Onion, Garlic and Fennel Sourdough Bagels

I love bagels. To me, they're the king of all bread.

Store bought ones are NEVER the same - they're one of these things that really are at their best made and eaten the same day. Chewy but soft and fluffy and with crispy bottoms right from the oven....mmmm.

I also really like sourdough. Not really sour sourdough.... that's enough to make me heave. Some sour doughs have a really over-acidic lactic (think vommit) taste. Yuk ! Instead, I work with a milder tasting version.....

What better combination than sourdough bagels ? These are not something you are likely to buy in a shop ! Only trouble is - bagels are made with quite a dense dough and sourdough is already quite dense. To make these stay that little bit lighter and less sour, I admit that I add a small amount of instant yeast for extra lift. I also don't leave my sourdough sponge to sit as long as many artisan bakers do .

I was dubious as to how well this would work, since I wasn't following a traditional bagel recipe. However, I can tell you that without any doubt, these turned out the BEST darn bagels I've ever eaten.

Ok - so I topped them off with extra onions that got a little over done - but I don't mind crispy onions ! :-)

My sourdough starter has been live since the mid 1800's. Not that I created it ! From the pot of rye starter I was initially given a couple of years ago, I modified it to 1/2 white, 1/2 rye. I generally have a couple of small vats in the fridge and feed 50:50 with rye and white. 

It's perfectly happy to sit in there dormant for months. Until this week. the last time I used it was around Christmas !

For the sourdough sponge, I used about 3 tablespoons of dormant starter and added approx 1/2 a cup of white bread flour and enough water to make it similar to a cake batter in dropping consistency. Cover with cling film and leave to stand for 24 hours. This basically wakes the starter up by feeding it. It should now be bubbly and active.

I then added about the same volume of flour to amount of starter in the bowl and more water to get same consistency as before. This then sat for 7 hours (as I mixed it up at 2am !) and was ready to bake for 9am. You could easily leave it another 2 > 3 hours - or up to another 24 for a more sour taste.

At this point, it was nice and bubbly right through (it had had a stir and deflated a bit). I guess it had risen by about 30%. If I wasn't using instant yeast as a boost, I'd definitely have left it until around 75%  increased - probably another 6 hours.

Ingredients

4 cups of strong white bread flour
1/4 cup onion salad crispy bits (if you can obtain them)

1 tsp salt

3 tsp sugar
1 tsp black treacle
1/4 > 1/2 tsp garlic granules

1 tsp instant yeast

325mls warm water

2 cups of sourdough sponge

2 tsp black treacle - add to the boiling water.

1 x onion

maldon sea salt

fennel seeds

white of an egg

Method

1st SET OF INGREDIENTS

Dissolve the sugar and black treacle in the warm water.
Put half the flour in the bowl, then the salt, the rest of the flour followed by onion crispy bits, garlic instant yeast, sour dough sponge and the warm water / sugars mix.

The reason we add in this order is to initially prevent the yeasts coming into direct contact with the salt. Direct contact at this stage will retard or even kill the yeast !

Mix all the ingredients to combine, and then either knead by hand on a bench for 10 minutes, or for around 5 in a stand mixer with dough hook and then a couple of minutes to finish by hand.

This is going to produce a firm and heavy dough, but you still must ensure it's sufficiently kneaded and gluten properly developed.

Put in a bowl, cover and set aside for around an hour to rise.

Divide into 12 equal balls. Stick two fingers through the middle of each ball and spin a little to widen the hole in the centre. Let these sit for around 30 mins on an oiled tray to rise a little more.

Turn oven on to 200deg C Fan.

Fill a deep pan with water and add 2tsp of black treacle and bring to the boil. You can also substitue with a little malt extract. This helps add flavour and colour.

Drop in the bagels. You need to allow them plenty space, but I could boil 4 at a time in my large pan.

Boil for one minute each side and then flip oven and repeat. This is what makes the biggest difference between a roll and a bagel !

Remove with a slotted spoon and place on the oiled baking sheet.

I sprinkled the tops with some Maldon sea salt, fennel seeds, some thinly sliced onion (pre-cooked until transparent).

Fake at 200deg C fan for 10 mins, then flip them over and bake another 10 mins.

As you can see - the onions on top got a bit well done. There would have been no way of avoiding that.... but I dont mind extra crispy onions !

Allow to cool and then eat or freeze same day.

These were served with some oak barrel smoked ham, cream cheese and watercress / and rocket salad.

