LOVIN' THE ROSES

                                 ~ T'was Mother's Day ~

PAINTED BEST EVER SANDWICH BUNS

This post was in the Top 9 of Foodbuzz on May 11th 2010. Happy Buzz Day!

Be warned of future and probably successive posts of wildly painted bread in all flavours, shapes and sizes. I'm on an unrestrained bread painting binge.

But painting aside, these are truly one of the best ever sandwich buns. They have been circulating several blogs and have been raved over each time. I had to make them and true enough they are so so so good. Soft, substantial and full of flavour. Perfect burger buns that excel shop bought ones by light years.

These homemade highly recommended buns have been featured on Cathy's Wives With Knives, Mari's Once Upon a Plate, Linda's How to Cook a Wolf and Lori's All That  Splatters. And probably many more! 

Needing to be kneaded (yea I know.....don't we all feel that way) only once, left to rise and then baked, it's easy and quick to make as well.

Maybe I've gone a little overboard with the painting but if it adds a little personality to your plain old boring sandwich...why not I say. A little personality never did anyone any harm. And that goes for bread too.

Here's the recipe ~


1 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 T honey
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
41/2 cup bread flour
21/4 tsp yeast (I used instant)
11/2 tsp salt


Pour milk, water, butter and honey into a small pan and warm it up. Let cool to 120 degrees and carefully beat in the egg.


Mix 2 cups flour with the yeast and salt. Pour in the milk water mixture. Mix until a sticky mass then add in remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time and mix well after each addition using a wooden spoon of spatula.


When it forms a stiff dough remove from bowl onto a table top and knead till smooth and elastic (about 5 minutes). I did 10 because I like kneading. 


Divide into 12-16 portions. (I made 11 portions of 100 gm each). Shape each portion into smooth round balls and place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Flatten the top of the round with a gentle pat of your hand. Do the same for all the rest of the portions and then cover with a clean tea towel and let rise until double in size. 


If you're not painting them you may brush the tops with a beaten egg, sprinkle sesame seeds, coarse sea salt, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds etc over the top and bake in a preheated oven at 400 F for 10-12 minutes. The top should be a lovely glaze-y golden brown. 


If you're painting the bread, bake the buns plain halfway through until a pale hue of gold appears, take it  out and paint designs on each bun.

HINT 1 : 


This time I used 1 - 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder mixed with a little hot water to a smooth paste and them mixed it well with half of an egg yolk. Use enough to achieve the shade you prefer. I think it actually worked better than coffee because what I achieved as a medium was a nice smooth paste-y 'paint' that didn't run as easily as a mix of coffee and egg yolk. The colour was good too and Z did not complain of the coffee flavour that he did not like.

I left the other half of the egg yolk plain and used that as a yellow shade. It doesn't show in the photo but I will make it again in another post to show it more clearly.


I removed one bun at a time from the tray with a spatula very gently because this is a soft bun and I didn't want to dent it. Then I painted on the design, dusted with a little flour and baked them again until a golden brown. 


HINT 2 : 


You could also glaze the buns after painting them and then finish baking until a golden brown. What you will get is a glazed patterned bun. I have yet to try that. But I would probably prefer rustic.

As Jamie Oliver would say. ...Bob's your uncle! Happy days!...aaand...Ba dum!

This recipe has been submitted to Yeastspotting. 

PAINTED BREAD

I never did enjoy watching tatoo reality shows on tv because I never could understand the joys of tatooing. But now I know. Painting on an object is quite different from the painting of an object. Putting in all those intricate details on skin is very much like putting in all those intricate details on crust. Like graffiti on walls. Minus the pain of your subject. And minus the authorities. But total satisfaction.

So I decided to make baguettes as a canvas. For 2 reasons. I was intrigued by the way they were shaped and to feed my family.

The recipe for the baguettes comes from a blog of a young chef in training, Dylan, on his blog, From Cook to Chef. The post came with a wonderful you tube video which I have downloaded as well. 

It is not simply the rolling and rolling that gives the baguettes their perfectly cylindrical shape but the building up of a 'backbone', sealing it, flapping the dough and repeating the process at least 3 times before finally rolling the dough into the cylindrical shape that you see above. And below.

I first saw painted bread on Monique's blog...La Table De Nana. A blog by a very artistic and nice woman. But that was so long ago that I had forgotten all about it until I saw it again on Chef Tess Bakeresse blog. My mouse finger grew as stiff as a baguette. I couldn't get it to unclick for a long long time. They were absolutely lovely. The painted bread I mean.

So I dove in. The 'paint' is simply egg yolk and coffee combined. I love the colour it makes. It reminds me of henna. Dust it with a little flour and you get rustic.

You can brighten it up with more colours, particularly red and green, either by using food colouring or natural colours from herbs or fruit. I have yet to go thus far. But go I will. My heart's a-thumping and my fingers' a-dancing. Nothing's stopping me now. 

Burger buns here I come! 

Some doodling I did while waiting for the chicken to stew. On kitchen paper.

Most of the designs I did were very basic S's, squiggles and curlicues that almost anyone can do. Just be brave and paint. If you don't like what you paint feel free to eat it up and put an end to it's existence.

