Lye Water Bagels

Bagels always sounded like a lot of work. First you have to make the dough, then let it rise, shape, boil (!), and finally bake. And then there's the lye water, which is a separate sort of anxiety on its own. Lye is caustic and requires careful, safety-forward handling, which raises a additional barrier to being motivated enough to begin.

Happily, although there are lengthy-process recipes out there, you can absolutely make delicious bagels in only a couple of hours. I started these after breakfast, and we ate them for lunch.

I scoured around the internet for recipes, and finally hybridized the likely-looking ones into the recipe below. These are made partially with high-gluten flour, but you could as easily use only white bread flour instead. The extra gluten in bread flour helps these bagels develop their trade-mark chewiness.

These are somewhere between the aesthetics of New York style bagels and Montreal style. I make no claims to authenticity, so if you're a style hard-liner, this recipe may not be for you. If you happily eat any kind of bagel you encounter, I hope you'll give this one a try.

Lye Water Bagels

Makes 8 medium-large bagels

300 mL water, heated to wrist-warm
1/2 tablespoon honey
20 grams raw sugar
7 grams active dry yeast
10 grams salt
200 grams high-gluten or bread flour (such as German flour type 1050)
200 - 300 grams all purpose flour

For boiling:
1 tablespoon lye water* (I get mine from an Asian supermarket)
12 cups water

For baking:
Cornmeal as needed
egg wash (optional)

This dough will be a very firm one, and I caution you not to all all of the flour at once, lest you make it too firm. I was a little careless myself, and added a bit more flour than I should have. The end result was that I had a tough time shaping my bagels, and one of the hand-looped ones came apart during boiling (it was still delicious).

Pre-warm the oven so that the dough will have a nice warm place to rise.

Into a large mixing bowl, dissolve the honey and sugar in the warm water. If the water is a bit hot, let it cool until it's pleasantly warm but not hot against the wrist. Sprinkle the yeast over the sweet water, and wait until it proves itself by foaming up and smelling yeasty.

Add the 200 grams of high-gluten (or bread flour) and the salt, and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until it is nice and smooth. Add 200 grams of the all-purpose flour, and stir it in, turning it out onto the work surface eventually, to knead it all in. If needed, add the remaining 100 grams flour a little at a time until you have a stiff dough.

Knead the stiff dough for 10 minutes, either by hand or with a very sturdy stand-mixer. If you are kneading by hand and are having a tough time, clean your hands thoroughly and oil them before continuing to knead. After ten minutes, smooth the dough into a compact ball and return it to the mixing bowl, which you have cleaned and lightly oiled. Roll the dough around in the bowl so that the surface of the dough picks up some of the oil. Cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap, and let sit until the dough has doubled in size - about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 450 Fahrenheit, with a rack in the middle slot.

In a large pot (I used my Dutch oven) on the stove, heat the 12 cups of water until boiling, and then add the lye water just before you add the bagels.

While the water is heating, shape your bagels. Squeeze the excess air out of the dough, and then divide into 8 equally sized (more or less) pieces. You can shape your bagels by making a dough rope (or "snake") and looping it into a ring by wrapping it around your hand, pressing the ends together very firmly, or by making a smooth ball of dough and then forcing your thumb through the centre, gradually expanding the hole until the desired doughnut-shape is achieved. I tried both, but found the second method a bit easier than the first.


Prepare a plate or wooden cutting board with a thin layer of cornmeal. Also prepare a baking sheet with a thin layer of cornmeal for the oven stage.

When the water is boiling, add the lye water, and then immediately add 2 or 3 bagels, carefully, by hand, and time them for one minute. After the minute, turn the bagels over, and boil for one more minute. Use a spider-tool to remove the bagels from the water, onto the cornmeal-covered cutting board. Add the next bagels into the water and start the timer again.


If you want toppings on your bagels - poppy seeds, or sesame seeds, or whatever - now is the time. Brush the tops of the just-boiled bagels with an egg wash, and press them upside-down into a plate of seeds/toppings. Place the bagels topping-side-up on the baking sheet.

Move all the boiled bagels onto the baking sheet, cornmeal-side down. Bake at 450 F for 10 minutes, or until nicely browned. Allow to cool for at least 15-20 minutes before eating.


We had ours with cream cheese, of course, and a heavy grinding of black pepper.



Once completely cool, bag up and store as you would any freshly baked bread.

*I should note that I may use more lye water next time, as I couldn't find a reliable guide to how much lye water to add to my boiling water. Most instructions assume you will be using a dry form of lye, which is more concentrated. A higher concentration of lye should make for a somewhat darker colour on the finished bagel.

Southern Spoon Bread

It has been a long time since I last made Southern Spoon Bread, which is an egregious oversight. This is one of the few recipes that I still have from my teen years, handwritten on a 3x5" index card, from when I realized that I should make my own copies of all of my favourite recipes. After making it today, I'm reminded how much I like it, and what an interesting option it can make to round out a dinner. Or a breakfast. Or a snack.

Southern Spoon Bread is a kind of cornbread, or a kind of baked polenta, or maybe a kind of soufflé; maybe it's all of these things.

It is leavened solely with beaten egg*, which gives it a moist, wobbly, delicate texture when it first comes out of the oven, as well as a soufflé's tendency to deflate almost immediately. Made without wheat flour, it is naturally gluten free (check your own cornmeal supply to verify, of course, if that's a concern), and it is so tender and soft that you need a big spoon to serve it up -- it won't hold its structural integrity well enough to slice in a more conventional manner.

Southern Spoon Bread

Serves 4 - 6

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 3/4 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons butter
1 cup milk
2 eggs, separated, whites beaten to soft peaks

Preheat your oven (rack in the middle slot) to 375 F / 180 C. Butter a 2 quart capacity shallow baking dish - I used a 7x11" Pyrex dish.

Separate your eggs, putting the whites into a large-enough bowl that you can use a whisk or mixer to beat them until they are soft peaks, and setting the yolks aside into a separate small bowl.

In a medium saucepan or cooking pot, heat the water over medium heat until just simmering. Add the cornmeal in a steady stream, whisking constantly, until smooth. Add the salt and continue to whisk and cook until the mixture becomes stiff and thick. Remove the pan from the heat, add the butter and roughly half of the milk, and continue to whisk until smooth.

Add the remaining milk to the egg yolks, and whisk until smooth, and then add the yolk/milk mixture to the cornmeal mixture, and whisk it in until the mixture is completely smooth and everything is integrated.

Add the beaten egg whites to the cornmeal mixture, and fold the mixture gently with a wide spatula until the egg whites are thoroughly incorporated without any clumps. Bake, uncovered, for 30-35 minutes, or until puffed up and golden on top.

Serve immediately, spooning the bread onto individual plates.

If you have any leftover spoon bread, once it cools and sets more firmly you can slice it and fry it up in a skillet. You can serve it for breakfast (with or without syrup) or dinner alongside your main course.

*My original recipe is hardcore Southern-style, and does not call for the eggs to be separated, simply beaten well. If you choose this method, you might want to bump your oven temperature up to 400 F/200 C to ensure it puffs up nicely.

Bacon, Egg, & Mustard Scones

Breakfast muffins and breakfast biscuits have become a very dependable item for casual and fast food restaurants, and I know a surprising number of people who make them at home. Me, for example. It's a pretty easy breakfast that one can make with a minimum of fuss, although items such as bacon will of course add to the dirty dish count. Sometimes, however, you might want the convenience of a homemade biscuit without the need for actually cooking anything right at that minute. If you have a stash of these charming, bite-sized scones - where the bacon and egg and already incorporated right into the dough - you're just that much closer to the grab-and-go breakfast of your dreams.

