Hachapuri

 

Cheese bread. Cheeeeeeeeeese bread. Cheesy, cheesy, cheeeeeeeese bread. That’s what hachapuri is. Not something your cat coughed up, like one of my friends remarked when I mentioned it on Facebook. It’s a good thing I’m not easily put off my food, or she and I might have had a problem!

Tee hee hee! I couldn’t resist!

As you can probably tell by my recent posts, I looooooooove Nigella Lawson. Love. I also really like finding new foods in cookbooks that I might not ever be exposed to on my own. Like this one. It’s a Georgian cheese bread. Georgia like the country, not the state. I probably won’t ever get to travel to Georgia and there isn’t (as far as I know) a large Georgian community here in Maine. So it’s really cool to get to try something like this in my own little kitchen!

This is a really easy, quick recipe. Great for when you sorta forgot to start anything for dinner! Make the cheese bread, steam some veggies, brown some kielbasa and you’re golden! I really love this with my favorite meatballs and rice pilaf, and a big platter of roasted broccoli. Yum!

Note: I’ve given some, um, not precise amounts for the filling. I did this because the original recipe calls for 3 cups of feta. THREE CUPS! That’s a lot. Granted, it tastes fabulous! I don’t know about where you live, but here, feta can get kinda pricy when you’re buying quantities like that. So I tried just using a cup of feta and boosting the mozzarella from one cup to three. Still awesome, far less costly. I’ve tried using fresh mozzarella and the shredded stuff from the bag and there isn’t much difference in taste. The fresh mozzarella makes for a slightly more gooey filling, but it’s really not very noticeable. You can let your wallet decide – it’s still going to be fantastic!

 

Hachapuri

Adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Feast

For the dough: 1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) butter, softened

2 cups yogurt

2 eggs

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

4 1/2 cups flour

 

For the filling: 1 cup ricotta cheese

1-3 cups feta cheese*

2-3 cups mozzarella*

1 egg

2 teaspoons dried oregano

*see note above

 

In your mixer, combine the butter, yogurt, and eggs. Mix very well.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking soda. Whisk to combine.

Add the flour mixture to the yogurt mixture and use your dough hook to beat it into a soft dough. Add a little more flour if it seems too sticky to work with. (I don’t usually need to add much, if any. Maybe a tablespoon or two.

Rest the dough in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, whip up the filling!

Add ricotta, feta, mozzarella, egg and oregano to a large mixing bowl and use your hands to really blend it together well.

After the dough has rested, pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.

Lightly flour a work surface and divide up the dough. You can make one big hachapuri, or 2 medium hachapuri, or 3 medium-small hachapuri, and so on and so on and so on. Basically, decide how many finished hachapuri you want and cut the dough so there are two pieces per hachapuri. You could make a dozen individual hachapuri if you wanted! They’d be adorable and delicious hachapuri! Are you sick of the word ‘hachapuri’ yet? I’m not sick of the word ‘hachapuri’ yet.  .  . okay, moving on.

Form each piece of dough into a ball. Using a rolling pin or your hands or a combination thereof (that’s usually what I do) roll/stretch the dough until it’s about 1/4 inch thick. You don’t have to worry too much about the pieces ending up as perfect circles. Any circularish shape will do. (Yes, I know that’s not a word.)

Lay one circularish piece of dough on a baking sheet, spoon some filling into the center. Again, the amount of filling you use is going to depend on the size of your hachapuri. Really though, you can’t go wrong. You can’t really overstuff one, and if you go the other way and it’s a little lean on cheese, well, only you will know ;) Just kinda eyeball it to figure out how much you’re going to need for each hachapuri.

Place a second circularish piece of dough on top and roll the bottom piece up over the edge of the top piece and work your way around the hachapuri, pressing to seal as you go.

Lather, rinse, repeat with how every many hachapuri your little heart has decided on.

Pop in the oven and bake for 20ish minutes. A large hachapuri is going to take longer than a mini one. Just keep checking on it. It should be a nice golden brown when it’s ready!

If your hachapuri should ooze some cheese while it’s baking, fret not. Just scrape away the cheese when you take the hachapuri out of the oven, it won’t continue to ooze, so probably no one will even notice. And of course, someone is going to have to eat that awesome bite of cheesiness!

Let cool about 10 minutes and enjoy!

These are the Rolls You’ve Been Looking For!

