Sweet double bread pudding

Made of leftovers.
And delicious.

Somehow, unexpectedly (I egoistically like to think it was because of my birthday), too much bread found its way to our house. What's worse - it found its way to our fridge. Now, bread in the fridge is not a nice sight for me, so I figured that the best way to get rid of it is just to go ahead and eat all of it.

What would usually happen? White bread would turn into sweet bread pudding saiavorm (read more here) and rye bread would turn into sweet rye bread 'soup' - leivasupp (my classical). But today I rebelled a bit and made an experimental bread pudding - which is going to be a keeper! Curd cheese can be replaced with sour cream, cream cheese or yoghurt (although I would never ever replace it!), light cream or even milk can be used instead of double cream. But...you do want double cream, you do.


Sweet rye bread and white bread pudding

150-200 g white bread
150-200 g rye bread
1 dl sweet apple puree/jam
2 eggs
2 dl double cream
1 dl curd cheese
3 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp - 1/2 tsp cinnamon
vanilla

1. Dice white bread and rye bread.
2. Grease a loaf pan and lay white bread onto the bottom of it.
3. Cover the bread with apple puree and top with rye bread pieces.
4. Beat eggs with curd cheese and double cream until smooth, add sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Then pour the mixture onto rye bread (Try to make sure that all of it gets soaked).
5. If you wish then sprinkle some sugar onto the pudding, then bake it at 180C for about 30 minutes.
6. Serve warm with cold milk (poured over it or on the side), with ice cream or with some kissel poured over it.



The bottom part is so soft and sweet enough to fill my appetite, I love the texture curd cheese gives to bread puddings (or anything, actually!). The top part is nicely brown and crunchy under one's tooth. Although it might seem that rye bread tends to burn dangerously during those 30 minutes in the oven, it's not like that - it just takes time for it to become crunchy and all. I wish I'd added a bit more cinnamon, 1/4 tsp is a bit too little for us who we are used to eating heaps of cinnamon on saiavorm.

What about next time? I said the recipe was a keeper! I'd really really like to add berries or fruit - I can feel the dessert calling for fresh blackcurrants picked from the garden or sour morellos. Or on another day - for bananas and blueberries.


Ahh, how I love our cuisine.

And for breakfast? I'm craving oat flake scone.

Well, summer mornings cannot be escaped, so I'm returning to them once again. With the intention of throwing all bread out of the kitchen cupboard to eat scones every day. With some quality butter and slices of tomato or cucumber or cheese or lettuce... every day. I've fallen in love with this recipe, that uses my A-list ingredients curd cheese, oat flakes and barley flour. Fortunately there's a morning every day.

This recipe does allow variations. If you haven't got curd cheese, you might as well use thick sour cream or sour milk. Feel free to add herbs or spices - for example caraway seems like a good option.

Oat flake scone

200 g curd cheese
1 1/2 tbsp oil
1 1/2 dl oat flakes
1/2 dl barley flour
1/3 tsp salt
1 garlic clove, smashed
1/4 tsp soda

1. Mix together all the ingredients.
2. Spread the dough onto a baking tray that is greased or covered with parchment paper (better option) and form it so that it's about 1 1/2 cm thick.
3. Bake at 220C for about 30 minutes.
4. Serve warm.



The outside of the scone is crispy and golden brown, the inside is soft - the favour of curd cheese. One garlic clove gives quite much taste, but if you want it really garlicky, you may add another. The scone has the flavour of roasted oat flakes, barley flour gives an additional earthly flavour, again. Just get some good butter and it's actually all you need to enjoy the scone, but a ripe tomato or two are a healthy and welcomed bonus!

So is riding roller-blades instead of a bus, as I discovered yesternight.

Khachapuri - the Georgian cheesebread with Suluguni

It made my meals when I was in Georgia. Always freshly baked and warm, really soft and full of melting local Suluguni cheese, salty enough to awaken my senses - khachapuri - I swore to myself I would make it.
Buying cheese at the market in Tbilisi was an experience. As I had promised myself to only buy the best, I ended up with more bits of cheese between my fingers and jaws than I would have liked. You can't throw a half eaten bite onto the ground, can you? Oh you can't! When I asked for Suluguni, I was directed to one certain seller and I got to try cheeses with different saltiness - I finally settled with one with average salt level. And boy was I happy - although Suluguni is the most famous among Georgian cheeses, It had not been served to us often.


There are very different kinds of khachapuri that are of different shapes and use different fillings and vary according to region. As I have understood, the dough is usually made without yeast, but I'd really like to try out a recipe using it too. The curiosity! I believe I added a bit too much flour when rolling the dough this time - don't do that mistake or the bread will turn numb! If possible, use Suluguni cheese when making the bread. It may be substituted with Georgian Imeruli or Bryndza. As it has quite a high melting point too, I believe Halloumi would do as well.

