Focaccia

I must have put on about 10 kilos watching the Hairy Bikers ‘Bakeation’ a few months ago, purely from watching, not baking.

One of the many things I wanted to try from this series was the focaccia they baked in Venice. And oh-my-god was it worth it (worth it? It was hardly any trouble anyway…). If you’re looking for something quite simple and impressive, look no further.

Focaccia. Mmmmmmm.

500g bread flour – I used the Soubry ‘pain’ flour

1 sachet of yeast

1 teaspoon of caster sugar

1 teaspoon of salt

2 tablespoons of olive oil

300ml of hand-hot warm water

In addition:

Another 3 tablespoons of olive oil

Sea salt

Pepper

Some fresh rosemary

To make the dough, mix the flour, yeast, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Pour in the olive oil and the warm water. Bring all this together with a spoon.

Flour your work top and tip the dough out. Knead this for about five minutes – the dough is quite liquid, and felt like silk.

When your five minutes are up, oil the bowl and pop the dough back into it. Cover it with clingfilm and leave it somewhere warm for an hour to grow.

Dough, kneaded but unrisen

After an hour, tip it out onto the countertop again and knock the air out of it.

Dough, risen. 

I oiled a shallow dish, about 30x25x7 at this stage and put the dough in, pushing it into the corners. Cover it again with cling film and leave for about 30 mins.

Heat your oven to 220°.

Using your fingers, pop the dough all over to release some of the air. The holes didn’t ‘keep’ in mine, so I ended up with a choppy looking dough rather than the kind that you’d see in magazines. Still…

Dribble the extra olive oil over the dough and scatter with the salt, pepper and rosemary leaves. Push some more rosemary stalks into it.

Raw focaccia, left to rise

Cook in the hot oven for about 15-20 mins, until golden.

Delicious!

Update: May 2013 - I made Paul Hollywood's focaccia from his 'how to bake' book last week, and it was really, really good! There was a lot of oil in his recipe, and I didn't add al of it, and it was still a bit too oily for my liking. BUT despite this, it was incredibly tasty and flavoursome. I'd marginally prefer the PH one to the HB one (sorry Hairy Bikers...).

Just desserts – baked toffee cheesecake

I made this cheesecake for mothers day this weekend. It’s a calorie-fest, which is what all desserts should be. We got 12 wedges from this.

Baked toffee cheesecake

I’d never made toffee before, but given how simple it is, I will make it again. And I will definitely make the cheesecake again, even though I’m not a huge fan of them usually. There was not a very strong taste of toffee from the cake itself, so you could always double the amount of toffee you make and add the extra to the mixture.

Toffee cheesecake

Ingredients

For the base

250g dinosaur biscuits (I used the ones in the yellow box. The original recipe uses chocolate digestives)

75g butter

(the original recipe has 100g pecans and 150g biscuits but as one of the party has a nut allergy, I left these out)

For the filling

375g caster sugar

4 tbsp cold water

150g white chocolate, broken into squares

600g full-fat cream cheese

150ml double cream

2 free-range egg yolks

4 free-range eggs

For the topping

300ml double cream

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and lightly oil a 23cm/9in springform cake tin.

Put the biscuits into a food processor and blend to a coarse powder. Alternatively, put them in a bag and bash them with a rolling pin. Melt the butter in a small pot and pour into the food processor with the motor running. Blend until the biscuits and butter are thoroughly combined.

Place the crumb mixture into the cake tin. Spread evenly over the base and press down lightly with the back of a spoon. Place the tin in the fridge and leave the base to set while you make the filling.

For the filling, put 200g/7oz of the caster sugar in a saucepan with the cold water and heat gently until the sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally. Bring the liquid to the boil and cook for 4-5 minutes without stirring until the sugar syrup turns a deep golden brown. Swirl the caramel around the pan gently as it bubbles.

Bubbling water and sugar, waiting to go brown

As soon as the caramel is the colour of toffee, remove from the heat and carefully pour onto the lined baking tray. Tilt the tin so the caramel covers the base evenly. Leave to cool and set – this only takes a few minutes.

Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Take off the heat and leave to cool for 20 minutes, but do not allow to set.

Melted white chocolate

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and boil a kettle of water.

Put the cheese, cream, remaining sugar, egg yolks and eggs in a food processor and blend until smooth. Gradually add the cooled chocolate with the motor running and blend until just mixed.

Crushed toffee

Crush the hardened caramel into small shards using the end of a rolling pin. Fold half of the caramel into the cheese mixture and pour gently on to the biscuit base. (Keep the rest on the tray, lightly covered with clingfilm in a cool place. Do not put in the fridge or the moisture will cause the caramel to soften).

Put a large piece of aluminium foil on the work surface. Place the tin in the centre of the foil and bring up the sides to create a foil bowl around the cheesecake.

Place in a medium-sized roasting tin and add enough just-boiled water to rise 2cm/¾in up the sides of the tin. Carefully place the roasting tin in the centre of the oven and bake for 45-50 minutes. The cheesecake is ready when it is almost, but not fully, set.

When the cheesecake is ready, turn off the oven but leave the cheesecake inside for a further 30 minutes. (This will help prevent the surface cracking as the cheesecake cools).

Lift the cake tin from the water and peel off the foil. Put the cheesecake in the fridge, cover and chill for at least two hours before serving.

