Bread Revolution - Flatbreads

This was my second recipe from Bread Revolution (my first being a white loaf which for some reason I have deleted my photo of!). I decided to make the flatbreads after getting some lamb mince in the reduced section of Tesco and I had a nosey through my books and decided to make some lamb kebabs (Bill Grainger's recipe) and the recipe stated to serve in pitta or flatbreads.

The kebabs were lovely (although possibly just a lamb burger in disguise), my daughter did all the measuring and mixing and we added some rosemary from the garden and some mint sauce to make them even tastier. The flatbreads were delicious, as usual I only made half of the mix, however, I did struggle to get the windowpane effect when kneading them so I think I didn't have the dough wet enough. We topped some of them with some lovely salt and, again, rosemary from the garden. For my daughter (who is eight and therefore I don't like her having salt) we topped a couple with garlic to make them like garlic pizza bread.

We (me and daughter) ate them while watching the Olivier Awards on the red button (well done Les Miserables!) and they were a brilliant Sunday night dinner. Husband had his later and revitalised them in the oven as instructed in the book and really enjoyed them.

I'm going to try these again as I think they'll be even better if I can get that windowpane effect. Also I'll try and work on my shaping a bit more next time!

TWD - Pecan Sticky Buns

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie is pecan sticky buns. I would say this was the most laborious recipe to date, not difficult just time consuming. To be honest I don't think I read through the recipe before starting so I didn't realise how long it would actually take to finish.

The dough was made in my mixer (otherwise known as Lola). There is no way this could be done by hand but Lola made light work of it. As usual I only made half of the recipe and let me tell you there is no way this is Weight Watchers friendly!! There is a ridiculous amount of butter in it but it makes a delicious brioche dough.

You then leave the dough for it's first rise until it has doubled in size.

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The dough is then knocked back before it going for a second rise, this time is a long one 6 hours at least in the fridge, I left mine overnight.

The next day you roll out the dough and fill it with a ridiculous amount of butter before folding it up and rolling it again. Folding and rolling, folding and rolling. Then you roll it out and fill with brown sugar, pecans (I left out the pecans) and cinnamon and roll again and refrigerate.

During these stages there was a great deal of resting and putting in the fridge and long-winded stuff like that. Then you fill a dish with butter and brown sugar and slice the dough into rounds and place them cut side down onto the sugary mixture. You then leave them - shock horror - again to rise for a couple of hours. I cut the ends of my roll to neaten them but then added them to the dish anyway because I didn't want to waste any! I didn't think they would rise as much as they did but they really filled my dish nicely. Just before I put them in the oven my fabulous husband appeared with some pecans (I hadn't been able to find them before) and so I tucked a few underneath the buns, that is why they aren't particularly well positioned on top of the buns in the finished product.

And here is the finished product!

They were delicious, really lovely. All of the family ate them and I even took a couple to the cinema on sunday afternoon and ate them with my daughter while watching Avengers Assemble. They travelled well and a tissue was enough to sort out the sticky fingers! Will I make them again? To be honest I know that I won't they were lovely but sooooooo much hassle and time consuming.

Bread Revolution - Bagels

So you know I'm loving my Bread Revolution book, last week I decided to try my hand at the bagels. I love bagels as does my family but we have always bought then and the whole boiling issue has always put me off even attempting them. Filled with enthusiasm and the excellent instructions and past results from this book I decided to give it a go.

You start off by making a dough which is the same as usual however it had honey in it. Unfortunately I had no honey in and so used a bit of golden syrup as an alternative.

After the first rise you shape into balls and then stick a hole in the middle and leave for the second rise.

Then after they have risen you boik them in water for two minutes on each side. This wasn't too difficult at all although you can see from the picture that my shaping leaves a lot to be desired.

After boiling you add any toppings you want and they go in the oven for baking.

And here is the finished product.

