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Bread dumplings

January 26, 2015 //
0

alien bread dumpling

“You Germans have some strange recipes” commented Alien. “When I was there they served me bread dumplings. Can you believe it? Dumplings made from bread!”

“Why, what’s so strange about that?” asked Deutsch Fraulein defensively. “We don’t want anything to go to waste.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Mouse who couldn’t quite follow. Deutsch Fraulein turned around and explained that there is a recipe that uses left over buns, egg and milk to make dumplings. They are great to have with a creamy sauce, like mushrooms in sour cream.

“To be honest” said Alien “I quite liked them. I even asked for the recipe. I just thought it is a strange idea.” He handed Mouse his notes.

Mouse looked at it for while and said, “Technically it is not a flour and water recipe.” she handed the recipe back. “But buns are made from flour and water, aren’t they?” asked Alien.

“Yes, but there are also onions in it. And onions were never on the ingredient list”

“If you must, just leave them out. But who doesn’t have onions in their pantry?”

“We are stretching it a bit, but okay then.”

Deutsch Fraulein piped up. ”These dumplings are basically made from reconstituted stale bread. If you want to make them, don’t throw out your left over buns or feed them to the chickens. Instead, cut them into thin slices while they are still a little soft and let the slices dry. Once the buns are hard, cutting them becomes more difficult, though it can be done.”

“You can also use toast bread instead of buns” said Alien. “To be honest, I even use normal loaves if they go stale. Sometimes if I’ve had enough of bread, half a loaf would otherwise go to waste.”

“I just chuck my left over bread in the blender” said Mouse “to make bread crumbs. But I should try your recipe next time.”

Ingredients (for four dumplings)

4 dry buns, ½ a cup of warm milk, 1 egg, 1/2 onion (salt, nutmeg to season is optional)

Note: if the buns are not totally dry, add less milk.

Method

Cut the buns into thin slices, put in a large bowl and add some of the warm milk. Let it soak to allow the bread to become moist (but not soggy). When the milk has cooled down mix the the bread with your hands. The pieces should be well wetted and stick together. If there are dry bits in it, add more milk. If the mixture is too soggy, press out the superflous milk and throw away. Chop the onion into small pieces and add to the bread mixture. Add the egg. Mix thoroughly and form dumplings.

Bring a pot of water to the boil and add the dumplings. Let them simmer on low heat for 20 minutes.

If you have bread dumplings left over, you can eat them the next day with vinegar and oil, like a salad.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Books, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, recipes

Soft noodles (Spätzle)

January 25, 2015 //
0

deutsch Fraulein potato press2

“Yesterday you said all the recipes are easy” called Deutsch Fraulein. “But I know one that is difficult to master.” Mouse looked at her expectantly and asked, “Made of flour, water and egg? I find that hard to believe!”

“Yes, precisely,” answered Deutsch Fraulein. “Where I come from we eat soft noodles called Spaetzle. They are fantastic with lentils for a cheap and healthy meal. As they are very porous they love to swim in sauce. They soak it up.” She gave Mouse the recipe. Mouse read it and looked very confused. “Yes,” said Deutsch Fraulein “they are a bit messy to make as the batter is very soft and it is best if you have a potato press. It’s even better if you have an experienced person to show you how it’s done.” The difficulty with this recipe is in getting the texture of the batter right. It can’t be too thin or too thick. But when it works, they are delicious.

“There is also salt in it” Mouse pointed out. “Do we need this? You know some of us have be careful with our blood pressure.”

“Yeah” said Deutsch Fraulein. “I would put it in. I personally find them a bit bland otherwise. But isn’t it the same with sugar? When you do so much home cooking, you cut out all the salt that’s in processed food, so this bit little won’t hurt, right?”

“I guess so” said Mouse. She still wasn’t sure whether a difficult recipe should be included, but then, who doesn’t like a challenge? “Apart from lentils, what else can you have with these soft noodles?”

Deutsch Fraulein’s eyes lit up and she explained that Spaetzle can be used as condiment for any dish that would go with pasta, though it’s best if the dish has a thick sauce. For a very cheap and filling meal, fry chopped onions in a good helping of butter and add breadcrumbs. Fry until the bread crumbs are saturated with butter and smell nicely toasted. Pour over the Spaetzle.

