Chocolate Babka muffins for Baking Partner's challenge and a BIG FAT alert :-)

Yayy!! I made it, middle of the week and I came home and baked and more importantly I am blogging about it. I just didn't want to ask Swathi for extension one more time :-). Well, if you follow my blog, you know today being the 15th of the month, it is time for a team of home bakers to bake and present a selected recipe. Swathi gave us 2 choices this time, I already have a carrot cake on the blog (which I think is the best ever carrot cake :-)), so chose to make these chocolate Babka muffins. They looked cute and adorable and ofcourse highly fattening with oodles of butter every step of the way. This fares at the top of the list of my 'most calorie dense' recipes so far on the blog.

All you health conscious people, before you go away trying to calm that pounding heart of yours, let me tell you the silver lining(s) of my version of the recipe. Well, I wish I could claim it was butterless, sugarless, eggless muffin like I always do :-), Alas, no such luck this time, it is eggless though (first silver lining if you are allergic to eggs or just don't like them) and I cut the butter by a third and sugar by a third. Given that this is a brioche type of dough, that reduction in butter and given that it is meant to be a cake, that reduction of sugar speak volumes about my concern for your health and mine too. I am misleading you here a little bit and intentionally too, here is the real story, I have not actually reduced butter or sugar from the main recipe but just chose not execute one part of the recipe. I cut some corners and did not add the streusel topping the original recipe called for. Swathi, I hope this still qualifies for the baking partner's challenge :-). If any of you are thinking that you missed out on the full blown buttery babka, let me assure you that is not the case and if it is any consolation the streusel topping didn't particularly look pretty :-) either, so nothing lost there..

What came out of the oven was most definitely delicious, buttery sweet, oozing melted chocolate, dreamy babkas which made the kitchen smell like Cinnabon's store front (if they were making fresh cinnamon buns that day in that location!) on a lazy weekend morning and made me a very happy baker. Thanks Tammy for suggesting the recipe, it is a keeper and I will make it again as long as I can find people to share it with.

My wiki knowledge about babka are that they are of Ukrainian origin, made sweet or savory (potatoes) with a really rich dough and served during Easter celebrations. They are also baked as loaves which you can slice up and slather some more butter on and enjoy. I liked the mini versions (not really mini as they grew in size, if you want small servings, make 18 pieces from the same dough).

This is a really simple and easy recipe, if you don't count the wait times, the actual hands on time is really small. So you can prepare it in between your other chores. I do not believe that the baked muffins have a long shelf life but you can freeze the rolled log in the refrigerator and and bake them fresh as needed. You just need to keep it out for a couple of hours for it to come to room temperature before baking.

DD has been working on a project for school and I gave her a mommy lecture about effects of procrastinating when I came home this evening only to be given a little reverse lecture from her later in the night as she found me scrambling to take the pictures on the day the post was due on the blog :-), that sets the score even for now and we can go back to being the happy mommy & daughter again (until next time that is..).

I have used unsweetened apple sauce as the egg replacement in this recipe. If you really want to know the streusel topping, you can refer to other baking partner's posts for details.

What do you need to make Babka muffins?
Recipe source 
Dough ingredients: 

1/2 cup warm milk (warm it to 110 degrees if you own a thermometer)

1/4 cup sugar

2 Tsp instant (rapid rise) yeast

1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce (my replace for 1 large egg)

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 Tsp salt

3 Tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature

Filling ingredients:

3/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tsp freshly ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
3 Tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature

How do you make Babka muffins?
Dough preparation:

• Using a stand mixer, combine warm milk, sugar, yeast and blend a couple of times.
• Add the apple sauce, flour and salt and mix until a sticky dough begins to form.
• Add the butter and mix in until well blended.
• Knead the dough for 10 minutes until it is soft and supple. It will still be quite loose in texture - do not add additional flour.

• Put the kneaded dough in a buttered :-) or oiled bowl, cover and let it rest until it doubles in volume. It will take a couple of hours.

Filling preparation:

• Put all ingredients except butter in a blender and blend it until chocolate chips are broken into tiny crumbs and mostly powdery.
• Add butter and blend it till it comes together.
• Keep aside until ready to use.