I can safely say they were AMAZING. We loved them, so soft in the middle but nice and firm on the outside. They are better than any bagel I have ever purchased and I will be making them again. Mr DJ was away for the night when I made them and sadly they were hard as rocks the next day (I had saved him two!) so I would say that you should only make as many as you need (although I presume they could be frozen?). I will be making these again and this time I will put a topping on some of them too.

Bread Revolution - Soda Bread

Last weekend as well as making the bagels on Saturday I fancied giving the soda bread in the book a go on Sunday morning. Soda bread is delicious and, having tried my hand at Dorie's bread at least four times now since the original baking, I feel like a bit of a pro.

The soda bread in Bread Revolution is a brown loaf and quite a bit different from Dorie's soda bread, to start with it doesn't have any buttermilk in it. The mix, however, is just as simple; flour, milk, bicarbonate of soda, salt and red wine vinegar and a quick mix and you're all sorted. The book states that it looks like porridge and that was a really good description of the dough, very wet and not at all attractive!!

I made half of the mixture (as ever!) and it produced a nice small loaf which we had for lunch with cheese and salad. I didn't smooth the top before baking and I probably should have done to make it a bit prettier but it certainly didn't affect the taste. My daughter wasn't keen but she's turning into a fusspot at the moment. I loved it and so did my husband. Another one to add to the list!

I only took one photograph I'm afraid but you'll have to take my word for it, it was lovely.

TWD - Hungarian Shortbread

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie is Hungarian Shortbread. It is basically a shortbread sandwiched with jam in the middle. Of course Dorie suggests you make your own jam and gives the recipe she does also state it is fine to buy some. I had a BAD experience making jam last year which involved me spending months, and yes I mean months, trying to save my big pan which had the thickest layer of burnt sugar over it and so I have no intention of trying jam again too soon. For the purposes of this TWD, therefore, I have used the jam fresh from a jar which I bought at the shops!

The dough is made in the mixer; 1lb of butter (!!!!!) mixed up first until light and fluffy then add your sugar and egg yolks.

Then you add your flour and baking powder and the dough is complete, easy peasy. The dough is divided into two balls (or square type things in my case) and frozen for up to 30 minutes.

Once the dough is out of the freezer, one ball of it is grated into the tin, the jam added and then the second ball of dough grated on the top. I had loads of dough left over and I've left that in the freezer to use another time.

Here is the end result

You can see that my icing sugar went a bit yellow from the heat of the shortbread but apart from that they looked lovely and tasted really, really nice. I was planning to freeze half of them as there were far too many but my husband and daughter managed to polish them off (I'm dieting!)

Bread Revolution - English Muffins and Eggs Benedict

As I'm not keen on chocolate my Mother-in-Law gave me £10 for Easter rather than buying me an egg and with it I bought Bread Revolution which is written by Duncan Glendinning and Patrick Ryan. I've wanted the book for a few months after following the guys on twitter @thoughtfulbread and seeing them re-tweet all the pictures that people send them of delicious breads they have made.

This is my third recipe from the book, the first being the plain white loaf and the second being flatbreads. I didn't take many photographs of them and will dig them out and add them to the blog at some point. I really fancied trying the English muffins this week.

They are surprisingly easy to make. You start the dough like a scone dough by rubbing the fat into the flour, I mis-read the recipe and added tablespoons of butter rather than teaspoons but it didn't seem to affect the bread at all. Then you add your milk mixed with yeast. My first two attempts at bread have not been wet enough so I added slightly more milk than the recipe stated (as advised by the guys on twitter - thanks for the tip!) and the dough was gorgeous when I was kneading it. It took me around 20 minutes kneading to get to the 'windowpane' stage before the dough goes off for the first rise.

You then shape the dough into balls before the second rise. I made half the mixture (as usual) and made six muffins.

You then fry the dough for a couple of minutes each side in butter and oil before transferring to the oven for 10 minutes to finish the baking and here is the result - delicious!!!