Or place a layer of Spaetzle in an oven-proof dish, cover with grated cheese, add another layer of Spaetzle and another layer of cheese. Bake at 2000 C until the cheese has melted.

In the end, Deutsch Fraulein said “I strongly recommend a huge side salad with these meals! Never forget to eat your greens!”

Ingredients (for 2 people)

1 cup of flour, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon of salt, scant cup of water.

You also need either a thin wooden cutting board and a long knife or a potato press with medium sized holes or a colander and a spatula.

Method

Pour flour into a bowl. Add the salt. With a wooden spoon stir in the water little by little. Just enough so it feels and looks like a very stodgy porridge. Stir in the egg and then use the wooden spoon to beat the hell out of the batter. Beat it until it comes away easily from the side of the bowl and little air bubbles rise to the surface when you stop beating.

Let the batter rest for half an hour. In the meantime you can prepare the lentils or whatever you want to eat with your Spaetzle.

Prepare a bowl with cold water to spoon the finished Spaetzle into and bring a big pot of water (at least 2 liters) to the boil. The Spaetzle love space.

Now the tricky part starts. If you have no other utensils, use a thin wooden board. Wet it with water and smear the batter on the board. Use a long knife and slice off a piece of batter and push it into the hot water. Continue until all the batter is in the water. The process is much easier and faster if you have a potato press with medium sized holes. Just fill the press with the batter and press into the boiling water. (But make sure you move the press in a circular motion over the pot while pressing to avoid dropping all the batter in the same spot in the pot. If this happens you will end up having one doughy blob instead of noodles). The third option is to fill a colander with the batter, hold it over the pot, and with the spatula force the batter through the holes into the water below. With the last option you will end up with short Spaetzle.

The batter sinks to the bottom of the pot and the noodles are done when they float back to the top. This won’t take long at all. Scoop the finished Spaetzle out of the pot with as slotted spoon and put it into the bowl of cold water you prepared earlier. Then spoon them onto a warm plate and they are done. Make sure you shake the water off well.

If they get too cold you can reheat them in a skillet with a little butter.

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Categories Art, Books, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes

Egg pasta

January 23, 2015 //
0

Mouse pasta

“Enough of the sweet stuff” Mouse squealed. “Have you noticed we haven’t even published our staple food?” She looked at the recipe list in disbelieve.

“What would that be?” asked Devil looking over her shoulder trying to glimpse what’s been published so far.

“Pasta” replied Mouse.

“But we had pasta! Remember? Right at the beginning.”

“Yes, but that was no egg pasta. Now that we have started using eggs we can finally make our famous egg pasta public”

Egg pasta is such a common thing for the Dedes they nearly forgot about it. It only takes them 5 minutes to make, though they do have a pasta machine. Mouse demonstrated and took a picture of the dough before and after using the pasta machine. You can use different flours such as wholemeal or spelt, or mix some buckwheat with normal flour. Anything. Once you know what the dough should look and feel like it is easy to add other ingredients.

dough noodle machine

Ingredients

1 cup of flour, 1 large egg, dash of water

Method

Knead all the ingredients together to form an elastic ball. Only add water if necessary and only enough for the dough to stick together. It should not be sticky at all, but rather dry. Divide into two, roll out with a rolling-pin. Fold over, roll out again, fold over, roll out again, fold over…. you get the picture. This is the part where the pasta machine comes in handy. You have to repeat the procedure until you have a very smooth piece of dough (pictured above). With the machine, you just wind it through, fold over and wind it through again. Once the dough has the right consistency you will have to roll it out as thin as possible. With the machine you wind it through, increase the pressure by one notch and wind it through again until you have the desired thickness. Cut the dough into strips and hang up to dry. You can place a clean tea towel over the back of a chair and place the dough strips on the tea towel, or you can hang it up on a pasta drying rack.

Bring a pot of water to the boil and while you are waiting for that prepare the sauce you want to have with your pasta.

When the water is boiling place pasta in the water and cook for 5 to 7 minutes.

Mouse’s favourite dish is pasta doused with garlic and chillies fried in olive oil. Simple, but yummy.

