My extremely skilled-at-bread friend Katrina posted about this beautiful bread at the start of the month, and I was so awed that I just had to add it to my to-do list.

Apparently, it’s Swiss, and is generally eaten as a part of Sunday brunch. Any Swiss people got anything to add? I know mine doesn’t look as shiny as the ones I found in google images. Kinda like it that way, though …

I had sort of decided I was a bit crap at bread, though, so I put it off for a while.

Turns out I’m really not … this turned out beautifully!

I used Katrina’s recipe but omitted one ingredient – the 2T of brandy. If I’d owned brandy, I probably would’ve used it. However, I don’t.

Anyway, I suppose I better throw a quick idea of the recipe in here because you guys seem to like that sort of thing:

2tsp dried yeast

300mL (ish) of milk

500g flour (I’m actually unclear on whether this ought to be plain or high grade. If I am honest, I used plain)

1.5 tsp salt

60g butter

1 tsp sugar

Warm 100mL of the milk to yeast temperature and stir in the yeast. Leave until it froths, and then pour into a well in the centre of the flour. Draw in some of the flour to form a paste with the yeast mixture, and then leave that to rise. Katrina said 20 minutes for that, and 20 minutes worked perfectly. Meanwhile, cream the salt and sugar into the butter. Once the yeast paste is risen, mix in the butter mixture and the rest of the flour, then add milk, mixing, until a firm dough is achieved. This seems to take between 100 and 200mL of milk (and you’d hope so, seeing as the recipe calls for 300mL in total), but I’m really not sure how much we added in the end.

Proof the dough for 1.5-2 hours, or until doubled in size, then knock back and rest for 10 minutes before dividing into three segments and rolling them out into long, plaitable strips.

To plait, make a cross out of two strips and then add the third down the middle of the right angle formed. Plait from the middle to one end, and then turn around and plait from the middle to the other end. If you get stuck, there are plenty of youtube videos.

Proof, plaited, for 35-45 minutes (to be fair, I got impatient and so it only got a half hour).

Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for about 40 minutes, or until the bread is golden and sounds hollow when tapped.

Eat hot, with jam or hummus. I tried both, and both were delicious.

This is the most beautiful beach in the Auckland area. I’m lucky enough to come from quite near it, so I grew up going to it a lot. Yesterday, my boyfriend and I made a special trip up to visit it, and the swimming was spectacular. Huge waves, warm water, and fish swimming around our feet. It’s a marine and land reserve, and they’re currently repopulating it with all manner of endangered New Zealand species (they’ve just recently moved in kiwis, and they’re in the process of bring in tuatara*).

Tawharanui is also home to a working farm and a large expanse of wetlands that shelter lots of New Zealand’s most endangered birds. The road in there is nothing short of horrific, and that’s just the way us locals like it – keeps most of the yuppies out (in many ways, I am a yuppy. I do not, however, drive like one).

*Tuatara are a type of reptile that is thought to be the last surviving dinosaur breed. You see them every now and then at the zoo but they’re fairly rare, perhaps due to the fact that they move so slowly you can’t see it happening. They are, however, a bit cute. Here’s their wikipedia page.

For dinner tonight, we decided to make some more delicious alfredo sauce, as we had at our dinner party on Sunday night. It’s awesome. To go with it, we made our own fettucine using my lovely red pasta machine.

My recipe for homemade pasta dough can be found here.

Alfredo sauce recipe:

2T butter

2T oil

4 cloves minced garlic

1/4 tsp white pepper

1T chopped parsley

1 cup cream

1 cup milk

3/4 cup mozzarella

1/2 cup grated parmesan

grated cheddar

cornflour to thicken

Melt the butter in the oil, and add the garlic, pepper, parsley, cream and milk. Bring to a simmer and then stir in the parmesan until the sauce is smooth and thick (to get it to this point you may need to add some cornflour, but don’t overdo it). Then stir in the mozzarella and as much grated cheddar as is needed to reach the desired flavour (mmmm, cheesy goodness).

Left: post-knead pasta dough.

Right: freshly cut fettucine.

Left: the pasta machine with its cutter attached for the first time!

Right: alfredo sauce. Much, much thicker than it looks – and stringy with cheese.

I’ve been craving sourdough for about a week now, since I first put my starter together. Today, I finally got it.

It’s not as sour as it ought to be yet – my starter smells amazing but isn’t quite as flavourful as I want – but the crumb on it is beautiful and it crusted amazingly well.

So, here’s how it goes (this makes two loaves):’

1/4 cup starter

1 cup whole wheat flour

5.5 cups high grade (bread) flour

2.5 cups water

2 tsp salt

Whisk the starter and the water together. Then whisk in the wheat flour, then the salt. Change from a whisk to a wooden spoon and start adding the high grade flour, a cup at a time, and stirring in. Eventually the dough will need to be turned out (it won’t be stirrable) and you need to do this onto a well floured surface. Knead until it’s bread consistency (passes a windowpane test).

Then, let it rest for 30 minutes. I actually didn’t do this – maybe that’s why my bread’s so ugly?