Making Babka muffins:

• Line a muffin tray (makes 12 muffins) with paper liners.
• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• Turn over the dough on to the working area, press it gently to deflate, let it rest for 5 minutes.
• Using dry flour, roll the dough into a thin rectangle of about 12X20 inches.

• Spread the filling evenly all over the top of the rectangle. 
• Starting from one end, roll it into a tight log.

• Cut with a sharp knife into 12-1 inch pieces. 
• Place them into the prepared muffin pans, cover with a tea towel and let it rise for about 30 minutes. 

• Bake for 15-20 minutes or until it is poofy and starts to brown at the edges. 
• Take it out onto the cooling rack and let cool or enjoy them warm :-)

These Babka muffins are going to a party with the rest of the Baking partners here.. 

Notes: 

• The dough is easily made in a stand mixer, it is a little difficult to handle manually because of the amount of butter and the consistency of the dough. As long as you can successfully curb the urge to add more dry flour to make the dough manageable, go ahead and do it the old fashioned way using your own hands. 

Saltine crackers - Move aside store brands, here comes the home made!

Happy Holi to all my readers who are celebrating the festival of colors! The smell of Spring is definitely in the air and flowers are already blooming and leaves showing up on all the bare tree limbs. Looking forward to a great Spring and Summer in the near future.

The only two biscuits (that is what they are called in India where I grew up) I was aware of as a kid and liked to munch on were Parle-G (sweet) and Monaco (saltine). Then came many varieties of sweet, salt and something called 50-50 :-) among other things. They were all still called biscuits - prefixed with either sweet or salt to qualify them appropriately. Then I grew up, came to the US and saw that there were unimaginable number of different types of biscuits - only they were not called biscuits because biscuits was a word reserved for the soft, leavened bread served with gravy for breakfasts. While I picked up the appropriate usage of cookies (sweet tasting) and crackers (saltine), I was still gaping open mouthed at the different brands trying to determine what was best for me and family. We are not regular consumers of either cookies or crackers, I like crackers more but haven't found many that fit my criteria of good crackers :-) except for the relatively recent discovery of some whole grain crackers I get from Costco. These are tasty without leaving a sweet after taste on the tongue and something I can bite into in between meals. DD loves it too so I don't feel very guilty bringing home the big box from Costco once in a while.

So when Swathi announced this month's baking partner's challenge, I was happy to find a cracker recipe in it suggested by Arthy. Though there were 2 recipes listed for choice, I knew immediately which one I would go after :-). I saw the recipes a couple of weeks back and made sure I had the ingredients at home and then just didn't follow up. All of a sudden it was the 15th of the month when the post was due and I had not even made the dough. So promptly asked Swathi for an extra day of extension which she very sweetly said yes to and then set out to mix my dough. Saturday morning, the dough was mixed and went into the refrigerator, I pulled it out today and made the crackers. They are very easy to make, the only caveat being the really loosey-goosey soft dough. There is no kneading or any other hard work involved but if you can manage the sticky dough, you will be in for a treat.

The best part of the whole recipe is the wonderful flavor of the crackers, No store bought cracker can compare or compete with this one on that aspect. I am sure the over night (or more) refrigeration and the slow fermentation has a lot to do with developing that strong flavor. This is not a very healthy option if you are on any special diet, it has the processed flour and some butter but if you want to bake it once in a while and take it to a party, I am sure you will have brought in a star appetizer to the table. I want to try mixing the flours next time to make it a tad bit healthier, will keep you all posted on that front.

On the note of healthy diets, I was part of a conversation Friday evening when DD was playfully complaining about her 'health freak' mom with a friend :-). We were making pizza that night and the kitchen counter was full of pizza ingredients including some pan sauteed Asparagus which may seem like a very unlikely pizza topping for most people (we like asparagus and it really goes well on the pizza). I am not sure if that was the reason her friend refused to stay for dinner or she was really full and needed to be someplace else :-). Just to make my girl feel better, I went all 'non-healthy' today and made her favorite Poori, palya and maagai combination for lunch. She thinks mom is cool today :-).

