indian state of Bihar. It is also made in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and the Therai region of Nepal. The Dogri Rutt or Roth of Jammu is a version of this. Thekua is typically made as a ritual offering on the third day of Chhath Puja, a festival dedicated to the Sun God and his consort. It is also made for other festivals including Teej Puja, Navrathri and Savitri Puja. Thekua looks a bit like a patterned/ moulded cookie and is also made and served as a tea time snack. It should be crisp and crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.

It is believed that the name Thekua is derived from the old name for it which is Thokna. Thokna or Thoka Hua (hence Thokua or Thekua) which means “to hammer”. This comes from the dough being pressed hard onto wooden moulds to create the charateristic pattern on Thekuas.

I discovered Thekua purely by chance. I was looking online for Sandesh moulds when Thekua moulds came up as well. A discussion with my food loving niece ended up with her sending me some Saancha, as Thekua moulds are known locally. A friend also send me one. Thekua moulds are made in wood with patterns cut into them. The Thekua dough is pressed onto the moulds to decorate it with patterns before deep frying.

Chhath Puja is celebrated a little after Diwali. So I thought why not make Thekua this year for Diwali. Thekua are made from a dough of whole wheat flour (atta), sugar or jaggery syrup, ghee and cardamom. Chopped cashewnut and coconut bits, sometimes dried fruit like raisins all add flavour.  The dough is shaped into flat rounds, pressed onto decorative Thekua moulds, and deep fried till brown. They become crisp when the cool down and keep for upto a month stored in airtight containers.

Thekua are typically crisp on the outside and softer on the inside, almost like a cookie. This recipe will give you crispy and crunchy exterior with a soft interior, which to me is perfect for a cookie. Thekua should have uneven cracked edges which gives them a rustic appearance. This happens because they’re made from a stiffish dough. The rough edges also make them crisp once the dough rounds are deep fried.

If you don’t have “Sancha” or Thekua moulds, you can still make them. You can use other things to create the pattern on Thekua. A drinking glass with a patterned base, the ends of a metal whisk, the tines of a fork, a cookie cutter, the pattern on a grater, a toothpick or even your fingers can create a design or pattern on the dough. They can be made plain as well.

Thekua can be eaten with tea or coffee or just as a snack. The truly Indian way is to dip it in spicy Indian pickles before eating it.

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It’s another month, and another Bread Baking Babes bread post. You might have noticed that we’ve recently been baking once every two months rather than every month. We decided to do this as it was easier for us. This month it was my turn to pick a bread and chose Jamaican Coco Bread/ Coconut Milk Bread.

Jamaican Coco Bread are soft, fluffy and slightly sweet half mooned shaped coconut buns from Jamaica. They’re common across other countries in the Caribbean too.  Jamaican Coco Bread supposedly gets its name from the generous amount of coconut milk in the dough. Its folded shape can be pulled open easily making it perfect for sandwiches. Jamaicans like these buns best stuffed with creamy cheddar cheese or a beef patty. Jamaican beef patties are flaky pastry pockets with spicy beef filling.

Jamaican Coco Bread are somewhat like the Chinese Baozi or steamed Bao buns to look at. These can be eaten on their own or sandwiched with vegetable or meat fillings. I would also suggest a filling of mild cheddar cheese and thin slices of apple or apple-ginger jam.

These Coconut Milk Breads are a staple, sold everywhere on the islands and make for a filling meal-on-the-go. No quite knows the origin of this slightly sweet little breads. It is thought to have been invented by the local population of slaves and indentured labourers who worked on Caribbean sugar plantations. They were poor and had to make the most of whatever little they had. It’s not surprising that some of the best things come out of adversity.

Coco Bread is made from a slightly sweet, yeasted enriched soft and elastic dough. The dough is proofed and then portioned and shaped into balls. These are rolled out into about 6-inch circles that about 1/4-inch thick. A mixture of melted butter and coconut oil is brushed over the dough circles, and they are folded over in half. This keeps the flaps of dough a little separation, making it easy to open them for sandwiches.  A little more of the butter-oil mixture is brushed on top and they’re allowed to rise a little. After proofing, we portion the dough into balls, and roll the balls into rounds. Then they’re baked till golden brown.

In any recipe that requires coconut milk, freshly squeezed coconut milk gives you the best flavor. However, canned or packed full fat coconut milk works just fine. You can use reconstituted coconut milk powder as well. What you need is thick coconut milk but not coconut cream which tends to be much thicker.

The breads are typically large enough to make a sandwich, so the recipe below should make 8 Coco Breads about 6-inches in diameter. Make 6 of them if you want slightly larger ones. Some people roll the dough quite thin (about 1/8-inch thick or so) while others roll it out a little thicker. I prefer mine rolled out about 1/4-inch thick so they puff up a little more on baking.