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com - May 2013

Oliver and Emma - The Terrible Twosome.....

Well - I know you haven't heard much from me the last few months. Truth is, there has been a lot going on.....

We're working away on fitting a kitchen at work. Infact, it's not JUST a kitchen, it's going to be a cookery school. Unfortunately, one of the units was delivered the wrong size - so we're waiting on a replacement being made and delivered (hopefully next week). Meantime, I've been working on some projects and ideas that I'll share once I've got space to photograph..

Meantime - my little Oliver is getting very grown up !

This is Oliver (4.1/2 and his girlfriend, Emma - 5.3/4) - 5th May 2013

Last weekend, he had her sleep over. Excited was an understatement. He was practically bouncing off the walls !

First of all - we took a trip to High Lodge at Thetford Forrest.

There aren't actually many photos, as shortly after this I lost my camera ! Luckily, I DID actually get it back.... though the kids weren't amused at having to go back the way...

This was a really cool swing. Takes about 8 kids at once..

Ringing the bells on the musical trail. Couldn't have lost these two if I tried - they were the noisiest kids in the park !

Such a lovely sunny day - and amazing the weather held for the bank holiday Monday....

When I got these two home they were FILTHY.

Thankfully, with a new little boat to play with - they were desperate to get into the bath whilst I made tea. At the threat of a bath, Oliver is known to sometimes run and hide !

The little necklace he is wearing is made of amber and was a gift from Emma. He's had it since Christmas and refuses to take it off.

They're a pair of monkeys together, but best of friends.

Getting them to bed was the easy bit..... trying to get them to sleep was a bit more interesting. 

Chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter. Eventually, Oliver fell asleep first - but woke Emma up with his snoring ! Chatter, chatter...... In the end, they had to go in different rooms.

5.45am - yup - you've got it - they were up and full of beans....

A day out this time to the  war reenactment event at Mid Suffolk Railway. In this photo, we're all on the steam train. That's my husband in the back ground....

Absolutely amazing day with loads to see. Most people were in period dress - it was like stepping back 70 years in time..

Soldiers, home guard, nurses, wrens, doctors, children....

Oliver and Emma got to sit in a huge old period Army Truck. Oliver was above my head height in the cab in this photo....

They looked at how the old guns used to work, hold some blank ammo, what the inside of a grenade looks like and old bombs. They even got a mock identification card each. Needless to say, Ellie the elephant was never far away !

Pity I didnt get a photo from outside - but this is inside the green goddess fire engine. We were lucky enough to get a ride in this and have the sirens on when we got back.

Wasn't long after this that we headed home.... Two VERY tired small children and a very tired mummy. Oliver was asleep for the night by 6pm and I think I was asleep by 8pm !

Tonight Oliver is staying at Emma's house.... Victoria (Emma's mummy) has her hands full ..... As we print a copy of the blog as a yearly memory book, I'm hoping Victoria is going to do a blog for me with some photos. From what I've heard so far, they're up to high jinx.....

Raspberry, Vanilla and Black Pepper Chocolates - RECIPE and TUTORIAL - Union Jack Flag

These beautiful chocolates were made using our unique, registered design chocolate mould depicting the British Union Jack Flag. This 12 cell silicone mold is available from SiliconeMoulds.com, currently priced at £4.49

In this blog post, I'm going to tell you how to make these chocolates and the pretty handmade chocolate box shown above. For those of you that are avid blog and Facebook followers, we're introducing PROJECT PACKS so you can join in many of our forthcoming creations.

This first project pack will include the BOXER board with scoring tool, double sided tape pen, 9 sheets of pretty Kanban card (two each of the British patterns shown, plus 1 each of 5 colours in polka dot), a sheet of acetate for making aperture windows in chocolate boxes, 100 mini paper cases and union jack silicone chocolate mould.

The goods in this pack would normally cost over £30.00 with UK shipping, but the project pack will be just £23.99 including UK delivery. International shipping options are also available.

 Available to buy HERE

Lets get started !

First of all, you will need some tempered chocolate. I chose to use milk couveture chocolate. Most supermarket chocolate has had most of the cocoa butter content removed and replaced with vegetable oil. It's really not suitable for tempering. Tempering is what gives you that beautiful sheen and snap.

If buying couveture chocolate, two brands I would recommend are Callebaut and Belcolade. If you are just starting out however, you'll find that Lidl's dark chocolate is pretty good and is generally suitable for microwave tempering. Just be sure to chop it up into small pieces.