After I made them I wanted to have them with my dinner but couldn't decide what to do. The book also has a recipe suggestion for each bread and for the muffins it was Eggs Benedict. Well I love eggs benedict but have never tried a hollondaise sauce before but the ingredients were all to hand and I had to do was pop down the road for some bacon and our dinner was sorted.

I was so pleased with the sauce. I must admit it did split initially but the book gives great advice for rescuing it. I also poached an egg successfully for the first time in water (I usually use a poach pod) following their steps. What a delicious meal, I know it should be for breakfast but it made a great Saturday night meal while we watched the Voice.

It's a great book and I intend to try a recipe a week (if I can) as each time they are gettting better and better!

TWD - Lemon Loaf Cake

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie is Lemon Loaf Cake. For the first time I made the whole recipe! Cake is always a hit in our house and I love a loaf cake, plain and simple and great to wrap in foil and take to work or school and to have with a cup of coffee.

This was such a simple cake to make. A very basic mix the only lemon flavouring was rind, not juice was used.

Then added the flour and melted butter

and put in a loaf tin. You can see I'm lazy and use the pre-pepared liners. They are so handy to have in the cupboard and save having to grease and deal with cakes getting stuck.

Here is the finished product, it's a terrible picture I know but I meant to take more when I realised it was all gone! We loved it, great on it's own but when it was a couple of days old I had it toasted with butter - delicious. I will most definitley be making this one again.

Tuesdays with Dorie, Pizza Rustica

So this week's TWD is pizza rustica, although it technically isn't pizza at all. It is more of a quiche but the pastry is sweet. Sounds a bit weird, well it is!!

So the dough was easy enough to make, a few minutes to do in the food processor.

Then you separate it into two balls, one twice the size of the other. I should say I did half the recipe (as usual) and decided to do individual tarts rather than a large one using three of my individual tart tins. Here's my dough in the balls on my work top and then after I'd rolled them out and lined the tins.

You then fill the dough with a ricotta and egg mixture and some proscuitto ham and then top with the smaller piece of dough which has been cut into strips. The strips should be cut with a fancy cutter but sadly I do not have one (nor do I really need one!) so mine were cut (very slapdash) with a knife.

Here is the finished article. My daughter loved hers and ate the whole thing with some salad while it was still warm from the oven. I wasn't too keen and nor was Mr DJ. The sweet pastry was very strange with the cheese filling and to be honest I'd rather just have a slice of quiche! So this was my first Dorie recipe that I won't be doing again. I'm glad I had a go though.

Tuesdays with Dorie - Irish Soda Bread

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie was Irish Soda Bread, just in time for St Patrick's Day.

Now I love Soda Bread so I was looking forward to making this.

As usual I halved the recipe as I didn't think I'd need all of it. The recipe did say that it only lasts for the day so I didn't see the point in making a big loaf. In any event Mr DJ was away this weekend so it was just me and Miss. It turned out half of the recipe was just perfect (and only took one pot of buttermilk).

The dough took no time to whip up and all it needed was a bowl, no need for the mixer.

You then cut a cross in the top of the dough to let the fairies out or some other nonsense. Here is mine on my greaseproof sheet.

As it used half the recipe I kept an eye on the bread and only cooked it for 40 minutes. Here is the finished product. It was so lovely, all got eaten. I had mine on it's own with a huge amount of butter (for research purposes obviously!) and also with some lovely strong cheese for lunch.

Tuesdays with Dorie - Rugelach

I've no idea how to pronounce it but these were lovely.

They are basically a type of pastry, I believe they are Jewish but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. The starting point was the dough, nothing like pastry or even bread dough, something totally different, made with half butter and half cream cheese. Quick and fairly easy to make in my mixer although important that the ingredients were room temperature and not at all cold.

The dough then had to be chilled in the fridge for a few hours so I left mine in there overnight before rolling and filling. The next day I made my filling, sugar nuts and fruit, what a combination. I did half of the recipe and it just fitted in my mini chopper. (I love my mini chopper, my mother-in-law bought it for me and I use it all the time. It is one of my favourite presents, so handy for so many things.)