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

The post Jamaican Coco Bread appeared first on My Diverse Kitchen - A Vegetarian Blog.

cerenIt is no secret in my home that I love most things Croissant. What’s not to love about layers of buttery, flaky and light rolls? So it’s no surprise that I like Croissants aux Amandes or Almond Croissants too. Some more butter on top of butter laden plain Croissants can seem over the top. Perhaps they are, but to me, they’re worth eating as an occasional treat. They’re easily made at home with this Easy Almond Croissant recipe. As a plus, these are egg free.

If you’re new to these Croissants, they’re nothing but plain butter Croissants with a soft almond frangipane filling, crunchy almonds on top and dusting of powdered sugar.These come together and are ready to eat in under an hour. Since we’re making Easy Almond Croissants, we start with readymade day old plain Croissants.

Almond Croissants or Croissants Aux Amandes can be found in most French boulangeries, and also in non-French bakeries that make them.  Croissants don’t stay fresh beyond the day they’re made. In fact, they’re not the best even by the evening of the morning they’re baked. So French boulangeries came up with Croissants Aux Amandes to use up day old stale Croissants.

I don’t make Croissants at home very often. When I do, I rarely have left over Croissants. These days with just two of us at home, I buy them whenever I find really good Croissants locally. When the craving for these almond ones hit, I just but a few extra and make them. Given how loaded they’re with butter and calories, they’re a rare treat.

Some recipes call for brushing the halved croissants with a flavoured sugar syrup. I find this makes the Almond Croissants too sweet for my taste. My preference is mildly sweet Almond Croissants. I would suggest buying smaller Croissants, if you can find them, so these don’t become a guilt heavy treat! Butter Croissants are also always the best, in terms of taste. Don’t forget to use day old Croissants. You can even refrigerate fresh Croissants for a couple of days to make these.

For the almond filling, I use regular almonds which I blend into an almost fine powder, skin and all. I find its too much work for this recipe. You can blanch and remove the skin of you prefer. You could also use either almond flour or almond meal, if you choose. They all work. Using almond extract is optional because not everyone has it at home. Use it if you have it.

You can dust your baked Easy Almond Croissants with powdered sugar, if you like. I generally don’t because I don’t like these Croissants too sweet. If you want to get a little more adventurous and want to make a different kind of Almond Croissant, take a look at these, some of which might tempt you.

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For November, Karen picked Shio Pan, or Japanese Salt Bread for the Bread Baking Babes to make. She first came across Shio Pan served with whipped cream cheese at a Japanese bakery in Anaheim. Shio is salt in Japanese and Pan means bread. Hence the Shio Pan, but this bread is so much more than just a slated bread. Shio Pan is a very soft and buttery flaked salt topped Japanese crescent roll that’s very crisp on the bottom.

This bread is said to have been first in late 2014 made by Pain Maison, a bakery in the Ehime Prefecture, Japan. It has been described as a marriage between the classic Japanese soft butter roll and French crusty bread roll. When the shaped dough is baked, the butter melts and creates a crisp bottom to the roll. You might think the rolls would get greasy but there’s no butter to be seen anywhere. All you get is the delightful flavour of butter in every bite. Of course, it goes without saying that the best butter makes the best Shio Pan.

These rolls are traditionally topped with flaked sea salt, hence the name Japanese Salt Bread. However you can find Shio Pan variations including an Everything version, a pesto and sundried tomato version, filled with red bean paste,egg-mayo and with a cookie crust topping like Pineapple Buns. The rolls can be filled after slitting them sideways. These buttery crescent rolls are also very popular in Taiwan.

Karen’s recipe below makes 6 rolls and was adapted from Vanillyn Bakery, Food 52 and others. These rolls are best eaten fresh, just a bit after they come out of the oven. They will be soft with buttery crisp bottom to the rolls. Leftovers freeze very well stored in zip lock bags. So you can make a double batch. Serve warm after reheating frozen butter rolls and they’re almost as good as freshly baked.

I made mine somewhat more-ish by brushing the dough with garlic flavoured melted butter with chopped fresh coriander/ cilantro. Otherwise I kept to the recipe. This Shio Pan is a keeper!

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

The post Shio Pan appeared first on My Diverse Kitchen - A Vegetarian Blog.

This month Cathy picked Sigteboller or Danish Salty Rolls for the Bread Baking Babes to bake. Sigteboller, in Danish, roughly translates as “sifted buns” or “sieved rolls,” from sifting of flours used to make them. These rolls are typically made from a mix of rye flour and all-purpose flour.

Rye flour tends to produce denser bread but Sigteboller or Danish Salty Rolls are soft and fluffy and slightly chewy. They have a faint tang and are traditionally served with butter, cheese, cold cuts, or even smoked fish.

Cathy adapted her recipe from The Rye Baker, by Stanley Ginsberg. She gave us an option of using a pre-ferment/ poolish or a sourdough starter. I went with a pre-ferment/ polish because it gives me a hint of tang and a sourdough-ish crumb without going all sourdough.

