Double Chocolate Oat Cookies

I have been sitting watching a film I remember enjoying back in the sixties but somehow today I am distracted. The thing that I am thinking about instead of poor Thomas More's problems, is creating a new chocolate cookie from what I have in my cupboard, to have with coffee when Sylvia comes over tomorrow morning. This is the result, reasonably high in fibre and I do know someone who would claim they qualify as one of his five a day, the sultanas!

To make around 30 cookies you will need:

125g of oats
100g of SR flour
175g of muscovado sugar
125g of melted unsalted butter
75g of dark chocolate
50g of chocolate chips
50g of golden sultanas
50g of chopped pecan nuts
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence 
1 medium egg
large pinch of salt

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Place the oats, flour and chocolate in a blender and blend for 30 seconds, take off the lid and redistribute the mix before blending for another 30 seconds, the aim is to grind the oats up a little. Place the contents of the blender in a large bowl and add the remaining ingredients except the chocolate chips and mix to form a soft sticky dough. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Take dessertspoons of the mix and place well apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 14 minutes, cool on a cooling rack.

 Notes:
You can vary these by using hazelnuts instead of pecans, white chocolate chips instead of dark chocolate and using different dried fruit, cherries would work well, you could also leave out the dried fruit and put in chopped crystalised ginger.

Adding the melted butter while it is still hot to the mix melts the chocolate that has been ground up, delaying adding the chocolate chips allows you to have whole chocolate chips in the finished cookie.

These would make excellent ice cream sandwiches, simply sandwich two together with a good quality vanilla ice cream.

Roasted flour bread

While baking my last batch of baking I placed a baking tray in the oven containing 200g of Prior's flour. I left it in at 220 degrees C for roughly 10 minutes, checking frequently to make sure the flour didn't become too dark. All flours are going to vary in water content so each will need to be watched as the colour turns from a creamy white to a milky coffee colour. You may find you need to take the tray out and stir the flour a little to ensure even baking. The end result is flour which you can sieve and keep to use in baking a batch of roasted flour bread.

You will need:
For activating the starter,
100g of starter from the fridge
100g of Strong white bread flour, I used Prior's organic white for this batch
100g of water.

For the ferment,
All of the activated starter
200g of Strong white bread flour
200g of water

For the main dough,
All of the ferment
800g of Strong white bread flour
200g of roasted white bread flour
450g of water
20g of salt


Activate the starter by mixing all the ingredients together are leaving, covered until you begin to see bubbles appearing on the surface.

Take the activated starter and add the ferment ingredients, stir well and leave covered until the surface shows a healthy amount of activity See fig 1. Add all the main dough ingredients except the salt and if using an electric mixer mix on a medium speed for 3-4 minutes. Leave the dough covered for a minimum of 8 hours. At this point I go to bed.

After the bulk rising time, add the salt and mix again on a medium speed for 4-5 minutes to develop the gluten.

Leave the dough, covered, to rise for and hour. Stretch and fold the dough to further develop the gluten. Repeat the stretching and folding two more times at 1 hourly intervals.


Divide and shape the dough into 3 oval loaves and place seam side up on a well floured linen cloth to rise for 2-3 hours until nearly doubled in size.

Slash the loaves and bake in a hot oven 220 degrees C for 30 - 35 minutes. I transfer my loaves onto a pre-heated cast iron flat griddle and bake them one at a time, moving the loaf onto a different shelf in the oven after 15 minutes in order to re-use the griddle, a pizza stone will serve the same purpose.

 Notes:
The choice of shape for your finsihed loaf is up to you of course,  I lean towards battard or oval more than boules because I have more even sized slices when it comes to eating them.

It's entirely possible to take care not to disturb the large holes formed during the rising, stretching and folding process, simply avoid knocking the dough back too much. Whereas I too think the large holes are attractive and often a sign that a natural ferment has been used, when it comes to buttering toast, large holes are just that bit too impractical and so I knead my dough a little more when it comes to shaping.

Red Pepper Hummus with a Spicy Topper

Humus is always a good stand by, take the time to make a topper for it and you transform the lowly humus to something that delivers far more complexity.

I have a pressure cooker and I must admit these days it only gets taken out to cook pulses that have been re hydrated by soaking. While I have a large jar of dried chickpeas in my cupboard I like to think I could feed myself for a while with little else. Tinned chickpeas are always an alternative but soaking chickpeas overnight then cooking them until tender is far cheaper. It's also true that in order to make good felafel you need to use soaked but uncooked chickpeas and not the tinned ones that are already cooked.












You will need:

For the Humus

350g of chickpeas (dry weight) soaked in a litre of water overnight
1 tablespoon of Tahini
The juice of one lemon
200g of roasted red pepper, if you can find the Polish ones in a jar they are actually cheaper than buying fresh peppers and going through the process of roasting, de-seeding and peeling them.
1 large clove of garlic grated
2 tablespoons of good olive oil
seasoning

For the Spicy Topper

100g of the soaked & cooked chickpeas
1 small onion finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 chilli finely chopped
1 red pepper finely chopped (seeds removed)
1 tablespoon of tomato pureé
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 teaspoon of black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon of sweet paprika
1 teaspoon of powdered sumac
1 teaspoon of sherry vinegar
seasoning


To make the humus:

Cook the soaked chickpeas until tender, this takes 10 minutes in a pressure cooker and about 40 minutes on a low simmer. The chickpeas do need to be tender so do cook them until you have achieved this. If you are using tinned chickpeas, drain and put 100g to one side to use in the topper. Reserve 100ml of the cooking water.