Then, form it into loaves, or rounds, or baguettes, or whatever floats your boat. Cover it, and let it rise at room temperature until doubled. Typically, this takes 12-15 hours. Patience is key.

When it’s risen, preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Once it’s at temperature, slash the tops of the loaves (with a razor blade, or scissors like I did) and pop them in the oven with a pan of water at the bottom to help with crusting.

Bake for 45 minutes. Yummy! Slather with butter directly out of the oven.

Ooh, and a fun fact: the larger the surface area, the faster the bread stales. So, for keeping, loaves and rounds are best. You learn something every day!

Pre-baking: not the most attractive loaves I’ve ever seen.

Recipe can be found here. I used a different starter, though (and my recipe is here).

My boyfriend got me this for Valentine’s Day last year, and now, three weeks away from Valentine’s Day this year, I’m just getting around to posting it.

It’s sterling silver of course, and by Karen Walker, of course – one of my favourite jewellers.

It weighs quite a bit but I wear it just about all the time. I absolutely adore it. It’s also quite big. According to the Walker and Hall website it measures 31mm by 50mm.

It is also sharp. Beware of hugging enthusiastically. But, we all suffer to be fabulous once in a while!

As you may have noted, I wear only silver. I think yellow gold is tacky against my skin tone (I am super pale) but I do like to wear white and rose gold. I’ve one rose gold ring that is quite lovely.

Anyway, that’s my gorgeous thing for the morning. I’m sorry posting is somewhat erratic at the moment – my work hours are all over the show.

Decided to do some baking today in lieu of sourdough (I am desperately trying to schedule my sourdough baking exploits as I always seem to be working or asleep when it needs to be kneaded or baked) and eventually found this recipe.

It’s from the book Chocolate by Kathryn Hawkins, and it is maybe the best chocolate cookie recipe I’ve tried yet.

Ingredients

180g butter, softened (I soften it by chopping it into smallish pieces)

150g brown sugar

1 egg

225g flour

30g cocoa powder

a pinch of salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

150g milk chocolate chunks (or dark, or white … mmm)

Cream the butter and sugar (in a stand mixer, preferably) and then add the egg and beat in. Add the flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder and beat in. The mixture will be stiff – this is good. Finally, add the chocolate chunks (I used chips) and mix in.

Fill a teaspoon with mixture, roll into a ball in the palms of your hands and put on a lined baking tray. Flatten slightly with the back of a spoon – the mixture will spread a little bit.

Bake for 12  minutes at 190 degrees Celsius.

YUM! Makes supposedly 24, but I got 28 and also made quite big ones.

This stuff is nectar. I seem to like it a lot more than other people though. Sad face. I suspect it is because it is a “weird” flavour. Ah, well.

So, take my delicious tahini free hummus base, and add 6-8 prunes, 1 tsp cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp chilli. Blend well in a food processor.

And … that’s about it.

Seriously, it’s absolutely lovely stuff on chips or veges or spread over a nice big piece of meat (no, seriously).

If you’re not such a fan of cinnamon, try adding 1/2 tsp first and then put in the other 1/2 tsp if you don’t think it’s flavourful enough. The same goes for the chilli – it wasn’t too spicy, so maybe another 1/4 or 1/2 tsp would have done well.

For all of these hummuses, the flavour intensifies with age. Thus it is a much better idea to make them the night before you intend to serve them and just leave them in the fridge overnight. The chickpeas really soak up the flavour of the additions this way.

We had a dinner party last night – known as gnocchi night, so guess what we served – and I decided on two sauces: one was alfredo, and one was neapolitan.

I sort of didn’t photograph the alfredo even though the recipe I eventually came up with was killer, so it will have to wait until next time I make it.

Anyway, this one was awesome. It was originally adapted from one by Jamie Oliver, and I chucked a few extras in just because I had them hanging around.

Left: one ginormous handful of basil (to be chopped).

Right: 4 cloves of roasted garlic, chopped.

Left: 3 400g cans of tomatoes.

Right: oven roasted capsicums that I prepared earlier.

So: fry the garlic in a little bit of olive oil, then add the tomatoes, basil (chopped nice and fine) and capsicums, torn up a bit. Once the mixture comes to the boil you can strain it through a sieve, but as we were big fans of chunky sauce we skipped that step.

Anyway, if you do strain it through a sieve, chuck the strained sauce back on the heat to thicken up nicely. This concentrates the flavours.

If you don’t strain it, just leave it on the heat until it’s the kind of consistency that you can spread on a pizza.

Yum!

After four days fermenting on the bench, peeling the skin off the top and a good stir, this is what I’m left with. Yum! Smells kinda beery which is apparently correct, and has the consistency of soup – also apparently correct.

Can’t wait to use it to make some sourdough. Mmm.

Bought these beauties today at a fruit store over in St. Heliers. They were 3 for $2. Had to have them. We ate the third …

Just chuck the little suckers in the microwave with a good splash of water and gladwrap over the top (do poke a few holes in it for steam to escape). Put them on for 5 minutes, slather them with butter and eat nice and hot.

Oh my goodness, they’re so good. We had them for lunch. Wish I could tell you we grew them! Maybe next summer.