The dough is rolled you need to spread it with Levkar. I had no idea what this was but a quick google revealed it was like jam so I decided to use jam. I know it's lazy and I could have looked up how to make it but I've had bad jam experiences before so thought mine was best coming from a jar. So dough rolled and spread with my jam the recipe said to roll from the long end. I presumed that this was wrong and so rolled from the short end (obviously because I think I know best!)

Here is a pic of them rolled up, one by me one by my daughter, I will leave you to guess which one is which!

So they were short and fat and full of loveliness. They then go in the fridge for a few more hours to chill before slicing and baking but before you bake them you sprinkle more of the sugar mixture on the top.

And here they are, the finished product. The recipe said it makes loads and described them as cookies, mine made 10 and they were more like danish pastries so I clearly did roll from the wrong end! If Paul Hollywood of the Great British Bake Off fame was here he would say "someone didn't read the recipe correctly". I did read it, I just decided it was wrong - oops sorry Dorie.

They were lovely that size my husband particularly loved them and has asked for them again. The jam and the filling was lovely and went all chewy on the bottom. They were not the most attractive pastries but made up for it with their lovely flavour. A winner for us.

Tuesdays with Dorie - Chocolate Truffle Tarts

Wow these were AMAZING!!!!


The mods at TWD did say that they would be choosing one easy recipe and one difficult recipe per month from Baking with Julia so I was worried these would be very fiddly. If you look at the length of the recipe you would think so too but they were surprisingly easy.


I made the dough the day before I made the tart. I didn't have any butter in so I used Stork (sorry Dorie!) but it hasn't affected the taste at all. I divided the dough into two before refridgerating it as I knew I would only be making three tarts (the whole recipe makes six). There are only three of us in the house and the rest would go to waste. The dough freezes so I knew I'd use the rest of it at some point.


Rolling the dough and putting it in the tins was the most difficult part, it broke very easily and was a bit of a mismatch job but you really can't tell from the finished product. I do love these tins, I bought them from Lakeland a few years ago and I use them a lot. Dorie's tart recipes always make enough for six of these tarts so easy enough to half the recipe for my family or do all six if we've got guests. Dorie says to remove the bottom from the tins but I baked them with the bottoms in, they were fine and well greased so popped out of the tin easily.

The only change I made (apart from the stork) was to use half milk and half dark chocolate in the filling as my husband and daughter don't like things too bitter. I also forgot to add any biscuits (I didn't have biscotti but was going to use speculoos instead that I had in the cupboard but when the time came totally forgot).


The tarts are absolutely delicious, the truffle filling is a bit like a chocolate mousse. They are very rich and so we could only eat half each (the other half being eaten the next day of course!) I have already made them a second time to use the second half of the dough and I can confirm that it was just as good from the freezer as it was freshly made.

Messenger Bag

My friend Clare bought me the pattern for the Amy Butler messenger bag for my birthday last year and I couldn't wait to make it. It's a really big messenger (perhaps a bit too big for me if that's possible).

The great thing about the bag for me is that it can fit a big file in it meaning if I have a meeting etc outside work I can take it all with me in one bag without having to take a separate bag or, heaven forbid, a carrier bag! I also really like the amount of pockets in the bag - I loooooove pockets and compartments. I particularly like the zip pocket on the exterior which you can keep quite train pass etc in without having to open the whole bag.

I have used the bag for work but I also used it for a quick overnight trip when I didn't want to take a weekend bag with me as I was getting the train to London and going straight to meet a friend and off to a concert. I could easily fit in my wash bag, PJs and a change of clothes and was really comfy to travel with.

I didn't really measure the strap for myself just trusted the pattern. I do think the strap is a bit too long for me (and I'm 5' 7) if I do make this bag again I will shorten the strap or perhaps make it an adjustable strap.