Sigteboller or Danish Salty Rolls are made with rye flour. Rye flour isn’t something commonly found here where I live. So I used whole-wheat flour instead. I also used honey instead of molasses. I also didn’t use the suggested toppings of caraway seeds or sunflower seeds and left my rolls plain. These rolls are usually topped with flaked salt but I don’t like very salty breads so didn’t use that either.

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

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This September, Elizabeth picked Lebanese Khubz or Khuboos for the Bread Baking Babes to make. Her pick was inspired by Middle Eastern food she enjoyed on a trip to the UK a few years back. Khubz, Khuboos, Khobz al-Sabah (Morning Bread) is a puffed yeasted flat bread eaten across the Levant and Arabic speaking countries of the Middle East.

A lot of people like to refer to the Lebanese Khubz as a Lebanese Pita bread. I can understand why. Khubz, though a puffed up yeasted bread in general, can be slightly different in different countries where it is eaten. There are versions of Khubz that are much like Pita bread. To me, Lebanese Khubz and Pita bread are two very different things. I have some knowledge of Lebanese Khubz, you see. I spent my high school years in Nigeria. We had a local Lebanese bakery that made Khubz or Khuboos as we knew it. We would visit the bakery, once every week or ten days to buy Khubz, warm and fresh out of their ovens.

This Lebanese Khubz was thin, soft, slightly floury, hollow flatbread about 10 or 11-inches in diameter. Pita bread is typically cut into half and eaten stuffed with filling, “pocket” style. Lebanese Khubz or Khuboos is torn into pieces, and wrapped around food to pick it up and eat. It’s typically eaten with stews and curry like dishes which can also be mopped up with flatbread.

The recipe below is adapted from Anissa Helou’s recipe for Khobz-al-Sabah/ Lebanese Morning Bread from her book Savory Baking from the Mediterranean. According to Helou, she learned to make this bread from Jawad Yussef Daher, whose bakery is in Kfar Rumman in south Lebanon. He made Khubz from two different flours and the cornmeal give the bread more texture and make it.

Making Khubz for me was going back in time to when we ate Khubz from the local Lebanese bakery. My memories are of a pale coloured flatbread that was wheat flour. So I made mine without the corn meal.

Helou’s recipe calls for a leavener made the previous evening with a sourdough starter. The Khubz I know is not a sourdough flatbread. I stayed with the spirit of the recipe and so made a leavener using a small pinch of instant yeast instead.

I was watching a video online of a commercial Khubz baker speaking in some version of Arabic (or maybe Farsi). While I don’t understand the language, there was a point where I thought he said Khubz is like the Chappathi.  So Helou’s higher hydration dough didn’t make sense to me. I kneaded my dough to chapathi dough consistency, which is soft and smooth but not too soft. This makes rolling the dough into thin rounds easy. I also chose to bake my Khubz on an iron griddle on the stove top instead of baking it in the oven.

Lebanese Khubz or Khuboos is best eaten fresh and on the same day it is made. You can keep it for the next day. If so store wrapped in cotton towels or foil. Reheat in the oven and serve warm.

What can you serve this flat bread with? Traditionally it is eaten for breakfast with some or all of these – eggs, foul medames, thick, creamy labne and olive oil, cheeses like baladi, halloumi, akkawi, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, or za’atar. You can also serve it for brunch or lunch or dinner with soups, stews or curries.

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

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It’s bread of the month time and all that for the Bread Baking Babes. Kelly picked An Approachable Loaf to bake. So what exactly is this bread all about? It’s a recipe at the WSU Bread Lab, for a loaf that’s got a really nice flavour and texture. It makes really good toast and stands up well in sandwiches.

As the people at the WSU Bread Lab say –

“Bread is a staple. People have been eating it for thousands of years. Yet bread can be unaffordable and inaccessible for many.  A lot of breads baked these days are large, crusty and round loaves which don’t always work well for lunches or our dinner tables. Others that are affordable and available on grocery shelves have unnecessary additives and lack nutrition.

So WSU Bread Lab came up with an approachable, accessible and affordable recipe that has no stabilizers or conditioners in it. It is tin-baked and sliced, with easily available ingredient sand at least 60-100% whole wheat.”

To my mind, this is what the average home bread baker is looking for. Those sourdough loaves with a very open crumb (hole-y bread, I call it) are a work of art. They’re also a sign of an accomplished bread baker. However, I’m not a fan of very chewy and tangy bread. Neither do I like a bread where my butter melts or my soup just disappears through the holes! Bread was meant to hold food or mop it up.

So the Approachable Loaf is a winner in my books. It’s not pure sourdough but what some sourdough bakers call a “hybrid” bread. This where you use a sourdough starter in your bread dough but use a miniscule amount of commercial yeast as well, to help your bread along. There are people who will ask why one would need to add commercial yeast to a sourdough bread? There are many sourdough bakers who resort to “yeast shaming” and feel commercial yeast has no business in a sourdough loaf. I belong to the school of “whatever-works-for you” bread bakers.