Okay, okay. These do not fully replace the kinds of biscuits (or English muffins) stuffed with freshly-fried or scrambled egg (plus cheese and/or bacon), which of course have a different character than these scones. But they're quite satisfying, and a nice change from sweet, fruit-studded scones if that's your usual fare.

These are adapted from the Australian Women's Weekly Home Library publication "Muffins, Scones & Breads". As with the Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes, the heavy lifting here was done by my friend James, while I stuck to my moderately autocratic, slightly bossy, kitchen maven routine.

Bacon, Egg, and Mustard Scones
Adapted from Australian Women's Weekly

Makes 16 - 20

4 rashers bacon, fried, drained and crumbled
335 grams cake flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
90 grams butter
2 hardboiled eggs, finely chopped
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan, plus 2 tablespoons extra
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chives
1 tablespoon wholegrain Dijon mustard
1 cup (250 mL) whole milk

We made these in a cast iron skillet, which is pretty old school.

Preheat the oven to 450 F / 220 C. Warm your cast iron pan gently on the stovetop to take the chill of it (it should be a little warm, but not hot.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender (or a fork, or two knives, as you see fit), until the bits of butter are no larger than the size of a small-ish green pea. Add the bacon, egg, Dijon, chives, and 1/4 cup of parmesan, and stir through with a fork, making sure everything is evenly distributed.

Make a well in the centre, and pour the milk in. Stir very rapidly with a fork until it all comes together. If it is too wet, add a bit more flour until it's not quite so sticky (a little bit sticky is okay). Turn it out onto the counter. Mix with your hands, until you can gently massage it into a thick, flat dough.

Use a biscuit cutter to cut out the individual pieces (do not twist the cutter, or you will inhibit the rise of the scone as it bakes - straight up and down is the way to go). Use a knife if necessary to loosen them from the counter so you can move them into the skillet, arranging them so that they're close to each other but not quite touching. You might need to do two batches, depending on the size of your skillet.

Brush the tops of the biscuits with a little milk (or cream - not listed above), and sprinkle with the remaining bits of grated parmesan. Bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, or until tall and golden. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

Because these have meat in them, store them in the refrigerator (in a sealable bag or airtight container) after they've cooled completely. They're not a good item to hold at room temperature for long.

If you prefer them warm, pop a cooled one in the microwave for about 15 seconds.

Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes

These little darlings were adapted (extremely minimally) from Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake. I must confess, 99% of the work that went into making these was my friend James, and I mostly provided the kitchen space, air traffic control, some washing up, and (she said optimistically) engaging banter. Well, and the butter icing recipe. And some bossiness, which was part of the package deal, because I cannot shut up in the kitchen, it turns out.

The cupcakes themselves turned out very nicely, with a good texture - tender, with a nice even crumb and a desirable bit of springiness - and the recipe is quite generous, which meant we got 24 cupcakes out of a recipe originally for a single 10-inch springform pan. And, of course, a shorter baking time.

The icing in the original recipe is a cream cheese version, which I really don't care for at all (despite being a fan, generally, of both cream cheese and icing). There is literally no instance of cream cheese frosting that I think wouldn't be better served by a butter icing, and that includes carrot cake (if you must), red velvet cake, and cinnamon buns. Further, James had brought a bottle of Orange Truffle Bailey's specifically to use in the icing, and so it made much more sense to use an icing recipe whose flavours are conducive to such switch-outs.

Since James had already purchased the Union Jack muffin-tin liners, we went ahead and used those instead of my usual habit of not using liners at all in favour of butter (or canola spritz). This of course made cupcake removal from the tin a much speedier process, which helps when you are making two batches even if you have two tins. One of the cupcakes got a doubled liner, and so the flag didn't darken quite as much under the influence of the dark, wet batter, so that one was extra patriotic, I guess. Certainly a touch more photogenic.

Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes with Orange Truffle Bailey's Icing

Adapted from Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guinness Cake from Feast

250 ml Guinness (or stout of your choice)
250 grams unsalted butter
75 grams cocoa powder
400 grams plain granulated sugar
142 ml sour cream
2 large eggs, beaten well
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
275 grams cake flour (405 flour, in Germany)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Orange Truffle Bailey's Icing

This recipe can be halved for smaller batches of cupcakes

500 grams (4 cups) icing sugar
8 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
125 ml Orange Truffle Bailey's Irish Cream (or regular Bailey's, or ordinary dairy cream with a splash of vanilla, if you prefer)

Obviously, you need a good digital scale to take on this recipe. Start with a large saucepan, because otherwise you will need to transfer to a larger bowl mid-mix, as we did. Learn from our mistake!

Preheat your oven to 350 F/ 180 C. Place a rack in the middle of the oven. Place liners in the muffin wells of your 12-cup tin, or, grease the tin thoroughly if you are not using liners.

Warm the Guinness in a large saucepan, and slowly add the butter until it is all melted. Remove from the heat.

To the warm Guinness/butter mixture, whisk in the cocoa powder and the sugar, and whisk until smooth. It's a lot of sugar, but don't be scared: it's making 24 cupcakes.

Separately, mix the eggs and sour cream together until smooth, and then add the vanilla extract and beat that in well, too. Yes, it's a lot of vanilla extract - it has to stand up to some pretty intense flavours, so just go with it.

Also separately, combine the flour and baking soda, and whisk together. There's no salt in this recipe, and it doesn't appear to need it. This seems weird to me, but it turned out just fine.

To the Guinness/butter mixture, add the eggs/sour cream/vanilla mixture, and stir until just combined. Then add the flour and baking soda mixture, and carefully whisk that in until just combined, preferably using a folding motion to minimize any unnecessary gluten development. When there are no longer any streaks of flour (the mixture will be a bit bubbly from the combination of stout and baking soda, but don't worry about it), spoon the batter into the waiting liners. Don't fill them completely to the top, just about 3/4 full is perfect. You should only get half way through your batter for the first batch. If you have a second muffin tin, you can prepare it while the first tin is in the oven. If not, you'll have to wait until the first batch comes out and the cupcakes are removed before you can proceed to get the remaining batter spooned out.

Bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes. If your oven is a bit slow, they might need a smidge more - you can always test them for doneness with a strand of spaghetti or a toothpick. Or, you know, a cake skewer. If they are ready, pull them out of the oven, and as soon as they are cool enough to handle, remove them from the tin and place them on a cooling rack.

When all the cupcakes are cooked, and all have cooled to room temperature, it's time to make the butter icing.

In a medium mixing bowl, place the icing sugar, the butter, and the Bailey's (or cream and vanilla). If you have an electric mixer, use it on high until the mixture becomes a thick, spreadable icing. If you are using manpower, as we were, we found using a wooden spoon far better than a whisk for thoroughly combining everything. If the icing is too stiff, you can add a bit more liquid of your choice - more Bailey's, or more cream, until it reaches the desired consistency.

When the cupcakes are cool, cover the tops with frosting in whatever manner you like. I don't currently have a piping bag, so we simply used table knives to sort of spackle the icing onto the top of each cupcake. We probably could have added more Bailey's and made the icing a little smoother and swirlier, but these were going to be transported, and a stiffer icing seems to hold up better under those circumstances, I feel.

Hot Cross Buns

Hot Crossed Buns, or Hot Cross Buns? I guess it depends on whether you prefer a noun or an adjective. I grew up saying "Hot Crossed Buns" but now I find myself saying "Hot Cross Buns" so somewhere along the line I guess I gave way to what I hear around me.