 

I’m always looking for the ‘ideal’, the most perfect (in my opinion) recipes. Ideal pie crust, perfect chocolate cake, gorgeous dinner rolls. And I found them. The dinner rolls. I’ve been looking for these for ages! I can’t tell you how many recipes I’ve tried. And they were always disappointing. I wanted a soft, fragrant dinner roll. The kind you might get in a restaurant’s bread basket. Then I tried these from a Diane Mott Davidson novel. And I fell in love. These are absolutely gorgeous! I was a little concerned about the fruit zests, juice and extract – the original recipe included spreading marmalade on the rolls before baking them, not my thing – but they are just perfect! The citrus is in the background, just adding a nice flavor. I’ve baked these probably a dozen times in the last month or so and everyone who has had them has just raved. These are the rolls you want to serve for Thanksgiving, I promise. You can make them in advance and just reheat them while the turkey is resting! They reheat just beautifully! Which is really saying a lot, because I’m not one for leftover baked goods. Once they’ve lost that lovely, warm flush from the oven, I’m usually willing to skip them. But these are, like I said, perfect. And easy. The recipe looks long, but I promise that it’s NOT difficult!

A little note about extracts: I’ve been using an almond extract from Flavorganics for several years now. Not because I was trying to do the organic thing necessarily, but because I think the flavor is more pure. It does cost a couple of dollars more than the usual brands of extracts. In my opinion, it is WELL worth the money! I recently realized that Flavorganics has more than just almond extract, one of those things you know but just don’t think about, you know? Anyway, I switched to their orange extract and it is wonderful! I made several recipes with it that I’ve made in the past and the orange flavor really comes shining through. It’s less sweet, syrupy, candy-like tasting than the big name brands, more of a true flavor. Anyway, I was really pleased with it and thought you might like it too. I found mine in a local health food store, but I have seen Flavorganics extracts and other organic brands for sale in grocery stores. Something to keep an eye out for!

 

 

Citrusy Dinner Rolls

adapted from Diane Mott Davidson’s Double Shot

 

Start this recipe at least 3 1/2 hours before you want to serve the rolls!

 

1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 cup warm water

1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)

1 stick butter, room temperature

1/2 cup honey

zest of 1 lemon

zest of 1 orange

1 teaspoon orange extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon lemon juice

3 eggs

3 egg yolks and 3 egg whites, separated (the yolks go in the dough and you keep the egg whites for an egg wash)

1/2 cup milk, warmed to 110 degrees

6 cups flour

 

In a bowl, stir together the sugar, water and yeast. Let proof for 10 minutes.

In the bowl of your mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat the butter until creamy, 5 minutes.

Blend in the honey and beat until combined.

Add the zests, extract, salt and juice and beat well. Mixture will look curdled.

Add the eggs and egg yolks , one at a time, and beat in thoroughly.

Add the yeast mixture and milk and beat on low speed until combined.

Add 3 cups of the flour and mix well.

Switch to the dough hook and continue adding flour, a cup at at time, until the dough comes together. (You may use a little less than the whole 6 cups)

Knead on medium speed for about 10 minutes. The dough should be pliable, slightly sticky and come clean from the sides of the bowl.

Add a little more flour if your dough is still sticking to the sides of the bowl or pooling in the bottom.

Place the dough in a large, oiled bowl, cover with a dish towel and set in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in bulk – 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Deflate the dough and turn it out onto a board and allow it to rest  for 10 minutes. Spray two 12 cup muffin tins with cooking spray and set aside.

Divide dough into 24 equal pieces. Round each piece by curling the loose ends under and pinching together. Think about how you might wrap a cotton ball into a tissue, smooth on top and all the ends pinched together underneath. Using a circular motion, press the bottom of the roll on your countertop and rotate the ball while exerting slight pressure. This will help smooth the bottom of the roll and keep it’s nice shape. Place the roll into the muffin tin and proceed with the rest.

Cover with a dish towel and let rise until doubled, about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk the egg whites until frothy. Using a pastry brush, paint the egg whites onto the top of each roll.

Bake the rolls until golden brown and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Pop the rolls out of the pans and let cool a bit before serving. Enjoy!

 

To reheat: place the rolls on a baking tray and slide it into a COLD oven. Turn the oven on to 350. When the oven has preheated the rolls should be perfectly warmed! Neat trick, huh!?