So for me, this is truly An Approachable Loaf. I really like the texture of this bread that I bake. It’s got a beautiful crumb, isn’t super chewy and has just the slight hint of “sour” that we like. It needs just flour, water, salt, a little oil and a sweetener. You start with a levain made with a sourdough starter the previous evening. The next day you mix up the dough with a little bit of commercial yeast and the levain. It’s a slightly slack dough but you can adjust the hydration to your comfort. Otherwise, it’s pretty much your regular bread with two easy rises and baked in a loaf tin.

My recipe below has been adapted from Kelly’s version of the Approachable Loaf recipe. You do need a sourdough starter. If you don’t have one in the fridge, you can start by making one like this. The levain below is a little more than you require for the bread. You can add the remaining levain to your starter and refrigerate it.

As mentioned earlier, you can add as much water (not too much though) to get a consistency of dough you’re comfortable managing. This is however, not a very hydration dough. A somewhat slack dough is desired to produce a slightly open and less dense crumb.

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

Judy’s Gross Eats – Judy

The post An Approachable Loaf appeared first on My Diverse Kitchen - A Vegetarian Blog.

The Bread Baking Babes are Banana Cinnamon Buns this month. Actually to quote Elizabeth, this month’s host, the recipe is for Wild Banana (Peel and All) Bread/ Buns! A friend of hers raved about the banana bread he had made using the Washington Post recipe for “Don’t Peel Your Banana Bread”. So she thought of this method to start of our new year’s baking.

After much experimenting, she came up with a recipe for us to try. Her recipe is based on one from the “Tassajara Bread Book” by Edward Espe Brown. Also a recipe from “Bread Alone” by Judith Ryan Hendricks, and the method for using ALL of the banana in the Washington Post’s recipe. These Banana Cinnamon Buns are shaped much like Korvapuustit, Finnish Cinnamon Buns (see 1:18 for the shaping process). Korvapuustit translates roughly as “slapped or cuffed ears” which probably comes from their appearance. This dough can also be made into a loaf.

I further tweaked Elizabeth’s recipe a bit. We traditionally cook with green raw plantain peel but not with regular banana peel. I understand that banana peel is edible but wasn’t convinced enough to take the leap with it in my Banana Cinnamon Buns. So I added mashed banana and no peel to the bread dough. I get a good number of varieties of banana here. I chose to use a couple of Robusta bananas here (a Cavendish descendant).

Elizabeth’s recipe works with a starter, hence the “Wild” in her bread name. I went with an overnight yeasted starter instead because it was easier. As for the filling, I added some banana to it for a stronger banana flavour. This made for a somewhat gloopy filling which made shaping a bit difficult as you can see from my rolls. The work round this would be to a small amount of bread crumbs to firm up the filling. Refrigerating the filling also helps as long as it still is of spreadable consistency.

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

Judy’s Gross Eats – Judy

The post Banana Cinnamon Buns appeared first on My Diverse Kitchen - A Vegetarian Blog.

It’s Christmas time and the end of the year once again. We don’t celebrate Christmas but I usually bake a selection of cookies at this time. They make perfect gifts to share with family and friends. Basler Läckerli/ Leckerli  is a traditional spiced chewy fruit and nut bar/ biscuit native to Swiss locality of Basel, close to Germany. Läckerli roughly translates from German as delicious or a treat.

Basler Läckerli is made from flour, honey, chopped nuts, candied citrus peel, dried fruit, a bunch of spices and cherry brandy called Kirsch. The resulting dough is baked as a tray bake, brushed with a sugar glaze while still hot, and cut into rectangular pieces.

It is said that Läckerli was invented to serve church dignitaries who attended the Basel Council (1431 to 1449). One account says otherwise as the required ingredients were supposedly unavailable in 15^th century Basel. The first mention of a Swiss Läckerli recipe is in the 1621 handbook of one Abraham Schneuwly of Bern.

What is special about Läckerli from Basel? I’m honestly not sure, but I will tell you that it is something very good. First, these bars are best eaten the day after they’re made, even a week after. The spice flavours develop fully and the bars soften a bit with time. They keep for a more than a month if stored properly. The thin and dry crystallize sugar layer just adds to the overall flavour.

The recipe below is adapted from the numerous recipes I saw on the internet. Most of these are egg free like mine. This tray bake is very easy to make. Mix all the ingredients to a slightly cookie dough like consistency. Using damp or lightly oiled palms and fingers, press the dough out into a parchment lined baking tray. Bake till golden brown but do not over bake. This tray baked confection doesn’t rise much.

Brush a sugar glaze over the top while it is still quite hot. The glaze will dry out when cool. It is important to cut the baked dough into rectangular (or square) pieces while still warm. It is difficult to do once it has cooled.

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Kimchi is a fermented salty, mildly sweet, sour and spicy Korean condiment. The most common kind of Kimchi is made with salted Chinese cabbage, white radish, carrot, spring onion greens and a variety of seasonings. This condiment can be made with other vegetables too. While Kimchi tends to have non-vegetarian ingredients traditionally, it can be made vegetarian too. Today I’m sharing my recipe for a vegetarian/ vegan Easy Kimchi. Since it is fermented, it is a gut healthy food.