This recipe has been submitted to YeastSpotting.
The recipe for the baguette ~

5 gm dried instant yeast 
280 gm water
482 gm flour
10 gm salt


Mix the dry ingredients together then add the water and bring mixture together. Knead for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Don't take any shortcuts says the young chef because it will affect the finished texture of the bread.

Let rise in a lightly oiled bowl until double in size or you can make a belly buton and it stays. 

Take it out of the bowl once risen, deflate it and shape. I made 3 small baguettes because my oven would not be able to take very long baguettes


On how to shape the baguette please watch the video. It's really quite simple to do and I know you will be successful.


On the painting ~

Prepare the paint ~

1 egg yolk
1 or 2 teaspoons instant coffee granules mixed with very little hot water to dissolve. 

When the coffee has cooled mix it with the egg yolk until you get the desired darkness that you prefer. You don't really need the whole amount of egg yolk. Half the amount would be sufficient to paint all 3 baguettes from this recipe.


Bake the baguettes plain (WITHOUT an egg wash or any sprinkles on top) until only half way done that is until very lightly golden. Take it out of the oven.


Paint on any pattern you like then pop it into the oven again and bake until golden brown.


In didn't time my baking but please refer here for baking time.

BROWNIES ~ A GUEST POST BY H

I thought it would be wonderful if I could get my grandson to do a guest post while I get busy somewhere else. Lucky for me he was more than willing.

And it's a good thing he can bake and cook ~ even at the tender age of ten. And he isn't the only one. S can too while N is the creative writer and artist and Z is simply the baby. 

This is a little bit of art by them...mostly by N, the creative writer and artist ~ 

And I've only just realized that H, N and S have this great funny blog called Poptropical Adventures :D

Here is a video that I just have to share with you because I think it's quite brilliant....It's an ad for a special edition of  their comic strip series, Zo and Boe Spytime. The creator is N and the special effects are by H ~ Did I say they are creative?

My very lovely daughter, a super multi-tasker, not only home schools her children but she has, amazingly, taught them to cook and bake as well. Amoung a gazillion other things of course. 

My super talented and enthusiastic grandson H is only 10, the third of the 4 children, but he bakes like a pro (in my eyes). He plays soccer like a pro too (like his awesome dad). He's very, very smart, tooooo cute, very athletic and has an absolutely quirky sense of humour and will be going on to grade 5 this September (thoroughly my type of man). 

A few days ago H sent me an email all the way from the US informing me that he has grown a beard! A pair of disbelieving eyebrows and a scroll down later I saw the attached photo of himself ~ with a beard! Painted generously on! He looked totally weird. Suffice to say that I seriously cracked up and it took a whiley while before I got back together again (with a lot of help from all the King's men and all the King's horses), I gathered myself up and continued life.

While H played Spiderman.

Without further ado, let me introduce you to H, my sweetly funny and gloriously talented grandson with a recipe for some very, very, very delish brownies!

"Take it from here dearie" ..........

  
( Aside: being endlessly proud of H as I am I might also add that H is a great writer so this is H's write up verbatim. I know his mom and dad are dying to see what he has written :) Please do take time to read the recipe as well. You've got to love that sense of humour. 

Brownie photos courtesy of my grandkids.

 Hello everyone! 

this is actually my first time typing down a recipe. and I'm not Zurin. gasp. Well grandma let me make a post, and I think I'll introduce myself to you before I start writing down anything like recipes or anything. I'm a kid you know, so I can't reveal my full name, so just call me H. I'm Zurin's grandson. 

Now don't start thinking this is my first time ever baking, because I made many things before, cookies, pizza, shortbread, pancakes, and more! But the thing is, I don't want to be a chef, I just bake for the fun of it. Well, that is, if you think it's fun. I like the computer a lot more than baking, and I want to be a computer scientist in college, just like my mom was.
     

Well, let's get started baking! I found this recipe from allrecipes.com and I find it to be very easy. I already made it more than five times before. one of those times, we didn't have enough egg. so I think I used cornstarch with water as a substitute. And obviously, as I now know, it grew hard. but they were eatable. so please make sure you have eggs when you make this! Well, now to the recipe:
 
Yield: 24 brownies

Ingredients

1 oz (4 squares unsweetened baking chocolate)
3/4 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup flour
*1 cup chopped pecans

preheat oven to 350. line a 13"x9" pan with aluminum foil. Place chocolate and butter in medium or large sized microwaveable bowl. push the butter's wraps aside, you'll need it later. Melt the butter and chocolate in microwave as soon as you see the butter melting (about 2 minutes). take it out and stir until chocolate is melted. then add sugar and stir well. then add eggs. then add flour and pecans. stir well. 

Hey, remember those butter wraps? well go ahead and get them....taps foot....Oh you're back! well wipe those wraps over the lined pan you lined earlier (grease the pan). Put the batter in the pan and smoothen it out. place in the oven and bake 30-35 minutes. bake it until when you stick a toothpick in it, it comes out clean or with fudgy crumbs on it. let it cool on a cooling rack for five minutes, then cut it. Scrumptious, delicious, crumby, fudgy, chewy delights will tempt you to take more when they touch your taste buds.

Although I have mentioned that I will be closing comments for the time being, however, for this very, very special post I will be opening the comment form just in case you all have something really, really sweet to say to H;). H will reply to you if you have any questions about the recipe too.

Thank you dearie for the most beautiful post in my world ~ 

Love & hugs 

Grandma