 

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes

Crumpets

January 21, 2015 //
4

king crumpets

All the Dedes gathered in the kitchen to try the sweeter stuff that was currently on offer. King tried a bit of this and a bit of that but nothing seemed to satisfy his tastebuds. “You know” he said, “when I was a little prince, we had crumpets as a special treat for breakfast.”

“Crumpets? What’s that?” asked Deutsch Fraulein.

“I don’t know what they’re made of” said King. “It must be more than flour and water. I remember them as the most delicious Sunday breakfast” He paused for a while and everyone could see that in his mind’s eye he was being served a tower of delicious crumpets by his butler. “They are very similar to American pancakes but definitely not the same. They are really spongy with a honeycomb surface that soaks up any topping” he concluded.

“What do you have them with?”

“Butter or cream cheese and jam.”

Liar, who is a bit of a snob and pretends to be from a posh family, stepped forward and said, “I know how to make crumpets. And they do fit the profile.” He told the others that crumpets are a rather strange combination of a yeast dough and a baking soda batter. Like pancakes, they are baked on the stove top but they don’t contain eggs.

“Now that sounds interesting” said Mouse. “I definitely want to have that recipe!”

“As with any yeast dough they do take a little while to make, so they are good for a Sunday brunch rather than for everyday breakfast,” Liar explained as he handed over his recipe. “But you can make lots and put them in the fridge, and reheat them in the toaster over the next few days.

Ingredients

1½ cups flour, ½ cup hot water and ½ cup milk, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 2 teaspoons dry yeast. ½ teaspoon baking soda, ½ cup of warm water. Butter for the pan.

Place the flour in a bowl. Make a well in the middle. Mix hot water and milk to create a lukewarm liquid (if necessary heat it up a little) and pour into the well. Add sugar and yeast. Leave in a warm place for about 10 minutes until it is sloshy.

Mix yeast with flour until it becomes a soft dough. It’s best done with your hands, though it is really sticky. The texture is more like a very thick pancake mix than a bread dough. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and put in a warm place to rise for an hour, or until it has doubled in size.

Dissolve the baking soda in warm water and stir into the yeast dough. It doesn’t combine easily, you need to be persistent. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rest for 30 minutes.

The batter is soft and won’t keep it’s shape well when placed in the frying pan. If you have some egg rings for poached eggs, they are ideal for containing the batter and make the crumpets nice and round. If you don’t have egg rings, you can cut a clean tomato tin up into rings (make sure there are no sharp egdges that can cut you). Grease the rings and place them in a frying pan. If you aren’t fussed about getting the perfect circular shape you don’t need to use rings :)

Fill each ring with some batter. The batter will rise while cooking and the crumpet dries from the bottom up. Bubbles come to the surface and pop, which gives the crumpets their distinct honeycomb surface. At this stage remove the ring, flip the crumpet over to cook the other side for a minute or so.

You can eat them immediately, or cool on a wire rack and reheat in the toaster later. If you eat them straight from the pan you don’t even need a topping.

“Only a King, with servants, could crave for crumpets.” Deutsch Fraulein said, after she had read the recipe. “No-one else would go to all that trouble.” After she had sampled them, she changed her mind.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, recipes

Muffins

January 20, 2015 //
4

foxy lady muffins2

Push Push appreciated that Nosy Neighbour had simply left the sugar out when he made American pancakes (or piklets, the name she knew them by). She never would have dared to alter the recipe, but he was right, it didn’t change the texture at all. She devoured them with a topping of mixed fruit and yoghurt rather than jam. Nosy Neighbour told her that when he was in America he ate them with real maple syrup, but this is far too expensive here. “And the production of maple syrup is environmentally questionable” added Foxy Lady who was passing by. She glanced at Nosy Neigbour’s recipe and said, “Blimey! That looks very similar to my muffin recipe, except there is less liquid in my muffins and they’re baked in a muffin tray in the oven.”

Push Push pricked her ears up as she loves muffins too, though like every other elephant she has to watch her weight. So can’t have them too often. “Can you simply leave out the sugar in muffins as well?” she asked excitedly.

