Spelt-flour Yorkshire Puddings

I wanted something tasty and simple to make for gouter and came across Yorkshire pudding in Mary McCartney's vegetarian cookbook Food. It doesn't look anything like what we Americans would think of as pudding. It's a light bread-like almost pastry, that is normally eaten as a savory food with meat. I wanted it for a sweet treat so I added just a bit of cinnamon and poured maple syrup on top. The effect was truly tasty, reminiscent of french toast. Watching these guys bake was fun even for me. As they grew big Jude jumped up and down and giggled at how "ginomous" they were getting.

We have started to phase out wheat flour, because more and more studies are showing that wheat in general, has a lot of negative effects on the human body. So for this recipe I used spelt flour instead of wheat. It will be an adventure to try other grains and ancient grains like amaranth, buckwheat, sorghum, tapioca, teff and almond for baking. I also used coconut oil because it does not break down and turn rancid in high heat. My first attempt with these puddings was successful and I am definitely going to make them again.

Yorkshire Puddings (adapted from Food by Mary McCartney)

Ingredients
muffin tin
3/4 cup spelt flour
pinch Himalayan salt
2 large, organic free-range eggs
1 1/4 cups full fat, vat-pasturized, non-homogenized, organic, jersey cow milk
unrefined organic extra-virgin coconut oil (in liquid form, it melts by itself around 76 degrees)
........if desired 1/2 teaspoon organic cinnamon power

Method
Sift the flour into a medium-sized mixing bowl and add a pinch of salt. Crack the eggs in and whisk together with the flour, then gradually pour in the milk, stirring constantly. (I ended up adding a couple tablespoons more of flour). Beat all the ingredients together until the batter is the consistency of cream. (No lumps). Refrigerate the batter for 30 minutes. (I looked it up and it is up for debate whether refrigeration and rest is necessary, I say it depends on how much time you have before you want to eat them.) 

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. (I say this now because if you refrigerate the batter it seems a waste to keep the oven on this high for 30 min.)
Pour 1 teaspoon of oil into the bottom of each of the wells of the muffin tin (or about 1 cm of oil per well). Put the muffin tin in the oven to heat the oil until it's very hot -- almost smoking hot (about 4 minutes).

Pour the batter into a measuring cup with a spout and then pour it equally into each well in the tin (you should hear it sizzle and it should bubble). Use a spoon to collect any leaky batter from the measuring cup in between wells. Return the tin to the oven and bake the puddings for 20-25 minutes, until they have risen and are deep golden brown. Pour a bit of maple syrup on each pudding if desired.


Jamie Oliver did a great youtube video on how to properly bake these puddings. View it here too see what you are getting into. Enjoy! xo, Yana.

Homemade Amish Bread

We have decided to eat as much from home as possible. I don't just mean not eating out, but making even the simplest food staples at home. Bread for instance, pasta maybe, or almond milk or pizza could all be purchased pre-made, or made at home with the ingredients that we decided upon. So lately I've been working on baking bread, a bread that not only tastes good but looks good. It took me two tries to get this recipe particular recipe right. Yeast had always been tricky for me, and the first time the bread did not rise nearly as much as it should have, I may have killed it a bit by using too hot of water. The second time, one loaf turned out fantastic, the one in these pictures, and the second one flattened down. I have only one bread pan and this recipe makes two loaves. So I thought that I could wait for one loaf to bake while the other half of the dough waits. This might have worked if I thought to put the waiting dough into the fridge, but I didn't and the dough ended up deflating and not rising when I needed it to. However, it tasted just as well, just looked somewhat awful.


This recipe is called Amish Bread. Whether or not it is truly Amish I don't know, but it definitely caught my attention by making it seem like this particular bread was wholesome enough for the Amish to eat. If it's good enough for the Amish it must be good enough for me.The bread tastes really great, it definitely competes with store bought bread. It has the right springy texture for sandwiches or toasting. To make the dough rise in the second time I sprayed saran wrap with olive oil and covered the bread. I put this into the oven that was set to the lowest setting. To help it along, I poured boiling water into a pan and place that on the rack underneath the bread. The steam/heat helps it rise better. We all really liked this bread, and I do not think I will ever buy bread again. Try it out and let me know how it worked out for you. xo,Yana.

