"Low calorie" Brioche

I was down with a bad throat and feeling off yesterday, thanks to all the little people I'm around these days. Took the day off and in the afternoon I was pondering dinner. Fresh roasted tomato soup and bread right out of the oven sounded so good. So good that I made a trip to the store to buy a pound of fresh tomatoes.  Yeah for those of you who don't know me well, I'm kind of particular about my ingredients when I cook or bake. I do try and experiment but I do not compromise. I gotta have the right cheese, the right veggies or whatever. 


Anyway last week I read about Deb's recipe over at smittenkitchen, a blog I follow quite regularly. I've baked bread before but this one included eggs and that had me curious. And moreover she described it as a "light brioche" and I've seen this on TV many many times but in all honesty, have never tasted brioche. Brioche is a french bread typically with a lot of butter and a lot of eggs but this version had a lot fewer of both. 


So, what better way to learn than try it at home eh? I used the basis of her recipe with a couple of modifications.


The result: Flaky, buttery, delicious loaf of glutenous goodness.

Light Brioche


This recipe makes one loaf. 

Ingredients: 
-  2 cups all-purpose flour
-  1 tablespoon sugar
-  1 teaspoon kosher salt
-  1/2 packet active dry yeast
-  3/4 cup milk
-  4 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened (1/2 stick)
-  1 large egg 


Directions: 

1. In a large bowl, mix 3/4 cup flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a mixer.
2. In a saucepan, heat the milk and butter together until the mixture is warm. Gradually pour the warm ingredients into the dry mixture and mix with an electric mixer of stir vigorously by hand with a wooden spoon for 3 minutes. 
3. Add the egg and  another 1/2 cup flour and beat again for 2 minutes by machine or 3 by hand. Add the last of the flour and beat or stir until smooth.
4. Scrape down bowl and cover the top with plastic wrap. Let rise for a couple hours or until doubled. Meanwhile, butter and flour a 9×5x3-inch loaf pan. I didn't have a loaf pan so I used a 8x8 baking dish instead. Once the dough has doubled, scrape it into the prepared pan. Cover with buttered plastic wrap and let rise for a total of 30 minutes. After 15 minutes, however, remove the plastic and preheat your oven to 375°F.
5. Bake for 35 minutes or until it passes the toothpick/fork test.
6. Cool in pan for 5 minutes then turn out to a rack to cool.
7. Slather on some butter and enjoy

I made roasted tomato/red pepper soup to go with it. Mmmmmm.

Fun Flatbread(s)

I am having fun with my latest kitchen craze- bread/dough making. Yeah yeah  not all dough is the same, I realize that but for my humble, novice purposes,  bread dough is the same as pizza dough is the same as flatbread dough yada yada yada.....

Since my previous attempt resulted in moderate success, that was enough to encourage me to keep going. So couple days back I had an epiphany *insert dramatic dream music* to make flatbread. Flatbread is a rustic, free style thin bread that you can eat as is or decorate with several wonderful toppings. Recently I saw Bobby Flay make flatbread on the grill- looked like something interesting and hey it was an opportunity for me to try out something new!

Directions- 
1.  Layer up the sauce, add toppings and cheese
2.  Bake at 400F for 20 minutes and enjoy with a cold beverage!

I came up with a couple different kinds- 

Ricotta-Pesto Flatbread

Toppings-

- Ricotta cheese

- Pesto - I used readymade from TJ

- Zuchinni- thinly sliced

- few florets of broccoli 
- lots of black pepper

Marinara Flatbread

Toppings-

*  green olives

*  red onions

*  yellow peppers 

*  mozzarella cheese

*  marinara sauce
*  dried oregano

         

Bread Upma (homemade bread at last!)

I attempted to bake bread last week and this time I tried a few different things based on advice from different people.


1.  I used only AP flour. No whole wheat. I know it's not the healthiest option but I want to get the bread right one time with regular flour and then add complications. 
2.  I threw in the packet yeast with the flour and milk and warm water. 
3.  A different technique to let the dough rise - I placed the dough inside the oven with a container of boiling water in the lower rack. This creates moisture and heat needed for the yeast to activate.


The bread turned out pretty good- though not perfect but a huge improvement over the first time. 


Moving on, I wanted to make something different with the bread the following day. As I skyping with my sister, it suddenly dawned on me- BREAD UPMA!!!! I've not eaten this in over a year mostly because it's boring to make with regular store bought bread but this time the star of the show was produced in my oven. So it deserved to be made into something awesome! 


Bread Upma (pronounced oop-ma) is a dish made by sauteeing veggies, chilli powder and bread. That's it. That simple. But comforting. I have no translation for Upma. sorry :-(


Bread Upma

Ingredients:


*  one small loaf or 5-6 slices of bread cut into crouton sizes
*  1 tsp cayenne 
*  1/2 tsp cumin seeds
*  1 cup frozen veggie mix or cut up fresh veggies- carrots, green peas, green beans
*  1 medium potato chopped small
*  1 small onion chopped


Directions:


1.  In a large sautee pan, sautee cumin seeds and onion and potato for 5-10 minutes over medium heat.


2.  Add the bread and allow it to toast up nicely..Add a bit of butter for that yummy buttery taste.  Add the cayenne and mix well.  You could add garam masala too but I just stick to cayenne.


3.  Spread the bread out evenly on the pan and allow it to brown up nicely. 


4.  Add the frozen veggies and continue to sautee the entire mixture till veggies are cooked and bread is toasty.  


Bon apetit!

Bread FAIL!

Couple weeks back I tried baking bread from scratch. I followed a fairly simple recipe involving yeast, flour, sugar, etc.

It didn't work. :-(

I think the water in which I mixed the yeast in was too warm. The end result tasted like bread but not soft enough. Or maybe the yeast was too old (over a year I'm sure). I ended up making breadcrumbs with the loaf.

I don't have a breadmaker.
-----

Last week I tried making Irish Soda Bread- also another disaster. Turned out to be tough as a rock.

'Nuff Said.

I've not given up... Any tips y'all got for making the perfect loaf for a rookie bread maker?