There is a short video guide to microwave chocolate tempering here (see part 1). I also wrote a blog post about tempering a few months ago.

First of all, take a chocolate mould of your choice (at least 2cm deep). Place it on top of a baking tray and fill all the cells FULL of chocolate. Give the mould (on the tray) a good rap on the counter to help get rid of any air bubbles. Then, pour all of the chocolate back out into the bowl.

You really need both hands to do this ! I was trying to tip it out with one hand and photograph with the other. This made rather a lot of mess !

Using a bench scraper, wall paper scraper or flat spatula, scrape all the excess chocolate off the top surface of the mould. Leave the mould for about 5 mins until the chocolate begins to set, then pop in the fridge for a further 5 minutes to fully harden.

Now, make the chocolate filling. This mix will make enough to fill approx 48 chocolates. You may prefer to scale down the volume. It's a versatile recipe and easily adapted by changing the alcohol to some other liqueur or flavouring

INGREDIENTS

50g butter

12g glucose

350g tempered white chocolate

1 tablespoon Chambord (raspberry liquer)

1/4tsp black pepper

seeds of 1/2 a vanilla pod

First of all, put the room temperature unsalted butter, glucose, pepper and vanilla pod seeds in a bowl. Beat with a hand mixer until light and fluffy.

Change to a wooden spoon and gradually mix in the tempered white chocolate. Once combined, mix in the liquer.

Put this mix into a disposable piping bag. Tie a knot at the top.

Get your moulds back out the fridge, and pipe filling into the chocolate shells. It's very important that the shells are not over full. You need at least 3mm of space above the filling to be able to cap them off with chocolate after filling !

After capping with chocolate, pop into the fridge for 10 mins to fully set up. Remove (wearing gloves - so not to put fingerprints on your chocolates.

TO MAKE THE BOX

Take your boxing board. One side has metric measurements and the other side is inches. For this box, I used the metric side.

Turn the board so the end that says BOX LID is facing the top.

Take a sheet of A4 stock card and score it  using your scoring tool (with the card portrait and on the reverse) at 11cm. 

You need to do this twice and cut two pieces of card to 215mm x 110mm. Note - these pieces of card need to be IDENTICAL in size although they do not have to be the same pattern. 

Choose which piece you are going to use for the lid, and which piece for the base. That needs to be decided now !

Score the lid at the 2.5cm marking on all four sides (right round) - then ROTATE the board and do the same for the base. If you don't turn the board round, you'll end up with two lids that will not fit together.

Where the folds cross over, cut some small V's out. These will create the box flaps. Do this on both top and base pieces.

If you want an aperture / window in the box, measure 1cm down from the fold at the narrow end of the box and cut out a piece 40mm wide x 45mm deep.

If using a coloured card (ie not cream or white), take a felt marker and run this over the cut edge for the aperture. This is not essential, but does really neaten up the finished box.

Cut a piece of acetate a little bigger than the window in the box. 

Use the mouse pen on the card, and put a line of double sided sticky tape close around the window. Press on the acetate.

Fold the sides for the box. Use the mouse glue pen on the front side corners of the box to apply the sticky tape and then press to hold the corners in place

That's it ! Place 5 chocolates in mini paper cases into each box and it's done :-)

Quick, simple and easy ....

Happy Box Making !

Sarah-Jane Nash - SiliconeMoulds.com - April 2013

PLEASE Mummy - just one more !

Banana Bran Breakfast Muffins (RECIPE - Lower Sugar, Low Fat)

Honestly - these banana bran breakfast muffins are better than you could EVER imagine. I'll be honest - I think they're my favourite muffin / small cake of all time..... and what's more, they're good for you !

Read the ingredients and turn up your nose - doesn't sound like something many people would initially want to make. I promise though, one bite and these will have you converted for life. It's funny - if you ask someone "Would you like a bran muffin?" then I can almost guarantee you 8 out of 10 times they'll say no. Offer one of these on a plate without saying what they are, and they disappear at lightning speed and loads of people requesting the recipe.

This low sugar and banana version is a re-vamp of my plain version. With the decorated tops, these look more appealing but still taste every bit as good.

BE WARNED - Bran is an effective and natural laxative effect as does molasses / black treacle, so don't overdose on muffins !?! More than one certainly gets things moving !

RECIPE (makes 10) - EASY

75g wheat bran (normal bran - not breakfast cereal !)