Kimchi is believed to have originated in Korea over 3000 years ago as a way to preserve summer produce for the extremely cold winters. Originally Kimchi was made only with radish. Increased trade with other countries during the Goryeo period meant other vegetables were grown and used in Kimchi. There also very many different ways of making and seasoning Kimchi. I believe Koreans make about 200 different kinds of Kimchi!

I discovered Kimchi thanks to Korean dramas! Sometime towards the end of the pandemic, I discovered the world of Korean drama thanks to my daughter. It showed me a people and culture I found interesting. While television drama isn’t the best source of authentic information, it can be an introduction to many things. So I learnt that Koreans seem to love alcohol (beer and soju especially), pork any which way, Korean beef, takeaway food, tteokbokki, rameyon, kimbap, kimchi, and rice among other things.

Korean meals typically are centred on cooked rice or rice porridge, and a broth/ soup or stew or both. You may also find noodles and/ or dumplings. These come with a variety of “banchan” or side dishes, one of which Kimchi is generally a given. These vegetable, seafood and meat side dishes will vary in number and help balance out the meal nutritionally.

My Easy Kimchi is not made the traditional way, so it isn’t authentic in that sense. I have made adjustments based on ingredient availability and personal taste preferences. Let’s start with the ingredients for Kimchi. While Kimchi is not really difficult to make, it does involve a number of ingredients.

Chinese cabbage, Napa or Savoy cabbage is the best cabbage to use for Kimchi. The Koreans use a different variety of radish in Kimchi, but regular white (Indian mooli) or Daikon radish works well. You can make Kimchi without it too. Other vegetables in Kimchi include carrot, spring onion greens and chives. These have to be cut wuite thin and long about the length of matchsticks. The spiralizing blade on my peeler does a perfect job of this.

The first step to making this dish is to clean and salt the Chinese cabbage. In my shorter Kimchi recipe, the salted cabbage is allowed to sit for a couple of hours. The slat draws out the water in cabbage. The cabbage is then rinsed well with water before proceeding further. Cabbage is not cut but brined and salted leaf by leaf for traditional Kimchi. My easy version calls for cutting the cabbage into chunks and tossing in salt.

The next important step is make the cooked Kimchi paste. For this a little bit of rice flour is cooked into a slurry with stock or water. I prefer to use brown rice flour and water. Vegetable stock will give a more umami flavor. This slurry is blended into a smooth paste with ginger, garlic, onion, sugar (I prefer jaggery), soy sauce, and soaked red chillies/ red chilli powder or Gochu-jang paste. Gochu-jang is a Korean fermented spicy red chilli paste. You can buy it or make your own using one of the many recipes on the net.

Koreans generally love spicy food. The fire and deep red colour in this Korean condiment comes from Gochu-garu (Korean red chilli flakes/ powder) or Gochu-jang (red chilli paste). I used ready made Gochu-jang. Dried red Byadgi chillis work well too. Soak them in a little water and add while grinding the Kimchi paste.

Sugar is added to sweeten the cooked paste that makes this condiment, but I have come to prefer powdered jaggery. That’s not traditional at all but I like it like that. The sour taste or tang in Kimchi comes from fermentation. I like a slight tang in my Kimchi, but do not like it very fermented. I have worked around this by adding a little tamarind pulp to the Kimchi paste. This gives this condiment a slight tang without the fermentation normally needed to produce it. You can leave it out if you prefer.

What can you do with Kimchi? Eat it as a side dish with rice, noodles, dumplings, rice porridge/ kanji or even with bread. It’s a really good ingredient to use in a sandwich. So here is my version of Kimchi. Please feel free to adjust quantities of the ingredients to suit your taste.

The post Easy Kimchi appeared first on My Diverse Kitchen - A Vegetarian Blog.

I’ve been away from home for the better part of a month. The husband had to travel for work, and I went along and had a short vacation. I’m back and a little late with this month’s Bread Baking Babes bread, Panettone. Judy picked this Panetonne for us to make but I decided to make them as Mini Panetonne. Traditionally Panettone is served on Christmas Day, on Santo Stefano (December 26^th), on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.  It’s served at breakfast, brunch, or after a main meal.

Panetonne is an Italian yeasted sweet bread originally from Milan, usually baked for Christmas and New Year. It is typically a tall round bread with a domed top, baked in round paper moulds. It is made with an enriched butter and egg dough, candied fruit and raisins and has a somewhat cake like texture. The classic Milanese Panettone has a cross cut into its top before it is baked. After it emerges from the oven, it is hung upside down for five to 10 hours to prevent the dome from collapsing and keeping its shape.

The origin of Panetonne is part fact and part fiction. What we know is that Romans ate a sweet egg and raisin bread called Panem Triticum. In 1395, an official decree stated that all Milanese bakeries must sell a sweet white bread called Pan de’ Sciori/ Il Pan del Ton to all on Christmas.