My mother used her classic bread recipe to make these buns (with a little extra sugar), but as I've lamented before, the exact formula for that is now lost to us. Over the years, I've made a few different types, from using Challah dough to plain pizza dough, and they've been fine, but never quite what I wanted. This year, I decided to go with the classic from The Joy Of Cooking, and I'm very pleased with the results (although, next time I would use altogether more fruit, and possibly be a bit more heavy-handed in the way of spices).

In any event, these are a pleasing, not-too-sweet holiday bread that is both a perfect teatime snack as well as a charmingly festive alternative to eggs, eggs, and more eggs (which I say with love, because I adore eggs, of both poultry and chocolate varieties).

Hot Cross Buns

adapted from The Joy of Cooking

Makes 18 buns

1 cup whole milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt (coarse sea salt would be fine)
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup raisins (or any other raisin-sized dried fruit) (next time I would use 1 cup)
1/2 cup candied orange peel (or mixed peel)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (next time I would use 1/2 teaspoon)
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg (next time, 1/4 teaspoon)
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
2 tablespoons warm water (not boiling)
1 egg, beaten, plus 1 egg, separately beaten until smooth (to be used as an egg wash at the end)
2 2/3 to 3 1/2 cups flour (depending on your flour - start with the lower amount)

Scald the milk and remove from the heat. Stir in the sugar, salt, butter, raisins, peel, and spices. Let stand to become lukewarm.

While the mixture cools, in a large, warmed mixing bowl, prove the yeast by sprinkling it over the warm water. When it foams up, sprinkle a little flour over it (no more than a half-teaspoon) to keep it "fed" while the milk mixture cools down. Add the now-lukewarm milk mixture to the yeast mixture, and stir. Add the beaten egg, and stir very thoroughly to combine. Add a cup of flour and stir it through. Add another cup of flour, and stir that through. Add 2/3 cup of flour and, if that looks like enough to bring it to being a soft but manageable dough, stop there and knead it for about five minutes. If not, keep adding flour until you have a workable dough. Living in Germany, I find I often need more flour than is called for in North American bread (and cookie) recipes. When your dough has been kneaded until nice and satiny, clean the mixing bowl, oil it lightly and put the dough, covered with plastic, someplace slightly warm to rise (such as an oven with the light bulb on for added warmth).

When the dough has doubled (about an hour, but start checking after 45 minutes), turn it out onto your workspace, and divide into 18 buns. I only got 17 because I wasn't paying attention, but it works better in the pan if you have full rows, as the buns cling together as they rise. I was short one bun, so the two buns on one end didn't keep their rows straight, and they rose a little wonkily. No matter. Shape the buns into tight, smooth balls, and lay them out in either a 9x13" glass baking dish or with sides just touching on a metal baking tray, Cover with plastic, and let rise for about 20 - 30 minutes, until not-quite doubled.

Preheat the oven to 425 F / 220 C, and while the oven pre-heats, use a table knife to gently press a cross into each bun. Do each bun separately, rather than trying to score a whole row at a time; each bun deserves individual attention. Don't press too deeply - you're just creating a guideline for adding the glaze later. (Although, in some cultures, the cross lets fairies, or variously the devil, out of the dough before it's baked.)

Brush each bun lightly with egg wash, trying to keep the egg was from pooling in the crosses.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until nicely golden brown, and remove to a rack to cool.

When they've mostly cooled, glaze the crosses:

In a small bowl, put 3/4 cup powdered sugar (or icing/confectioner's sugar). Add enough lemon or lime juice to make a thick glaze. Spoon the glaze along the crosses. You can use an icing syringe for nice, smooth crosses, if you like. Be generous enough with the glaze that it flows a little over the sides of the buns on the edge, but no so much that it just runs freely all over the top of the whole batch. Again, glaze each bun individually for best effect.

Devour at will. With some tea, would be nice.

Pita Bread

My Ful Medames post included home made pita bread as a serving suggestion, so it seems reasonable to follow it up with a recipe.

Pita bread tends to be either a thick, soft, solid-piece flatbread, or a thinner bread with a pocket created by steam pressure. You could of course use either style quite handily for serving with your Ful, but this version is for the pocket-style. It is tremendously fun to watch through the door of the oven as the breads slowly inflate before your eyes into bread balloons. When you pull them out of the oven, they immediately start to deflate, leaving behind the pocket created by the ballooning effect.

This recipe is really very close to my pizza dough recipe, and you can in fact use that one (just follow the instructions here for rising and baking).

Pita Bread

Adapted from The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Rheinhart

Makes 4 large pocket-style pitas

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher or coarse sea salt
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1/2 tablespoon honey or agave syrup (optional)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup room-temperature water (plus extra)

Combine the flour, salt, and yeast in a mixing bowl. Drizzle the honey and the olive oil over the flour. Add the water gradually, stirring with a big wooden spoon (depending on your flour, you might need less than 1/2 cup or you might need more - I needed a couple of tablespoons more). When the flour and water come together into a fairly firm dough, turn it out onto a counter and knead for about ten minutes, or until smooth and silky feeling. If it is too wet (ie. sticky), add a bit more flour as you go.

Return the dough to your cleaned and lightly oiled mixing bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let stand at room temperature for about 90 minutes - the dough should double in size.

Put a large, clean, dry baking sheet in the middle of your oven, and preheat to 500 F. The pan must be very hot for the pita-pocket effect to work properly.

Turn the dough out onto the counter, and gently press the air out of it. Divide into four portions, and roll each one into a ball. Flatten each ball into a thick disk, and cover three of them loosely with the plastic wrap.

Take the remaining piece of dough, and gently roll it out until it is very thin - not paper thin, but no more than 1/4 inch thick (a bit thinner is better). This means a round of dough that is about seven or eight inches across.

Carefully peel the disk of dough from the counter, slip on an oven mitt, and place the round of dough on the oven mitt. Open the door and slap the dough onto the hot baking sheet, quickly closing the door again.

Watch through the window of your oven in astonishment as the dough rises before your eyes, becoming fully inflated in about two minutes. When it is fully inflated, let it continue cook for the slow count of ten, and then remove from the oven (using a spatula). Place the hot, puffy (and rapidly deflating!) pita on a rack to cool. If you like a bit of colour on your bread, you can simply use a spatula to flip it onto its other side instead of pulling it out right away, and let it stay in the oven for an extra ten seconds or so.

Prepare the next round of dough, and repeat, until all four pitas are cooked. Once all the pitas are done, wrap them loosely in a clean kitchen towel so that they stay soft.

Serve right away, or allow to cool completely. When completely cool, pop them into a plastic bag to keep them from drying out. If you want to use them as pockets, cut them in half, and gently pull the two sides open to fill as you wish.

Christmas Treats: Kalte Schnauze

This is one of the most beloved of all the Christmas baking of my childhood. I love the shortbread, mincemeat tarts, my sister's candy cane cookies and other classics, absolutely, but this was always the most hotly anticipated item - partially because of the chocolatey richness, and partially because my mother always made it at least three weeks before Christmas, and insisted that it took three weeks to "cure". In reality, she was merely spacing out the Christmas baking, but wanted us to leave it alone until the middle of the holiday season.