Challah-lulliah

                    

Challah: pronounced ‘HA- la’, noooooot ‘CHa-la’. Yeah, I called it ‘CHa-la’ for almost a year before I saw a tee-shirt that said: Challah-back girl. (like the Gwen Stefani song ‘Hollaback girl’?) Yeah, that was when I realized I’d been saying it totally wrong and felt like a fool! I’ll save you from feeling dumb. (Note from the editor: Jennie grew up in Utah with pretty much zero exposure to Jewish culture.)

Anyway, back to the bread. I found this recipe in my Baking with Julia cookbook that I just love to death. I make this bread just about every week! It’s my go-to bread recipe and is our family’s favorite. The recipe has a lot of instructions, but it’s really not hard to do. It’s perfect bread for dipping into homemade soup, it makes great (small sized) sandwiches, toasts up like a dream, and makes excellent French Toast. It’s also wonderful for my favorite breakfast strata or for bread pudding.

It does take 4 hours from start to finish, so please plan accordingly! (P.S. Very little of that is actual work time. Don’t be scared! lol!)

Heat the milk over medium heat and add the butter. When it’s all incorporated remove it from the heat and let it cool down to 110 degrees.

Meanwhile, dissolve the yeast and a pinch of sugar into the warm water. 

Into your mixer’s bowl add the sugar, salt, honey and eggs. Stir to combine.

When the milk is cool enough add it to the egg mixture. Also add the yeast mixture. Mix to combine.

Add about 5 cups of flour and mix it together. Slowly add the rest of the flour, about 1/2 cup at a time until you have a nice dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl and isn’t sticky to the touch.

Swirl a little olive oil into a large bowl, place the dough into the bowl and turn to coat in the oil. Cover with saran wrap and park in a warm spot for an hour to an hour and a half.

Nice, fluffy, risen dough.

Now, please don’t punch that poor dough down! Use your fingers to gently deflate the dough.

Fold it up back into a ball, turn it over and replace it in the bowl to rise for another 45 minute to an hour.

Nice risen dough.

Place the dough on your clean counter top and use your fingers to deflate it again and form into a circle.

Use a bench scrape or a sharp knife to cut the circle into 6 equal pieces.

Roll three of the pieces into ropes and lay them side by side.

Starting at the middle, braid the ropes together.

Turn the other way and braid the other end. (you’ll be braiding ‘backwards’ so you don’t get a weird misshapen lump in the center of the braid)

Pinch the ends together.

Fold the ends under and use your fingertips to gently pinch the ends to the underside of the braid.

Repeat with the remaining pieces and place the braids on a baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise another 40 minutes.

Preheat the oven. Brush the loaves with glaze and let rest 5 minutes. Brush them down again and sprinkle with kosher salt and seeds. (We prefer ours with just the salt.)

Bake for 20 minutes. Remove pans and brush the newly exposed parts of the bread with glaze. Rotate the pans as you put them back in and bake for another 20 minutes.

                    

And enjoy!!!

 

 

Challah, makes 2 braided loaves

Adapted from Baking With Julia

The dough

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast

1/2 cup tepid water

1/3 cup sugar

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temp

1 cup whole milk

1 tablespoon honey

2 1/2 teaspoons salt

4 large eggs

6 1/2 cups high-gluten flour, bread flour (that's what I used), or all-purpose flour

Brush a large mixing bowl with the olive oil; set aside.

Place the butter into a small saucepan with the milk; heat until the milk is very warm to the touch and the butter has melted. If necessary, let the mixture cool so that it is no warmer than 110F.

Whisk the yeast into the water. Add a pinch of the sugar and let rest until the yeast has dissolved and is creamy, about 5 minutes.

In your mixer’s bowl add the remaining sugar, the honey, salt, and eggs stirring with a wooden spoon to dissolve the sugar and salt. Add the milk mixture.

Add the creamy yeast to the milk mixture and stir to combine. Add about 5 cups of the flour, and beat on low speed for 3 minutes, or until the dough starts to come together.

Beating on medium-low, add as much additional flour as needed, 1/2 cup at a time, to make a soft dough that will clean the sides of the bowl. Knead on medium-low for 8-10 minutes, until smooth, soft, and elastic.

Form the dough into a ball and transfer it to the oiled mixing bowl.

Turn the dough to coat in the oil, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and top with a kitchen towel.

Let the dough rise at room temperature for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until doubled in volume.

When the dough is fully risen, deflate it, cover as before, and let it rise until it doubles in bulk again, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Deflate the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface.