These crackers use baking soda but with the tiny amount used, I am not sure whether they qualify to be called 'Soda crackers', I will leave that to the experts. Original recipe called for cream of tartar which has been replaced with vinegar. If you are a baking enthusiast, this is a recipe you would want to try and add to your repertoire. It is really a no-fuss and not much effort recipe and so a very easy win and it makes a good snack box option for kids. Go ahead and bake a batch, pop a couple into the mouth and enjoy the taste. Keep munching on them and I will see you with more recipes next week.

What do you need to make Saltine crackers?
Makes about 35- 1X1 inch crackers
3/4 cup all purpose flour + 1/2 Tbsp for dusting
1/8 Tsp baking soda
1/8 Tsp salt
2-3 drops of vinegar
1/2 Tsp sugar
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1.5 Tsp active dry yeast
1 Tbsp oil (I used canola oil)
3 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp butter
For the topping: (This is what I used today, go creative and use herbs/spices of choice)
1/2 Tsp coarse salt
1 Tsp dry rosemary

How do you make Saltine crackers? 

• Take 3 Tbsp water, oil & butter in a microwave safe bowl  and heat it for 30 seconds, mix once and if the butter has not melted, heat for another 10 seconds. 
• Take it out of microwave and let it cool down slightly to warm. You can do this on stove top too. 
• Heat the 1/4 cup of water to just lukewarm, add the sugar and yeast, mix and keep aside for yeast to get active. 
• In a bowl, take flour, salt and baking soda, mix them together. Add vinegar and mix it in. 
• Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, add the yeasted water and the water with oil & butter. 
• With the help of a spoon, bring everything together. It will be a sticky dough. 
• Put it in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for 14-16 hours (I left it refrigerated for 24 hours). 
• This dough will not rise very much (do not look for a double the volume kind of rise) which is perfectly normal for this dough. 
• Take out the dough when you are getting ready to bake, let it come to room temperature for an hour or so. 
• Generously dust your working surface with AP flour, take the dough out of the bowl and pat it into a rough rectangle. 
• This dough is very soft and sticky so you can thin it out with hands. Use dry AP flour as needed. 
• Once you have a rectangle of about 8X10 inches, fold the long edge over to the middle and fold the opposite edge over the top of the first folded edge. This gives the crackers the layers inside. 
• Turn the folded dough sideways and roll (or pat) into a thin rectangle. I would recommend doing this on top of a parchment paper so you can easily transfer it to the baking sheets. 

• With a pizza cutter or a sharp knife, cut the rectangle into small pieces of desired size. 
• Sprinkle the toppings and using a fork, make indentations all over the crackers - This is very important if you don't want them to puff up like puris which they will without the forking. 

• Preheat oven to 425F, put the baking sheet in the middle of the oven and bake for 10 minutes, turn the baking sheets 90 degrees and bake for another 2 minutes. 
• Take them out immediately and let them cool for a couple of minutes before popping them into the mouth. 

Notes: 

• Oven temperatures differ vastly, keep an eye on the crackers after 8 minutes and do not let them burn. 
• Forking is essential to get flat crackers that are crispy. 
• Overnight refrigeration develops the ultimate taste in these crackers, do not try to bake them as soon as the dough is mixed. The flavors come in over time. 
• These crackers turn out really crispy and flaky inside, make sure you roll the dough out as thin as possible without tearing it apart. 

These crackers are off to the Baking Partner's monthly challenge. Thanks Swathi & Arthy for the flavorful crackers recipe. 

Linzer Cookies - celebrate Valentine's day with some reduced butter cookies :-)

Some of you atleast know my perspective of the valentine's day, it is not to be celebrated for a day if you are generally not expressing the emotion throughout the year or conversely, make every day a celebration. Granted there are days where you pull your hair out and yell at your valentine but that is part of the grand scheme of life. So, personally I do not subscribe to do anything special on the Valentine's day :-). Now, before you write me off as the middle aged (which I may be), unromantic person(not a chance) there ever was/is alive, let me tell you I am much in love and look forward to stay that way for years to come. And despite all my personal opinions on the matter, I seem to be making something special for this day as part of my obligations in this virtual world :-).