Kalte Schnauze means "cold nose" in German. By the time we got our Canadian hands on it, it was spelled "Kalter Schnautze" and I'm really not sure how it came into our holiday tradition, or who gave us the recipe. It is written out in pencil on a slip of paper that was in my mother's recipe box. It might have been our Dutch neighbour, or possibly some of the Mennonite relatives, but I do not recall; I only remember that it bumped Nanaimo Bars from the number one place in our chocolatey hearts. When I arrived in Germany, I found that it has a whole host of other names, too - Kalter Hund (Cold Dog) for example, Kellerkuchen (Cellar Cake) - presumably because you store it in a cool place - and Kekskuchen (Cookie Cake), for obvious reasons. There are versions ranging all over northern Europe, and parts of the United Kingdom, as well.

I've encountered some debate online as to the inclusion of, variously, eggs, rum, and coffee. My version has all three, and as it is a long standing family favourite, that's quite good enough for me.

One final note: the use of coconut fat is original to this recipe, and not some flavour-of-the-moment substitution. It's essential to the creamy and melting texture of the finished dessert.

Kalte Schnauze

Makes an 11x7 baking dish

225 grams solid coconut fat
2 cups powdered sugar/confectioner's sugar
1 cup cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 tablespoon instant coffee
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon rum
2 tablespoons very hot water
1 package of thin "German Social Tea" style biscuits (or Butter Kekse)

Line the baking dish with waxed paper (ensure it comes up over the sides, to make removal possible later). You can also use plastic wrap - this doesn't actually go in the oven at any point.

Pour the hot water over the vanilla extract and the rum, and let stand.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, coffee, with an electric mixer until thoroughly combined. Add the warm rum/vanilla mixture and mix again.

Melt the coconut fat over low heat. Add a quarter of the melted coconut fat to the chocolate mixture, stirring/mixing well to combine, and repeat until all of the coconut fat is smoothly integrated.

Place the bowl with the chocolate mixture over a pan of hot water, so it does not set up too fast while you are working.

Pour/scoop enough chocolate mixture into the prepared pan to just cover the bottom. Take your tea biscuits, and lay them in a single layer over the chocolate, leaving a small space between each biscuit. Top with a layer of chocolate mixture, and repeat. You should have a minimum of three layers of biscuits, as shown here, ending with chocolate on top. I used large, square biscuits for this one, but I remember using smaller, rectangular ones as a kid. The advantage of the smaller ones is that you can alternate direction of the biscuits, which results in small, creamy, bonus deposits of chocolate in the finished squares. If your biscuits do not fit nicely into your baking dish, break or cut them into smaller pieces to get full coverage. You will never be able to tell, once it's done, or if the biscuits didn't break cleanly.

The amount of biscuits you need is going to depend on the size of your pan and the size of the biscuits themselves. I've never needed more than one package of any size (and often much less than a whole package), but if you're nervous, get two.

Allow to cool completely, then cover tightly with plastic wrap and let stand someplace cool (do not refrigerate) for a couple of days before you dig in. The biscuits, so crisp when you lay them into the chocolate, soften and become quite easily sliceable after a day or two of rest in their chocolate bed.

These are very rich, so cut them small and treat them like truffles. I note that if you cut them all into squares at once, the biscuit edges will start to dry out, which you can see here. It is better to leave them in a solid piece, cutting off only the number of squares you wish to serve at any given time.

Cheese Scones

Breads are very satisfying things to make, whether slow-rising yeasted types, batter-style quick breads, or the near instant gratification of the biscuit/scone family. They're a great base for (or addition to) breakfast, the savoury ones pair wonderfully with soups or stews, and any of them can be made into a sandwich or snack with little to no effort. They are infinitely customizable in either sweet or savoury directions.

Coffee shops throughout North America all seem to offer at least one variety, but unless you luck into a place that makes its own (or it happens to be delivery day) you're likely to get something that tastes more of dry flour than whatever the signature ingredient is.

These are tender and not at all dry, and even hold up pretty well at room temperature for a few days, if you can hold out that long.

If you think they look suspiciously like my biscuits - you'd be right. The biggest change is substituting some of the milk for a beaten egg, which is also used to glaze the finished scone. The principals and the principles are otherwise pretty much the same.

Cheese Scones

Makes 8 large, or 16 small

2 cups all purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon sugar
1/3 cup butter
1 large egg, beaten
about 1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 - 2 cups grated tasty cheese (I used sharp cheddar and gouda)

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add the grated cheese, or any other additional flavourings (for example, a pinch of cayenne might be nice) at this time. Using a pastry-blender or a fork, or two knives, cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly and the little lumps of butter are about corn-kernel sized or smaller. 

In a small bowl, beat the egg. Reserving 1 tablespoon of the beaten egg in the bowl to use as a glaze later, pour the rest into a liquid-measuring cup. Add just enough milk until you reach the 2/3 cup marker.

Create a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour the milk/egg in all at once.  Hold the bowl steady and, using a fork, stir rapidly but briefly until the dough comes together in a ragged mass.  Quickly dump it out onto a clean counter, and knead very lightly and briefly until the flour is incorporated.  You may need to add a little extra flour, but probably not.  Go cautiously —— too much flour makes the dough tough. It's okay if they're a little sticky. Use a bench knife or dough scraper to lift the dough off the counter as needed.

Pat out the dough into a thick square, and slice into four squares. Cut each of the squares in half diagonally for large scones, and for small scones cut each of the large scones in half again. Try to make sure that your cuts are up and down through the dough —— don't drag the knife sideways out of the dough, or it interferes with them rising later. You can use shaped cutters, of course, if it's important for them to be uniform.

Place the scones on a lightly greased (or silpat) baking sheet, ideally far enough apart that they won't become fused together as they rise. Use a pastry brush to brush the top of each piece with the reserved beaten egg. Be sure to only brush along the tops and not spill down the sides, because that will actually inhibit the scones from rising properly as they bake.

Bake for 12 - 15 minutes, or until they have gotten tall and golden.

Strawberry Shortcake

There are generally two camps for Strawberry Shortcake lovers -- the biscuit camp and the sponge cake camp. As you can see here, I clearly fall into Camp Biscuit. In fact, it was not until I was in my late teens that I learned about the sponge cake variation. It sounded good, but was a little disappointing when I tried it. Sponge cake gives you a much softer overall dessert -- easily made in advance, and easily sliced and portioned for a crowd, for sure -- but the firmer, yet still tender, biscuit gives each serving of this dessert an individual, more impressive character: each biscuit becoming a small work of art assembled for each guest. The crisply sweet finish on the golden top crust, the squish of the top of the biscuit descending into the tender interior of whipped cream and macerated berries, feel more decadent to me.

The biscuit method for Strawberry Shortcake is almost laughably easy: make your favourite drop-biscuit dough with an extra teaspoon of sugar per cup of flour, and before baking brush the tops with cream and sprinkle with a little more sugar.

If strawberries are not your thing, plenty of other fruits also work beautifully: raspberries, or peaches, or my all-time favourite, the tiniest possible blackberries.

Strawberry Shortcake

Serves 4

Berries:

3 - 4 cups sliced strawberries
2 tablespoons sugar

Toss the strawberries with the sugar and refrigerate, covered, for a couple of hours, stirring once or twice.

Shortcake Biscuits:

1 cup pastry flour
2 teaspoons sugar, plus extra to finish
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons butter
7 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon cream

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender (or use your usual method, if different), and set aside until you're ready to bake the biscuits, say... just after dinner.

Preheat the oven to 450 F, and lightly grease a baking sheet. Make a well in the flour mixture and add the milk all at once. Stir rapidly with a fork until it becomes a sticky dough without streaks of dry flour. Drop in four equal spoonsful to make four biscuits on your baking sheet. Lightly press the biscuit into shape, flattening the top slightly if necessary. Brush the tops with cream and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes, or until risen and golden brown. Allow to cool slightly before assembling, so that the whipped cream doesn't melt.