The exterior fabric is some grey suiting which is from Abakhans in Manchester. The internal fabric I think is Amy Butler fabric which I bought from John Lewis.

I do like Amy Butler patterns they are well drafted and very "wordy". I didn't have any problems with this pattern apart from one of the internal zips being a tiny bit too short. As usual Amy over-estimates how much fabric you will need for the bag but as long as you know this you can plan accordingly.

This bag would also be great for a man and there is a photo on the pattern of the bag in "man" colours. My husband uses a messenger bag for work so perhaps when his bag dies I'll be making him another one.

Tuesdays with Dorie - White Loaf

I love baking and Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan is the best baking book I own. A website was set up where various people baked their way through this book (it took them years!) and they have now finished it and so have moved on to another Dorie book, Baking with Julia. I thought now that I am blogging that I'd have a go at trying to keep up with them and bake my way through the book. I've had it for well over a year and haven't baked anything out of it as it all looks very complicated.

The first challenge was a white loaf. I must admit I am not a breadmaker. I have a breadmaking machine and I love it, why would I do it by hand? Well this seemed the best place to start.

The recipe said it made two loaves and as they are only fresh for a couple of days this seemed far too much for my family of three so I halved the recipe and made one.

I used my mixer with a dough hook to do most of the kneading as it says you can in the book. The dough didn't seem that 'alive' to me though. My yeast is very old (way past it's sell by date) but is fine in my breadmaker so I don't think that is it (I could of course be totally wrong!). Anyway, the rising seemed to go well.

Here it is ready to go in the oven all lovely and risen.

And here is the end result.

I must admit I wasn't overly keen. The crust was very crusty (a bit too hard for me!) and I had a couple of slices the night it was made planning to use it the next day for sandwiches. The next day it was inedible, all dried up and hard so it ended up going in the bin which was a total waste!

I'm glad I had a go at it though and do look forward to making the other breads in the book, I'll be making them the day I plan to eat them in future though. Head on over to the Tuesdays with Dorie website to look at all the other white loaves.

Teardrop Bag

As I finished my Blossom bag in record time I went straight onto my next bag from Amy Butler's Style Stitches, the Teardrop bag. I have made this bag for my friend Clare who, I think I have said previously, bought me the Style Stitches book for my birthday last year. She has asked me to make her a blind for her birthday and she's going to pick the fabric. Her birthday was last September and she's still not picked the fabric so, as yet, she is present-less. I thought this bag would be nice for her and the colours I have used are very 'her'.

The main body of the bag was kindly donated by my husband. It was previously his Armani denim shirt. He wore the shirt on our first date, and the second. In fact, probably on lots and lots of dates when we first met in 1990-something, he never had the shirt off; he loved it. Sadly the fashion changed and the shirt got sent to the back of the wardrobe never to be worn again. In order to ensure he never wore it again it was donated (grudgingly) to my fabric stash. It makes a pretty good bag I think!

The floral fabric is Amy Butler, again, purchased half price in the sale at John Lewis (it's sadly above my budget to buy it full price!). The hardest part about this bag was the hips, they were really fiddly to sew onto the bag and as I've used navy to top stitch them they don't look particularly neat. I have no idea how I'd get on with the smaller bag (this is the large size) but I wouldn't like to try it! I can't see me making the smaller version of this bag in any event as the large is just enough for any every day handbag (not like Amy's usual massive bags!) so the small will be too small for anything useful.

The rest of the bag was a breeze to put together. I added a flush zip pocked to the inside before putting on the top band. It is a bit squished at the top but I wanted it quite high up as its not that big a bag. I love a zip pocked and add them to all bags now as they are so handy.

I didn't have enough fabric to make the inside pocket as wide as the bag so as the sides would be showing I stitched them all the way around and then turned it inside out so that it had neat edges. I also divided the inner pocket so that it has a mobile phone section. the pocket it is a bit large when it isn't divided.

Isn't it cute? I hope Clare likes it. I am thinking of making her the matching coin purse to go with it.