tomato bread

This bread has a really intensive taste of tomatoes with a hint of fried onion. As you can see it also has a lovely color of the crumb and it's so easy to make. I pretend that it is a good way of smuggling some veggies into your diet as well. It has to be healthy and good for you if it contains tomatoes, doesn't it? And crust is amazing!

for one decently sized loaf of tomato bread you will need:


   1     can (400 g) of chopped tomatoes
   3     cups of plain flour
 0.5     cup of tepid milk
  14     g of dry yeasts
   1     tspn of salt
 handful of dry fried onion


No quantum physics in here. Mix milk with yeasts, add 1 cup of flour and leave in warm place for 15 - 30 min. After that time you should see yeasts actually starting to do their job: mixture should be rich in bubbles and slightly raised. Add the remaining ingredients and knead until you obtain rather loose but elastic dough. If you think dough is to loose, you can add more flour. Leave in the warm place until the mixture doubles its size (it took 45 minutes in my case).


Knead the dough for a while (lovely orange-reddish colour) and shape it into round loaf. Dust it generously with flour and place in the baking tin, (I used a regular cake baking tin). To ensure that the bread won't stick to the tin I lined it with a layer of flour as well.


Let the dough stand in warm place until it's well risen (at least doubles its size - I waited for slightly more than 1 hour). Bake for approx. 30 minutes in the oven preheated to 230 degrees C. Don't eat while warm or your belly will hurt!

Yummy sandwich with butter and Italian ham.

salty caramel cheesecake

This is heaven! Salty caramel was on my mind for a long while as all contrasting flavor combinations are extremely appealing to me. I decided to give it a go in a form of this cheesecake and now I want more! Rich, creamy, smooth texture and such an intensive taste. Salty caramel is my new chocolate! No I am thinking: salty caramel ice creams. Any other suggestions?

for one small cheesecake you will need:

500  g of cream cheese (Tesco's full fat worked fine for me)

100  g butter

0.5  cup of brown sugar

0.5  cup of double cream

  2  eggs

0.35 cup caster sugar

salt 

(I used a mould of 22 cm diameter)

I went for base-free option, but if you don't prefer to have a base you need additional 40 g of butter and 1.5 cup of finely crushed digestive biscuits. 

To prepare a cheesecake base (optional!)melt the butter in a small saucepan on a low heat or just in microwave. Mix crushed biscuits with melted butter - the mixture should have a wet sand texture. Place the buttered crumbs in the mould and press it slighly to form a base. Put in the refrigerator to chill for 15-30 minutes.

To prepare the actual cheesecake filling take a small saucepan and melt brown sugar in it. Add butter and double cream. I know it may not look very attractive for a moment or two, but when you continue to boil the mixture on medium heat for another 10 minutes it will create a lovely, dense toffee sauce. Cool it a little bit (preferably to room temperature) and add cream cheese and caster sugar. Mix well. Time for tricky bit: salt. It is hard to tell how intensive saltiness your taste buds would prefer in this case so it is best if you add it pinch by pinch and try cheesecake mixture several times (it's pure pleasure anyway). All together I added 1.5 tsp of salt, but you may like to add more/less. After you added salt, add 2 eggs and mix. Pour into buttered mould or on the previously prepared base and bake for approximately 1 hour at 180 degrees C. To avoid burning the top, I covered my cheesecake with kitchen tin foil for 45 minutes and removed it only for last 15 minutes of baking.

For decoration, I melted 2 spoons of caster sugar on the non-stick pan, cooled it down a little bit and made this caramel pattern you can see on the pictures. Anyway, it still tastes better than it looks.

chocolate pistachio cupcakes

Amazing! Crispy early autumn morning, cup of coffee in front of your house, lazy thinking about all nice things you can do on Sunday. I made 12 moist but not too heavy chocolate cupcakes topped with melted milk chocolate. Salted pistachio nuts on top sharpened up the taste. Smell of autumn leaves, bright sunshine, let's go for a walk.

to make 12 big cupcakes you will need:

CUPCAKE BATTER
     2  eggs
  0.75  cup brown sugar
     1  cup self-raising flour
   2/3  cup of milk
   1/3  cup of oil
     2  headed tbsp of unsweetened cocoa
     1  tsp of baking soda

FROSTING
 100  g milk chocolate
 handfull of pistachio nuts, chopped

Embarrassingly easy. Mix dry ingredients and add milk, oil and eggs. Fill cupcake cases up to 3/4 of their height, bake for approx. 20 minutes at 180 degree C. Allow to cool and cover with melted chocolate (I always melt it in the microwave set at low power). Sprinkle with nuts. Eat.

 

raspberry-blueberry muffins

Damn good muffins. No other comments necessary! 

  To prepare 12 big muffins you will need:

  1      cup of frozen blueberries

  1      cup of frozen raspberries

  2      cups of self raising flour

 50      g melted butter

0.5      cup yogurt

0.5      cup brown sugar

0.5-0.75 cup of milk.

1        egg

Mix flour and sugar, add butter, egg, and yogurt. Mix briefly again and add from 0.5 milk. Muffin batter shouldn't be to fluid, but if it's really thick add the remaining milk. Add fruits (no need for defrosting!) and mix really briefly again. Fill muffin cases with batter and sprinkle top of each muffin with some brown sugar - delicious crust will develop. Bake for approx. 25 minutes in the oven preheated to 190 degrees C. 

Important: don't over-mix the batter, otherwise muffins will turn out dry!

Seriously, it can be the best muffin recipe I've  ever came out with!

simply nice scones

Super easy recipe - actually the more careless you are the better scones you bake. With really crunchy crust and soft, light crumble. Add jam, butter, creme fraiche, several cups of coffee, please don't let this Sunday morning to end.

For 8 medium sized scones you will need:

2.5  cup of self-raising flour

70   g of soft salted butter

0.5  cup of sugar

1    egg

0.5  cup of milk

Mix flour and sugar, add butter, egg and milk. Remember not to over knead! Flatten obtained dough on surface sprinkled with flour to 1.5 inch thick and cut out your scones with knife or alternatively, small glass/cup/biscuit cutter. Bake in preheated oven for approximately 20 minutes, 200 degrees C. 


It is important not to overmix the scones dough because mixing builds up gluten, which makes the final product more of the stone rather than a nice, leavened scone.