Pat the dough into a large circle and use a bench scrape to cut it into 6 equal pieces.

Roll each piece into a rope about 16 inches long; it should be thick in the center and tapered at the ends.

Align the ropes vertically, side by side, and start braiding from the center down.

When you've reached the end, turn the loaf around so that the braided half is on top; braid the lower half.

Pinch the ends to seal and tuck the ends under the loaf.

Transfer the loaf to a prepared baking sheet and gently plump it to get it back into shape; cover with a towel.

Braid the second loaf, put it on a baking sheet, and cover.

Let the loaves rise at room temperature for 40 minutes, or until soft, puffy, and almost doubled.

The glaze and topping

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 tablespoon cold water or heavy cream

Sesame, poppy, and/or caraway seeds (optional)

Coarse salt

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat to 350F.

Whisk the egg, yolk, and water together in a small bowl until broken up, then push the glaze through a sieve.

Brush the tops and sides of the challahs with glaze; let the glaze set for 5 minutes, and brush again.

Reserve the leftover glaze fro brushing the loaves during baking.

If you're topping the loaves, dust them with the seeds; sprinkle coarse salt over the loaves, topped or not.

Bake for 20 minutes. The loaves will expand and expose some of the inner dough.

Brush the newly exposed dough with the reserved glaze and bake 15 to 20 minutes longer, or until the loaves are golden and sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.

If they start to brown too quickly, cover them with a piece of foil, shiny side up. Let cool before slicing.

Once cut, challah should be kept in a plastic bag; it will keep for 2 days (assuming your hubby doesn't scarf it all in the middle of the night!!!) and then make excellent French toast. (Yes it does, mmmmmm) For longer storage, wrap the breads airtight and freeze for up to 1 month. Thaw, still wrapped, at room temperature.

Pumpkin Bread with Cranberries and Walnuts

This yeast bread is such a yummy alternative to other pumpkin quick breads, you’re going to love it! Stuffed full of toasted walnuts, raisins and fresh cranberries, you could serve it topped with cream cheese for breakfast, or slathered with maple-thyme butter at dinner. The tang from the fresh cranberries is a little startling but delicious. The first time I made it I didn’t have fresh cranberries, so I reconstituted dried cranberries, drained them and tossed them in the dough. It made for a slightly sweeter bread. It’s good both ways, but if you’re not fond of the bite of fresh cranberries I suggest you opt for the dried ones.

This bread is a tease. You get it all warmed up and smelling wonderful and then it wants to take a break to get some beauty rest. So, if you want this tomorrow then you need to get started on it right now. You’ve got a few minutes, right?

In a large bowl, measure out 2/3 cups of bread flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Whisk until incorporated.

In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons tepid water and 2 teaspoons yeast. That’s going to take about 5 minutes to become creamy, so take that time to get together 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 cup pureed pumpkin,1 egg, ¾ cup toasted walnuts, 1 cup raisins, and 2/3 cup of cranberries.

When you’re all ready and everybody’s at room temperature, go ahead and cream the butter and sugar.

Add the pumpkin and the egg.

Drizzle in the yeasty mixture.

Slowly add the flour. (Unless you like a mushroom cloud in your kitchen. Then, by all means, dump it all in and mix on high!)

After all your flour is incorporated, switch to the dough hook, turn your mixer up to medium and let it knead for 10-15 minutes.

You’ll end up with a pretty, smooth and sticky dough.

Dump in the walnuts and raisins and attempt to mix them in. It’s kinda tough, they don’t want to cooperate. Don’t worry about that now, we’ll take care of it ourselves.

When they’re mixed add the cranberries and attempt to mix them in as well.

Of course you have a buttered bowl waiting, right?

Dump your dough and the bits and pieces into the bowl.

Try and fold the bits in, but don’t worry too much. The dough will be much stickier after it rests and you’ll be able to get them in then.

Cover and park in a warm corner for 2 hours.

See? It’s so much stickier. The bits will stick in now.

Form it into a ball and wrap well in saran wrap.

Rest it on a Bear in the Big Blue House plate if you have one. I guess you could use a regular plate if you don’t. If you must. Then park it in the fridge overnight.

In the morning you might find some kind of freaky animal head in your fridge. That is, if you didn’t wrap it up well enough, like I did.

