Overnight bread without any kneading

 I can’t believe I never tried making no knead bread before… this is SOOO good!

See the original recipe for far more detailed instructions and variations. 

https://www.gimmesomeoven.com/no-knead-bread/

Here is what I do…

Ingredients

• About 100g whole wheat flour
• About 325g all purpose flour (vary the proportions of the flours as you like.. this is the mix I’ve tried so far. Total of 425g flour)
• 2 tsp fine sea salt
• 1/2 tsp traditional yeast
• 1.5 cups warm water

Method

Sometime between noon and 8pm…

1.  Measure the flours, salt, and yeast into a large mixing bowl. Whisk together until well combined.
2. Make a hole in the dry ingredients and pour in the warm water.
3. Mix with a wooden spoon until combined into a shaggy ball of dough with most of the flour incorporated (this should be pretty quick and easy)
4. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit on the counter

Carry on with your day, have a good sleep. The next morning (ideally 12-18 hours later, but 10 is enough)…

1. Generously sprinkle flour on the counter
2. Use a spatula to carefully nudge the dough out of the bowl and onto the floured counter, smoother side down
3. Go around the ball and fold the edges in to the middle until you’ve made a nicely shaped ball of dough
4. Flip the dough ball onto a piece of parchment paper, dust lightly with flour, and lay the dry side of your plastic wrap over it loosely
5. Set a timer for 20-30 minutes… meanwhile… Put a large cast iron Dutch oven with a lid into the oven and heat to 450F
6. When the timer goes off… remove the plastic wrap from the dough ball, take the Dutch oven out of the oven, close the door, and use oven mitts to grab the edges of the parchment paper with the dough ball on it to gently place it inside the Dutch oven. If my parchment paper seems too big, at this point I will cut the corners off with kitchen shears. Put the lid on and pop the Dutch oven back into the hot oven.
7. Bake 30 mins with the lid on then remove the lid and bake another 10 minutes for a not-overly-crispy crust
8. Let cool on a wire rack at least 30 minutes before slicing and eating.

Try not to devour the whole loaf!

This is easier than the bread maker and so delish!

Granny Cake

Here is ilan's Granny's "Long Cake" recipe

The original:

And the revamped:

Ingredients

200g (7/8 cup) butter
250g (1 1/8 cups) caster sugar (this is a finer version of regular white sugar)
6 eggs, separated
100g (just under 1 cup) white flour, sifted
100g (just over 3/4 cup) corn starch
bread crumbs for dusting the pan
icing sugar for dusting over top

Method

Note: This recipe is best done with a stand mixer.

1. Prepare a bundt cake pan by greasing very well then dusting with bread crumbs
2. Cream butter in the mixer
3. Add caster sugar, beat till light
4. Add yellow part of the eggs
5. Mix for approximately 20 mins in stand mixer at a low-medium speed (according to tradition - can it be done at higher speed in shorter time? We will have to try it...)
6. Set oven to 300F at some point in those 20ish minutes
7. Add flour and mix in
8. Add corn starch
9. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff
10. Fold beaten egg whites into the cake mixture gently
11. Pour batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour.

Mighty Tasty Basic Pizza

Crust

(based on https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/46595/amazing-whole-wheat-pizza-crust/)

Ingredients

• 1 tsp sugar
• 1.5 cups wrist-temperature water
• 1 tbs active dry yeast
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 1 tsp salt