“If you want to have them sweet and not savoury, it’s not that easy. With pancakes you have sweet toppings, so you don’t realise where the sweetness comes from. But you usually eat muffins without anything on them, so the sweetness needs to be inside. However, if you want to avoid sugar you can replace it by mashing up a banana or two and mixing them into the batter. They are sweet and you also get some vitamins and additional flavour.”

“We don’t want to have sugary recipes” said Mouse “When I eat refined sugar, my joints hurt.”

“Everything in moderation” answered Foxy Lady. “You are right, sugar is poison for the body as it depletes it of vitamins and has absolutly no nutritional value. But with your home cooking at least you know how much sugar you put into your food. Half a cup of sugar in eight muffins that you share around won’t hurt. That’s less than what’s in a glass of the fizzy drink people like so much!”

“Come on then.” Mouse held her hand out to Foxy Lady. “Give me your muffin recipe.”

As Foxy Lady handed over the sheet of paper she explained the importance of thoroughly mixing all the dry ingredients in one bowl and all the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Once the content of the two bowls are combined you need to work fast and resist stirring too much.

“Yes,” confirmed Mouse. “Professor already explained why when he did his scones.”

While Foxy Lady’s recipe was for simple plain muffins, she admitted she never makes the plain ones. She adds all sorts of things she finds in the cupboard to the dry mix, like cocoa or a pinch of chilli pepper and a dash of ground allspice. When she leaves out the sugar and adds banana or other fruit instead, it has to be added to the wet mixture. “I hope it all makes sense and it gives you an idea about what you can try to suit your own taste” said Foxy Lady finishing her speech.

“If you have never made muffins before, make the simple ones first” recommended Mouse. “And when you know what the batter should look and feel like, you can start replacing and adding.”

To make it easier to get the muffins out of the muffin tray in one piece, Foxy Lady places folded up squares of baking paper in the tray first.

Ingredients

2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of Baking Soda, half a cup of sugar, 1 cup of milk (or mixture of water and milk), 1 egg, 20g melted butter. Baking paper.

Method

Preheat the oven to 2200C. Place a ramekin with the butter in the oven and it will melt nicely while you mix the other ingredients.

Line the muffin tray with baking paper.

Place all the dry ingredients in a big bowl and mix well using a fork. (The bowl must be big enough to accommodate the wet ingedients later as well)

In a different bowl, whisk the egg lightly, mix in the milk and finally stir in the melted butter.

Then pour the wet ingredients into the bowl that contains the dry ingredients and mix it with a few turns of the spoon. Make sure all the dry ingredients are wetted through without overdoing it. Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin tray. Fill each mould up 2/3. The muffins will rise when baking.

Bake in the oven for 20 Minutes.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Books, Fun, Hand Puppets, recipes

American pancakes or piklets

January 19, 2015 //
2

american pancakes

“These aren’t pancakes” Nosy Neighbour shook his head in disgust after he tried what Push Push called the best pancakes ever. She has refined them with a savoury topping made from mixed garden vegetables in sour cream. “Pancakes need to be fluffy and light and smaller. And you have them for breakfast, not dinner, with lashings of honey or butter.”

“No you don’t” Push Push huffed. “They should be a light healthy base for a quality topping. Not some unhealthy sponge without nutritional value that might fill you up but doesn’t sustain you.

“You can’t be good all the time. You have to have some fun and eat comfort food. Life is too short!” retorted Nosy Neighbour. Mouse reminded them they should be open minded about each others recipes. There is no right and wrong. “Have you ever tried American pancakes?” asked Nosy Neighbour now. Poor Push Push turned scarlett as she had to admit she hadn’t.

“I’ll make you some” offered Nosy Neighbour kindly “and because you want to be healthy I’ll make them without sugar. Sugar just adds sweetness, but doesn’t make a difference to the texture.”

Ingredients

1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, (1/2 teaspoon salt and 2 tablespoons of caster sugar if you want), 1 cup of milk, 2 tablespoons of melted butter and 1 lightly beaten egg. Oil or butter for the pan.

Method

Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar) in a large bowl. In a separate bowl lightly whisk together the milk and egg, then stir in the melted butter. (I melt the butter in the pan I use for baking later. This saves on dishes)

Pour the runny mixture into the dry mixture and stir with a fork until you have a smooth batter. Make sure there are no lumps. Let the batter stand for a few minutes.