I was out shopping yesterday (nothing exotic, just the boring groceries) and every store I went to from a departmental store to a pharmacy had people crowded around either the flower bouquets and chocolates or the greeting cards. And also, the majority of people in these aisles were male. For laughing out loud (no LOL for me, I really am showing my age today in more ways than one), I don't know what to make of this gender bias in the stores ..

After that contradictory opening, here I am with some delicious, sweet cookies to appease you all today. I know the post is coming a day after the Valentine's day, but like I say always, every day is special if you want to bake something for your loved one(s), so go ahead and enjoy these precious bites albeit with a little restraint since they have much butter than I normally use in my cooking :-).

Today being the 15th, this post is part of my monthly Baking Partner's challenge that is conceptualized and hosted by Swathi. She gave us a choice of 2 types of cookies for the challenge and let us pick one. Infact, I made both of the cookies but missed taking pictures of the first one. And without pictures, what is a blog post?? I thought of making them again for the sake of pictures but decided to instead try the other choice and here I am with some delicious Linzer cookies. I am not a cookie person myself but these crunchy bites with some apricot jam sandwiched in between made for a delicious bite. Linzer cookies are of European origin and are 2 cookies sandwiched with a layer of jam or marmalade (choose any fruit flavor that you love). These cookies are flavored with both citrus and spices to wake you up. I would recommend experimenting and finding out the combination you like best. I added some tangerine and meyer lemon zest, you can easily replace them with orange or lime or regular lemon zest if that is what you have/like. I also added some cinnamon and cloves. Since you add all these flavors, the cookie dough is kept aside for a few hours (I refrigerated mine overnight for about 30 hours) so they seep into the dough and give you a burst of flavors on biting into a cookie. The original recipe says it can be refrigerated upto 3 months but I don't see the point of it, it is not like you are making a fruit cake :-). So.. I will leave the determination of resting period to you intelligent souls.

Now there was another reason I didn't refrigerate it too long, yes, Valentine's day was around the corner and I had to bake it quickly :-) but I also made mine a reduced fat cookie by slashing the amount of butter to half and wanted to see how my substitute ingredient worked. Sure, I hear the collective gasping of all you cookie connoisseurs hating me for bringing shame to the world of cookie making and also proudly bragging & blogging about it. Hear me out a little bit, will you? I have done this trick before while making some of my other cookies and haven't found my cookies lacking anything at all. I know it sounds hard to believe but it is definitely not a story of denial. Butter in cookies are over rated according to me, if you can make paneer butter masala without the butter or Dal Makhni without the makhan then why not cookies with reduced butter? Beginning to sound reasonable? I know I can convince (most of you atleast) with this argument, so read on..

I shy away from making traditional cookies for the amount of fat they seem to claim as needed. Once during a girl scouts bake sale, we made dozens and dozens of cookies and my hands I am sure got the best moisturizing like never before or after as I was handling the dough. A few years back, when DD was in elementary school, I used to meet another mom in her Taekwondo class. This super sweet lady and I became friends and she invited me to a cookie exchange during the Holiday season. In those days, I was very hesitant to bake anything, let alone experiment with traditional, butter laden cookies. I called her ahead and explained my predicament and she sweetly suggested I could bring in something else if I was not comfortable making cookies. I ended up taking some fruit punch to that gathering but the point of Christmas cookie exchange is to literally exchange your best, favorite and handed down the family cookie recipes with each other and I got a bunch of index cards with cookie recipes on them and every one of them spelt butter in substantial amounts and so I just kept them aside. If cookies have to be baked, I look for options that I like - added nuts, spices, fruits to bring out the flavor.

Back to the reduced fat cookie, I already told you that I slashed the amount of butter by half but that eliminates the moisture content in the recipe, so how did I make up for it? I added 1.5 Tbsp (for the quantity of ingredients I am giving below) of milk and made the dough. If someone doesn't tell you about this or if you haven't grown up rolling in Paula Deen's recipes all your life, you will not notice the reduction and there is nothing in the taste that tells you otherwise. The surrounding flavors make you forget about the lack of full on butter and lets you enjoy the cookies feeling a little better :-). So go ahead and try these delicacies at half the guilt or indulge yourself in the original version itself.