Take it out and turn the head back into the buttered bowl. The dough will take about 3-4 hours to come to a cool room temperature. When it does, portion it out into 2 (or three if you’re using smaller pans) pieces. Shape them into rectangles, roll them up, pinch the ends to seal them and pop them into your loaf pans.

If you roll the dough up, you’ll get a pretty spiral to your finished dough. (Sorry I’m missing pictures here, I don’t know what to tell you. Must have accidentally deleted them.)

Cover the pans and let them rise for 1 1/2 – 2 hours.  

  Preheat the oven to 350 and bake for about 35 minutes or until golden. They should also sound hollow when you thump the bottom of the loaf.

Let them rest in the pan for 5 minutes then let them hang out on a cooling rack.                  

Cut them up and slather the slices with creamy butter, cream cheese, fig and walnut preserves or maple-thyme butter. Deeeeeeelicious!

Cranberry-Walnut Pumpkin Loaves

Slightly adapted from Baking with Julia

2 2/3 to 3 cups bread flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon grated nutmeg

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons tepid water (80 – 90 degrees)

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

1/3 cup sugar

8 oz (1 cup) pureed pumpkin

1 egg, room temperature

¾ cup walnut pieces, toasted

1 cup raisins, golden or dark

2/3 cup cranberries (if frozen, thaw and pat dry) (Or reconstitute 2/3 cup of dried cranberries in hot water for 5 minutes then drain.)

Whisk 2 2/3 cup of flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt together in large bowl, set aside.

Pour water into small bowl, sprinkle in yeast and whisk to blend. Allow the yeast to rest until it’s creamy, about 5 minutes.

In a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar at medium speed until creamy. Add the pumpkin and egg and beat until blended. Don’t be concerned if mixture looks curdled; it will come together when you add dry ingredients.

Set the mixer speed to low and add the yeast, then begin to add the dry ingredients, about ½ cup at a time. As soon as the mixture starts to form a dough that comes together, scrape the paddle clean and switch to the dough hook. If your dough does not come together, add a few more tablespoons of flour.

Mix and knead the dough on medium-low speed for 10-15 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl and the hook now and then. At the start, the mixture will look more like a batter than a dough, but as you continue to work, it will develop into a soft, very sticky dough that will just ball up on the hook.

With the machine on low, add the walnuts and raisins, mixing only until incorporated, about 1 minute. Add the cranberries and mix as little as possible to avoid crushing them.

Scrape the dough into a lightly buttered large bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature to rise until nearly doubled in bulk, about 2 hours.

When the dough has doubled, fold it over on itself a couple of times to deflate it, wrap it tightly in plastic and refrigerate overnight.

At least 6 hours before you want to begin baking, remove the dough from the refrigerator. Leave the dough, covered in its bowl, until it reaches at least 64 degrees. This will take as long as 3-4 hours, don’t rush it. Look for the dough to be slightly cool and just a little spongy.

Lightly butter 3 5 ¾ by 3 ¼ by 2 inch loaf pans. (I used two regular loaf pans.)

Working on a lightly floured surface, divide the dough into thirds and pat each piece of dough into a 5 by 7 inch rectangle; keeping the short end toward you roll up the dough and seal the seam by pressing it with your fingertips. Seal the ends, then place each roll, seam side down, in a prepared pan.

Cover the pans lightly with a kitchen towel and allow to rise at room temperature for 1 ½ to 2 hours, or until the dough has nearly doubled. It will rise to just about the rim of the pans. (Or not, if you’re using regular loaf pans.)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the loaves for about 35 minutes, or until deeply golden. Remove the pans to a cooling rack; after a 5 minute rest, turn the breads out of their pans and allow them to cool to room temperature on a rack.

 

Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of this amazing compound butter. (it was devoured so quickly!) I got the recipe several years ago from a magazine. (Sorry, can’t remember which one!) It’s main purpose was to be massaged all over the turkey for Thanksgiving. I made extra for our rolls and we all loved it so much it got slathered on anything that sat still for too long! It was even good on the pumpkin pie! This stuff is like crack, fair warning!

Maple-Thyme Butter

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 1/2 sticks of butter

2 tablespoons fresh thyme, chopped

 

In a small saucepan, bring the maple syrup to a boil.

Lower the heat and simmer until reduced by half, about 5 minutes.

Pour into a bowl, then stir in the butter and the thyme

Pour into ramekins and let chill in the fridge. (It’s not going to re-solidify completely, just a heads up.)