Rye and stout bread and food waste

I was watching Save with Jamie the other day and besides the delicious recipes (I drooled over his beautiful panzanella and have been dreaming about the beef rendang with homemade chapatis, yum! ) I find it really great that he shows (with numbers) the insane amount of food that goes to waste for absolutely no reason – the show takes place in England, but I know that here in Brazil things are not any different.

I had to take responsibility for my home at a very early age and since I did all the shopping and cooking I had to be smart: there were four of us and nothing could go to waste. Luckily for me my brother was the only picky eater among us: my father and sister ate pretty much anything I cooked, and because they were fearless eaters I could experiment and try new things whenever I wanted to.

Leftover rice and pasta were quickly transformed into fritters, leftover tomato salad was placed in the fridge to be added to tomato sauce some other time, leftover greens were folded into beaten eggs for a delicious omelet – that’s how I managed the kitchen back then, and that made me learn a lot about food, long before blogs, cookbooks and TV shows. That is why I love how Jamie shows people how to transform ingredients into something else entirely – his tips are great.

When I made Nigella’s stout cake a while ago there was some leftover beer and since I wasn’t going to drink it I had to do something useful with it, and this bread was the result: I avoided wasting expensive beer and we had delicious open sandwiches for lunch, made with freshly baked bread – if that’s not a wonderful thing I don’t know what is. :)

Rye and stout bread
slightly adapted from the always gorgeous Gourmet Traveller

150g rye flour
1 teaspoon dried yeast
100ml stout beer
1 tablespoon molasses
1 teaspoon table salt, divided use
1 cup (240ml) lukewarm water
350g all purpose flour

Combine rye flour, yeast, beer, molasses, ½ teaspoon of the salt and water in an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Set aside in a warm place until foaming (5-8 minutes), add all purpose flour and remaining salt and knead until smooth (5 minutes). Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, turn to coat, cover with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place until doubled in size (1 ½ - 2 hours).

Line a large baking sheet with foil. Knock back dough and knead on a lightly floured surface until smooth, dusting with flour if necessary. Divide in half, then roll each half into a smooth ball. Dust top with a bit of flour, transfer to the prepared sheet, cover with a tea towel and set aside in a warm place until doubled in size (1 hour).
In the meantime, preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Bake until loaves are deep golden and sound hollow when tapped (30-40 minutes). Transfer to a wire rack, cool slightly, then serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 2 small loaves

Lager and lime cake and tastes changing through time

I find it fascinating how our taste changes with time – I was listening to the radio yesterday when “I Stay Away” started playing, a song I hadn’t heard in ages, and then I thought of how Alice in Chains was my favorite #2 band some good 18 years ago (The Smiths always have and will always be #1). Today, except for 2-3 songs, I can’t listen to those CDs anymore because people screaming drives me crazy, I just can’t stand someone yelling instead of singing (I told you I was getting old).

In my early twenties I rarely drank and I didn’t understand how people could like beer – to me it was something too bitter. In my late twenties, however, I started enjoying a glass or two of Prosecco from time to time and beer no longer tasted bitter – ice cold beer actually tasted great on a hot summer day. I’m no connoisseur and my favorite beer is Stella Artois (though I will have a sip of Guinness every now and then), and when I saw this recipe on Olive magazine I immediately wanted to try it – pairing beer and citrus in cake form seemed an excellent idea after I’d tried the beverage with chocolate with great results.

The original recipe was for a layer cake sandwiched and iced with lager buttercream – with the Sahara temperatures we’ve been having here I thought that buttercream was overkill, so I skipped it and baked the cake in a Bundt pan (and me being me I amped the amount of lime zest, obviously). :D The cake turned out extremely tender – like the ones that usually have sour cream or yogurt in their batter – with a nice hint of lime; you can’t actually taste the beer in the cake but you feel there is something else going on other than the citrus flavor – I thought it was delicious.

Lager and lime cake
slightly adapted from the delicious Olive magazine

Cake:
225g all purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
100g unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
finely grated zest of 2 limes
2 large eggs
200ml lager (a light one – I used Stella Artois)
juice of ½ the lime

Glaze:
½ cup (70g) confectioners’ sugar
about 2 teaspoons lime juice

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.Butter and flour an 8-cup capacity Bundt pan.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Using an electric mixer, cream butter, sugar and lime zest until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally. Beat in the vanilla.
On low speed, add the dry ingredients in three additions alternating with the lager in two additions (begin and end with the dry ingredients). Fold in the lime juice.
Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and smooth the surface. Bake for about 35 minutes or until golden and risen and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan over a wire rack for 15 minutes, then carefully unmold onto the rack and cool completely.

Glaze: sift the confectioners’ sugar into a small bowl, gradually add the lime juice and whisk until drizzable. Drizzle over the cooled cake and let the glaze set for 15 minutes.

Serves 8-10

Chocolate and beer cake

Every time I discover something interesting about food I feel like sharing it with you here on the blog – to me it’s like establishing a conversation about it (though sometimes it feels like a monologue).
For instance, I have found out that Waitrose – which website is a great source of recipes like the apple marzipan rolls I made the other day – has a You Tube channel, too, full of recipe videos, and some of them are presented by Will Torrent (the boy being bossed around on James Martin’s videos). :)

I bought Torrent’s cookbook a couple of weeks ago and this amazing chocolate and beer cake, moist, tender and full of flavor, was the first recipe I tried from it; when I noticed that the recipe yielded only one loaf I decided to double it and bake two loaves at once – that proved to be a very wise decision. :) With such a great result I cannot wait to bake more from both his book and his videos, and I believe that the bakewell muffins will be next on my list.

Chocolate and beer cake
from the absolutely beautiful Patisserie at Home: Step-By-Step Recipes to Help You Master the Art of French Pastry

125g unsalted butter
½ cup (120ml) lager beer – I used Stella Artois
125g self-rising flour*
½ cup (45g) unsweetened cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
125g granulated sugar
75ml whole milk, room temperature
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
50g dark chocolate, in chips or chopped

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Lightly butter a 1kg (2 pound) loaf pan, line it with baking paper and butter the paper as well
Put the butter and beer in a saucepan over a low heat until it melts. Cool for 5 minutes.
Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda in a mixing bowl and add the sugar, milk, egg, vanilla, chocolate pieces and melted butter mixture. Mix to combine.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for about 50 minutes. A skewer in the middle of the cake should come out clean and the top of the cake should bounce back slightly when prodded. Cool in the pan for 30 minutes, then carefully unmold. Cool completely over a wire rack, then carefully peel off the paper.
The cake can be served warm or at room temperature.

* as I usually do, I replaced the self-rising flour for a combination of all purpose flour, baking powder and salt; since I doubled the recipe I ended up using 250g all purpose flour + 1 ¾ teaspoons baking powder + 2 pinches of salt

Serves 6-8