Whipped Cream:
Whip 3/4 cup of cream with a teaspoon of sugar and a quarter teaspoon vanilla extract (or use vanilla sugar), until you have stiff peaks.

To assemble:

Use a fork to separate the biscuits into top and bottom halves. Spoon whipped cream onto the bottoms, top with berries, then another dollop of whipped cream before perching the lids on top. Serve immediately.

Dutch Baby, aka Popover Pancake

Wow, there's a lot of names for this one. In addition to Dutch Baby and Popover Pancakes, they are also called Dutch Puffs, Puff(ed) Pancakes, Oven Pancakes, and German Pancakes, although they don't seem much like the pfannkuchen I've seen so far here in Germany. Probably a few other names that I've missed, too. It is essentially the kissing cousin of Yorkshire Pudding (minus the dripping), and is frequently served drenched in butter, and/or preserves or syrups. You know, like pancakes. A fan of the classics will want to top it with lemon juice and confectioner's sugar. Lunatics like me might periodically tend toward toppings such as thick fruit yoghurt (or breakfast fruit Quark), or peanut butter (either you'll find that sounds delightful or abominable, I'm afraid. I go one further, and add syrup on top of the peanut butter). Some versions call for laying apples in caramel on the bottom, before the batter goes in, or simply laying the apple slices on top of the batter before it goes into the oven. Those are pretty good, too.

That being said, you could certainly just fill the otherwise empty crater of the finished pancake with sausages and fried onions, and I wouldn't turn that down, either.

Pancake politics aside, these are breathtakingly easy to make. If you've got a cast iron skillet, all the better, as this is cooked at high heat (notorious enemy of non-stick and plastic handles). A steel skillet should also work pretty well. I've used my 10 3/4 inch cast iron skillet for this one.

Dutch Baby
Serves 2

3 large eggs (at room temperature)
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup whole milk
pinch kosher salt
2 tablespoons butter

In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk until smooth. Add the flour slowly, whisking as you go, until it is all blended together. Add the milk and the pinch of salt, and continue to whisk until smooth. Set aside to rest while you preheat the oven.

Preheat the oven (rack in the middle) to 425 F. At the same time, preheat your cast iron skillet over medium heat on the stove-top (you could preheat it in the oven, but then the butter might burn when you add it). When the oven is fully preheated, and the skillet is nicely hot, but not smoking, add the butter, and swirl it around so that it is completely melted, and evenly coats the bottom of the pan.

Scrape the batter all at once into the hot, buttered skillet, and immediately place the skillet in the oven. Do not cover the skillet. Bake until the pancake has puffed up like a popover, and the edges are browned and start to pull away from the pan. This should take about 15 minutes, depending on your oven, so keep an eye on it. This time could be put to excellent use frying up some bacon.

Once the edges are nicely golden brown and puffed, remove the pancake from the oven and serve it up hot.

Note that this is not a soufflé, or a true popover. The middle will begin to deflate a bit as soon as it comes out of the oven, giving a softer, more sponge-like texture to the interior of the finished pancake.

Bacon Cheddar Cauliflower Quiche

Good news! My kitchen has now arrived from Canada. Some attrition, unfortunately - my mother's ceramic bread bowl did not make it in one piece, my Lagostina Dutch Oven arrived misshapen and with a dented lid, and my 8" square tempered glass pan was shattered into fragments. The spider was bent out of shape (but has now been bent back into shape, more or less), and the plastic smoothie-blending cup was also broken. Sigh. The packers appear to have had no concept of load shift.

So now, I get to reassemble my spice collection, purchase some staple items (flour, cornstarch, yeast, baking powder, live herbs for the window sill in the kitchen, for example), draft some dinner menus, get cooking, and take some pictures!

In the meantime, please consider this delightful quiche as a brunch option:

Bacon Cheddar Cauliflower Quiche

You will need:

- Your favourite pie crust, lining the pie plate of your choice (this one is a small, six-inch (?) pie plate).
- crisply cooked bacon, crumbled finely, enough to cover the bottom of the pastry
- a layer of grated cheddar
- enough cooked cauliflower to loosely cover the layers below it (make sure the cauliflower is not wet)
- another layer of grated cheddar
- a royale mixture (eggs beaten with milk, seasoned with salt, pepper, Tabasco sauce, any any other seasoning you like)

For a 9" quiche I use a royale made from 3 eggs and 2/3 cup of 1% milk, but you can use any set-custard ratio that pleases you, sized for whatever pan you are using.

Pour the royale carefully over the other ingredients so that they maintain their positions. If you like a golden, glossy crust, dip a brush in the royale and carefully brush a little over the exposed upper portion of the crust.

Preheat your oven to 350 F and bake for 45 to 50 minutes (for a full sized quiche, a bit less for a smaller one - start checking at 30 minutes), or until the crust is golden and the filling is slightly puffed and firmly set. Allow to stand for 5 minutes before cutting, for easiest removal.

Here it is "in the raw", just before it went into the oven:

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Bacon Fat Biscuits

I'm not sure, but this might encompass all of the above principles: reduce the amount of groceries purchased (no extra purchase of solid fat for baking); reuse the fat drained from cooking bacon; recycle the fat into an entirely different dish. Okay, those last two are kind of similar, but I'm giving it points because the re-use is not for the same dish or type of cooking, and because it's actually incorporated into the recipe as opposed to simply being a cooking medium (the usual fate of reused fats, if I'm not mistaken). It's economical and delicious!

The biscuits shown above were made with unstrained bacon fat, which is why they are a bit flecked in appearance. To get a less speckled effect, you can strain the fat through a fine sieve (or possibly cheesecloth) to get a more homogenous, lard-white colour. I also was using (solid) bacon fat that was a little on the soft side, which actually seems to inhibit rising a bit; these could be taller.

You can do a straight-up substitution of whatever butter/lard/shortening etc. that you currently use for biscuits, but if you don't have a biscuit recipe, here's one to try:

Bacon Fat Biscuits

Makes 9 biscuits, or tops an 8 - 12 inch pot pie, depending on how thick or thin you want your topping.

Total prep and cooking time: 25 minutes

2 cups all purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons sugar
1/3 cup rendered bacon fat, in solid form (chill until firm)
3/4 cup milk - I use 1% milk

Preheat the oven to 450 F.

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the dry ingredients - to be fair, I don't really sift, I aerate them with a whisk, but do whichever pleases you most. Add raisins, herbs, cheese, or any other additional flavourings at this time. Using a pastry-blender or a fork (and a lot of patience) cut in the bacon fat until the mixture is crumbly and the little lumps of fat are about corn-kernel sized. If your bacon fat is frozen hard, you can do this step in a food processor fitted with a metal blade.

Create a well in the middle of the mixture and pour the milk in all at once. Hold the bowl steady and, using a fork, stir rapidly and briefly until the dough comes together in a ragged mass. Quickly dump it out onto a clean counter, and knead very lightly and briefly until the flour is incorporated. You may need to add a little extra flour, but probably not. Go cautiously - too much flour makes tough biscuits.

Pat out the dough into a rough rectangle, and slice into the size of biscuits that you want. Place them on an ungreased cookie-sheet and bake for 12 - 15 minutes, or until they have gotten tall and golden.

If you are using the biscuits as a topping for pot pie, pat out the dough into the shape and size of your stew-pot. Stab the biscuits with a fork to make a few air-holes, and lift the entire thing (no cutting necessary) onto the bubbling hot stew. Place in the 450 F oven, and bake uncovered for about 25 minutes. It does take longer when the biscuit is cooked over a stew.