Heat a pan and melt a little butter or oil over a medium heat. When it is hot, add a ladle of batter (or two if there is enough space for two pancakes at once). It should be a thickish blob which will rise further due to the baking powder. When the top of the pancake begins to bubble, turn it over and cook until both sides are golden brown and the pancake has risen to about 1cm thickness.

They taste best fresh out the pan.

Push Push was surprised to find out she actually had eaten them before, but where she comes from they are called piklets and she always loved them.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Books, Comedy, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes

Buckwheat pancakes

January 18, 2015 //
0

push push buckwheat

Push Push couldn’t believe that Mouse and Devil published a pancake recipe yesterday. A while ago she promised Monkey she would give her recipe to Mouse as soon as eggs were added to the ingredient list. Naturally, when she found out she was overlooked she came flying into the kitchen, hands on hips, ready for a fight. But Mouse calmed her down and said “you can never have enough pancake recipes. There are so many different ways of making them and pancakes are such a favourite.” She pointed out that the recipe yesterday was an absolute basic one. Push Push agreed and said “pancakes are really brilliant when you first have a go in the kitchen. Absolutely nothing can go wrong. It makes me so cross when I see these expensive pancake mixes on the shelves in the supermarket. They contain dried milk and dried egg, dried everything, all processed. But the hardest work is baking them and you still have to do that yourself.”

Mouse agreed and said “All you need is flour and egg and milk or water. You mix everything together and bake it in the pan on the stove top. You can add sweet or savory toppings and it’s all done in 5 Minutes.”

“Ah well, my ones aren’t quite as quick. I use sparkling water and buckwheat flour to make them healthy” said Push Push, who is really worried about her blood pressure. She poured some buckwheat flour onto a plate. “That is a very fine flour” said Mouse after inspecting it. “Where do you get that?”

“You can buy it at the supermarket nowadays. It has a lovely nutty flavour. It actually isn’t wheat at all, but is related to rhubarb. And it has no gluten. Therefore you can’t use it on its own in pancakes. To make the batter stick together you need another flour. I usually use spelt, but you can use normal flour. “

Push Push also doesn’t use milk, but sparkling water. The end result is a more spongy, slightly brittle pancake rather than a thin elastic one.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup flour (eg spelt) 1 cup buckwheat flour, 1 egg, 1 ½ cup of sparkling soda water. (you can also use water with lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of baking soda). Oil or butter for the pan.

Method:

Mix the flour and water to make a smooth batter. Add the egg and let it rest for 30 Minutes. (While waiting you can prepare the topping to go with the pancakes.)

Heat oil or butter in a pan over medium heat and add a ladle full of batter. Spread the batter around the pan so it coats the bottom nicely. Wait until it has dried from the underside, flip over and bake for another couple of minutes until it’s brown on this side as well. Put on a plate and cover with a clean teatowel to keep warm while you continue with the rest of the batter in the same way.

Push Push likes savoury toppings and she just tossed a few chopped garden vegetables like beans and zucchini and silverbeet stems in a pan heated with butter. Then she added the silverbeet leaves to wilt and finished it off with a dollop of sour cream.  This concoction went into the buckwheat pancakes. Before she served them she sprinkled grated cheese on top. But the pancakes can also be served with sugar and cinnamon.

buckwheat pancakes

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Categories Art, Books, Comedy, Hand Puppets, recipes

Monkey’s pancake business

January 17, 2015 //
0

monkey pancake

“Can I have pancakes now?” whined Monkey.

“No you can’t!” said Devil quickly, before Mouse could say yes. Obviously Devil had a bone to pick with Monkey. “Why not?” asked Monkey bewildered.

“Did Judy really say she can’t make pancakes?” Devil asked and looked directly into Monkey’s eyes. Monkey looked at Mouse and then to the floor. It seemed as if he was shrinking a little.

“No, she didn’t, did she?” Devil answered instead and Monkey knew he had been found out. “Did you actually talk to her? Or did you just use her name to put more weight behind your demand?”

Monkey continued looking at the floor and quietly said “maybe.”