Method

1. Rinse a large bowl with warm water (I used our stand mixer). Add the measured warm water and stir in sugar to dissolve. 
2. Sprinkle the yeast over the surface to avoid big clumps and let stand until the yeast gets foamy.
3. Meanwhile, combine whole wheat flour and salt in a separate bowl with 1 cup of the all-purpose flour.
4. Stir water/yeast mixture then add the olive oil.
5. Add the flour mixture to the yeast mixture and mix on low speed mixer setting with the dough hook (or by hand). Mix (or knead) and slowly add the extra half cup of all purpose flour as needed to prevent sticking. Dough is ready when it is smooth and elastic (about 2 minutes on low speed mixer setting). You may need a little extra all purpose flour.
6. Lift the ball of dough and pour a little olive oil underneath it then roll the ball of dough around in the oil to coat all sides. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp tea towel and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. (This would be a good time to prep sauce and toppings)
7. When you are ready to make the pizza, preheat oven to 425F.
8. Divide the dough as desired (1 managed 4 very thin crust round pizzas, but you could divide it less for a thicker crust) and shape into rounds. I just put some oil on the pizza pan and used my fingers as a kind of rolling pin to stretch the dough out over it, but I could have just pulled out the rolling pin. Make sure to put some oil or cornmeal or something on your pizza pan to prevent sticking.
9. PREBAKE THE CRUST! Before you add toppings, put the crust into the oven on its own and bake for 5 minutes.. this helps to ensure the crust bakes evenly and doesn't get too soggy with toppings!
10. Pull the crust out of the oven and spread pizza sauce over top then add desired toppings. Bake another 10 minutes (or more if your crust is thicker), until the cheese is browned.

Tomato Pizza Sauce

This recipe came with our Cuisinart Food Processor and it is super tasty, especially if made with fresh oregano! We had a bit of a pepper and salt incident and had to triple the batch so we froze several small containers full... it might be a good idea to make a lot of this in the summer with nice fresh ingredients and freeze it to have on hand later.

Ingredients

• 2 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and quartered
• 1 cup passata (crushed tomatoes)
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 3/4 tsp dried oregano or 1.5 tsp fresh oregano (best)
• 3/4 tsp dried basil or 1.5 tsp fresh
• 1 tsp sugar
• pinch of salt (they recommend kosher)
• freshly ground black pepper (to taste - not a teaspoon-full!)

Method

If using a food processor, proceed as follows. If not, adjust accordingly.

1. Add the fresh tomatoes to the food processor with the regular blade and pulse until coarsely chopped, about 6 times.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse 4 times to mix.

Topping Suggestions

Given that we are a pork-free household and we love pineapple, we generally stick with pineapple-mushroom-mozzarella as our favourite topping combo. The trick with mushrooms is to fry them up first with some butter, salt, pepper, and a splash of red wine so that they are extra-tasty and contain less moisture. It is great if you also fry up your pineapple to caramelize it a little bit.

I Ain't Got No Bubby... Challah Recipe

I don't have a Jewish grandmother because well I'm not Jewish. So instead I scoured the Internet for a challah recipe and have made my own tweaks to it over time. Here's how I make it!

Ingredients

• 2 c whole wheat flour
• 1.5 c all purpose flour, plus...
• additional flour: 2 - 3.5 c all purpose flour (usually about 2.5 cups is right)
• 1.5 tbs active dry yeast (traditional)
• 1 tbs salt
• 1/3 c sugar, divided
• 2 c warm water (wrist temperature)
• 1 egg, beaten (plus another for glaze)
• 1/4 c vegetable oil
• 1/4 c melted butter
• 1 c golden raisins (optional)
• sesame or poppy seeds for topping (optional)