Khachapuri
(from the Estonian food magazine "Oma Maitse")

Dough
2 1/2 dl milk
1 egg
1/2 tsp baking powder
salt
flour
oil

Filling
300 g Suluguni cheese
1 egg

1. Mix together milk and the egg, add salt (you might not want to add much as the cheese is quite salty).
2. Add flour until you have a soft rollable dough (According to my measures I added about 350 g) and then knead it thoroughly.
3. Add a bit oil and let the dough stand for about 10-15 minutes.
4. Grate the cheese and mix it with beaten egg.
5. Divide the dough and cheese mixture into portions - I divided them into three and got khachapuris that were just a bit smaller than a regular pan.
6. Roll one portion into a thin circle and cover it with cheese mixture. Gather the edge together to the middle and press the surface of the circle even so that the filling doesn't show.
7. Heat oil in a pan and fry the khatchapuri, same side up, covered, until golden brown. Then turn it over and fry uncovered until done.
8. Serve warm



Yes, do serve it warm. You may re-heat it afterwards on a pan, in the oven or in the microwave, but it tastes a bazillion times better when served fresh from the pan. When eating it for the first time in Georgia, I made the fatal mistake of trying to eat it with a fork and a knife - just be civilised, okay? This is eaten between your fingers. Take some salad beside it - that you may eat with a fork. "She'll learn," I sensed my companions thinking. Well I did.

Sweet bread puddings with condensed milk, peanut butter and plums

Making the Estonian bread pudding Saiavorm has certain rules for me.
It's half soft. It's half crunchy. It's got something with sour taste in it. It has sugar sprinkled on it. It is flavoured with vanilla (is there something that ISN'T flavoured with vanilla at this house?). Its top is golden brown. It's eaten with cold milk poured over it. Its serving size is really big just big enough to fill the belly.

But who actually cares? I may add berries, pears or even salted fish into my bread pudding if I want to (the salted fish was a metaphor, really). I do love to add some curd cheese, cream cheese, sour cream or yoghurt to the egg and milk mixture to make the lower part of the pudding taste more than just...divine tasting soaked bread. This time the quantity of bread is much smaller than usually as I used a muffin pan, but at the same time the dessert has a gourmet-like twist in taste. I'd call it progress, wouldn't you?:)


Sweet bread puddings with condensed milk, peanut butter and plums

100 g white bread
100 g plums (fresh/frozen)
1 tbsp peanut butter
3-4 tbsp sweetened condensed milk
1 1/4 dl milks
1 egg
1 yolk
vanilla
sugar for sprinkling

1. Chop the plums and divide the pieces between muffin pan holes (there's no need to melt frozen plums - they'll do just fone on their own).
2. Dice the bread and add to the plums.
3. Mix the rest of the ingredients (except sugar) together and pour onto bread.
4. Sprinkle the puddings with some sugar and bake at 190C until baked from the inside and golden brown on the top, circa 25 minutes.
5. Serve warm with cold milk.



The sweetness of the puddings comes from the condensed milk, but as there's not much of it, you may add sugar to taste. Peanut butter mysteriously makes the taste better from the background, it can't be noticed right away, but makes its every effort to improve your eating experience. And yes - half soft, half crunchy. Easy, it is, but someone should explain that to the cooks of the school diner too - there's so much more to saiavorm than just soaked bread (and they should know that for heaven's sake!).

I'm only worried about one thing. The only peanut butter that is sold in every bigger store here in Tallinn was peculiarly runny this time. There's nothing written about it on the jar, but if they're adding more oil to it now...
Argh.

A pinch of Estonia plus a pinch of onions

When I decided to bake something for the Waiter there's something in my...bread event hosted by Spittoon Extra, I immediately thought about onions. I've eaten some great onion bread (rye bread, of course - it's Estonia after all) while in South-Estonia and unfortunately they don't sell it here in the north (like the country was so big!)

But my rye bread adventures still lie ahead of me. Nevertheless I wanted to stay traditional and decided for barley flour and curd cheese. With a personal favourite of course - onions. Onions-onions-onions. What luck that someone had bought them, cause I remember eating them all:)


Onioned barley and curd cheese soda bread
(adapted from Estonian National Cuisine)

125 g curd cheese
2 1/2 dl milk
1 egg
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar/honey
2 tbsp butter
2 1/2 dl barley flour
1 1/2 dl wheat flour
1/2 tsp soda
200 g chopped onion

1. Melt butter in a saucepan or a skillet and cook onions at low heat until transparent. Then puree until smooth.
2. Grease a loaf pan with butter and add some flour or semolina, shaking to cover the bottom and sides evenly.
3. Beat the egg and add curd cheese, milk, salt, sugar.
4. Mix flour with soda and add.
5. Pour the batter into the mold and bake at 180C for 30-40 minutes.



My bread turned out nicely moist. It was pure pleasure eating it warm from the oven with only some butter on it. In fact it's almost the only thing I've eaten the whole day. The taste of onion is rather on the background, but it's there. Barley flour gives the bread a somehow rougher taste, it's also slightly sweet.

The orginal recipe had no onions, so I decided to add an additional 1/2 dl of wheat flour too (that might just be the mind of a beginner, but hey - it worked!). For more oniony taste I'd add more of them. Not pureed, but as tiny bits, so the taste would be in tthe foreground too. This time I decided not to add herbs to get a pure taste, but thyme or parsley would fit well. Pumpkin seeds are another idea - inside or on the top.
Anyway - a thank you to my ancestors.