The whole story didn’t sit right with Devil and he had figured out, when you are 350 years old, of course you must know how to make pancakes, particularly if you have such a fine pan.

“And worse,” Devil continued “you then called her racist!” Monkey looked up, eyes wide open. “I did not!” he cried defensively.

“You know” Devil said emphatically and wagged his finger right in Monkey’s face “we cannot condone this.”

“But I didn’t, honestly!” Monkey whimpered.

“Shush! It is such an old trick, when you don’t get your way: Just blame it on obvious differences and then call the other one a racist. That kills any discussion.”

“But I didn’t!” Monkey repeated. Mouse, who had listened to the conversation nodded, put her mitten on Devil’s arm and corroborated. “No, he didn’t! He said, as long as it is not motivated by racism, he can live with it.”

“But he still told us a fib to get his way” Devil said adamantly. “I can’t tolerate this either!”

“So, what shall we do?” Mouse asked.

Devil looked in the air for a while thinking about a punishment, then he said “Okay, Monkey has to apologise to Judy for using her well-known name to gain an advantage!”

“I apologise!” Monkey called out instantly. “And I didn’t call her racist. At least I didn’t mean to!”

Devil relaxed a little, but wasn’t entirely convinced it was good enough.

“Can I have a pancake now?” Monkey asked timidly. Devil didn’t answer but Mouse came round. “It’s good enough for me.  Fun, Peace and Pancakes, what else do you need?”

Ingredients

2 cups of flour, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup of water or milk or a mixture of both, salt (optional). Butter for the pan

Method

Pour flour in a bowl, add salt, mix in half the liquid with a wooden spoon. Do this little by little, thoroughly stirring to avoid lumps. Add the egg. Stir continuously until the egg is well integrated and then mix in the rest of the water. It should be a thin and runny batter. Add more water if need be.

In a pan heat up the butter with a medium heat until it melts and just starts to brown, then scoop a ladle full of batter into the pan. Tilt the pan around so that the bottom is well covered with the batter. Then wait until it dries from the underside. Flip the pancake over and bake for a further two minutes or so until it is golden brown.

Even though Monkey got his wish, he wasn’t happy eating the pancakes. We are not sure whether the recipe was too basic or because he was told off.

 

 

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes, Social Network

Scones

January 16, 2015 //
0

Professor scones

Professor was cross with Pig. He had to cringe at the ignorance of his mate. “Potato.” he said and shook his head. “If you only wouldn’t pig out on everything edible that was offered.”

As you may know the two of them are an item. Professor is the one who usually does all the talking in their relationship and Pig does all the nodding. Now Pig nodded again, but everybody could see he only wanted to be helpful. It is well-known that Pig is socially awkward and gets very stressed when he has to listen for too long. That is why he usually just nods. Of course he wants to be a valued member of the group (nodding again) and when, for a change, he believes he knows what’s going on he  often jumps in, boots and all. Often it turns out he only listened to half the story. To his defense here, he honestly thought the Dedes were working on a normal cookbook, not one limited to flour-and-water recipes.

He hung his head and admitted sadly: “I don’t know a recipe with potato flour.”

“It doesn’t need to be potato flour, dumb head” Professor scolded. “None of the recipes require potato flour. Just normal flour, nothing special.” But when he saw his mate becoming distraught again he added “how about your scones?”

“Oh yes, scones,” said Pig, eyes lighting up. “Let’s do scones.” Pig ran to the kitchen drawer and leafed through the contents to find his recipe to hand to Mouse.

Scones are basically soda buns. Like the soda bread, they are very easy to make and ready in no time flat. 5 Minutes prep time and 20 Minutes baking.

Mouse looked at the recipe. “I see you have baking soda and baking powder in your recipe. Can you explain the difference?” she asked interested.

“Please don’t ask Pig” Professor said “He wouldn’t know!” Then he gave the explanation himself. Baking soda is natriumbicarbonate. It is a leavening agent that makes the goods rise when an acid liquid is added, e.g. butter milk or lemon. The acid reacts with the baking soda and in the process carbon dixoid bubbles – like in soda water – are generated. Without some sort of acid, baking soda will simply not be able to do its job. Baking powder on the other hand contains not only natriumbicarbonate (baking soda), but also cream of tartar, which is an acid component   to make sure the reaction takes place. (Often it also contains starch as drying a agent.) If you want to mix it yourself use 1 part baking soda  and 2 parts cream of tartar.

