Daring Bakers challenge - pizza

Pizzas are a great meal to make at home. If you have plenty of time, you can make your own pizza bases, which taste so much better than the take-away shop version, or you can cheat and use ready-prepared bases or pita bread. By making it at home, you have full control over the toppings you choose, so you can come up with your own creative combinations, or use as many (or as few) anchovies as you like!

Pizza and toppings was the October challenge, hosted by Rosa's Yummy Yums, for the Daring Bakers. The pizza dough recipe came from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. It made a delicious thin, crispy yet chewy pizza crust and the only drawback is that it involves two days of preparation. Although the actual dough is easy to make (a standard mixture of flour, salt, yeast, oil, sugar and water kneaded into a dough), it needs to rest overnight in the fridge, which means the chef needs to do some planning ahead for pizza night.

Once the dough has rested overnight, you then bounce and toss around the pizza dough before putting it onto a pizza stone or baking tray, covering with toppings and baking for 5-8 minutes.

The toppings I chose were salami, olives and mozzarella; mushrooms, olives and caramelised onions; and potato and rosemary. The pizzas were absolutely delicious and enthusiastically received by my tasting panel.

I make pizzas reasonably regularly and I enjoyed testing this recipe. However, I think in future that I will stick with my Jill Dupleix pizza base recipe, as it only needs to rise for an hour or so before you can use it. Even this does require some planning ahead (it's not a meal you can whip up in 10 minutes after work, unless you've already pre-prepared the dough), but it's a recipe that I'm more likely to use than one that needs to be prepared the day before. Although it sounds daunting, it only takes about 10-15 minutes to actually prepare and knead the dough, and then it can prove for as long as you like. I strongly encourage you to try making your own pizzas, as the take-away versions will pale into comparison once you've tried it.

Daring Bakers challenge - potato bread

Cows and chooks around the world breathed a sigh of relief as this month the Daring Bakers had a savoury theme. There was not an egg or any milk in sight as we made tender potato bread.

This month's host, Tanna (My Kitchen in Half Cups), had thoughtfully provided metric and imperial measures, so this was an easy recipe to tackle. The only ingredient I didn't recognise was "whole wheat flour" but I assumed that is what we know in Australia as "wholemeal flour". The recipe was very straightforward: boil some potatoes and mash, mix with the cooking water, add yeast, wholemeal and plain flour, and then knead. We were warned that the dough was extremely sticky and we would probably need to knead in 1-2 extra cups of flour to get it to the desired consistency. I have made potato bread before (to a different recipe) and I don't remember it being so soft and sticky. Anyway, despite the softness of the dough, it rose beautifully in two hours and was extremely light and airy to touch. Once we reached the point of forming the bread, we were invited to unleash the Daring Baker within and to make the dough in whatever form we saw fit (loaves, focaccia, rolls etc).

I decided to make focaccias. For one topping, I fried up bacon and red onion and spread that over the top. For the other, I scattered sea salt, chopped rosemary and an olive mix over it. Then it was 10 minutes in a hot oven to cook.

Both focaccias turned out beautifully. The texture of this bread was soft and fluffy but the potato lent it a denseness. We ate portions of it after it had cooled a little from the oven and the next day, we heated up some leftovers and filled them with salad. Both worked equally well.

This was a great recipe to try. Like most yeast recipes, it requires time but the recipe was straightforward and easy and the end result was a big hit. Thanks to Tanna for hosting this month and for choosing such an excellent recipe.

One a penny, two a penny...

I love hot cross buns. I love them warm and fresh out of the oven, smothered in melting butter. I love them cold. I love them as a snack or an afternoon treat. I love their yeasty, bready texture, sweetened with spices and dried fruit. Easter doesn't feel complete to me unless I've made at least one batch of freshly cooked buns.

Hot cross buns start appearing on supermarket shelves with indecent haste after Christmas but I manage to ignore them until at least March. I can't abide the recent trend for sickly-sweet choc-chip hot cross buns. I love chocolate and I love hot cross buns but never the twain shall meet! The original buns are so delicious that they don't need the addition of chocolate. I don't know where the trend has come from (although wikipedia suggests it's because people don't like mixed peel and want to replace it with something else) but it shows no signs of abating. Maybe we've become such sweet tooths that we just can't help overloading ourselves with sugar. Or maybe it's just the marketing gurus trying to create new consumer cravings.

I strongly encourage you to have a go at making your own buns - it's surprisingly easy. It does involve yeast and that puts some people off, but yeast is not as daunting as people fear. Your technique improves the more you cook with yeast, as you learn what to look for, whether the yeast is active and whether the bread mixture is rising as it should.

I've adapted my hot cross bun recipe over the years, taking bits from Donna Hay and Gourmet Traveller recipes, and changing the spices (I prefer a spicy mix in my buns), soaking the sultanas in port and omitting the mixed peel (which Adam detests). The aroma of these buns baking in the oven is heavenly and I like to make several batches in the lead-up to Easter. I always think I'll make these buns throughout the rest of the year because I love them so much, but somehow it feels like cheating!

Whip up a batch of these for morning tea in the lead-up to Easter, and definitely have some fresh from the oven for breakfast on Good Friday.

HOT CROSS BUNS

1 12g sachet of dried yeast (it should be equivalent to one tablespoon)
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk
4 1/2 cups plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon mixed spice
50g butter, melted
1 egg
2 cups sultanas
1/2 cup port
Paste
1/2 cup plain flour
1/3 cup water
Glaze
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon mixed spice
1/4 cup water

Soak the sultanas in port for 30-60 minutes. Drain and discard remaining port.

Place yeast, two teaspoons of the caster sugar and all of the milk in a bowl. Set aside for 5-10 minutes, until the mixture foams.

Add the flour, spices, butter, egg, sultanas and remaining caster sugar to the yeast mixture and mix using a knife until a sticky dough forms. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 8-10 minutes or until it feels elastic (you may need to add some extra flour if the mixture is too sticky). Place in an oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel, and stand in a warm place for one hour, or until doubled in size.

Divide the dough into 12 pieces and roll into balls. Grease and line a 23cm square cake tin or baking dish with non-stick baking paper and place the dough balls into the tin. Cover with a tea towel and set aside for 30 minutes, or until the buns have risen.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Combine the flour and water for the paste and place in a piping bag (or a plastic bag with the corner snipped off) and pipe crosses on the buns. Bake for 25-35 minutes, or until well browned and springy to touch. Remove from oven and brush on the warm glaze while the buns are still hot.

To make the glaze, combine all ingredients in a small saucepan. Stir over a medium heat until the sugar dissolves, bring to the boil and then simmer for two minutes.