What do you need to make Linzer cookies? 
Makes about 1.5 dozen sandwiches
1  cup + 2 tablespoon All purpose flour
1/2 cup ground almonds and/or hazelnuts
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/8 Tsp salt
1 Tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 Tsp ground cloves
4 Tbsp unsalted butter (room temperature, original recipe says 8 Tbsp butter)

1.5-2 Tbsp milk
1/8 Tsp almond extract
1 Tsp grated lemon zest
1 Tsp grated orange zest
2 Tbsp jam/jelly/fruit preserves (I used apricot jam)
1 Tsp + extra Powdered sugar for dusting

How do you make Linzer cookies?

• Soak almonds in warm water for about 45 minutes to an hours, remove the outer peel and pat them dry.
• Make a powder of almonds along with 1 Tsp of powdered sugar in to a fine consistency.
• Prepare cinnamon and cloves powder and keep ready. 
• Wash, pat dry and grate the rinds of lemon and oranges to get the required amount of zest. 
• Bring all ingredients together (except butter and milk) in a wide bowl and working with your fingers mix them well for a couple of minutes.
• Cut the butter into small pieces, add them to the bowl and mix them well. As you knead, the natural oil from the almonds also helps as a source of moisture.
• The dough starts to come together within 3-4 minutes, if it is very crumbly and falling apart, slowly add milk (room temperature) and knead it in. I used only 1.5Tbsp of it, so go by what your fingers are feeling in the dough bowl and adjust the milk.
• Once you have a firm ball of dough in hand, pat it into a slab (dimensions doesn't matter really), wrap completely with a cling wrap and refrigerate it (3 - 24 hours).

• When you are ready to bake the cookies, prepare 2 cookie sheets by laying out parchment sheets on them.
• Spread another parchment sheet on the working surface, take the dough out of the refrigerator and let it sit out for 10 minutes.
• Mean while, preheat the oven to 325F and set the racks to 1/3 distance from the top and bottom. 
• Remove the plastic wrap and place the slab on the parchment paper, Lay another parchment sheet on top (this avoids the dough and excess butter sticking to your hands and the rolling pin) and start to roll the dough out to about 1/8 inch thick. 

• Remove the top sheet, use the cookie cutters to cut different shapes. You get Linzer cookie cutters in the store which makes cutting the center piece easy but if you do not have them, just use different shapes to cut an outer shape and a smaller inner shape. 
• You will make equal number of solid halves (without center cut) and center cut halfs to finally assemble the sandwiches. I hope the pictures tell the story better than I am able to do :-). 

• Lay out the cut shapes with 1/2 inch distance between the two and bake them for a total of 14-15 minutes, open the oven once midway through, rotate the cookie sheets and also by interchanging the top and bottom cookie sheets - this insures even baking without burning. 
• Watch the cookies towards the end of baking time and take them out once the edges start to brown slightly.
• Let them stand for a few minutes to become firm before you assemble the sandwiches.

Assembling Linzer cookies (Do this when you are ready to serve, else the preserve layer tends to soften the cookies):

• Take a solid half, spread a thin layer of jam or preserve, top it with the other half with the cutout.
• Take a Tsp of powdered sugar in a thin sieve and sift it over the top.

Notes:

• Time saver tip - You can use store bought almond meal instead of soaking, peeling and grinding the almonds.
• As you cut out the cookies, bring the scraps and the center cuts back into a ball and repeat the process. You can also bake the center cutouts separately but they cook faster because of their size.
• You can serve these cookies without making them into sandwiches if the cutouts pose a problem. Slather some jam on top and bite in :-)

Kofieebroodje - let us start the 2014 Baking Partner's challenge with a Dutch Coffee Bun

Happy Makara Sankranthi to all my readers who are celebrating the festival. This is the harvest festival in India and recipes rich in ingredients newly harvested are prepared, shared and enjoyed. Well, are you wondering that you have never heard of a Kofieebroodje in any part of India during Sankranthi? Okay, this is not a Sankranthi dish, it is not even an Indian dish. This came from Amsterdam where one of our Baking Partners Kaveri resides. And since it is the 15th of the month, a good rule abiding baking partner that I am, I chose to post this recipe instead of my Sankranthi goodies today :-). I can hear some of you muttering that if I were any good blogger worth my salt, I would have planned this and brought timely Sankranthi recipes. So, until I can get my act together and get the Sankranthi recipes for this year, look at these previous year's posts here, here and here. There is plenty of harvesting going on in these posts already.