225g plain flour

125ml of skimmed milk

125ml of low fat greek yogurt

1 banana, mashed

1/2 cup of raisins (optional)

1/2 cup of tea (optional)

3 tsp baking powder

60ml treacle

1/2tsp salt

1 egg

 50g sugar

100ml sunflower or vegetable oil

2tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

1tsp ground ginger (optional)

to decorate tops : 

1 tablespoon of porridge oats

small handful of banana chips

2 tablespoons of warmed honey or agave syrup to glaze

First, make a cup of black tea ! Soak 1/2 a cup of raisins or sultanas in 1/2 a cup of hot tea for about 20 mins to plump them up. (makes a total of 1 cup)

Heat the oven to 180deg C Fan and line a 12 hole silicone muffin mould or tin with paper cake cases.

You will need two bowls.

In the first bowl, put the bran, milk, yogurt, mashed banana, oil, egg, sugar and black treacle. Mix well to combine. Drain off about 1/2 the tea and add the raisins to this bowl. Set aside for at least 10 minutes. (note - if not using rasins and tea, add about 100ml extra milk.

In another bowl, mix the flour, spices, salt, baking powder together. Add the bowl of wet ingredients and stir to combine. Stop as soon as dry ingredients can no longer be seen.

Spoon into your prepared muffin mould or tin. This doesn't rise a lot, so the cases will appear rather full.

Place a few banana chips (I used 3 per muffin) on top and scatter on a few oats.

Bake for approx 20 minutes until a cocktail stick comes out clean (mine were done in bang on 20mins).

Remove from the oven and brush the tops with some warm honey or agave syrup to glaze.

Not been doing a huge amount of baking recently. Been on a diet and had a few other things going on ! This teddy is the last "proper" cake I made which was about 2 or 3 weeks ago now.

Kitchen for work has just arrived and sat waiting to go in. Electrician comes today, so finally everything should start getting a move on.

Fig and Dolcelatte Mini Breads - Recipe

Apologies for the lack of blog entries in the last few weeks. I had to take some necessary time off from work.... and on my return, we all came down with some horrid sickness / flu type bug. Not nice with three of us being sick.... and it's taken quite a bit of time for us all to bounce back.

I'm astonished - but I honestly have not been baking or evolving new projects for the last month !

Anyway...... time to get something in the oven, and these pretty little Fig and Dolcelatte Mini Breads were the result.

Baked in a new stock silicone bakeware mould - the 10 cell mini bread / cake mould. Ideal for single portion mini loaf cakes or breads.

This recipe made 16 mini bread loaves / rolls. I could possibly have squeezed it to make up to 18  if they had been a little smaller. In this photo, they were proven and ready to bake.

RECIPE

450g strong white bread flour

1 sachet of instant yeast

300mls of tepid water

25mls of olive oil

3 tsp of caster sugar

1.1/2 tsp of salt

125g of chopped fresh figs

90g of chopped Dolcelatte cheese (soft cheese with a blue vein)

Put flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a large bowl. Take care not to let salt and yeast touch. Add warm water and oil and bring together as a dough. 

Knead for a good 10mins by hand until soft and silky, but in a tight shape. Cover and allow to rest in a warm area until doubled in size.

Knock back and add in fresh figs and cheese. Divide into 16 > 18 equal sized portions and drizzle a little  olive oil on top of each. Again, cover and set aside until doubled in size.

Bake at 200deg C Fan for approx 15mins.

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com

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Coconut Chocolate Meltdown Cookies - Gluten Free Recipe

You'll never believe this.... I've given up all the bad carbs for now - which includes bread, pasta, cakes, biscuits etc. That of course means I've also gone low fat and cut out butter and sugar too. 

To be honest, now the rubbish is out my system, I feel much better for it too. I just need to get used to drinking loads more water. At the moment I feel like I'm turning into a camel !

Anyway, it won't be the last of me. I'm still baking - but just not eating it. A lucky selected few may receive some random surprise packages by post....

I have been very curious though about baking with gluten free flour, which is something I've never done before.

I bought a bag, which is a mix of Rice, Potato, Tapioca, Maize & Buckwheat to have a play around with and "test" on colleagues amongst others.

I tried an "odd" cookie that had no partner and must say - these little guys are amazing ! They are little expolding cookie bombs. They look really plain and inconspicuous - but will blow you away and explode in your mouth when you bite into them. 

