Coconut & Walnut Bread

Today we bring you a sweet bread so easy to do, really perfect for breakfast or snacks and very simple to conserve: just cover it with a kitchen towel and it will last (if protected from direct air) for 5 or 6 days...but I guarantee you'll eat it before! It's a bread that is somewhat similar to a cake, you'll notice that the coconut will add moisture and the walnuts a very tasty rustic touch. It's one of those recipes you discover experimenting in you house and then becomes classics. You can of course add more walnuts or change them for other dried fruits, but I recommend you to try the coconut/walnut combo. And you can do others kinds of bread too, for example we've already shown you another kind of rustic and tasty bread here!



With the given quantities you will obtain two breads, so if you just want one bread...you know what to do! Half the quantities! ;)

Ingredients:

• 550 g. of flour
• 80 g. of butter
• 2 eggs
• 500 ml of milk
• 350 g. of sugar
• 15 g. of baking powder
• 80 g. of dried coconut
• 70 g. of walnuts approximately
• 2 envelopes of Vanillina or Vanilla powder

 Preparation:

1º- We add the butter in a bowl that has to be very creamy. We mix it with two eggs and sugar. We stir deeplyu the mix.

2º- Now add the flour and the milk. We will do this step twice, adding half the ingredients each time, stirring and incorporating well the ingredients before adding the rest of the ingredients.

3º- Add the coconut and the chopped walnuts. Add a little bit of flour with the walnuts, so that the flour will not go just on the bottom of our bread.

4º- Pour the dough in moulding pan we've previously covered with butter. Remember that with these quantities you will obtain two breads plum cake like. Decorate the surface with walnuts the way you like it.

5º- Bake in a preheated oven at 170°C during 30 minutes with only bottom heating, and then other 30 minutes with bottom and top heating. If we see that our bread is getting golden brown but the interior is not yet ready (go with a needle, and if the needle gets out of the bread clean the bread is ready, if you see on it traces of the dough then is not), yo can cover it with an aluminium foil, and continue baking it with no problems.

If we prefer, we can decorate the surface with sugar, or you can put a glace icing over it, you choose!

Greetings!

AnGie

Mediterranean flavoured bread

2014 is the International Year of the Mediterranean Diet, so good and healthy. To celebrate this fact we bring you a bread really Mediterranean, and I tell you this because of his ingredients: tomato, cheese and onion with that golden touch of the Olive Oil. Can there be a more mediterranean thing than bread? Or olive oil?

For this kind of bread, I found my inspiration in the italian bread called "filone". It's and everyday bread, and it just do not need any addings and makes you addict to it! In the unlikely event of not eating it all right away, in the following days you can open it and warm it or toast it, you'll just need a drizzle of olive oil, and it will be just espectacular! 
This bread do not need the sourdough, and so it's perfect for those who are beginners in the art of bread. It's simple and fast, try it! Here in our blog we absolutely loves breads, and if you want another recipe from ours, here you are!


Ingredients:

For the first dough: 

• 15 g.of brewer's yeast
• 250 ml of warm water
• 375 g. of flour

For the main dough:

• 300 g. of flour
• 150 ml.of warm water
• 15 g. of brewer's yeast
• 2 spoonful of brown sugar
•  50 g. of Grana Padano cheese
• 1 big onion
• 15 sundried tomatoes
• 60 g of extra vergin olive oil
• 1 spoonful of salt
• more flour to work with the dough

Preparation: 

1º- We prepare the first dough, and to do so, in a bowl we add some warm water and we put in there the yeast. Add the flour and stir ithoroughly until we'll have a ball. Cover it with a plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let it rest for about 30 minutes.

2º- We peel and cut à là brunoise our onion, that is in little dices. Fry it in a heated pan and put it aside.

The final dough ready for the last rest

3º- In a bowl, put the water and add the yeast and the sugar, stir to dissolve it. Add the oil, the flour, the salt, the shredded cheese, and the minced tomatoes. Add to our first dough, that now is a ball. Knead the dough in a surface covered with flour until it's completely uniform. If the dough is too sticky, just add some more flour. You can do this step with a kitchen robot or a mixer, of course! When it is uniform, we put the dough into a bowl and we cover it with a plastic wrap, and let it rest for other 30 minutes.

With the hands in the dough...what a joy!

4º- When you're done with this step, prepare and put some flour on a kitchen towel. Divide the dough into cylinders of the size you want and put them above the towel, each cylinder separated by a folding on the towel like you see in the picture, so that the breads won't stick to each other. Let it rest for other 30 minutes. 

5º- AftePasado er this time, we can see our breads have grown a little bit. With a well sharped knife, do some cuttings on the surface of the breads.

6º- Bake them in a preheated oven at 180° C with no fan for 20-25 minutes.

Enjoy the recipe and keep eating mediterranean bread!

Saludos

AnGie

Spanish Easter torrijas

Today we'll bring you another recipe for Easter: the typical spanish Torrijas.
There are many different versions of the torrijas in other european countries and it's a recipe of humble descent, and we do not know exactly what its origin is. It is usually believed that it has been created in the XV century, when monks invented this recipe to sweeten their lent period using the bread. There are also documents telling us that the torrijas may have an andalusi origin, since that the moorish have a sweet dish they called zalabiyya, that was a fried bread or a bun with honey. This version of it is to be found in countries like Egypt, Syria and Algeria.

