Sheermal - a Mughalai bread

Bread baking is addictive, meditative, relaxing.. I could go on and on, but will stop now. Some of you had been asking me about the bread posts that have been far and few this year. Yes, this blog has been on the back burner for a while now. Thankfully, my oven wasn't. Its just that I never found the time to take pictures of the final product before my family descended and polished it off. November is coming to an end and thankfully the non-posting inertia is also fading away.. This month's to-do bread (in the bread baking group I belong to, We Knead to Bake) was a rare delicacy called Sheermal. According to what I read up - Sheer means milk in Persian. This bread is kneaded using the moisture only from Eggs, milk and ghee. Ghee gives this bread a wonderful taste, so don't skimp on it, go for an extra walk instead. This is one of the easier breads to bake, so even if you are new to bread baking, I don't think you could go wrong with this bread.
Find the original recipe here

I used only Kewra water to flavour this bread, although many use rose water, elaichi (cardamom)and even orange blossom water. Who is to stop a baker on roll ;) The toppings can also vary, I've seen folks top it with a generous portion of almond shavings, other nuts... My family loved the mild fragrance of Kewra in the bread....
I didn’t make any changes to the original recipe except to increase the sugar and decrease the salt. And the plan was to have it for evening tea - this bread is a traditional accompaniment to Korma and Nihari. If you'd rather have it in a restaurant, you might have to search hard and probably might find it in a humble eatery somewhere in your city, I haven’t seen in any of the mid range or higher end restaurants menus yet.

Ingredients

1 tsp active dried yeast
3 tsp sugar (Aparna’s recipe uses only 2 tsps)
1/4 cup lukewarm water
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (I had to use a little more)
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup ghee (I used home made ghee)
1/2 cup milk (or more, as required for kneading)
1 tsp kewra water (screw pine essence)
¼ tsp saffron strands soaked in 2 tbsp warm milk
Ghee, for brushing


Method
Activate the yeast by mixing in warm water with sugar in the bowl of your mixer. It starts frothing in 5-10 minutes, in the meantime get ready with the other ingredients.
Sift flour and salt in a bowl and set aside. Lightly whisk the egg and keep aside.
Add the flour and the beaten egg to the mixer bowl of your stand mixer and ensure that the dry and wet ingredients are mixed. Then add the ghee and ensure that it gets evenly distributed. I did this process by hand.
Attach the dough hook and start adding the warm milk, follow it up with the kewra water.
You will notice that the dough starts to pull away from the sides and gets a smooth texture. This takes about 8 minutes. Knead by hand to get the final consistency. I found that I needed a bit more flour (2 tbsp) more than the recipe mentioned. You will get a smooth, silky dough (due to the milk and fat) that is quite sticky. Shape into a ball and proof it in a greased bowl. Cover it with a damp cloth and proof it till doubles (it took the dough about 1 hour or so).
Knead the dough again (dust the worktable with a little bit of flour if required). Shape into a ball, lightly coat all over with a little ghee, cover with a damp cloth and let it rest for about 15 to 20 minutes. You can preheat your oven now.
Divide the dough into 4 equal portions and using your fingers/rolling pin, press out each portion into a round of approximately 4” diameter (about 1/8” thick). Place the rounds on a parchment lined or lightly greased baking tray and using a fork, dock (prick holes) the whole surface of the dough rounds. Brush the surface of the bread liberally with saffron milk
Note: I tried lining the pan with parchment paper for one lot and greased butter paper for another. The bread got stuck in the butter paper lined tray.

Bake for 15 minutes @180C. The bread has to be lightly browned, The more it bakes the crisper it gets and we don’t want that. A well-made Sheermal is soft not crisp.
Also remember to brush the baked Sheermal with ghee as soon as its out of the oven.

We had this aromatic bread with a cup of tea. You can try it with a spicy gravy. If so, then reduce the sugar and increase the salt by a notch.
Let me know if this bread was a hit with your family

Oats and Cranberry bread

While we Indians have always loved our food, the current fixation with international ingredients that don't cost an arm and leg is quite difficult to find. Those lovely cheeses, hazelnuts are not really for regular cooking. However, one ingredient that is still lots affordable is Cranberry. While it is much more expensive than raisin, I normally keep the dried ones handy as a snack as it does not cloyingly sweet taste that the 'kismis' we get here. I was looking for a recipe that would use a fair amount of this and found this lovely recipe by Dan Lepard Find the Original Recipe here: I made a few minor substitutions and there was a lovely flavourful bread that landed on our breakfast plates today. I liked the bread plain with a cup of tea. But my kids preferred a sweeter version so they topped the slices with chocolate sauce and enjoyed it

Ingredients

75g instant oats, plus extra for the crust (the original recipe calls for rolled oats, I used the quick cooking ones instead)
175g dried cranberries
450g strong white flour (I added 3 tbsp of Vital wheat gluten and topped the rest with maida as I don't get bread flour here)
1½ tsp salt
½ tsp all spice powder
1 tsp sugar
50g unsalted butter
1 tsp instant dry yeast
Oil, for kneading
Method