The texture is very short and they are very fragile - so do handle and store with care

RECIPE

 - makes approx 32 cookies (approx 2" dia baked)

180g salted butter

1tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup caster sugar

15g black treacle / molasses

2 cups (minus 2 tablespoons) of Doves Farm Gluten Free Flour

1 egg

1.5 tsp of baking powder

1/2 a cup of desiccated coconut

Cream butter and sugar together by hand with a wooden spoon. Beat in the whole egg and molasses. When smooth and lump free, mix in flour and baking powder, followed by coconut.

I divided the dough (it will be very soft) into 12gram pieces. Bake these on a plain silicone baking sheet / tray liner, or alternatively a macaron / macaroon mat in a 170degC fan oven for approx 12 minutes until they turn light golden in colour.

NOTE - when you put them on your mat / tray / sheet - flatten with a fork to approx 2" dia and then rough up the surface for a textured finish.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a rack.

When cooled, sandwich with chocolate buttercream. 

(80g butter, 150g icing sugar and 25g cocoa powder)

Simple and very very easy !

Enjoy !

Sarah-Jane Nash - SiliconeMoulds.com (silicone bakeware specialists) - February 19th, 2013

Macarons ! Double Chocolate and Cherry... (Recipe)

Hey - it's been a while since I last made macarons. Too long actually. When a fellow cakey person was having some trouble, I decided it was time to knock up a batch to try and troubleshoot the problems and give her a comparison to try.

I love making these pretty, dainty macarons using our double sided macaron mats. The beauty is that they all end up identical in size and pair beautifully. They look divine packed several together and stood up straight like soldiers in a line.

RECIPE

 makes 75 shells (so you'll need 3 mats or to do 3 bakes) = 37 macarons plus an extra shell

180g powdered (icing) sugar

180g of egg whites - split into two 90g batches

40g good quality cocoa powder

180g ground almonds

200g of caster sugar

80mls of water.

Preheat fan ovens to 160deg C

Put the ground almonds and icing sugar into a blender and blitz until powder fine consistency.

Add this to a large bowl with 90g of egg white, the icing sugar and cocoa powder. Mix together to form a thick, sticky paste.

Put the caster sugar and water in a saucepan. Bring to the boil until temperature reaches 110deg C. At this point, start whipping the remaining egg whites to firm peak.

Remove sugar syrup from the heat at 118deg C. Whipping the egg whites at full speed, slowly pour in hot sugar syrup. Whip until this is meringue like in volume and the bowl is warm but not really hot.

Take a good spoonful of the meringue mix and stir well into the almond / egg white / cocoa mix to loosen. Fold the remaining meringue mix in with a spatula until it's a lava like consistency and a trail merges into the rest within about 30 seconds.

Pipe onto the large side of your REVOLUTIONARY DOUBLE SIDED MACARON MATS available from www.siliconemoulds.com (these baking sheets are available in several colours)- to within about 5mm of the outside of each cell. The mix will relax to fill the cells. 

Pop into the oven at 160deg C for 5 mins with the door a few inches ajar. Then, close the door and bake for a further 20 > 22mins.

I filled these with white chocolate ganache and a very nice cherry preserve. I also filled some others with the same ganache and ginger preserve.

Creating a wall of firm but pipeable ganache helps to stop the preserve oozing out. 1/2 a tsp of preserve is plenty in each centre. Sandwich together and chill overnight before serving

One is a treat, two would be a total indulgence ! I have to confess.... on THIS occasion  we didn't scoff all these macarons. These are macarons - though some still call them macaroons. No comparison to the coconut variety ! Some were gifted to some very lovely people we met last week at the NEC Spring Fair.

Our stand was directly opposite Alan Silverwood Ltd - they have produced the new range of bakeware for DELIA SMITH and very nice it is too ! All UK manufactured and available from independant retailers from this month.

Delia Smith was doing demonstrations in the cookery live theatre and Kathryn was brave enough to ask her to sign the hard back copy of my blog book (2012 recipes). A little confusing though as it's now 2013 ! Bless her.... exciting time for both Silverwoods and Delia at the moment and we wish them both lots of success.

We took lots and lots of stuff with us - but unfortunately there was not enough space to take everything !

Our range of large number silicone birthday cake moulds are proving very popular and we are looking forward to launching many new product lines in the next couple of weeks  - including our new registered design chocolate tractors mould

Sarah-Jane Nash - SiliconeMoulds.com - silicone bakeware specialists