There are many versions of the origin of Panetonne. One credits to Toni, a kitchen boy in the Duke Ludovico of Milan’s court in the 15th century. It is told that the cook accidently burnt the crust of a sweet bread to be served at the Duke’s Christmas dinner table. Toni suggested serving it as it was saying it was a new recipe! Another variation of this story says Toni made a sweet bread using leftover dough, sugar, butter, eggs, candied fruit and such. The Duke and his guests loved whatever was served and El Pan de Toni became a Christmas favourite.

Another story, also in Duke Ludovico’s times, involves one Ughetto, a falconer and son of a captain of the Duke. The young man fell in love with the beautiful daughter of a baker. To impress her, Ughetto pretending to be a baker, baked her a sweet bread loaf with dried fruit. Duke Ludovico’s wife Beatrice was delighted with Ughetto’s bread. She helped persuade the captain to allow Ughetto to marry the baker’s daughter.

Originally Panetonne was a rather plain sweet white bread. Later additions were vanilla, raisins, candied lemon and orange peel and some lemon or orange zest. Nowadays, not-so-traditional Panetonne include things like chocolate, nuts, other dried fruits like pineapple, apricots and cherries, and glazes. Pandoro, a similar sweet bread from Verona is without candied fruits and raisins and much taller.

Typically Panettone is cut vertically into wedge-shaped slices and served with hot drinks or sweet wine. Panetonne is good with sweetened mascarpone, zabaglione.  Panetonne is also good toasted and spread with butter. It’s also wonderful sliced, or toasted and slathered with butter. Leftovers are pretty good as a trifle or bread pudding.

This Panetonne is adapted from this recipe which is uses an overnight starter. It is an easy recipe and doesn’t require hanging the Panetonne upside down. I made my Panetonne with dried apricots and cranberries, raisins and pistachios. I also chose to top half my mini Panetonne with melted dark chocolate.

If you don’t have paper Panetonne moulds, you can use a smaller cake tin. Line it on the bottom and sides with baking parchment. Keep the parchment on the side higher than the side of the cake tin to allow you to bake a taller Panetonne. Otherwise you can bake mini Panetonne using Dariole moulds or small pudding moulds like I did. Muffin tins or paper liners will work too. Just reduce baking time a bit.

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

Judy’s Gross Eats – Judy

The post Mini Panetonne appeared first on My Diverse Kitchen - A Vegetarian Blog.

This October Elle picked a sweet savoury Fig Onion Walnut Flatbread for us Bread Baking Babes to make. As the name tells us, it is a rosemary scented flatbread topped with figs, onions and walnuts. I guess I don’t need to tell you all about how well figs and walnuts go together. Even less that figs and walnuts with caramelised onions on rosemary bread is an absolute winner.

This bread might seem a little like a fig and cheese pizza without the cheese but isnowhere near it. A lot of people tend to liken every flatbread with topping to a pizza. That’s doing them both a huge disfavour! Here, the dough is flavoured and quite different. There’s potato water (water in which potato chunks have been boiled), rosemary steeped olive oil and fresh rosemary in it. You can always use regular water instead of potato water. That works just as well.

The topping is lovely too and uses dried figs instead of fresh ones. This means you don’t have to wait till figs are in season. The figs are soaked in Marsala wine to soften them in the original recipe. I used lightly sweetened apple juice instead. Caramelised onions, walnuts, orange zest, crushed pepper and salt in the topping range zest in the topping makes for a very interesting and delicious bread with sweet and savoury flavours.

The dough is easy enough to make and needs a one hour preferment, the regular two proofs, the second one being just 15 minutes long.  The recipe below makes one large flatbread or multiple smaller ones. This Fig Onion Walnut Flatbread has slightly crisp edges and beautifully soft yet slightly chewy texture.

This month’s bread recipe is adapted from Joanne Weir’s More Cooking in the Wine Country. I changed some parts of it. For one, I personally find the yeast too much in a lot of bread recipes these days. I don’t like the yeasty taste in bread, so prefer to use a little less yeast and allow it to proof a little longer which also improves flavour.

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

Judy’s Gross Eats – Judy

The post Fig Onion Walnut Flatbread appeared first on My Diverse Kitchen - A Vegetarian Blog.

It’s Navarathri season once again. Navratri, the Festival of Nine Nights is here again (“Nav” meaning nine and “Ratri” meaning night). This festival lasts ten days and reveres and celebrates the nine forms of the Hindu Godess Durga or Shakti (energy of the universe). The festival is celebrated according to the traditional Lunar calendar and starts on the new moon day falling between September 15thand October 15th every year. Special food for Neivedhyam or ritual offering is cooked for each day. Apart from the usual festive fare, this time I decided to make Coconut or Narkel Sandesh as well. Sandesh made with coconut and moulded in half moon shapes is called Chandrapuli.