Method

1. Rinse bowl of stand mixer with warm water to heat it up a bit
2. Combine 1 tbs of the sugar with the warm water in the mixer bowl then sprinkle the yeast on top
3. Let yeast dissolve for about 10 minutes, until foamy. 
4. Meanwhile, mix together the first 3.5 cups of flour, the rest of the sugar and the salt
5. Stir to dissolve the yeast mixture then add the flour mixture to it
6. Combine the oil, melted butter, and beaten egg - add to the mixer bowl.
7. Using the dough hook and a low speed setting, start mixing/kneading the dough as you slowly add in the additional flour (add only as much as needed - start with 2 cups and add more if it starts getting sticky before you hit the smooth and elastic stage). This should take about 2-3 minutes, maybe 4. Add the raisins in somewhere near the end (if using). [ALTERNATIVELY - knead by hand about 10 minutes as you add in the additional flour]
8. Once the dough is smooth and elastic, lift it from the bowl and pour in about 1 tbs of olive oil. Place the ball of dough on top of the oil then spin it in all directions to coat the dough with the oil (to keep it from sticking to the bowl as it rises).
9. Cover with plastic wrap or a clean damp tea towel and let rise in a warm place for about 2 hours (or longer in a cool place)... aim to gently release some gas every 20 minutes or so after the first hour but if you don't do this it's no biggie.
10. Gently press down on the dough to release excess gas. Divide the dough into 2 (or more) pieces and then divide each of these for braiding. This recipe makes 2 large challahs or more smaller ones.
11. Braid using your preferred method. I like a 4-strand braid with the dough snakes wider in the middle and not too long and skinny, but you can find various challah-braiding instructions online.
12. Let rise 1/2 hour, covered with a damp tea towel. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375F.
13. Glaze with the extra beaten egg (mix it with a little water if you like but I don't usually bother). Sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds if you like.
14. Bake 25-30 minutes. Don't forget to transfer off the baking sheet after 5-10 minutes so it doesn't get moist underneath the loaves.

Slightly-Healthier-Than-Hers Thin Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe is adapted from someone on "Modern Honey".. and she seems to have a lot to say about chocolate chip cookies! The pictures sure do look delicious.

Here's the original: https://www.modernhoney.com/thin-and-crispy-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Here's my mildly healthier (less sugar and heartier flour) adaptation.

Mine did not turn out to be thin, possibly because of the addition of some whole wheat flour, but they still turned out to be incredibly delicious.

Ingredients

• ¾ cup Butter, melted in saucepan
• 1/2 cup Brown Sugar
• 1/4 cup White Sugar
• 1 Egg
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
• 1 1/4 cups All Purpose Flour
• 1/4 cup Whole Wheat flour
• ½ teaspoon Baking Soda
• ½ teaspoon Baking Powder
• ¾ teaspoon Salt
• ¾ cup Chocolate Chips
• ¼ cup Dark Chocolate Chunks, cut from chocolate bar

Instructions

1. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Simmer until "butter starts to turn a warm amber color and gives off a nutty aroma". As for me, I was afraid to simmer it for long so I stopped this part shortly after the simmering started. Don't get it brown too long as the liquids will start to evaporate. Pour the butter into a mixing bowl, cover, and let cool 10 minutes somewhere cool and another 10 minutes in the refrigerator.
2. Once it is cooled, add brown sugar and sugar and cream (high speed mixer setting) for 4 minutes. Scrape down the bowl. Add eggs one at a time, mixing gently after each addition until just incorporated. Add vanilla and mix gently.
3. Stir in flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix until just combined.
4. Add chocolate chips and chocolate chunks and mix.
5. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 20 - 30 minutes. 24 -48 hours is ideal. A couple of recipes I've read really stress the importance of this chilling step so if at all possible don't rush to put the cookies straight into the oven! Apparently it helps them to not ooze everywhere so they will turn out chewier and yummier.
6. Heat oven to 375 degrees.
7. Scoop the cookie dough onto prepared baking pans. Bake until lightly golden on the edges, 9 -11 minutes for medium-sized cookies or 11-13 minutes for larger cookies.

Good Morning Blueberry Muffins

I have been making a few small adjustments to my standard muffin recipe lately and this morning's were super tasty especially when hot out of the oven!

If you want fresh hot muffins with minimal morning effort, do like I did and mix your dry ingredients the night before so they are ready and waiting for you.

Ingredients

Dry

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 7/8 cup white flour (AKA a little less than a cup)
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup white sugar (or more or less, to your taste) 
• dash of nutmeg
• dash of cinnamon
• a good handful of quick-cooking oats

Wet 

• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup melted butter

Other

• A goodly quantity of fruit - blueberries if you want you the muffins to be blueberry, but you could also use diced apples or other berries or even raisins if you were really stuck

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Grease/prepare your muffin tins
3. Mix dry ingredients in a largish bowl
4. Prepare the fruit (in the case of frozen blueberries there's not much to this!)
5. Prepare and mix wet ingredients in a separate vessel (eg. pyrex measuring cup)
6. Particularly if you're using blueberries, toss the fruit in the dry ingredients to coat so they don't turn the batter purple
7. Add wet ingredients to dry and fold in carefully, mixing just enough that the flour is incorporated but don't over stir!
8. Bake about 15-17 minutes
9. Enjoy!