With that explained to everyone's satisfaction, now back to Kofieebroodje or the Dutch Coffee Buns. There were 2 choices this month, one for a tart apple pie and another for these coffee buns. Here we are in the first month of the new year and I was thinking of reducing/eliminating all processed food from my cooking and eat better, but then the lure of baking partners is too great to resist. So I let my resolve go down South a little bit but made it up by not eating too much myself but sharing it generously with people around me. I know, I know, it sounds so totally selfish but they didn't have any such resolutions and I was upfront in telling them that the delicious looking pastries had all purpose flour, butter and sugar. What can I say, I am a very honest gal and I didn't want to let go of my resolution so early in the year either, there are 350 and odd days to do it anyway.. :-)

As many of you already know, I am part of this fun group of home bakers called Baking Partners, Swathi who started this group very diligently reviews out suggestions and gives us a couple of shortlisted recipes every month. I picked the Dutch Coffee buns this time (since it sounded like the easier of the two :-)) called Kofieebroodje. They are like most of the pastries you get in bakeries but the best part is that they are not overly sugary but have just the right amount of sweetness and a little tang from the jam on top, the slightly flaky crust is made moist with the jam. I am told these are served as mid morning snacks over a cuppa when you meet up with neighbors/friends but you don't have to organize a 11AM meeting specially to consume them, they taste good any other time of the day also :-). The dough itself is very easy to work work, much like a 'less buttered up' cookie dough and is a novice baker (a.k.a me)'s dream come to true. You get to create something so professional looking and tasty without any fuss.

I made my first batch of Kofieebroodje a week or so ago. Since I have been experimenting quite a bit now a days, DD was rightfully apprehensive about trying a new dish when I offered her the warm buns the first time. She was in her room studying and I took one in a plate and as soon as she took a bite, the face exploded in a big smile and then came a hug and then after 30 seconds when all of that bun had gone inside came the request for 2 more and 'make it quick amma' she says! I had halved the original recipe since I didn't want to make too many of them but the dozen Kofieebroodje were gone before the Earth had twirled once around its base. So I made them again the second time and added some roasted and crushed almonds and experimented with an apple sauce layering for half the batch instead of the pudding. And the batch is looking thinner and smaller since the last 4 hours or so of making them :-). These stay well without dripping and being squishy, so they are perfect for a kids party or for taking over as a present for a host.

What do you need to make Kofieebroodje?
Recipe source: The Dutch Table
Makes about 12 Kofieebroodje
1.5 cups All Purpose Flour
1 Tsp Rapid rise/bread machine yeast
1/2 cup + 1Tblsp milk (lukewarm)
2 Tblsp sugar
1.5 Tblsp butter (at room temperature)
1/4 Tsp salt
1/4 cup raisins (I used golden raisins)
1/2 Tsp Vanilla essence
8-10 almonds (I added this on my second batch, not in the original recipe but made a very favorable difference)
For the cream/custard:
I used single serve cups of vanilla pudding from the store. It took me 2 cups for this measurement
For the glaze on top: 
2 Tblsp Apricot jam (or any other favorite flovor)
couple of drops warm water (to loosen up the jam to a spreadable consistency)

How do you make Kofieebroodje? 

• Soak raisins in warm water for 15 minutes, once they plump up a little and soak up the water, drain the water and keep aside until ready to use.
• Toast almonds in microwave or stove top until toasty and pound/chop in to small pieces. Keep aside. 
• Mix flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a wide bowl. 
• Add butter and vanilla essence and mix it in homogeneously. 
• Add warm milk slowly to make a soft and pliant dough. 
• Knead for a couple of minutes to get the yeast going. 
• Cover the bowl with a cling wrap and let it rise in a warm corner of your kitchen counter. 
• When the dough doubles in volume (about 45 mins to an hour), punch it down and knead to a smooth ball. 
• Divide the dough into 2 and roll each ball into a rectangle of about 12inch X 12 inch. 
• Spread the pudding in a thin layer on top leaving 1/2 inch from the edges on all sides. 
• Sprinkle chopped nuts, soaked raisins.

