Vanocka - Christmas special Bread

  Vanocka is a sweetened braided bread, with full of flavors from Czech Republic and Slovakia.  Apart from sugar, this bread also has loads of almonds and raisin to give a  sweet hint and has aroma  from nutmeg and lemon zest. 

This bread involves braiding in three batches, and stacking them all up.  They have to be pinned through toothpicks or grill sticks so that the layer don't collapse.  The real trick is to equally divide the dough into nine counterparts for braiding, which can be efficiently done through weighing machine. 

After baking this yeast-raised bread, there was an strong hint of aroma around my home, resembling the plum cake. Each slice was a bit dense yet sweetened with a lemony flavor.   We ended up devouring this beautiful braided bread.  Merry Christmas to all, and thanks to Swathi Iyer for suggesting such a exotic bake. 

Orange flavoured Brioche

   Brioche is an enriched bread with high amount of butter and eggs.  This pastry, of French origin, is served for Breakfast.  The butter and egg content, imparts them very tender and crumbly texture and they  can be served with jam, chocolate spread as well.

These Brioche were, as promised very tender and softer than commercial bread, we had them with chocolate ganache and an few sugar stars on top.  They were amazing and had an strong orange flavour.  I would like to make them again and again :)

\

This orange flavoured Brioche was suggested by Swathi Iyer from the pastry chef Dominique Ansel.  All thanks to them for such an rich, unique Brioche

Empanada vegetariana - Galician stuffed bread

    Empanada gallega/ Galician empanada belongs to cuisine of Galicia, and is mainly had as an appetizer.  This, in general refers to an variety of stuffed bread - filling being fish or seafood or vegetables or an ultimate combo  of all three.  They are known to have sweet fillings as well.  They are prepared as an large savoury pie, and is sliced for serving purpose.

So, when Swathi and Marisa suggested us this bread, I was very delighted to bake them.  I choosed vegetarian version of Empanada with an touch of scrambled eggs, you can avoid eggs if you want. Empanadas vegetarian mixture are called as, 'zaragallada' and they have an strong hint of onions along with garlic, capsicum and tomatos. 

Empanada can be circle or rectangular, depending on baker's choice. Once out of the oven, they were mild, delecious and filling as well.   Since, they are mild, they would go great with tomato-chilly dip or chilly sauce.  We cherished them as an week-end tea-time snack and all thanks to  Swathi and Marisa  for suggesting such an delecious bread

New year Pretzels - NeujahrsPretzel

    As the name implies, this Pretzel is one of the special dishes in New years menu and is consumed across Europe, with Germany as special mention.  This Pretzel is unique, as it is not eaten as plain, but with an sugary glaze followed by nuts and cherries.  They are also believed to lead luck and prosperity throughout the year.

I made an eggless version of the suggested recipe, and glammed up with icing sugar glaze, followed by sprinklers.  They were very delecious, when had warm and kids friendly too.  All thanks to Swathi and Swetha for suggesting this wonderful recipe.  

You can also dust them with icing sugar instead of glaze and decorate with nuts/cherries.  So, let us now follow the recipe of this eggless new year pretzels.  

Cheesy sambhar cake

This is an savoury cake, sandwiched between an layer of cheese and an layer of potato, seasoned with sambhar spices.   The taste was heavenly, and for an savoury-lover like me, every bite was mesmerizing.  Hubby, being an sambhar-aholic, thumbs uped this one.

This is, like, one crazy experiment which turned an best shot.   Yes, though, I wanted to bake buns with aloo masala filling, I settled for this one.  One advantage is that you can add any filling you want.  I made two fillings with the yeast-raised dough.  First one was cheese and second was potato.  I could'nt forsake this vegetable as this had its closest proximity with sambhar.  So making an sambhar flavoured potato was an better idea and sandwiching them between cheesy layers got the taste right.  

Saltine cracker

First of all, I would like to thank Swathi Iyer for letting me suggest  this  month’s challenge.  Thanks a lot, Swathi J  For this month’s challenge, I have suggested two types of cracker – SALTINE, GRAHAM CRACKER.

So, what is this CRACKER?....

1. A cracker is an baked snack that can be sweet and savoury (Mostly savoury).  Alternatively, they are also termed as an ‘savoury cookie’.
2. Name of this snack, is believed to come from the caused noise, when these are broken into half.
3. Crackers are thin, crisp with an usual square or circle shape.  They are known to be topped with herbs, salt, spices or other seasonings.  
4. They are usually served with dips/cheese-spread/butter/milk.  
5. These cracker can be yeast-raised or baking powder raised, so in order to prevent raising of dough during baking , these crackers are drilled with holes before switching them to oven, these holes, otherwise called as docking holes, is one characteristic feature of CRACKERS. 

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CRACKER AND COOKIE:

The difference chart shown below depicts the basic differences between cracker and cookie

Commercial examples for crackers include Maska-chaska, Monaco and Brittania crackers, etc.

Bread basket

I was completely amazed by these bread baskets when I first saw them at Homebakers guild.  Later, I went through an elaborate online search, and found  this  youtube video.  With my own dough recipe, I, finally made these gorgeous basket.  

When I placed them on my dinner table, they were quite deceiving and imitated a real basket carrying fruits.  You can surprise your guests at parties and your family too.  

Pataqueta - Baking partner challenge November 2013

  When Swathi announced making of traditional Spanish bread named 'Pataqueta', I was thrilled.  According to Marisa, pataqueta is bread that inhabitants of Valencia's Orchard used to eat when they went to work.  This crescent moon shaped bread, is known since seventeeth century.  It was baked in Moorish oven, later on wood stoves.

 What differs Pataqueta from other bread is they are steam baked.  Yes, that nourishes them with even soft texture with firm crust outside.  I, really enjoyed baking them, along with them, I made pretzel rolls too.  Thanks to Swathi and Marisa.

Pumpkin flavoured bread - Baking partners challenge

   When Swathi Iyer announced Baking partner's challenge as ' Baking with Pumpkins', I was thrilled because I hadn't used pumpkins in my Baking session.  And to double it up, three awesone recipes for bread was suggested.  I followed  Yeast version of pumpkin bread from Kingarthur, result was amazing!  My entire home was filled with fresh aroma of yeast-raised bread and we all luved it on ur breakfast time.  Thanks to Swathi Iyer and Tamy for suggesting the same.

Out of the oven, I felt very proud as I sliced my loaf with an hungry daughter by my side :)  She was the first one to taste this aromatic bread with an dollop of jam, she just loved it!!   I realized that these were super moist, yet heavy on our stomach compared to store-brought one.  So, let us move to recipe!