Bonus Tip: freeze your bacon drippings in a spare measuring cup until you have enough, or create a form out of tinfoil wrapped around your 1/3 cup measure, and store it (covered) in the freezer until it is full.

These would be awesome for Biscuits and Gravy, don't you think?

You can use the same technique to make pie crust, of course. Some of my friends will remember the potluck to which I brought sour cherry pie with a bacon fat crust, the leftovers of which were served with my friend Rodney's homemade gelato for breakfast.

Refrigerator Triage: Salsa Pie

You know when you have that bit of salsa left over, but no tortilla chips or even tortillas? Sure, you might just throw it on a cheese sandwich, make an omelette, or even just pop it into the freezer, but you should also know this: it makes a wonderful ingredient for savory pie.

So, this is one of those lazy posts where I'm really giving you more of a serving suggestion than a recipe.

You will need pastry for a double crust pie - such as this tried and true pie crust recipe:

Double Pastry Crust
for a 8 or 9" pan

1 1/2 cups all purpose (unbleached) flour
1/2 cup butter
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon vodka
4 tablespoons cold water

Place the flour in the bowl of a small food processor fitted with a metal cutting blade. Add the pinch of salt and the butter (cold is best) in chunks, and pulse until well mixed, and the butter is in pieces no larger than a piece of confetti. Add the vodka and the water, all at once, and pulse again, continuing to pulse until the dough comes together and pulls away from the edge of the bowl. If the dough won't come together, try adding a tiny extra spritz of water. Dump the dough onto your lightly floured work surface, and, as quickly as possible, shape it into a couple of flat discs. Chill the dough for 10 minutes, then roll out as needed.

For the pie filling, this is my usual method:

Fry up some finely diced onion and protein of your choice - here I've used lean ground beef, but you could use any ground meat or analogue you want. Add a little stock to enrich the taste if you like, otherwise just use a bit of water (about a quarter cup). Season the meat to taste with cumin, garlic, oregano, and ground chiles. If your salsa is not very salty, and if your beans are unsalted, you might want to add a little bit of salt now, too.

Add about 400 mL cooked beans - here I've used black beans, but you could use kidney, canellini, pinto, even re-fried beans, if that's what you have. If you mash about a third of the (whole) beans, that helps hold the filling together at the end, when you're slicing the pie. You could also sprinkle a little flour over the meat mixture as it fries, to thicken it (or use a slurry - I won't judge). In goes anything else you think would be good. We always have chiles, so in go a few chopped chiles, we usually have frozen corn, so in goes some of that, and at last, the salsa goes in to tie everything together. A cup of salsa is a good amount, but if you don't have that much, don't worry.

Once everything is well combined, and you've tasted it and adjusted the seasonings to your preference, set it aside and roll out your pie crust. Put the filling in (it doesn't need to cool down) and make sure it's evenly distributed (a low dome in the centre is nice), cover and seal the edges in the manner you like best, slit the top in a few places, and then bake at 450 F for 25 minutes, turning it down to 350 F for another 10 minutes or so, until the crust is completely golden top (and bottom, if you're using a glass pie plate, it's easy to check).

Let the pie stand for about 10 to 15 minutes before slicing. While the pie rests, you can make a nice salad to go with, like the purple cabbage buttermilk slaw in the picture.

Still got extra salsa left? Serve it on the side!

PS: Want a vegetarian version? Use your favourite vegetarian pie crust, and use brown lentils in place of the ground beef (the same method as you would use for lentil tacos, for example), or a combination of brown lentils and barley or bulgar wheat. You may want to mash a few more of the beans, to ensure the filling holds together in the end (rather than spilling all over the plate, leaving a sad, deflated crust).

Rolled Oat Bread

I love the smell, taste, and texture of fresh bread. I also love the satisfaction that comes with the dramatic transformation of water, grain, salt, and oil into a glorious new form that somehow connects us back through generations untold. Sure, we have some fancy equipment to make the process easier, now, but if you want, you can still easily do the whole process old-school; the satisfaction is there either way.

This loaf of bread uses wheat flour, but also relies heavily on rolled oats for its mass. This makes for a bread that is a bit lower on the glycemic index than a straight wheat flour bread, if that interests you. It also makes for a heartier, more filling bread, which is excellent either for toasting in the morning (or whenever you toast your bread), or for sandwich making. It's sturdy enough to provide a mighty raft for baked beans or fried eggs, or whatever else you might like to pile on it. It's delicious enough that it can be eaten purely on its own (or, for those inclined, with a skim of butter). The crumb is airy and tender, but with a little chew from the oats. It also has a slightly dark note from the use of walnut oil. You can make it even healthier by using stoneground whole wheat flour in place of the unbleached white.

There is a lot of rising time for this bread, which is part of the reason for the wonderful flavour. So plan to make it on a day when you don't need to be out and about (although you can dash out briefly, if needed, in some of the rising phases). You will note the fairly small amount of yeast required to make two big loaves - this is because "the longer the rise, the less yeast you need". Economical!

Rolled Oat Bread
Adapted from Breadtime Stories by Susan Jane Cheney

Makes 2 Loaves
Time commitment: 6 - 7 hours

3 cups water
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons walnut oil (or toasted sesame oil)
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
5 1/4 cups unbleached wheat flour

Boil 2 cups of water and pour over the oats. Stir in the salt and oil, and let cool to room temperature while you make the sponge.

Heat 1 cup water until lukewarm, and place in a big preheated mixing bowl. Sprinkle with a tablespoon of flour, and mix well. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and wait 15 minutes for the yeast to prove.

If/when the yeast proves, add a cup of the flour and beat the mixture at least a hundred strokes. Set in a draft-free area, covered, and let a sponge develop - about 50 - 60 minutes. I put it inside the oven (with the oven light on, if it's a chilly day).

Combine the oat mixture and the sponge. Add the rest of the flour (or as much of it as needed to make a dough), and knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into a large ball, and place in a large oiled bowl to rise for about 2 hours. (this is your one opportunity to run out of the house, should you need to). Press the air out of the dough, and let it rise again, this time for just 1 hour. Press the air out again, shape into loaves, place in oiled bread pans, and let rise until the dough has not-quite doubled (about 45 minutes). Let the bread rise on the countertop, during which time you can pre-heat the oven to 350 F with the rack in the middle. If you like, brush the tops of the loaves with an egg wash, or rub them with a little of olive oil.

Bake the loaves for about 60 minutes, until the loaves are brown, with firm sides, and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. De-pan the bread onto racks and let them cool completely before bagging up to store. Leave the loaves for at least 15 minutes after they come out of the oven before slicing (I'm assuming that you won't be able to resist having some warm, fresh bread, because I never can).

Coconut Lime Muffins

I won't lie to you - these are essentially a superficial retread of my Lemon Ginger Muffins. Because I was kind of bored, I also added some soaked zereshk (barberries) to these, which works really well with the Lemon Ginger ones. It was okay, but was ultimately a distraction from the coconut-lime combination. I'll leave 'em out, next time. Also, next time I will probably add a topping of toasted coconut, too, for pretty's sake.

Coconut Lime Muffins

Makes 12 regular-sized muffins

2 limes, zest and juice
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup coconut yoghurt (I used Liberte's Mediterranée Coconut, but you could use plain Greek-style yoghurt)
1/4 cup canola oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat oven to 400 F degrees.

Grease the bottoms only of a 12-cup regular sized muffin tin (or spritz with canola spray).

