Biscuit Sablé/Eggless French Shortbread Biscuits

For this month Home Bakers Challenge Priya chose popular French bakes and wanted to try the baguette but due to lots of work I couldn't.
Sables are melt in mouth crispy short bread cookies which is easy to make and its an egg less recipe too.As I had one stick of butter I halved the measurement and made.I used a small square cookie cutter and a round flower shaped,you can use any shape and make the cookies.Now off to the recipe...........................

Basic Information

Preparation time 15 minutes
Baking Time 15-20 minutes
Makes 10-12 (2 inch cookies)

Ingredients

Ingredient	Quantity
All purpose flour/maida	11/4 cups
Powdered sugar	1/4 cup+1tbs
Softened Butter/vennai	1/2cup
Salt	a pinch
Vanilla Extract	1/2 tsp
Milk	1 tsp

Method

• Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy and fluffy.Add in the vanilla extract,milk or water, beat for few minutes.
• Now add the flour and salt, mix well and make a smooth dough.Divide the dough to two portions and roll each portion of the dough between two ungreased baking sheets and flatten slowly with a rolling pin.
• Using a cookie cutter,cut the cookies from the rolled dough.With the help of a sharp spatula take the cookies and place it on a baking tray.
• Preheat the oven to 350 F and bake it for 15-18 minutes or until its done.
• Cool it on a wire rack and store it in an air tight container.

Enjoy.......................................................

• If the dough is too crumbly then add a tsp of milk and mix it.
• Store it after the cookies completely cool down.

Sumber http://www.naliniscooking.com

Vegan Challah Bread /Braided Bread

For this month Home Bakers Challenge,Priya Ranjit  has chosen Christmas cookies,cakes and Jewish Challah bread.
I tired the vegan version using the gram flour(besan) and it came out so delicious and soft but I couldn't braid it properly.
Sangeetha suggested to dry roast the besan as she had the feeling of besan smell,so dry roasted it.If you are using besan dry roast it for couple of minutes in a medium flame and use.As I made a braided bread for first time I scaled down the measurement and made a 10 inch loaf.Now off to the recipe..............

Basic Information

Recipe Source Sweet Life
Preparation time 15 minutes
Resting time 1 hour+45 minutes
Baking Time 40-45 minutes
Makes 10 inch loaf

Ingredients

Ingredient	Quantity
All purpose flour/maida	11/2-2cups
Active Yeast/instant yeast	1tsp
Sugar	1/4cup
Gram flour/kadalamaavu	1/4cup
Olive Oil	3tbs
Water	1cup
Salt	3/4tsp
Sesame seeds/yellu	1tsp

Method

Dry roast the gramflour/besan  for couple of minutes,once it becomes warm enough add around 1/3 cup of water and mix it well with no lumps.To this add the sugar,oil and mix it well.In a big mixing bowl add the flour,active yeast and salt,mix it well with a whisk.

Now add the gramflour mixture and mix it well.Knead it to soft dough using water as needed for 5-7 minutes.The dough should be soft and not very sticky.Cover it with a cling wrap and keep it in a warm place to raise for an hour.

By one hour the dough would have doubled,punch down the dough and knead it well for a minute.Now divide the dough into four equal parts.Roll each part to a small log and keep it aside for 5 minutes.

Now take each log and roll into a 10-12 inch strand by moving the hands in rocking motion to get a nice strand.Place the 4 strands on a counter top or a board,squeeze the ends of the strands together and start braid.From the left hand side start the braid by crossing the 4th strand on 2 and 1 over 3,do it till the end.Tuck the finished end and transfer it to the baking tray.

Cover it with a cling wrap and keep it aside for the second raise for 40 minutes.Apply some olive oil and sprinkle the sesame seeds.Once the size become doubled,preheat the oven for 375F.Bake the bread in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes or a nice golden crust is formed.

Cool it on a wire rack and slice it when it comes to room temperature.

Apply some butter or jelly and serve it.

Enjoy.............................................................

• Here I used sesame seeds,originally poppy seeds are used.
• My sesame seeds didn't stick to the bread properly and I brushed with oil after sprinkling the sesame seeds to get a golden crust.
• In original recipe soy milk is used for brushing.

Sumber http://www.naliniscooking.com

Spooky Witch Fingers for October Home Bakers Challenge

Being October Halloween month I chose recipes which fits to the theme for the Home Bakers Challenge,one among the recipe is Witch Fingers.
The recipe is from All Recipes.com with an egg,but I wanted to try without egg as Priya's,eggless version came out good.Just I skipped the egg part and rest of the recipe remains the same.Try this mouth melting witch finger cookies for the Halloween and enjoy,here goes the recipe....................