Recipe from Bakerette.

Amish White Bread

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Prep time

1 hour 40 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

2 hours 10 mins

Author: Bakerette.com

Serves: Two 9 x 5-inch loaves

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F)
• 1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
• 5 1/2 to 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 egg yolk + 1 tablespoon water to form an egg wash (optional)
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted

Instructions

1. In a large mixing bowl, mix together sugar, yeast, milk and water. Cover and allow the yeast to activate and foam for about 5 minutes.
2. Mix in salt and oil into the yeast.
3. Using an electric mixer with a dough hook, slowly add flour one cup at a time mixing well after each addition. Tip: Spoon the flour into the measuring cup and level off. Don’t scoop or pack it in.
4. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for five minutes until dough is smooth and elastic.
5. Place in a well-greased bowl, turning once to grease the top. Cover and let rise in a lightly warmed place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
6. Punch down the dough and divide into two equal pieces. Shape into loaves and place in 2 greased 9 x 5-inch loaf pans. Cover and allow to rise in a warm place for 30 mins or until dough has risen 1 inch above pans.
7. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. With a pastry brush, lightly brush the tops of the loaves with egg wash before baking. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from pans and with a pastry brush, lightly brush melted butter immediately after so the crust stays nice and soft.

Gâteau au Yaourt (Yogurt Cake)

In continuation of baking with Jude, I have chosen for us to bake a simple but absolutely tasty french yogurt cake. This is one of the first cakes that children in France make on their own. It's really simple to make because the containers from the yogurt are used to measure out almost all of the remaining ingredients. It is really easy to make. I just supervised Jude making it and told him how many times to fill up the container with which ingredient. I didn't have the right cake pan so we put half of the dough into cupcake liners and the rest into the 6 in x 9 in pan that I did have. We ate the cupcakes before the cake and it lasted for one week wrapped. This cake has a bit of a bread consistency to it. This may have been due to a little over-mixing. It has just enough sweetness to it that makes you come back for more. To top it off I made creme fraiche from scratch. It takes 12-24 hours to be done, so make it before you make the cake. This cake really asks for something less sweet and more tart as a topping and the creme friache complemented it perfectly. Creme fraiche has a similar taste to sour cream but it's more creamy and less tart. This was my first time trying it and I really liked it. The recipe for the yogurt cake was from Mint Design Blog. Have fun making this, it's delicious. xo,Yana.

"Yogurt Cake
lightly adapted from Bringing Up Bébé, yields one 9-inch cake

2 six-ounce containers of plain whole-milk yogurt (not greek)
2 large eggs
2 containers sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 container oil
4 containers all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. aluminum-free baking powder
several dashes of sea salt

Garnish (optional)
crème fraîche, store bought or homemade, lightly sweetened
fruit, lightly sweetened with sugar to release juices (apricots pictured)
fresh mint
cacao nibs

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Line bottom of 9-inch cake pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and oil until evenly combined.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and sea salt.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Stir together until just incorporated, being careful not to overmix. Overmixing will yield a tough cake.
5. Bake for 35 minutes or until springy to the tough. The cake is naturally very white in color when baked.
6. Allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove and continue cooling on a rack. Garnish just before serving."

Weekend Bake / Fudgey Chocolate Chunk Brownies

Naaman and I are taking parenting lessons from the French. Do we know any French people? No. But I have come across some fascinating French parenting books which we have been devouring lately. And when I say French parenting books I mean American parents who firsthand have observed French parents with their children and asked them a million "what would you do" questions and received satisfying answers. They really have a completely different view of parenting and what children are capable of doing and understanding. My latest revelation is that there is no such thing as the "terrible twos" in France. According to French Twist: An American Mom's Experiment in Parisian Parenting, the author Catherine Crawford, had to explain the concept of the "terrible twos" to her French friends. One friends reply was, "Really? You have this with your children? I have never heard of this condition." The French may not have the answer to every question, but from the books I have been reading, they seem to handle parenting a lot better than us Anglophones.