Mix the coconut milk, yoghurt, and lime juice, and let stand. If your limes are particularly large and/or juicy, you might only need the juice of one. You want about 3 tablespoons of juice, optimally.

Peel the zest from the lime using a vegetable peeler (long strips). Put the zest pieces into a food processor with the sugar, and pulse until the zest is finely chopped into the sugar. Add the egg, oil, vanilla, and coconut milk mixture, processing after each addition until smooth.

In a separate bowl, stir together flour, shredded coconut, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour the contents of the food processor in all at once. Stir rapidly with a fork until any dry bits are gone. Don't worry about small lumps, though, the batter doesn't need to be smooth. Divide the batter between muffin cups. If you like, sprinkle a teaspoon of streusel topping or toasted coconut over each muffin before baking (not pictured here).

Bake in preheated oven for about 15-18 minutes. Let stand in pan for five minutes, then run a knife blade around the edges to loosen each muffin so that you can remove them to wire racks for cooling.

Store cooled muffins in a sealable container in the fridge to keep them fresh. You can also wrap them individually in plastic and freeze. Reheating a muffin for 10 seconds in the microwave works beautifully, and makes them taste oven-fresh, or as we say "freshly killed".

Yorkshire Puddings

Yorkshire puddings are essentially a simple popover that has been flavoured with the drippings of the roast that they are made to accompany. They are airy, eggy, and made a perfect vessel to drunkenly cradle a gravy payload, half of which seeps slowly into the rest of your plate (and, if you're lucky), particularly your potatoes.

The batter is remarkably like crêpe batter. The only difference, really, is that instead of putting any fat in the batter, you place it in the cups of the popover/muffin tin before adding the batter. Well, and they're cooked in a very, very hot oven, as opposed to over a medium-ish flame on the stovetop. But enough about crêpes.

Yorkshire puddings are also somewhat terrifying for a lot of cooks - not because they're difficult, but because they require precise adherence to the rules, or they will come out as sad, dense little muffin-pucks. Some cooks claim that it's best to make the batter a bit ahead and let it rest - something about rehydrating the flour, I think - and I always do, simply for convenience. Here are the rules that make all the difference:

1) Preheat the empty popover or muffin tin. Preheat the hell out of it. I like to put mine into the oven 15 minutes before the roast is due to come out, and then leave it in when I crank the temperature up so that it will be ready to cook the popovers. That baby is hot! If you omit this step, all is lost. Have a dinner roll instead.

2) Preheat the fat. Once the roast is out of the oven, whether you are using roast drippings for a proper pud, or vegetable oil, or some leftover chicken fat that you've got stashed in the freezer (looks at ceiling, whistles to self), get the fat into the blazing hot pan...and put the pan back in the oven, for at least a few minutes, and put the overhead fan on high. If you omit this step, the pan and fat will not be hot enough, and all is lost. Have a dinner roll instead.

3) Add the batter quickly to the hot fat in the cups. Use a pouring jug with a spoon drip-catcher for maximum efficiency (actually, true maximum efficiency suggests that you would have your batter standing by in a squeeze bottle with a large bore opening, but unless you have such a pancake dispenser sort of setup, a jug with a lip (such as a big measuring cup) is your best bet). If you omit this step, the pan will cool down too much, and all is lost. Have a dinner roll instead.

4) Get the tin back into the oven pronto! Do not open the oven door until the puds are cooked - or at least 15 minutes have gone by. If you omit this step, all is lost. Have a dinner roll instead.

5) Marvel at how beautifully risen and crazy tall your popovers are, and serve right away.

A note about using vegetable oil instead of drippings or schmaltz - for the love of dinner, please use something with a really high smoke point, or you will fill your kitchen with acrid burnt-fat smell, and...and all is lost. Have a dinner roll instead.

So...here's the recipe. I really do measure the flour by weight, but if you don't, it's approximately a scant cup of sifted flour)

Yorkshire Puddings

Makes 12 regular-muffin sized

115 grams flour
3 eggs
285 mL 1% milk
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons fat (roast dripping, schmaltz, or high-smoke-point oil)

Whisk the eggs, flour, salt, and milk together until smooth to make your batter. Pour the batter into a jug, and let it sit for 30 minutes before you use it.

See the critical steps listed above, or this abbreviated version: Turn your oven up to 475F, and place a dry 12 cup muffin tray in the oven to heat up for at least 5 minutes (or however long it takes the oven to get up to that temperature).

Place 1 teaspoon of fat in each muffin hole, and put the tray back into the oven and heat until fat is very hot, at least another 5 minutes.

Extract the muffin tin and carefully (and quickly!) pour the batter into fat in the muffin cups - only half-fill each cup. This bit kind of looks gross, because the fat swirls all around the batter. That's fine; it's supposed to.

Close the door and cook for 15 minutes without opening the oven door, reduce heat to 350 F and bake for another 5 - 10 minutes, or until golden.



If you have leftover puds, try them for breakfast, gently re-heated and filled with jam, or cheese, or even scrambled eggs! If the exterior is a little squidgy from sitting overnight, blot well with paper towels before heating/filling. They lose their crispness, but they are still delicious.

Khachapuri: Georgian Cheese Bread

There are quite a number of types of khachapuri, and this one is generally referred to as Ajarian (Acharuli/Adjaruli). There are also round Imeruli, kubdari (which also contains meat), Megruli (which has extra cheese on top), Ossuri (also contains potato), and many other intriguing looking variations.

I'd been wanting to try this for ages. As a lifelong fan of all combinations of bread and cheese, and as someone who enjoys a nice eggy filling, in retrospect it's kind of a surprise that it took me this long.

I usually bring freshly made bread to housewarming events. However, I had been eyeing a few recipes with intent* prior to my friend Lisa's housewarming / birthday party, and decided that this Khachapuri recipe (from Everyday Russian) was the perfectly over-the-top bread to bring to the a housewarming party that was also a celebration of a significant birthday.

* When I say "with intent", you can imagine the same sort of intent that a kitty has, when crouched low, eyes fixed on target, and tail twitching with increasing agitation. That kind of intent.

So, in order to prevent myself from chickening out at the last moment, I told everyone that this is what I would bring. And so, I did. Here's the various stages of first-time Khachapuri-making, in pictures:

Mix up the dough (link for recipe) and let it rise - the dough is quite similar to a rich challah dough, full of egg and quite yellow (although, that may depend on your eggs):

Meanwhile, mix up the filling of cheese (I used a combination of grated full-fat mozzarella and crumbled feta), butter, and hard-boiled eggs, mashing everything together into a crumbly mass:

Divide risen dough into four pieces.

Roll out one piece of dough into a large circle, as though you were making a thin pizza crust, and cover the dough with a quarter of the filling, leaving a bare dough perimeter.

Beginning at the near side, start to roll the dough up over the filling, as though you were making a jelly-roll. Stop rolling just before you get to the middle:

Beginning from the far side, roll the dough up over the filling, again stopping before you get to the middle, so that there is a little window of filling:

Pinch and fold the unrolled ends to make a little boat shape:

Place the boats on a foil-lined baking sheet, and let rise for another 20 minutes or so (this step seems to be missing from the original recipe), then brush with beaten egg so that the finished bread will have a shiny golden brown glaze to it:

Bake at 425 F for approximately 20 minutes, or until puffed, golden, and delicious looking.

I failed to take a close up of one of the breads once it was sliced and ready to serve at the party, but I can say with confidence that they were very well received indeed, and definitely take a place of pride as a fun and somewhat unusual (in these parts, at least) item to bring to any event. I'm quite keen to make this again, hopefully soon. I might even devour them all myself!