• Roll the rectangle from one end to the other, closing the edges to prevent pudding from popping out too much. 

• Cut the roll into 5-6 pieces (depends on your preference for size), take each piece and set it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. When you put the pieces on the baking sheet, turn them to have one of the cut surfaces on top so it bakes beautifully with those concentric circles not getting smudged. 

• Cover and let them proof for 25-30 minutes. 
• Brush lightly with milk (gives that wonderful glow and golden hue), add a few more raisins on top if you like and bake it in a pre-heated oven at 350F for 25-28 minutes. 
• Mix the jam and a couple of drops of water and give it a good stir. 
• Take the baking sheet out of the oven, brush the jam all over the hot pastries. 

• Let cook and if you want give another coating of the jam once it cools down. 
• Serve warm or cold with or without coffee :-)

Notes: 

• The second time I made this, I used unsweetened apple sauce for half the batch instead of the pudding. It worked very well. 
• I added the nuts the second day (smarter me :-)) as I have said before I am nutty about nuts and find excuses to throw some in every opportunity I get. DD said they gave a nice crunchy bite. I used almonds but use any toasted nuts of your choice. 
• You can prepare custard or pudding at home and use it to layer, make sure the consistency is right so it spreads easily but doesn't run. 
• You can add any frosting of choice on top instead of the jam but I didn't want to make too many changes as I was posting the recipe as part of the group. 

This recipe comes to you from the Baking partners

Pataqueta - a traditional Valencia orchard bread for Baking Partner's challenge

I am posting back to back recipes this week which is so unlike me :-), but I am enjoying every minute of it. I really wanted to post about the Nallikai chitranna as we celebrated Tulsi habba on Thursday, then Swathi had asked me to be part of the World Diabetes day so came the healthy, diabetic friendly Barley upma. Today is the middle of the month and as has been the tradition over the last few months, I bake with my baking partners group and we all post our experiences and success stories about the month's challenge. Each of the recipes this week is a personal favorite - both for their taste and what they represent. All in all a fulfilling and exhausting week from blogging perspective, my hats off to bloggers who post daily and stay so active in this virtual world. Here I am with my last post for the week :-), hope I didn't bore you with my frequent ramblings. I will see you all next week, have a great weekend.

Taking a slight deviation from her usual choice of recipes for the challenge, Swathi offered us a single recipe this time, a traditional Spanish bread which is known to have been in existence over 300 years. I was excited to try an old world recipe. The bread is traditionally baked in a shape resembling a crescent moon. The ingredients are very minimal as befits a homely bread but the taste and texture are outstanding. This is easily one of the best breads I have baked at home. Originally baked in Moorish ovens, Pataquetas were fed to people as they left home for work. I can imagine why, they are hardy yet soft, stand well either dipped in a soup/stew or made into a sandwich. This delicious bread reminds me of the bakery purchased Italian bread especially Ciabatta. These are no longer cooked regularly at home but are pre ordered on occasions. Thank you Marisa for introducing us to this wonderful bread. Crisp and crackly outside with a beautifully soft inside, perfect with a soup or a spicy chutney, tastes divine.

All happy endings are not necessarily pain free travels. My journey of making Pataqueta had its own challenges. I made the ferment last week and following the instructions, refrigerated it. 48 hours later, the ferment didn't look any different from what had been pushed in, so to say I was a little worried would be an understatement. I panicked and sent an SOS to the baking partners' group. Swathi responded back promptly asking the right questions like if my yeast was active and suggesting I try putting the ferment out for a couple of hours before going any further. I had made a whole wheat bread using the same batch of yeast just a couple of days back and didn't think it was the culprit so took the ferment out in the morning and kept stealing glances at it the whole day to see if it would take some pity on me and show a change. No such luck. Not daring to go forward with that ferment and waste additional flour, I chucked it down the drain and started over. And incidentally my yeast also got over.