Sandesh, pronounced Shondesh, is a milk based sweet from the eastern Indian regions of Bengal and Orissa. It is also made in parts of Bangladesh. Full fat cow’s milk is curdled and drained to make a soft cheese called Chenna. This is kneaded further till soft and cooked with sugar or palm jaggery. The resulting dough is shaped in clay or wooden moulds.

Medieval Bengali literature mentions a sweet called Sandesh though the ingredients aren’t known. The modern Channa/ Chenna based Sandesh is thought have origins in the 17^th century when the first Portuguese settlers in Calcutta brought cheese making techniques with them. Before this curding milk wasn’t done and even considered inauspicious. Bengali sweet makers quickly adopted the cheese making techniques, and became inventive in using cheese in sweets. Thus they say, Sandesh was also born.

The word Sandesh, in Hindi at least, means message. With some stretch of imagination, people tend to liken the confectionery to a sweet and happy message. Which isn’t all that far from the truth, I guess. Sandesh is mildly sweet and is definitely about happiness.

At its simplest is Kanchagolla, a very soft and moist Sandesh rolled into laddoo like balls. Then there’s the beautifully moulded Sandesh that we’re all more familiar with. Sandesh can be creamy or coarse in texture, soft or firmer depending on what variety it is. It can be sweetened with sugar or “nolen gur” or “patali gur”, the famed Bengali date palm jaggery. Sandesh can also be flavoured  according to preference. There is also Jol Bhara Sandesh, a type of moulded Sandesh with a sweet liquid filling. So Sandesh is a sweet that lends itself creative variations.

Kerala is the land of coconuts among other stuff, so I chose to make Coconut or Narkel Sandesh. My friend Sayantani sent me a beautiful set of clay and wooden Sandesh moulds and Navarathri seemed as good a time as any to try them out. It’s just the beginning of palm jaggery season in West Bengal, so I used locally sourced jaggery.

Sandesh is not very difficult to make, though it can take a little time and planning. You have to start with making the Channa/ Chenna. This is done by curdling full fat cow milk with an acidic agent, usually lime juice or yogurt. It is important that the curdling process forms a very soft cheese, softer than for paneer. Cow milk is good for this, as is the amount of lime juice or yogurt used for curdling it. Once the milk cheese has been drained, it must be kneaded well using the heel of the palm. This ensures soft and creamy Channa/ Chenna.

Once the milk cheese is soft and smooth enough it is mixed with sugar or jaggery. Here I’ve also added mawa/ khoya for a more milky taste and fresh coconut. Running the fresh grated coconut in the blender a couple of times produces a smoother mouth feel. This mixture is then cooked over low to medium heat, with frequent stirring until, it becomes less moist and dough like.

The cooked dough is shaped by pressing it into Sandesh moulds. If you don’t have Sandesh moulds, you can roll the dough mixture into small 1 inch balls. You can also decorate them using cookie press moulds.

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Once again, it’s that time of the year when we celebrate Ganesh Chathurthi. This means that a variety of Modaks will be made. This year I’m sharing a recipe for easy to make Saffron Pistachio Modak.

Ganesh Chathurthi, also known as Vinayaka or Pillayar Chathurthi celebrates the birth of Lord Ganesha. Lord Ganesha, the elephant headed Hindu God is worshipped and his blessings are always invoked for auspicious beginnings. He is also very well known for his love of good food especially sweets. Depictions of him always show him carrying a Modak (sweet) in one palm.

Modak or Modakam/ Kozhukattai as refer to them, are made and offered during Ganesh Chathurthi celebrations. They’re round in shape o the bottom with a pointy top where the dumpling wrapper is gathered and sealed. This festival and offerings are different across India though the Modak is a constant.  We offer Modakam or Kozhukattai that are steam cooked rice dumplings with sweet or savoury fillings.

Deep fried Modaks made with wheat flour wrappers are made in other parts of the country. These have a longer shelf life, whereas the steamed kind must be eaten the same day they’re made. In the Northern parts of India Modak also refers to milk sweets which are shaped the same way and offered during Ganesh Chathurthi. Today’s Saffron Pistachio Modak is this type of milk based sweet.

This is an easy recipe to make provided you have two things on hand – mawa/ khoya and the mould for shaping Modak. Mawa/ khoya are thick unsweetened milk solids. It is made by slow cooking and reducing full fat milk till it all the water in milk evaporates. Mawa/ khoya can be bought from local diaries or shops in most parts of India. If you choose to make it, do it ahead, as it is a lengthy process.

The moulds are available in stores or online. They’re available in plastic, metal or wood, if you’re lucky to find them. Use the smaller moulds to make them, as these Modak are rich and should be bite-sized. If you don’t have the moulds, you can still make these. Just shape them in peds or flattish discs.

Otherwise, all you need beyond mawa/ khoya and the moulds are sugar, cardamom, saffron, a little milk to dissolve it in and pistachios. Everything goes into a thick walled pan and is cooked till it comes together as a thick dough like paste. You can adjust the consistency of the mixture with a little milk (if very crumbly) or a little bit of full fat milk powder (if not thick enough) as you cook it. This paste is then shaped while warm using the moulds. Allow them to sit, covered, overnight at room temperature to set and they’re done.