The torrijas are a recipe that is as ancient as easy. You'll agree that is really simple and super effective, please try it at home! ;)

Sugar with cinnamon

Ingredients:

- Sliced bread (preferably of the previous day)
- milk (enough milk to wet completely the bread)
- lemon zest of lemon skin (and/or orange)
-egg
- a stick of cinnamon (optional)
- sugar
- cinnamon in powder
- honey (optional)
- olive oil (to fry the bread)

Preparation:

1º- Slice your bread, you can eventually do it with sandwich bread, but it will definately taste better with european bread.

2º- in a pot we put the milk on heat, together with the lemon and the orange zest or skin, the cinnamon and let it cook developing an excellent aroma.

3º- Beat an egg and put it aside. Prepare the sugar with the cinnamon in powder and put it aside too.

4º- Put some oil on a pan on heat to fry our torrijas.

5º- Put the bread slices deep into the milk, being careful not breaking them.
Remove the liquid in excess, pass them to the beated egg and put them in the pan to fry them. Once they are fried, we take them on a paper towel and pour the sugar with the cinnamon over them. And ready!

This is the classical version of them: the fried torrijas. Beside of the sugar and the cinnamon, you can add honey, liqueur, ice cream and so on over them...you choose!

A trick I would like to share with you is to pour the milk over the sliced bread, rather than submerge it into the milk. In this way it just wets the bread better. Then put it into the fridge, just to make them a little bit stronger and be sure they won't break. If you do like this, you'll have a very moist torrijas, since the bread will defrost the milk will go out...highly recomendable!

previously frosted torrijas

into the oven

Today wil talk you about other way you can have your torrija, since sometimes we just don't want to eat too much fried food, even if they are traditional. In the same way we fry our torrijas, we can also bake them on a pan or put them in an oven, reducing in this way their calories. Hey! You have no excuses left not to try our torrijas, huh? ;)
Of course they will not be as moist as they would be fried, but in this case a drizzle of honey or a sweet liqueur like the Ronmiel Arehucas.

torrijas in the pan

               

                                    

baked torrijas

                                   

 torrijas cooked in the oven

But there are not just the milk torrijas, there are also wine torrijas, done in the same exact way but with wine instead of the milk.
The torrijas or similar sweet dishes are just so popular in the Latin America, because of the spanish immigration. In these beautiful countries they are known as "torrejas" or even "tostadas francesas". In the english speaking World, they are known ad "french toast", but they usually are baked in a pan.

Happy easter everybody!

 AnGie

The Gachas Cordobesas

Today we bring you a recipe that I've known since I was a little kid. My Grandma (mother side) and all her family are from Cordoba, a city of Andalucia, and this dish comes from that part of Spain. The recipe has been passed from generation to generation, and my mother taught it to me. I want to share it with you all this recipe that is really famous in Cordoba, even if in Canary Island not so much.

About the origins of the cordobese Gachas little is known, but what is sure is that this recipe has lots of centuries on its back. This recipe was popular in the Middle Ages and in the Al-Andalus era too (the moresque era). It is known also that in the roman era somethig very similar was prepared, since there are documents found in the work of the latin writer Marcus Gavius Apicius.

The gachas are to be prepared with very simple ingredients, and even if the tradition wants them to be prepared for all the Saints (1st of November), you can't help but eating them all-year-round.

Ingredients:

• 200 g. of flour ( some 8 spoonful)
• 20 g. aprox. of granulated anise (matalahuva)
• 1/2 lemon zest
• 1 stick of cinnamon
• 100 g. of sugar (yu choose)
• Bread
• oil to fry the bread ( 150 g. aprox.)
• 1 pinch of salt
• milk ( aproximately I used 1 and half liter).
• cinnamon powder to decorate

The fried bread

Preparation:

1º- Cut the bread in pieces and fry it in the oil, y lo doramos o freímos en aceite, but we won't let it burn. Put the bread aside.

2º- Put a pot on heat and pour two spoonful of oil. When it starts being really hot, we will add the anise grains and we will remove it from heat so to not let it burn, otherwise our dish will be too bitter.

3º- Put again the pot on heat and we will add some milk. The milk it can be both warm or cold. I usually prefer it to be cold at the beginning and then warm to avoid bulks, you choose.

Milk, lemon, cinnamon, oil and anise seeds.

4º- At low heat, we put the flour, the lemon, the cinnamon and the salt in the pot. We energically stir to mix well the flour with the milk. We will add slowly the milk, letting it dense a little bit, just like we would do with the bechamel sauce. Stir it countinously, to avoid the creation of bulks. The process will last some 20 minutes in order to obtain a well cooked sauce with a good taste.

5º- When the sauce starts to dense and we have finished pouring all the milk, we add the sugar and we stir. When the sugar have completely melted we move to our next step (try if the sauce is sweet enough, and in the case, just add some more sugar and stir again).

6º- We add the fried bread, we stir and we turn off the heat. Now you can try them, and you'll see that they will not taste as flour at all, and they'll have a very smooth consistence in the mouth.

7º- Serve it in a central dish, or in different, individual portions. Decorate them with cinnamon powder and let it cool a little bit before serving. I love them warm anyway.

The gachas are realized also with water instead of milk, but in my family we always used this version. In other parts of Spain, the word "gacha" is used to describe other salted dishes.

In many versions the lemon skin is added at the beginning, along with the oil, and then remove it when it is a little bit fried. I tend to prefer to add it to the milk and cook it, so that the aroma of the lemon slowly gets integrated in the milk. I love to put some not fried bread in the gacha, but I know many others prefers to add it above the gacha, to decorate it. That's a matter of taste, as everything is in this life!

I hope you'll try them!

Greetings,

AnGie