Any dough made with baking soda requires speedy handling, as the described reaction will start as soon as the acid liquid is added. If the dough is mixed for too long or is allowed to stand for a while, the baking soda will fizzle prematurely and as a result the baked goods will be hard.

Ingredients

2 cups of flour, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder, 30g butter cut in small pieces, half a cup of water, half a cup of milk (water and milk together should make one scant cup. I usually add a dollop of plain yoghurt as well for extra acid)

Method

Preheat oven to 200 °C

Place the flour, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl and mix well with a fork. Cut pieces of butter into the bowl and rub into the flour with your finger tips. The flour will become moist and grainy. Make sure the butter is well distributed throughout the flour.

Combine the water and the milk (and yoghurt) in a cup. Make a well in the middle of the bowl of flour. Pour all the liquid in at once (keeping just a little bit for glacing), then quickly work the flour with your hands. The dough should be quite moist and sticky, but firm, and keep it’s shape when placed on the baking tray.

With your hands scoop six evenly sized helpings onto the baking tray dusted with flour. Brush the scones with the remaining milk/water mix.

Bake for 20 mins.

 

 

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Categories Art, Books, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes

Pizza

January 13, 2015 //
0

L'artiste pizza2

While they all loved L’Artiste’s pizza bread, it is not the same as a pizza. They begged him to come back the next day and run a pizza making workshop.

The first thing they learned is that people have different preferences when it comes to their pizza base. There is no right or wrong, just different likes. L’Artiste favours a thin and crunchy crust, as do most of the Dedes. If you like it more spongy, simply allow the dough to rise longer between kneading.

It takes L’Artiste exactly one hour from entering the kitchen to having the pizza on the table. So it’s not really a quick dinner, but time flies as the process is broken up into different tasks. He also considers pizza making a social event and loves having other people help chop up toppings while they chat away.

The dough is exactly the same as for the pizza bread yesterday, but because it is covered with juicy sauce and toppings it will need 20 minutes to bake. Once the pizza is in the oven there is plenty of time to clean the kitchen, throw together a nice side salad or simply have a glass of wine in anticipation. And when the kitchen is nice and tidy, the evening can begin!

Ingredients for one tray of pizza (two large or 4 small slices)

2 cups of flour, a scant teaspoon of dry yeast, 3/4 cup of warm water. Various toppings and grated cheese.

Method

Put the flour in the bowl and add half of the water and the yeast. Now you can do other chores for 15 minutes while the yeast becomes active. When the yeast is foamy, mix it with the flour, add the rest of the water and knead to an elastic dough. Let it rest to rise.

Switch the oven on to 2000C and attend to the sauce that goes on top of the base. L’Artiste usually fries some diced onions in olive oil and adds a can of diced tomatoes (yes, a can! He read somewhere that canned tomatoes have more lycopene than fresh tomatoes, but watch out for the salt content of the canned ones!). Then he adds the mediterranean selection of herbs… rosmary, sage, oregano, thyme..

While the sauce reduces, he chops the toppings everyone wants, or else whatever he can find in the fridge (at least a red pepper, onions and garlic). If he has helpers he just supervises this task and someone has to grate the cheese. He prefers a combination of edam cheese and goat cheese. But either or will do, though the correct cheese topping for a pizza is mozzarella. Fresh mozzarella is hard to come by where the Dedes live. The wonderful thing about pizza is that anything goes. If you like it, put it on!

After the chopping and grating is done, knead the dough again, roll it out to its final size and place it on the baking tray dusted with flour. Pour the sauce on, spreading it around. Then distribute the various toppings. Lastly, put the cheese on top. If the pizza is shared, and it mostly is, L’Artiste adds what everyone wants to different sections (There is always someone who doesn’t like olives, while the next one doesn’t like salami). He then cuts the pizza before it goes in the oven, which makes it easier to divide up once it is baked.

Bake for 20 minutes at 2000C.

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Categories Absurd, Art, Comedy, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, recipes, Social Network, workshop
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