Category Archives: Tuesdays with Dorie
tuesdays with dorie / baking with julia: oasis naan
In my continuing quest to find bread recipes that fit into a working girl’s schedule, this week’s selection for Tuesdays with Dorie/Baking with Julia, Oasis Naan, fit the bill.
This is a flatbread with savory toppings. The flour canister was emptier than I expected, so I made half a recipe. Four breads would be enough for our household of two anyway.
It was easy enough to mix up and knead in the morning before work. No machinery was required for this one, a completely unplugged recipe. I stirred yeast into warm water, then added flour and salt gradually until the dough was stiff.
Dough Before Kneading
Then, I “vigorously” kneaded the dough, adding flour until it was smooth and elastic and a whole lot less sticky that when I started. I needed to add more flour than called for, but perhaps that was due to the humid weather. At that point, I set the dough in the refrigerator to rise while I was at work.
Dough After Kneading, Before Rising
After work, first thing, I took the bowl out of the fridge to warm up. Then I put my pizza stone in the oven and let it heat up to a high temperature. The dough was divided and rolled between my hands into four balls. Then, with the rolling pin, I rolled the each ball into a 6-inch disk. Each disk was moistened, and then, “with determination”, I used a fork to prick the center of each one. Finally, I sprinkled each bread with kosher salt, chopped scallions, and some seeds. The recipe gave the option of cumin or caraway. I had both on hand, so, for the first round, I made one of each I preferred the cumin, so the last two were topped with cumin seeds.
I have never mastered the art of using the floured back of a baking sheet as a baking peel. My doughs did not slide, but stuck, to the baking sheet. I had to use a spatula to help transfer. My breads lost their round shape in the process. This method also lacked precision. I was baking two at a time, and they ended up touching, both times. If you have any tips on how to make this work, I’d love to learn.
So, the verdict? I like how easy this was and enjoyed the taste. To be honest, I was a little disappointed at how puffy it was because I was expecting a flatter flatbread. Mine was more like pizza dough. Perhaps I didn’t use enough determination to flatten the center of my bread. I’ll be checking out the other links to see how to improve my technique. You can too here at the Tuesdays with Dorie “Leave Your Link” post for this recipe.
tuesdays with dorie / baking with julia: hungarian shortbread
Have I mentioned how much I love my cake dome? Along with that comes the enjoyment of making anything that I can store, prettily, on my counter, in the cake dome. This week’s selection for Tuesdays with Dorie / Baking with Julia, the new bi-weekly baking group I’m taking part in, fit that bill. Enter, the lovely Hungarian Shortbread.
I’m a huge fan of the more traditional Scottish shortbread, simple yet rich, tasting purely of its short list of ingredients. I wasn’t sure how this recipe would stack up.
Hungarian shortbread was a completely different animal than what I’ve had before. In addition to the usual butter, flour, and sugar, the recipe called for egg yolks and baking powder. This changed the texture completely. It was more like a dense cake than a cookie.
The technique was unusual as well. The dough was frozen briefly to firm it up. Then you grate it into the pan. This makes for a fluffier crumb.
Two layers of dough sandwich a tart jam in the middle. The recipe in the book included instructions for a homemade rhubarb spread, but I found a jar of rhubarb-raspberry fruit spread in the pantry, from Austria, no less. That seemed perfect to fill my Hungarian shortbread.
I’ll mention that I had a mental block to making a single pan of something that used a full pound of butter. I compromised by making a half recipe in an 8-inch square pan. No less rich, but less of it to eat. Surprisingly, I still needed to bake the smaller pan for the full 40 minutes to bring to golden brown.
I loved the look of the oodles of powdered sugar on top. Some melted, which gave it the look of a crumb cake, and I added an extra dose for fun when the cake cooled.
The suggested size for the finished cookies was 3 inch squares, which, besides not working out evenly for an 8-inch pan, seemed huge to me. I started with 2-inch squares, which I served when my friend April came over for tea. I ended up cutting the rest diagonally into triangles, which seemed like the perfect-size to me.
While these won’t take the place of Scottish shortbread in my heart, but I did like this fancy treat. I’ll definitely make it again. As an added bonus, it’s the right sort of recipe for using up the assorted jars of jam and jelly on my pantry shelves.
If you’d like the recipe, please visit this week’s hosts: the multi-talented and very funny Cher (a fellow Dorista from the Friday group) at The not so excited adventures of a dabbler… and Lynette at 1smallkitchen.
A Plateful of Happiness 