bara brith

Do you ever get text messages at work going:  "We had breakfast.  We need bread."  This is pretty normal in my life.  I actually have two loaves of bread rising as I type.  I will bake them in the morning.

Bara Brith is a raisin bread that I found in a Better Homes and Garden cooking magazine from December 1985.  There are a couple recipes I like from it and my copy is old and tattered.  Bara brith was part of their tea article.  It has become a standard in our home.  I especially like it for breakfast.  I have taken to making it with sourdough and using a wet sponge method so my directions are very different.

Bara Brith

Sourdough starter

1 cup flour

3/4 cup water

2/3 cup buttermilk, soured heavy cream, or soured hempmilk

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup butter

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

2/3 cup dried currants, blueberries, or raisins

3 to 5 cups all purpose flour (this is dependent on how much moisture the dried fruit absorbs)

Eight hours before or the night before, put the sourdough starter in a large bowl.  Mix in 1 cup flour and 3/4 cup water.  Cover with a cloth.  The next morning, remove a couple tablespoons so you will have starter for next time and put in the frig.

Into the starter that is in the large bowl, mix in the buttermilk, sugar, butter, egg, spices and salt.  Add the raisins and 1 cup flour.  Cover with a cloth.  Let sit until bubbly and doubled.  It will look like pancake batter.

Stir in enough extra flour to make a stiff dough.  Turn out onto a clean floured surface, and knead until smooth.  This starts out sticky so it may need up to 3/4 cup more flour or even more if it is humid.  Put back in the bowl, cover and let rise until double in size.

Punch down and let rise until double again.

Grease a loaf pan.  Shape the bread into a loaf shape and place in the pan.  Let rise 45 minutes to an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bake 1 hour, until golden and sounds hollow when the bottom is thunked.

Try to let it cool before slicing.  It mushes a bit if you do not.  Obviously, we always cut it straight out of the oven. 

chocolate cinnamon pine nut cookies

I think I mentioned before that I read food blogs.  They inspire me.  There are a few I read more for their photography and just ideas instead of recipes.  Lucullian Delights is one of those.  I read her blog because I love her photos.  But this Christmas she came up with a chocolate cinnamon pine nut cookie that sounded absolutely fabulous.  Because of my Beloved, I needed to make it gluten free so I did.  

These cookies are addictive!  You have to wait to let them cool before taking them off the cookie sheet or they will fall apart but that did not stop us.  It was one of those:  STEP AWAY FROM THE COOKIES!  If I can figure out how to ship them, they just may be in Christmas cookie boxes next year.

Chocolate Cinnamon Pine Nut Cookies

5 ounces butter

150 grams brown sugar

40 grams/ 4 tablespoons cocoa

10 grams ground chia seeds

1 teaspoon cinnamon

50 grams almond flour

50 grams millet flour

50 grams sorghum flour

50 grams arrowroot flour

40 grams pine nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Cover you baking sheets with parcharment paper.

Cream sugar and butter together.  Mix in cocoa, cinnamon, and chia.  Mix in the flours.

Mix in pine nuts.

Scoop small teaspoons on the baking sheet.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Remove from the oven.  Let cool ten or minutes before removing from the baking sheet .

Addictive I say!  We had a filling dinner of pasta and salad and myself and my Beloved ate four each!

birthday cake

It is my Beloved's today.  I asked him what he wished for his birthday dinner.  He said shepherd's pie and Gateau Breton.  So, I finished the last of the Christmas baking (chocolate chip cookies and scones) but did not get the boxes made.  That will happen tomorrow.  The boxes that is.

Tonight was finishing the Christmas baking and making a cake, holding a babe and playing Ziggy Marley.  I actually wrote down the Gateau Breton recipe because I adapted it to be gluten free.  It turned out well.  

Gateau Breton

Note:  I adapted this from Nigella Lawson How To Be A Domestic Goddess.  To use all purpose flour, leave out the chia seeds and use 1 1/2 cups flour.

10 tablespoons butter, the better, the better the cake.

13 tablespoons sugar

6 large egg yolks

13 grams ground chia seed

55 grams sorghum flour

55 grams millet flour

55 grams almond flour

55 grams arrowroot flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Butter a 9 inch springform pan

Cream the butter and sugar together.

Mix in the egg yolks (I am saving the egg whites to try to make macaroons).  Add the chia seed and mix well.  Mix in the flours.  This will be a stiff dough, much like a chocolate chip cookie batter.  Not what you think of as a cake batter.

Spread into the prepared pan.  Bake for 15 minutes at 375.  Turn the oven down to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Bake another 25 minutes until golden and the cake pulls away from the side of the pan.

You can wash it with a teaspoon of the egg yolk mixed with 1 tablespoon of water to give it  a more finished top.  Nobody seemed to mind though.  

I had to share this picture of the Tall Short Person and the Smallest Short Person dancing.

simple day of tasks

It has been a simple day of tasks.  I got half of the molasses crinckles I need to bake made.  I ran out of energy and brown sugar.  The brown sugar is fixable but the energy is not.  My Tall Short Person is a bit snotty and fighting not to get the crud.  She made the comment that Mommas cannot be sick because the short people depend on them.  I said I understood.

I did get a white linen nightgown done for my best friend.  I am going to add an embroideried mandala to it in white.  That way, if she wish to wear it to Tantric meditation, she can.  But it is a little thin, so I would hope she would wear something underneath.

more baking going on here

More cookie baking is going on around here.

I still have at least one more type if not more.  Today was sables.  I actually updated the recipe a little bit.  I shortenend the baking time.  See those cookies on the edge.  It is just not the picture but they are a little bit overbaked.  I guess they are for me then.

Yesterday I was rather under the weather.  My head hurt so bad there were no words.  I sat and worked on this present.  I was doing the embroidery.  I love embroidery but I am not very good at the designs.  But Miss Ray is who wrote Doodle Stitching.  I slightly modified one of her designs for this nightgown.

I hope it is liked!

Obviously, I am feeling better and there are more words today.  Maybe I can start baking some of the cookies I wish to bake.  Mostly chocolate and gluten free soon to come.