Basic Information

Preparation Time 15 minutes
Resting Time       30 minutes
Baking Time       25 Minutes
Makes                  35-40 Cookies


Ingredients

Ingredient	Quantity
All purpose flour	22/3cups
Confectionery Sugar	1 cup
Butter/vennai	1cup
Almonds/badam	3/4cup
Salt	1tsp
Vanilla extract	1/2tsp
Almond extract	1/2tsp
Baking powder	1tsp

Method

Combine the butter, sugar and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl. Beat together with an electric beater until fluffy.Now gradually add the flour, baking powder, and salt, continuous beating to make into a dough.Wrap the dough in a cling wrap and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Lightly grease baking sheets.
Remove dough from refrigerator in small amounts. Scoop a tbs of dough at a time onto a piece of waxed paper or a wooden board.
Roll the dough into a thin finger-shaped cookie. Press one almond into one end of each cookie to give the appearance of a long fingernail. Squeeze cookie near the tip and again near the center of each to give the impression of knuckles. Cut into the dough with a sharp knife at the same points to help give a more finger-like appearance.
Arrange the shaped cookies on the baking sheets. Bake in the preheated oven until the cookies are slightly golden in color, 20 to 25minutes.(for me it took exactly 25 minutes)

After cooling store it in an air tight container

 

Enjoy................................................................

• If the dough is crumbly add couple of tsp of milk.

Sumber http://www.naliniscooking.com

Veggie Pizza for Home Bakers Challenge

We group of people started a monthly event for baking for both bloggers and non-bloggers initiated by Priya of Priyas Versatile recipes.
For this month challenge,Divya of Divya's culinary journey announced 4 different pizza with the home made tomato sauce,a recipe from Martha Stewart.
As we love the veggie pizza I chose to make it with the veggies such such as onion,capsicum,mushrooms and baby corn for the toppings.The tomato sauce here I used is the store bought and with the herbs.Now on to the recipe..........................

Ingredients

Ingredient	Quantity
All purpose flour	31/4cups+for dusting
Instant yeast	1 package(21/2tsp)
Salt	1tsp
Sugar	1/4tsp
Warm water	1cup
Olive oil	31/2tbs+more for bowl
Tomato sauce	4-5tbs
Italian Seasoning	1/2tsp
Mixed Veggies(onion.tomato, capsicum,mushroom,baby corn)	as needed
Mozarilla cheese	1/2-3/4cup
Oil (for brushing)	1tsp(optional)

Method

• In a bowl add the flour,instant yeast,salt and sugar add the warm water and 1tbs of oil and mix it well.

• Knead it well with the remaining oil to a soft and elastic dough for 6-7 minutes.Smooth the dough and brush the bowl with little oil and keep the dough inside.

• Cover the bowl with cling wrap and keep it in a warm place 40- 60 minutes or it doubled.

• After the dough doubled,remove the wrap and punch it down,knead it for 2 minutes.Smooth it and keep for the second raise for 30 minutes.

• Now preheat the oven to 400 degree F.

• Punch down the dough, and transfer to a clean surface. Using a sharp knife, divide the dough in half, and knead each half four or five turns into a ball.

• Place one of the dough balls back in the oiled bowl, and cover with plastic wrap. Lightly flour a clean surface, place the remaining dough ball on top, pat into a flattened circle, cover lightly with plastic wrap, and let rest 5 minutes.

• Using your fingers, begin to flatten and push the dough evenly out from the center until it measures about 7 to 8 inches in diameter.

• Do not press the dough all the way to the edges. Leave a slightly raised border, about a half-inch wide, around entire circumference of pizza dough.

• Transfer it to a pizza stone or pan and with the help of fork prick it on the surface in 10-15 times.

• Mix the Italian seasoning with the tomato sauce and apply on the rolled dough.

• Arrange the veggies on top of the tomato sauce then sprinkled the cheese.Brush the edges with oil

• Bake it in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until bottom turns light golden brown and cheese melted.

• After its done completely remove it from the oven and slice with a pizza wheel and serve it.

• Repeat the same process for the rest of the dough.

Enjoy............................................. 

 Linking to the Home Bakers Challenge event happening at Divya's space.

• As instant yeast used here I directly added to the flour and used warm water for kneading. 
• The water should be warm enough to activate the yeast.

Sumber http://www.naliniscooking.com