One of the things that we are adopting from the French is letting Jude bake on a weekly basis. The French have a tradition of letting their children bake from a very early age. They don't just mess about in the flour, they crack eggs and make simple desserts all on their own. But there's more to it than just having a lot of cake and sweets to eat. Letting a child bake on their own is a big big lesson in patience and self-control, something that we have been having a hard time instilling in Jude. The kid has to measure out the ingredients, mix them together in the proper order and then sit and wait until the cake is done baking. The French then take this a step further by not eating it as soon as it comes out of the oven. French families more or less, follow a similar eating schedule which includes, for the kids only, a goûter - (pronounced gootay) the afternoon snack, which is served around 4 pm, coincidentally when French school gets out.  So after a child goes through the whole process of baking a sweet, they watch their mother puts it away on the counter and has to wait until 4 o'clock to actually eat it. Furthermore, mom says when they've had enough.

It's amazing to me that such a simple project can teach a child so much. And if done on a weekly basis, with goûter on a daily basis, I can see how it will have a real impact on the child. I wonder though if the French sought out to do this in the first place, or if it was a part of their culture that ended up having a positive impact on their kids. Whichever it is, I think it is brilliant. Jude had a really good time mixing these brownies, and I (surprisingly) wasn't tense about getting everything right. Probably because I am adopting another French quality, for myself, being more calm about the little things. Jude was rather proud of cracking the eggs by himself but asked me to mix up the batter when it got too stiff. He's even adjusting to the fact that we didn't eat the brownies immediately. We remind him that he can have his goûter at four zero zero, and he calms down after that. Knowing that there is going to be a sweet at some time during the day is reward in itself.

I will post a weekly update on what we bake together, or let him bake on his own. Hopefully I will be able to find enough uncomplicated recipes for Jude to have fun with. I'll also post updates on how we "Frenchify" our lives in attempt to have a happier, or dare I say, a pleasurable parenting experience. Lately I've been wanting to pull all my hair out with Jude's purposeful disobedience and over-all craziness. I am determined to banish the "terrible twos" from this house!
These brownies were delicious and really rich by the way. Try them out with your kids or by yourself. I found the recipe on Pinterest, from this website.  xo Yana.

Fudgey Chocolate Chunk Brownies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 cups chocolate chunks

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9x9 baking dish with parchment paper.
2. Beat together the butter, sugar, and vanilla in a stand mixer bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition.
3. Stir together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Mix in the baking soda.
4. Mix in the chocolate chunks with a wooden spoon or spatula.
5. Once the batter forms (it will be thick), scrape it into the prepared dish and spread evenly.
6. Bake for 25 minutes, until brownies begin to pull away from the side of the pan.
7. Serves 9-12.

Butter Cut-Out Cookies

So these cookies are amazing! This is the closest to the recipe that my mom used to make us when we were kids. They are very simple butter/sugar cookies and they have been ingrained onto my memory for forever. So eating these and realizing that they are pretty much identical to the those childhood cookies was really sweet. It's a Polish recipe and would explain why they'd be so similar to the Russian cookies that I remember.

In making these I realized that I'd like a scale for baking European recipes. They measure a lot of their ingredients in grams and converting to cups or tablespoons doesn't come out evenly. Using a scale would simplify the process very well.

The original recipe and directions can be found on White Plate's website. But I'll share my converted version with you.

Butter Cut-Out Cookies

Ingredients

11.6 tablespoons soft unsalted butter

13 tablespoons caster (baker's) sugar (I used cane sugar)

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

26.6 tablespoons flour

1 tsp aluminum free baking powder

1 tsp salt

Directions

Cream the butter and sugar until pale and mousse-like, then beat in the eggs and vanilla.

Add flour, baking powder and salt. Mix gently but surely.

Divide the dough in half, form into flat discs, wrap each half in plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for at least 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 356 F. Sprinkle a suitable surface with flour, then roll the disc out to 1/2 cm thick. Putting flour on the rolling pin helps the dough not to stick. Cut into shapes, dipping the cutter into flour as you go. Place the biscuits on the baking sheets. Bake 8-12 minutes and cool on a rack. 

Some of my cookies turned out a bit too brown and crunchy. I didn't mind because I really like crunchy cookies, but you can rotate the cookie sheet half way through, or just pull out the cookies when they have a nice gold color to them. Have fun baking these, Jude had helped me cut the shapes out. And I realized that I need to relax when I let Jude help me otherwise I get angry that he's not doing it right and he ends up playing with flour. xo Yana.