To serve, carefully release the tin and slide the cheesecake onto a flat serving plate or cake stand, using a palette knife to help you. Whip the cream until soft peaks form and spoon in big fluffy clouds over the cheesecake. Scatter the remaining shards of caramel on top. Serve in wedges.

Bagels

I’ve found these to be quite difficult to find in your average supermarket here, but they are becoming more popular in cafes, Karsmakers just off Pl Luxembourg for one. You can also buy them off the Internet Grocer or Stonemanor in Waterloo (it's the only one I've been to. They have a great selection of flavours too). 

They are also very easy to make at home. Make the dough the night before for fresh bagels in the morning.

The recipe I used is from the Hairy Bikers. It makes 12. The raw dough and the baked bagels both freeze quite well.

500g flour

a small packet of yeast

1 teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon of honey

1 egg

300ml warm water

Optional: poppy or sesame seeds

In a food processor, blend the flour, yeast, salt, honey and egg until mixed. Gradually add the warm (not hot!) water until the mixture comes together. 

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead lightly until smooth. This should take about 10 minutes. Place the dough into a bowl, cover with a damp cloth and set aside in a warm place for at least an hour to prove - it will double in size. 

When the dough has proved, turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface and knock back to reduce the volume of the dough. 

Divide the dough into twelve portions and roll each into a ball, then flatten slightly. 

Make a hole in the centre of each of the balls using the handle of a wooden spoon or your fingers. 

Place a sheet of greaseproof paper onto a baking tray and grease lightly with vegetable oil. Place the bagels onto the greaseproof paper and cover with cling film. Set aside to prove for about 45-50 minutes. 

Heat your oven to 230 degrees.

When the bagels have proved for the second time, bring a pan of water to the boil and lower the bagels into it in batches. Poach for 1-2 minutes, then remove from the water using a flat egg flip – the bagels are quite soft and stretchy, so they need the support of something large. 

If you like your bagels seeded, now is the time to dip them in a plate of poppy or sesame seeds. I don’t.

Place the bagels onto the lined baking tray and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until golden-brown. Set aside to cool. 

To serve, cut the bagels in half and fill with your choice of smoked salmon and cream cheese, bacon, poached eggs or whatever takes your fancy.

Chicken and leek pie

Looking for something easy of a Sunday evening (oi, no sniggering at the back there!), I decided to try to the Hairy Biker’s chicken and leek pie from the October 2011 edition of the Good Food magazine.

It’s been about (counts on fingers) 20 years since I made pastry, at my mammy’s knee. Nothing’s changed in pastry making in that time. So, for the pastry…

350g flour

200g butter

1 egg

A glass of water, with a spoon

Either tip the flour and butter into the food processer and blitz or in a bowl, rub the butter into the flour until it all looks like breadcrumbs. Add the beaten egg and mix. Add the water a spoonful at a time until it all comes together in a ball.

Pop it onto a plate and cover with cling film.

For the filling, you’ll need:

3 chicken filets

A knob of butter

2 leeks, chopped

Lardons

A few cloves of garlic to taste

About 50g of butter

About 50g flour

About 200ml milk

About 150ml cream

About 200ml stock

Salt and pepper

Poach the chicken in some stock (you’ll probably need more than the 250ml cited above) for about 10-15 mins. Once done, cut them into bite-sized pieces and keep the cooking liquid for the sauce.

While the chicken is cooking, you can get on with the rest of the dish. Melt the knob of butter in a large pot and sweat out the leeks. Cook them for about 5 mins and add the crushed garlic and lardons and cook for another couple of minutes. When done, transfer this to a bowl.

In another saucepan, melt the 50g of butter and then add the flour. Cook this for about 1 minute, stirring constantly. Off the heat, add the milk, bit by bit, stirring until the first bit is incorporated before adding the next bit. Add the stock and bring to the boil to cook through. Pour in the cream and season as you like. Add the chopped up chicken and the leek mixture and stir to combine.

For the fun bit: heat the oven to 200 degrees and line a 23 cm pie dish. Pie dishes seem to be a bit hard to come by in Belgium, so I used a cake tin. It worked perfectly. Let your baking paper hang over the edges - I usually line the bottom with two long, wide pieces of baking paper at right angles to each other and out of the tin to use as handles once it's cooked and a circle of baking paper on top of this.

Divide the pastry into 2/3 + 1/3. Roll the 2/3 out to fit into your dish – including the sides! (about 3-4 millimetres thick). Brush the edges of the pie with beaten egg. Pour in the chicken and leek filling. Roll the 1/3 to fit the top of your dish and lay this across. Press to seal the edges and brush the top with the rest of the beaten egg. Make a hole in the centre to let out the steam, and pop into your oven for about 35-40 mins.

Once cooked, let it cool for a good bit before eating (cooling it also makes it easier to remove from the cake tin). We ate this au natural with a bottle of good beer to wash it down.

Variations: I omitted the lardons and replaced them with some left over carrot and peas. You could also add a spoonful of your favourite mustard to the sauce once it’s cooked. A couple of tarragon leaves or other herbs such as parsley or chives mightn’t go amiss either. The leeks are changeable too with whatever veg you have around, such as spinach (make sure it’s very well dried first) or mushrooms.