Easy Brownie On Stovetop

An easy and gooey melt in mouth  brownie recipe on stove-top!!!
Ingredients:

1. Powdered sugar- 3/4 cup
2. Eggs-2
3. All purpose flour-3/4cup
4. Cocoa powder- 1/4 cup
5. Baking powder- 1/4 tsp
6. Vanilla extract-3/4 tsp
7. Oil-1/2 cup
8. Salt-a pinch
9. Chopped white chocolate- 1/4 cup (Or use chopped walnuts or almonds)

Preparation:

• Grease a baking tray with oil and sprinkle some flour.
• Add 1 cup of salt (or sand) in a pan and put it on the stove-top on low flame.
• Place a stand above the salt and put the baking tray on top of it.
• Cover the lid of the pan and allow to pre-heat while the batter gets ready.
• Beat eggs and powdered sugar in bowl for a minute until just creamy. (no need to beat until fluffy)
• Add all the other ingredients except chopped white chocolate and beat until nicely mixed (only about a minute; don't overbeat).
• Add chopped white chocolates and mix with a spoon by folding it.
• Quickly pour the batter in to the baking tray; Cover the lid of the pan.
• Slow cook for about 45-50 minutes or until the top gets dried and have a shiny papery crust.
• Allow to cool completely; cut them in to pieces and serve with a scoop of ice cream and chocolate syrup on top.

Sourdough Bread, Perfected, I think

Kneeding bread is a good exercise. No kneed bread is fine but a little kneeding makes better bread.

IMPORTANT INFO: Using antibacterial spray on your work surfaces prior to kneeding bread will kill the yeast. It makes no difference if it's bakers yeast or sourdough.

Those of you who have been following this blog over the years will know that I have been dabbling with sourdough for quite some time. I've had lots of failures as using sourdough is not as straightforward as using yeast. Now we need a drum roll as I believe that I have it sussed.  The result is a light soft bread with a crunchy crust that is all too good to eat. I just wish that I could share it with you all.

I actually cooked this bread in a cast iron pan as this helps to steam the outside of the loaf and create this crust.

Now, it takes time to make sourdough bread but it doesn't take much effort. A little weighing and mixing and leaving is all you have to know. It's the way that you do theses things that gets the results. You can even go wild and kneed it for a bit. I promise that it will make better bread if you do.

You will need a sourdough starter.

200g (100% hydration starter) This should be active and bubbly.
250g white bread flour
250g wholemeal flour
2 or 3 level teaspoons of salt. This depends on how salty you like your bread.
260g water. I always weigh mine as it is the most accurate way of doing it.

Put everything into a large mixing bowl. Mix together vigorously.

Cover with clingfilm or a damp cloth and leave to stand at room temperature for about half an hour.
Now you will need to lift the dough on one side, pull it up as high as it will go and fold it over  the middle remaining dough. Turn the dough a quarter turn and repeat this. Repeat the turning and pulling until all four sides of the dough have been folded over the middle of the dough.

If you can't be bothered to do this, I have found that if you turn the dough out onto a clean work surface and give it a kneed for about ten minutes, it achieves the same thing.

Cover and set aside for about another half an hour and repeat either of the stages that you choose from above.

Now cover and leave at room temperature for about 12 hours. By this time your bread will have tripled in size. It's a good idea to start this dough in the late evening and leave it overningt to bake next day. This way, you won't be tempted to cook it too early.

Shape your bread and leave to at least double in size. This could take anything up to 4 hours so be prepared to wait.

When you think that your bread is about half an hour away from being ready to cook, put your cast iron pan in the oven and heat the oven to 240C.

Remove the pan from the oven pop in the bread. Slash the top return to the oven with the lid on and bake for about 45 minutes. You should remove the lid about 25 minutes into the bake. This will help to crisp the crust.

Enjoy

Pear-almond tart

I brought dessert to a party a couple weeks ago and everyone asked for the recipe, so here it is. :-)

For a 10" tart (plus some left-over pastry):

• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 125g sugar
• 250g flour
• 125g butter
• 2 or 3 ripe pears (d'Anjou or Bartlett)
• ground cinnamon
• almond powder or thin almond slivers (optional)

Prepare the pâte sablée pastry as follows:

1. Beat the egg, salt, and sugar in a large bowl, using a wooden spoon, until they become foamy and turn to a pale yellow. (Note: why use a stand mixer when you can have a free workout?)
2. Sift all the flour at once over the egg and sugar mix. Start mixing slowly with the wooden spoon, then use your fingers to mix all the ingredients. Rub small amounts of dough between your fingers or hands to turn the mix into a grainy "sand." (Pâte sablée means "sanded dough.")
3. Cut the butter into small parcels. If the butter is very cold, heat up in the microwave for a few seconds. Add to the mix and knead the dough with your hands very briefly, then form a ball. The dough should come off of your hands easily (add a little bit of flour if needed), but it remains a little sticky.
4. (If the dough feels really soft, or you are making this recipe on a hot summer day, or in a warm kitchen, you may want to cool down the dough in the fridge for a while. This step is optional.) 
5. Roll out the pie crust on floured parchment paper down to 3-4 mm in thickness. Press into the bottom of a 10" pie dish (mine is metallic). Punch a few holes in the crust with a fork.
6. Bake the crust at 350ºF (180ºC) for about 15-20 minutes. It should remain pale.

Cut two ripe, juicy pears into quarters. D'Anjou and Bartlett (Williams) work great for this. Peel and core, then slice thinly. Arrange the pear slices on the pre-baked pie crust, either in circles on in rows.

Dust with cinnamon (just a tad), then add a few tiny bits of butter and optionally sprinkle with almond powder (1-2 TBSP) or almond slivers. Bake for about 10 minutes at 350ºF (180ºC).

I brought a 10" tart to the party, but for the picture, I made the same recipe again, using my daughter's bakeware: mini pie dish, mini utensils... And we made animal cookies with the rest of the dough. They were delicious.

Plum cake

My pear cake recipe (here) works well with other fruits. Tonight, my daughter and I made a plum version of this cake with the following proportions:

• 5 ripe plums


• 4 eggs


• 180g (less than 1 cup) sugar


• 1 stick (114g) butter


• 170g (about 1 1/3 cups) flour


• 1 tsp baking powder


• 1 tsp vanilla extract


• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

We beat the eggs and sugar until foamy. We added the melted butter, then the sifted flour, then the baking powder, vanilla extract, and cinnamon, mixing well (with a whisk) while adding each ingredient.
We poured the dough in a buttered, round metal pan (the same old 10" x 2" I used in the pear cake recipe).
We placed the plums, halved and pitted, on the dough, cut side up.
We baked for about 50 minutes in a  340ºF oven.