Apparently, in many places there is a further step of sliding a raw egg into the middles, and putting them back in the oven until the egg is cooked to your liking. This seems to be a breakfast iteration, and is very popular in cafes - which makes perfect sense, as someone else gets to get up early to make the dough. I imagine you could cobble together some sort of advance preparation and hold them in the fridge until ready to cook, but frankly even the idea of that makes me a little nervous, and would take up a lot of precious real estate in my tiny fridge. Perhaps some of the more adventurous bread bakers out there can let me know if they've had success with such a method.

Banana Pineapple Muffins

It wouldn't be wrong to say that these muffins are the flavour of my childhood.

I don't know where my mother got the recipe for these, or what she might have done to any original recipe she might have been working from. "A recipe is an excellent place from which to depart" was pretty much her battle cry in the kitchen. We made all manner of variations on this, though. Very strict naming protocols do apply: if you leave out the banana, for example, it becomes Un-Banana Pineapple Muffins. If you decide to make a tea loaf instead of muffins, they become Banana Pineapple Un-Muffins. I even recall a singular day when we had Un-Banana Un-Pineapple Un-Muffins. I think my father might have been suspicious as to what exactly was still in those ones.

These are a homely little muffin - not winning any beauty pageants, but a solid coffee/tea/snack break workhorse and (clocking in at about 200 calories per) for far fewer calories than even the driest of coffee-chain muffins. Pep them up with a 15 second blast in the microwave after the first day.

Banana Pineapple Muffins

Makes 12 regular sized muffins

3/4 cup golden sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 egg
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup crushed pineapple, drained
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt (I use Kosher salt)

Mix ingredients in order given, being careful not to over-mix. Spoon batter into lightly spritzed muffin cups.

Bake at 350-375 F for about 20 minutes, and use a toothpick test for doneness (an inserted toothpick should come out clean). If you like, add a little nutmeg or cinnamon to the batter and sprinkle some on top as well, before baking.

My sister reports that adding two (heaping) tablespoons of cocoa powder and a quarter cup of large flake coconut makes a wonderful variation, and I'm looking forward to giving that one a whirl myself.

Coconut Friands

These were the sleeper hit of the season!

I generally tend to have dried coconut around the house - it's wonderful in a lot of baked goods, perks up a bowl of oatmeal, and makes a nifty sambal or chutney. A spoonful in a choco-banana smoothie almost turns a breakfast beverage into a party single handedly.

For all of that, I don't often feature coconut in all of its glory all that often. Sure, I've made the odd macaroon in my day, who hasn't? People like coconut macaroons. But! I suspect that people would probably like coconut friands even better.

I found this recipe on the delightful Girl Cooks World blog, where she subtitles them "little coconut tea cakes", which is a very good description to highlight the differences between friands and macaroons. She also differentiates them from the potentially related financiers, for which she also has a few recipes (and boy, they look good!).

These are gluten free (Girl Cooks World is quietly, entirely gluten free), which makes them an excellent treat to take to festive occasions where such bounty might be thin on the ground. Your gluten-free friends will be delighted, and so will anyone else who tries them. I halved the recipe, with excellent results (as listed below), but you can certainly "double" it again to get 24 lovely little cakes. Don't worry, they won't have a chance to get stale.

Coconut Friands

Makes 12 mini tea cakes

2 large egg whites
3/4 cup finely shredded unsweetened dried coconut
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons superfine rice flour
1 1/2 tablespoons potato starch
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
4 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Spritz a 12-whole mini muffin tin with cooking spray, generously. Set aside.

Whip the egg whites until smooth and frothy, but not stiff. Add each of the remaining ingredients, in order, stirring well with a spatula between each addition.

Divide the batter between the muffin-cups. Bake for 17 - 20 minutes, or until the edges are tinged with gold. Remove from the oven, and carefully invert over a rack. A quick tap on the bottom of the pan should remove any stragglers, or you can use a little fork to help lift them out. Re-arrange so they are all right-side-up, and allow to cool at room temperature. Dust with confectioner's sugar, if you like.

Excellent, hot or cold.

Next time I make these, I plan to add a little lime zest in with the sugar. Doesn't that sound delightful?

Artichoke & Feta Quiche

Perhaps you recall back in December 2010, when I reviewed a cookbook called Cook This, Not That! (subtitled "Easy & Awesome 350 Calorie Meals") by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding on my (sadly neglected) other blog "Much Ado About Diet" or the other recipes that I have made since then, either straight from the book, or somewhat adapted therefrom. In fact, it should be noted that many of the recipes that I've made from the book (each one a success) which haven't made it onto the blog are simply because either a) the photos were crummy, and I need to take better ones next time, or b) I am a lazy blogger who sometimes forgets that I haven't already written them up.

This recipe is not from that book. This recipe is from the other Cook This, Not That! cookbook by the same duo, subtitled "Kitchen Survival Guide." As a test recipe, it was a big hit, and I'll definitely be making it again (or other versions inspired by this one). In the spirit of "use what you have", I substituted thick-cut dry cured bacon for the recipe's turkey or chicken sausage, and, not having any frozen pie crust hanging about, I used my mother's basic recipe for a simple pastry shell. Since I knew I would be making this on Sunday, on Saturday I mixed up the crust, rolled it out, and stuck it (in the pie pan) in the fridge overnight.

Artichoke, Feta & Bacon Quiche
(Adapted from Cook This! Not That! Kitchen Survival Guide)

Serves 6

3 large eggs
1 cup 1% milk
3 canned artichoke hearts, drained, chopped, and squeezed dry
60 grams feta (I use sheep feta)
2 tablespoons sundried tomatoes, chopped
4 slices of thick bacon, fried until crisp and well drained

While the oven is preheating to 350℉, chop and cook the bacon, and set aside. Mix the eggs and milk together until smooth. In an unbaked pie crust, arrange the chopped artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, bacon, and crumbled feta for even distribution. Pour the egg and milk mixture over the filling, and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the filling is slightly puffed and firmly set. Allow to stand for 5 minutes before cutting, for easy removal.

Next time I do this, I will at the very least add some snipped chives or fresh parsley or basil (or chile flakes!) to the the mixture, I think, but it was very good on its own, too. We finished the individual slices with black pepper and a tiny drizzle of truffle oil.

I was using paler-yolked eggs than I usually do, so the quiche was rather lighter-coloured than my quiches ordinarily are. I imagine that if you use orange-yolked eggs you will have a more golden quiche.

For those of you who don't have a frozen pie crust lurking about, and would like an easy one to make yourself, here's mine:

Single Pastry Crust
for a 8 or 9" pan

3/4 cup all purpose (unbleached) flour
1/4 cup butter
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon vodka
1 1/2 tablespoons cold water

Place the flour in the bowl of a small food processor fitted with a metal cutting blade. Add the pinch of salt and the butter (cold is best) in chunks, and pulse until well mixed, and the butter is in pieces no larger than a piece of confetti. Add the vodka and the water, all at once, and pulse again, continuing to pulse until the dough comes together and pulls away from the edge of the bowl. Dump it out and massage the dough, as minimally as possible into shape. Chill the dough for 10 minutes, then roll out as needed. This recipe can be doubled to make a double crust pie.

The recipe was published as containing 250 calories per slice. My bacon-y adaptation with a freshly made crust (and using 1% milk instead of 2%) clocked in at 237 calories (based on an online recipe calculator), so at least I didn't damage the healthiness of the recipe with the few adjustments that I made.