Za'atar Dinner Rolls

It's a bold statement, but I think my all-time favourite spice mix is Za'atar. I think I've obsessed over this since encountering it for the first time in Beirut last year (oh, travel eating.. how you are missed). It's thyme, it's sesame, it's herby and nutty and a little bit tangy and I found it in Morrison's spice aisle so it isn't unknown to the UK!

I add it to every pizza dough I make, I throw it into any meat I marinade for a shawarma meal, and I haven't made a loaf without it since finding some. In lockdown, this is what I stockpiled. I am obsessed.

When I saw these little za'atar rolls, I pretty much made them for dinner the following day. 

So good. Make them now.

Japanese Milk Bread Loaf

Okay I hope you lovely people are finding yeast because you have to try making this bread.

This dough is obscene. It’s silky and smooth. It is a dream to work with and cooks like a dream. This reminds me of a brioche dough, but with a traditional roux starter, or tangzhong.

Peaking on my little resting dough babies

This is a little time consuming but really is my ideal way to spend a weekend. It would also make amaaaazing French toast which is a great Sunday brunch food.

No Knead Bread

I’m going to make a confession. I really like kneading bread. I don’t understand when people want to do less kneading.

Maybe I LIKE the misery..

So I’ve always ignored these no knead recipes. But I got sucked in the other day, browsing bread recipes in lockdown, as we all are. I saw some pictures of some bread that just had the best crust and looked artisan-bakery perfection.

Can't argue with that crust

It was no knead. I gave it a go.

And it turned out GREAT. The best part is that it takes almost no time to prep the dough, then you can leave it in the fridge for up to 7 days before baking! This means I can have fresh bread in the morning. Don’t underestimate how wonderful that is.

The secret of the crust is the steam generated from cooking it in a pre-heated lidded dish. Magical.

Za'atar Tear and Share Bread

I’ve definitely waxed lyrical about za’atar before – it’s an incredible spice mix that I first had, smeared on fresh flatbread, in Beirut. When I travel, my souvenirs are food related. I love exploring the cuisine of new places and then trying to recreate it at home.

And I love bread. But I find flatbread difficult. Enter, the simple and delicious tear and share loaf, made in a bundt cake tin. Now I’ve mainly seen sweet recipes for this kind of bread (cinnamon, caramel etc) but the savoury one piqued my interest.

The bread kind of got away from the too-small pan

I served it with falafel and some gyros-style chicken but it would be great as a snacky dinner centrepiece with an onion-garlic dip.

Steamed BBQ Pork Buns - Char Sui Bao

PERFECT

This takes quite a bit of prep but it’s super delicious and worth it. Luckily I have time on my hands and a recipe I’ve been dying to try. Normally I’d go out for dumplings and bao once a month, so I’m feeling the lack of it in my life.

I haven’t gone super traditional with the pork for the filling, usually it would be made with roasted pork shoulder. I didn’t want to make loads, so I improvised with a small cut - pork chops. It was still very good!

Also please look up a good video for the pleating technique because mine are unforgivably messy.

Challah Bread

OH this is a good one.

I’m really struggling to make a good basic white loaf. And it’s really, really annoying me. But brioche-like breads have always been my friend so I went back to that so I could stop wasting flour.

I’ve been eyeing up these golden braided Challah loaves for a while now, and now is as good a time as any to get experimenting in the kitchen. Now, people get fancy with it and you can plait more than 3 strands, but I got confused just plaiting three, and I couldn’t follow the video for 6 strands. So three it is!

BONUS – it’s amazing as French toast:

(for the French toast, beat 2 eggs, 100ml semi skimmed milk, 1/2 tsp cinammon and 1 tbsp vanilla sugar. Soak 4 slices of challa bread in this mixture for 2 minutes each side. Heat 2 tbsp butter in a large pan and fry the bread for a few minutes each side. Serve with your faves - fruit, bacon, yogurt..)

Two recipes for the price of one!

Brioche Burger Buns

There comes a time in isolation when you run out of an ingredient that you really require for dinner to go ahead as planned, but you can't really justify leaving the house for the "non-essential" nature of that item.

For me, that item was burger buns. I needed to use up some bacon and lettuce - so halloumi/bacon baps were an obvious choice. But I didn't have any baps! Curses!

I promise I added lettuce to this, a small hint of green amidst the meat, bread and cheese

I also had a half pack of instant yeast that I wanted to use up, so making my own was the obvious choice, despite never having made these before. Luckily, this recipe was easy. Apart from working with a slightly sticky dough, and taking a little time, these are really straightforward.

Soft, sweet,and SCRUMPTIOUS!