Put the cranberries in a bowl and add 375ml boiling water. Leave for 10 minutes, then add the instant oats to the mixture and leave it until the mixture is warm.
Mix flour, salt, spice and sugar in another bowl, rub in the butter, toss the yeast through, then add the oats and berries, and mix well. Leave to stand for 10 minutes.
I tipped this mixture into my KitchenAid stand mixer and kneaded the dough for about 5 minutes till the dough started pulling together. Then I covered it with a towel and let it rest. There are two more of this knead and rest cycles. I kneaded for 5 minutes after a 10 minutes interval. I did the final knead by hand. The dough is sticky so its good to oil your hands before kneading the dough. Roll up the dough in an oiled bowl and rest the dough for 30 minutes. I covered with a tea towel.
You will see the dough rising. At the end of 30 minutes rise, shape the dough into a rectangle, roll up tightly and squeeze, seam-side down, into a large, loaf tin. My load tin is non stick so I just coated it with a thin film of oil. Use parchment paper for metal loaf tins. Leave for an hour until risen by half. Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan-assisted). Brush the top of the loaf with water, press on a handful of oats, cut a gash down the middle and bake for 50 minutes.
Tap the bottom of the loaf and when you hear the deep hollow sound, you know that the bread has been baked enough. Cover with a towel and let it cool completely before slicing.

Note: The bread browns very quickly on the top; the original recipe says that its typical for a fruit bread.

Cajun-Basil Eggless Cheese Muffins

A good Savoury Muffin recipe that is vegetarian, easy to make and tasty has been eluding me for long now. One recipe gave me really tasty ones but they got really stuck to the liners :( The second time around, the flavours were mild and they popped out of the muffin pan in a breeze but then the baking soda left a vague bitter aftertaste which was more pronounced as the muffins cooled... Farrukh has a lovely blog on http://www.cubesnjuliennes.com/. I have tried some of her bakes before, not only are they amazing, but you have to see the pictures to believe it. She had published a wonderful recipe of cheesy-chive muffins that were eggless and I wanted to try it out. What I did was I stuck to the basic flour-fat-liquid proportions from her recipe and changed the flavours to the ones I had available in my pantry.

My adapted recipe goes like this... INGREDIENTS:- 110 gms. maida 50 gms. butter, softened ½ cup, curd (I used the set dahi curd) 80 ml. milk ½ tsp. baking soda 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh Basil 1 tbsp chilli Flakes 1/2 tbsp. garlic powder 1/2 of pickled Jalapeno (seeds removed and chopped fine) 1/2 tbsp. sugar 6-8 black olives chopped fine 1/2 tablespoon tomato Ketchup 1 tsp. Cajun seasoning 2 tablespoons cheddar cheese (grated) ½ tsp, salt Cheddar cheese, grated, as required for topping Method: This recipe yields 6 medium muffins... Pre-heat the oven at 170 degrees, grease the muffin pan. In bowl, sift together all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, cajun seasoning, garlic powder and chilli flakes. In another bowl, mix together butter, jalapenos, olives, cheddar cheese, basil, curd, tomato ketchup. Add half of the flour mixture and half of the milk, mix until combined well Add remaining half of the flour mixture and remaining milk, mix until combined well (do not over mix, work with a light hand else you get rubbery muffins) Fill the muffin pan with the batter upto 2/3. Top with some grated cheddar cheese. Note: These muffins do not rise much Bake them in pre-heated oven for 15 minutes. Take out and cool. Serve them warm with more ketchup :) if your palette is anything like my kids' Enjoy....

Focaccia Caprese

New year brings new beginnings they say and mine will be to blog regularly about the recipes I try out in the kitchen regularly. I am kinda de cluttering my life and putting blogging high up on my priority list :) so those of my friends who have been asking me when the next post is coming up. Here it is. I have joined a fabulous bread baking group started by Aparna that's called We Knead to Bake. She gives out a tested and a fabulous recipe every month and we need to bake along. There is nothing like a gang of virtual bakers egging you on to try bread recipes and they are so helpful in sharing tips and tricks and the finer nuances of bread baking. I love baking breads and think that breads for snacks are definitely a healthier option. I haven't tried out very complicated ones like croissants yet but have come a long way since my first foray some 2 years back. More about the recipe now....There are loads of variations in focaccia like plain, herbed, topped etc and this is the first time I am trying a recipe that has a lot of toppings along with a flavoured oil drizzle. I think that's the secret of keeping this bread moist and bursting with flavour. The original recipe can be found here: http://www.mydiversekitchen.com/2014/01/we-knead-to-bake-13-focaccia-caprese.html I did not make any changes to the recipe. Just added some black olives to the other topping ingredients. Fresh Mozzarella definitely makes this bread special. Do try to bake with this cheese but ensure that the cheese is well drained else the top becomes soggy. So without rambling on any further, here is my version of the Focaccia Caperese.

The bread is light and moist. Its best consumed immediately after baking. The bread was being baked in the oven when my daughter came back home from school. One sniff and she guessed that a 'yummy bread' was being baked :) Note: I use my KitchenAid stand mixer to knead the dough but you should be able to achive good results by hand too. If you are using KA then it takes just about 7-8 minutes for mixing and kneading the dough. Substitute with mozzarella if you cannot find the fresh one. You need about 1/2 cup of oil for the entire recipe (1/4 cup of flavoured oil and 1/4 cup plain) but what I did was used herbs and seasoning to the half cup of oil to OD the flavour. Try it and let me know if it worked for you too...