So went and got a fresh stock of yeast and made my starter. Taking some cues from the previous disaster, I kept the ferment out on the counter top for about 15 minutes and started seeing bubbles after the first 10 minutes which made my heart sing a happy tune. After this reassurance, the ferment went into the refrigerator. I left it in there for 2 full days before taking it out, the starter didn't seem to have doubled or increased in size, in essence it was pretty much the same as the last time :-(. My heart sank at the sight but I just braved on to make the dough hoping for some edible bread at the end of it. But then life is full of surprises and I ended up with a delicious bread which we all enjoyed. DD, who was home when I baked it, polished off 3 or 4 Pataquetas at one go with a heap of Pudina chutney on the side :-), a Spanish & Indian match made in heaven. We ate it with a hot bowl of soup for dinner, just perfect on a wintry night. By the time Marisa enlightened us about the way it is eaten in Valencia (sliced in half and used as a sandwich bread), we had polished off the bread :-), so the plan as DD says is to make it again soon so we can try the sandwich way.

The recipe is very simple and the ferment doesn't actually rise in volume, since the consistency of the starter is a slightly liquidish. So learning from experience, my first starter would have worked just as well if only I had not thrown it away. The surprising part of this bread is that there is not a single drop of oil or any fat. The ingredients are just flour and water mixed with a leaving agent. The recipe we were given as part of the challenge had a link to a Spanish website so my Spanish studying daughter volunteered happily to read it and translate it for me as I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing out anything in my translated English version :-).

What do you need to make Pataqueta?
Ferment or starter ingredients:
100 ml water (room temperature)
1/3 cup All purpose flour
1.5 Tsp instant yeast or 2 Tsp Active dry yeast
1/2 Tsp sugar
Bread dough ingredients:
3 cups bread flour (you can substitute with AP flour if you like)
200 ml luke warm water
1.5 Tsp salt
all of the ferment from above
1/2 Tsp flour to dust on top

How do you make Patequeta?
Making the ferment:

• Take water in a bog bowl, stir in the yeast into the water.
• Add the flour and sugar and mix it.
• This is not a flowing liquid neither is it a tight dough.
• Keep the mixture on counter top for about 10-15 minutes for the yeast to start working.
• You may see some tiny bubbles on top if you have used rapid rise yeast.
• Cover the bowl with a cling wrap and refrigerate for upto 48 hours.
• This helps develop yeast slowly and enhances the taste of the bread.

Making the bread dough:

• Keep the refrigerated ferment out for about 30-45 minutes.
• Add the flour, warm water to the bowl and bring them together using a spoon or a scraper.
• Take the dough on to a flat surface and knead it for about 8-10 minutes - you will not require any dry flour, the dough feels a little sticky to start with but as you work on it becomes soft and pliable.
• Add the salt and continue to knead for another 15 minutes, you will feel the dough changing texture under your fingers, it is such a satisfying feeling if you ask me :-).
• At the end of 20 minutes, you will end up with a soft, pliant and elasticky dough.
• Divide the dough into equal sized balls (I made 14 balls) and roll them gently to remove creases.
• Set them on a tray for 20 minutes to settle down, cover it with a cloth.
• Take out the balls one by one, press it into a disc with hand, make a sharp cut in the bottom half and gently lift the dough sideways to make the shape - watch this video to get an idea.
• Make another horizontal cut in the middle.

• I made all balls but 2 in this shape and used the last two to make some regular rolls.
• Set these shaped breads on cookie sheets an inch apart, cover with a cloth and let them rise for an hour.
• Mine did not exactly double in size but just looked poofy and soft. So don't let the size deter you.
• This bread is steam baked so take a wide baking tray or a oven safe dish and put it in the bottom rack of the oven as you preheat the oven to 390F.
• Take about 4 cups of water and set it to boil.

Making the Pataqueta:

• Take a Tsp of flour in a fine sieve and dust it over the bread lightly.
• Open your oven door, pull the bottom rack and quickly pour the boiling water into it.
• Put the baking sheets with Pataquetas inside the oven on the top rack and close it.
• Bake for 26-30 minutes.
• Enjoy fresh baked, hot bread with soup or chutney as we did. Marisa says it is traditionally eaten as a sandwich bread, so go ahead and make your own filling.

The delicious Pataqueta baked as part of Baking Partner's challenge for Nov, 2013