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Monday, July 2, 2012

Classic White Bread

Simple and easy to do recipe for a perfect sandwich bread. The aroma coming out of the hot oven baking your bread is simply intoxicating and I just love it. Hope you enjoy the recipe as much as I loved baking it
Ingredients:
All purpose flour (Maida) - 3 cups
Water - 1 cup, luke warm
Milk - ½ cup, luke warm
Oil - ¼ cup
Active dry yeast - 2 tsp
Sugar - 2 ½ tsp
Salt - 2 tsp

Method:
In a bowl, add milk and water, dissolve the sugar and yeast in it. Leave the yeast mixture for around 10 mins. Whisk in the oil, add salt. Take flour in a large bowl, form a well in the middle, add the yeast mixture little by little, keep mixing the flour with the help of a fork. You can also use a hand blender with kneading attachment. If you feel the mixture is quite loose, cover it with a damp towel and leave it for couple of minutes before you start working on it again. Dust a flat surface with flour and knead the dough thoroughly on the surface to activate the gluten. Do this for around 4-5 minutes. Leave the dough in a bowl, cover it with a damp cloth for 3 - 4 hours (depending on the weather; yeast requires warm and humid surrounding conditions to do its thing and rise the dough). Your dough would have now doubled (or even more) in size. Dust a flast surface and knock out all the air from the risen dough, knead it couple of times and then get it into the desired shape. Lightly grease the bread tin. Place the dough into the tin. Cover the tray with cling wrap and leave it to further rise for around 2 hours. The dough would have nicely risen by now.
Pre-heat the oven @ 180º C. Bake the bread for about 40 minutes. Once done, take it off the oven, brush some oil on the top to avoid a hard crust. Take the bread out of the tin and on to a wire rack for cooling.
You can make your favorite sandwich or simply settle down with jam/peanut butter/nutella.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Naan - Indian Bread

I just love bread. The aroma of freshly baked bread is simply intoxicating. Baking good bread depends completely on getting the right proportions of flour and fluids and I would urge you to use standard measuring utensils while following these recipes (and not rely on the tea and table spoons available in your kitchen). In this recipe I present to you "Naan" or "Naan Bread" (for the rest of the world), one of the very easy to make Indian breads and definitely a high scorer on consistency, flavour and aroma.

Ingredients:
All purpose flour (Maida) - 4 cups
Active dry yeast - 2 tsp
Water - ¾ cup, Luke warm
Milk - ¾ cup, Luke warm
Sunflower Oil - 2 tbsp
Sugar - 1 ¼ tsp
Salt - 2 ¼ tsp
White Til (Sesame seeds) / Kalonji (Nigella)
Butter

Method:
In small bowl, add milk, water, oil, sugar, salt and yeast. Whisk the mixture thoroughly. Let it stand for a minute. Take flour in a large bowl, make a well in the middle and pour the yeast mixture. Mix it thoroughly. Its alright if the dough is gooey at this moment. Because gooey dough will guarantee a very soft Naan. Cover the bowl with a wet cloth and keep aside for around 30 minutes.

Apply oil to your palm before handling the dough. Divide into 7-8 dough balls and place them in a large plate. Cover it with a wet cloth and let is stand for 30 more minutes.

Flatten the dough balls on a counter-top, elongate on one side to get the signature Naan shape, sprinkle some sesame seeds or kalonji, and place them on a baking tray. Pre-heat the oven on grill mode for around 10 minutes. Place the tray on the top most rack, close to the grill. Bake for 4 minutes on each side or until done. Rub butter on both sides.

I bet these beautiful Naan needs no accompaniment and can be had without a curry. Hope you liked the recipe, leave a comment, tell me how it turned out for you.