The post Saffron Pistachio Modak appeared first on My Diverse Kitchen - A Vegetarian Blog.

This August, it was my turn to choose a bread for the Bread Baking Babes to make. I picked Inside Out Coconut Buns. I had a couple of other breads in mind, but went with these instead for a couple of reasons. Of course they’re really good to eat and pretty to look at! They’re also quite easy to make.

Traditionally, Chinese or Hong Kong Cocktail Buns are soft milk buns with a moist and sweet shredded or desiccated coconut based filling. They’re sort of oval/ oblong shaped with dough stripes on them. These sweet buns are filled with a buttery, milky sweet coconut paste. They were supposedly created some time in the 1950s in Hong Kong. The owners of a local bakery were left with quite a few unsold but perfectly good buns. The enterprising owners apparently ground them up with sugar making a filling which was put into freshly baked buns the next day. With time, more creative bakers added more flavour by adding coconut, butter and milk to the filling.

These Inside Out Coconut Buns, adapted from here, are another version of them. They’re pretty much the same but shaped such that the filling shows on the outside in layers or stripes. These buns make for a great snack. There’s something addictive about the buttery coconut filling.

The coconut filling for these buns can be flavoured with cardamom or vanilla. My preference is for cardamom as coconut ad cardamom go so very well together. Though not done generally, you can choose to lightly colour your filling so that shows up beautifully in contrast. I used a pinch of turmeric powder to colour my coconut filling.

These Inside Out Coconut Buns can be shaped in different ways, all showing the filling in a very attractive manner. The easiest shapes to make are plain snail buns, much like for Cinnamon Rolls. Other popular shapes include twisted round buns, heart shaped buns and twists.

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

Judy’s Gross Eats – Judy

The post Inside Out Coconut Buns appeared first on My Diverse Kitchen - A Vegetarian Blog.

I like steamed buns and have made them a few times before. Way back in 2009, the Bread Baking Babes a.ka. BBBs made Steamed Flower Buns. Then in 2018, we made Steamed Bao Buns. India has its own version of steamed buns, albeit a Tibetan dish, called Tingmos or Ting Momos. The BBBs are making them again as Judy picked Chinese Stuffed Steamed Buns for us to make this month. The recipe is adapted from Mooncakes and Milk Bread by Christina Cho.

Bao/ Baozi or Mantou are Chinese steam cooked plain or stuffed leavened buns served with dipping sauces. Is the Bao and Mantou the same thing or different? They’re both Chinese steamed buns. Generally, Mantou are plain buns while Bao are stuffed. There is an opinion that the Bao is fluffier in texture while the Mantou is denser. It turns out the originally, Mantou was used for both plain and stuffed buns. Later the term Baozi was used for stuffed buns, while Mantou was the name for plain bus.

The earliest mention of steamed buns is in texts dating 2000 years ago, much before the famous terra cotta warriors of the Qin Emperor of China! The word “Mantou” apparently meant “barbarians”, and there’s an interesting story there.

The invention of Mantou is credited to Zhuge Liang (AD 181-234), a chancellor of the Shu Kingdom. At this time in Chinese history the Northerners referred to people living in the humid uninhabitable Southern provinces as “barbarians”.  Now Zhuge Liang’s army was returning home after winning a battle with the Southern barbarians. They had to cross the stormy and dangerous Lu River. The locals apparently suggested throwing human heads of the said barbarians into the river would guarantee them safe passage across.

Unwilling to kill innocent prisoners, he ordered soldiers to stuff animal meat into flour dough shaped like a head and steam cook them. These fake heads were sacrificed as in lieu of real ones to appease the river god. The river god was fooled, the waters calmed down, and his army crossed to safety. Thus, meat-filled dough balls were known as “barbarian heads” or Mantou!

Getting back to the Chinese Stuffed Steamed Buns in this post, mine are vegetarian which is not traditional. These kind of steamed bus are typically plain or have a meat based filling. My steamed buns have a filling of stir fried onions, carrots, red bell peppers and cabbage. The filling is seasoned with a little salt, red chilli flakes, garlic, ginger, dark soy sauce and a sweet, sour, spicy chilli sauce. I also added some roasted sesame seeds to the filling. These bus are usually made with plain all-purpose flour. I added a little whole wheat flour to my dough because I like the flavor.

These buns are quite easy to make. You do need to make sure that you roll out the wrappers a little thinner on the edge. This makes for more even buns when you gather the edges around the filling and pinch them together to seal. You can see that I didn’t do a great job of this from uneven cross section of the buns in the image.

The Bread Baking Babes are –

Bake My Day – Karen

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie

Blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle

Girlichef – Heather

A Messy Kitchen – Kelly

My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna

Bread Experience – Cathy

Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen

Judy’s Gross Eats – Judy

The post Chinese Stuffed Steamed Buns appeared first on My Diverse Kitchen - A Vegetarian Blog.