Lemon Cheesecake

I've made a couple of cheesecakes lately that were loosely based on the following recipe: https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/dessert/other-dessert/italian-lemon-biscotti-cheesecake.html

The first had a biscotti crust only because we happened to have a pile of leftover biscotti.  The next was graham crackers and it was good too.  Sometimes I like using Anna's Cookies for a slightly different flavour. UPDATE on the crust: now we use half nuts and half cookies to make it less sugary. If you wanted to make this gluten free you could probably just smush some ground/chopped nuts in the pan and I'm sure it would do the trick.

Ingredients

CRUST

• 1 c finely crushed graham crackers/anna's cookies/biscotti
• 1 c finely chopped nuts (just almonds works well or whatever type you like or a mix)
• 1/3 c butter, melted

LEMON CHEESECAKE

• 1kg spreadable cream cheese (either leftover from a bar mitzvah or purchased at Costco) OR use 3 8oz blocks and WHIP IT GOOD 
• a generous 1/2 c sugar (original called for 3/4 cups but I do a bit less)
• 1 tsp lemon zest, grated
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice, fresh
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3 eggs

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350'F
2. MIX crushed biscotti/graham crackers and melted butter. Press onto bottom and 1 inch up side of 9 inch springform pan. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool on wire rack.
3. BEAT cream cheese, sugar, lemon zest, juice and vanilla with mixer until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating on low speed after each just until blended. Pour over crust.
4. BAKE 55 min. to 1 hour or until center is almost set.
5. Let cool then place in refrigerator - best to let it sit for at least 4 hours before slicing (if you can wait!)

Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins

I'm going to make these again today since the ones I made the other day vanished so quickly!
Based on http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/blueberry-oatmeal-muffins

Ingredients

• 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 cup (8 ounces) plain yogurt
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup fresh blueberries

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine the first eight ingredients. Combine the egg, yogurt and butter; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in blueberries.
2. Coat muffin cups with cooking spray or use paper liners; fill three-fourths full with batter. Bake at 400° for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the muffin comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Serve warm.

 

Cobbler!

I've never made cobbler before, but I wanted a quick to prepare, summery, baked, delicious dessert and it seemed like it might fit the bill...

I started with http://allrecipes.com/recipe/51535/fresh-southern-peach-cobbler/, but made a few minor tweaks...

Ingredients

Fruit part

8 fresh peaches - peeled, pitted and sliced into thin wedges  - I didn't bother to peel them and I only had three peaches so I added 2 apricots and a bunch of blueberries (510g in fact)
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar  - I used less... more like 1/8 cup.  You could reduce the white sugar too.
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons cornstarch 

Cobbler part

This isn't exactly how I made it, but it is what I'd try if I did it again...
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
1/2 cup boiling water

 Cinnamon Sugar for the Top

I happened to have some cinnamon sugar already on hand - I don't think I used more than about a tablespoon in total - here's what the original recipe says:
3 tablespoons white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, combine everything in the "fruit part" list.  Toss to coat evenly, and pour into a large pyrex baking dish (I used the big rectangular one). Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients from the cobbler part.  Blend in butter with a pastry blender or fork until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in water until just combined (it should still be quite crumbly, but without powdery flour left loose).
4. Remove peaches from oven, and drop spoonfuls of topping over them. I formed little mounds on the spoon (trying not to handle the topping too much) then plunked them on top.  
5. Sprinkle entire cobbler with your desired quantity of the sugar and cinnamon mixture. Bake until topping is golden, about 30 minutes.

Enjoy warm with ice cream!