Place all but 100g of the cooked and cooled chickpeas in a food processor along with the tahini, lemon juice,  roasted red pepper, seasoning and garlic, process until you achieve a smooth paste. You may need to add a little of the cooking water if it appears too dry and thick, but remember the addition of the olive oil will loosen up the humus significantly so add sparingly. Finally drizzle in the olive oil through the funnel of the food processor while the motor is still running. Set to one side.

To make the topper:

Fry the seeds in the olive oil on a gentle heat until then begin to pop. Add the finely chopped onion, red pepper and chilli  and continue to cook on a gentle heat for 2 minutes. Add the garlic, the sumac, paprika and tomato pureé, cook for a further 2 minutes. Add the chickpeas, sherry vinegar and the reserved cooking water and simmer for 5 minutes. season to taste.

Notes:
You can vary how chilli hot you make the topper.
The sumac does add a delicious, subtle sour note to the finished dish, so it's worth finding, Asian supermarkets often have it.

Prior's Flour Bread

I popped along to Foster's Mill at Swaffham Prior the other day to pick up some of their excellent organic white bread flour. The sails were being driven around by the wind that had picked up and inside, where the miller, Jonathan was busy weighing out flour, the milling mechanism was moaning and rattling. It may not be on my doorstep, being 33 miles from my home but I am certainly fortunate to be able to find and use such high quality organic flour, freshly milled.

My first batch of bread with this new flour was very satisfactory, I shall make the next batch a little less wet and I shall develop the gluten a little more, but this is just tweaking, the flavour is outstanding.

For activating the starter
100g of starter from the fridge
100g of Prior's white bread flour
100g of water


For the ferment
All the activated starter
50g of Strong whole wheat flour
150g of Prior's white bread flour
200g of water

For the final dough
All the ferment
1,000g of Strong white flour
500g of water
20g of salt

Activating the starter; take 100g of starter from the fridge, add 100g of Prior's white bread flour and 100g of water, stir well and leave covered for 2 hours.

When the surface is showing some activity, a few bubbles, add the remaining ferment ingredients and mix well to introduce some air. Leave covered for at least 4 to 6 hours, this will depend almost entirely on temperature.

When the ferment is showing good signs of activity see fig 1 add all of the flour and water for the main dough, omit the salt at this stage and leave covered to rise for 8 hours.

After the bulk rising period, add the salt and knead well for 5-10 minutes to develop the gluten.

Leave the dough, covered, to rise for and hour. Stretch and fold the dough to further develop the gluten. Repeat the stretching and folding two more times at 1 hourly intervals.

Divide and shape the dough into 3 battard loaves and place seam side up on a well floured linen cloth to rise for 2-3 hours until nearly doubled in size.

Slash the loaves and bake in a hot oven 220 degrees C for 30 - 35 minutes. I transfer my loaves onto a pre-heated cast iron flat griddle and bake them one at a time, moving the loaf onto a different shelf in the oven after 15 minutes in order to re-use the griddle, a pizza stone will serve the same purpose.

Notes:
This bread has the creamy beige colour you find in bread baked using unbleached white flour; it most resembles the pain l'ancienne I found when visiting Hedd's childhood friend Camille in Marseille. Pain l'ancienne is her father Phillipe's favourite bread and for me discovering it, helped to fuel my drive to bake this type of bread for myself.

The amounts described above are the ones I used for baking this batch of bread but as I mentioned I will reduce the water in the final dough to 450g for the next batch.

I understand Bakery Bits is now selling Prior's flour.

Spicy Peanut Soup

I met up with Hedd and Leo a couple of years ago in Amsterdam while they were on a trip to Europe. While we were walking around the city we came across a small shop selling soup and my choice was the Spicy Peanut Soup. On arriving home I worked on recreating the soup. here is the recipe, tweaked over a two year period.

Soup after cooking for an hour and a half.

This soup feeds 6 and keeps perfectly well in the fridge for 3 days.

You will need:

3 cups of chopped vegetables (dicing is good but don't give yourself a hard time) I have in my time used runner beans, French beans, carrots, courgettes, potatoes, peppers, butternut squash, sweetcorn, peas and onions, whatever combination you have to hand, ideally at least 3, onions being 1.
4 cloves of garlic
1 thumb size piece of ginger
2 or 3 chillies (this is entirely to taste including whether or not you add the seeds)
1 tablespoon of tomato pureé
3 large tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter
1 tin of coconut milk
The juice of 3 limes
1 teaspoon of palm sugar (granulated sugar will also work)
1 teaspoon of black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
1 teaspoon of curry powder (I never use curry powder for curries but it's useful in soups)
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
Salt and pepper to taste.
Chopped coriander to sprinkle on top when serving

Using a large saucepan, fry the mustard and cumin seeds in the oil for a couple of minutes on a gentle heat. Add the onions and chopped chilli and cook for a further 2 or 3 minutes until the onions have become translucent but not coloured, add the tomato pureé and cook for another couple of minutes before adding the remaining chopped vegetables. cook over a low heat stirring occasionally. Place the peanut butter, garlic, ginger, lime juice and palm sugar in a blender and add 2 litres of water, Blend for a minute. Add the contents of the blender to the sweated vegetables along with the tin of coconut milk. Cook the soup on a low heat for an hour and a half, stirring occasionally, season to taste.

Soup before cooking for an hour and a half.

Serve with a sprinkling of chopped coriander.



Notes:

Whenever possible I substitute Marigold Swiss Vegetable Boullion Powder for salt, it has a 17% salt content but packs so much flavour that I end up using less salt in my diet.

This soup can easily be adjusted to fit your own taste, not only with vegetables that you might prefer but also just how much sweet & sour and chilli heat you like.

 You can also enhance the sweet & sour aspect by adding a tablespoon of chopped pineapple or mango to each serving.