Feel free to experiment, next time I see myself brushing it with garlic infused butter, and maybe topping with a little mozarella. Also, toasted with butter! GAME-CHANGER.

Cinnamon Star Bread

Starting the year off correctly with one of my favourite things I’ve ever made! This cinnamon star bread is delicious and super impressive and once you’ve cracked the dough-making, it’s a fairly easy process!

This is the same recipe as my individual kanelbullar but with a different assembly at the end which just turns it into a show stopper. This would make a great centrepiece dessert, sliced up and served with a dollop of ice-cream or custard. 

Serves 8, realistically. But you will find no judgement here if you keep it all to yourself.

Some tips:

• It is really easy to overheat the milk and butter mixture at the start, so I reserve about 60ml of cold milk and add it after heating to quickly bring the temperature down.
• Making a miniature yeast “slurry” with some of the milk mixture and a little sugar boosts the rising. Too much sugar kills yeast, but a little will help feed it.
• A round baking tray makes this a lot easier – for example a pizza tray. Bonus – these are cheap and easy to find
• It’s fine if you don’t roll out perfect circles (I never do), everything kind of comes together ok in the oven.
• Cutting into strips is easiest if you cut into quarters and then cut each quarter again twice to get four strips per quarter, so 16 strips total.

In Search of the Superior Babka - Cinnamon vs Chocolate

The two contenders, resting

Oooh I have a winter treat to share.

Chocolate babka

... and the cinnamon

One of my favourite “bits” in Seinfeld is where they get stuck in the bakery buying babka and lament that they don’t get the “superior” babka – aka chocolate (compared to cinnamon). I obviously had to test them both out. For science.

Did I need to make two full size babkas for two people? No. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

The superior babka really depends on your tastes. Chocolate is a really rich dessert-y treat, cinnamon is a slightly sweeter delight. Both are amazing fresh. Both are amazing toasted. If you wanted to toast a slice or two and dollop vanilla icecream on top I think that would be ridiculous.

… but sorry Seinfeld, cinnamon is the superior babka in my house.

White Boule

I don’t know about you, but I have never had the patience to even read to the end of a recipe for a sourdough starter. Needless to say, I haven’t attempted to make my own.

Buuuut this recipe uses a mini starter which is easy to prep, doesn’t take weeks of feeding, and gives a chewy, tangy, delicious white loaf. Too delicious. Fresh from the oven, it’s perfect. A few days in, toasted and slathered with peanut butter – also perfect.

The weather is turning colder, and the smell of freshly baked bread always cheers me up. If you have a day where you're hanging around the house, I can think of no better recipe to make.

Basil, Mozzarella and Garlic Loaf

Ooooh baby this is a good one.

You’ve got an easy peasy bread recipe, with unlimited filling options, AND it looks super pretty.

I went with nice Italian style flavourings, but this could be delicious with some onion, garlic and sage instead, or ramp up the cheese, and add some sundried tomatoes. Oh, OH or smear with pesto and cover in mozzarella and parmesan.

I will be whipping up variations on this for a long time. I love finding that perfect base recipe to riff off.

Winner!

Pita Bread

It has been thundery and rainy most of the day and that is scheduled to last over the weekend. So what better use of your time than to learn to make pita bread! The muggy weather is perfect for getting the dough to rise, too.

This couldn’t be simpler! Even if you don’t regularly bake bread, this is still very achievable. The method for making the dough is fairly standard – add wet to dry, kneed a bit, allow to rise, knock back, shape and bake.

The cavity in the centre - a perfect curry receptacle!

I like the seeded aspect – Nigella seeds would be scrummy, but I only had poppyseeds to hand. Next time I might make them with sesame seeds and a little sesame oil. Pita breads are amazing dipped in curry, but you could also fill one with honey sesame chicken for a delicious lunch.

French Toast

Breakfast for KINGS

Would you believe, at the ripe old age of 29, I had never made French toast?

I had some eggs, bread and milk to use up, and I was very hungry one recent Sunday morning, so I decided that my life would be incomplete without some sweet crispy cinammony bread. A very quick google for the general technique later and I was off! Isn’t the internet wonderful? And the great thing about this recipe is that it's basically made up of kitchen staples.

I think one of the highlights of my week is a lovely, lazy, carbohydrate-filled breakfast of a Sunday. And this ticks all the boxes. Starchy and sweet. And if you serve it with bacon (which is fairly mandatory, I’m led to believe) then you get some added savoury saltiness.

But don't limit yourself to this being food you can only it at breakfast. It's an all day food. Ever heard of "breakfast for dinner?" And I leave you with the immortal words of Parks and Rec: