Boil And Bake

Two great recipes I have just tried from two recently discovered blogs. Both recipes involve boiling, then baking the ingredients – but the results are wildly different.

The first is from Karen at Use It Up, Wear It Out, and is for breadmaker bagels. It was incredibly easy to throw the dough ingredients into the breadmaker in the afternoon, then make the bagels after our evening meal on Friday night.

BAGELS

250ml tepid water
1 Tbsp oil
1½ tsp salt
1½Tbsp sugar
450g strong plain flour
1 sachet dried yeast
1 egg white
2 tsp water

Put water, salt, sugar and oil in breadmaking machine.
Add flour to wet ingredients then the yeast.

[note - MY breadmaker requires you put yeast in first, then flour, then remaining dry ingredients then water and oil]

Set machine to bagel programme or dough programme.
When program is finished  knock dough back and divide into 8 pieces. Roll into a ball then with a floured finger, push your finger through the centre of the dough.

Put a pan of water to boil then drop two bagels into the water for 3 minutes turning half way through.
Repeat process until all bagels have been done.

Remove from pan with a slotted spoon and drain on a clean t-towel. Mix egg white with the water. Place bagels on a tray and brush with the egg wash. Bake in fan oven at 200°C for 20 minutes.

Here they are, waiting to be boiled

The second recipe was “Alice’s Cake” from another Karen, this time at Chelmarsh Chunterings. It is a boil and bake fruitcake, very similar to my tried and trusted BeRo one [here] but I was interested that it includes cherries, and that the liquid used is milk, not water. I had some glacé cherries left after Christmas, so thought I’d give it a go.

ALICE’S FRUIT CAKE
350g Dried Fruit & Glace Cherries
1/2 pint Milk
225g Butter or marg
175g Sugar
2 teaspoons Mixed Spice
1 teaspoon Bicarb of Soda
350g Self Raising Flour
2 large Eggs beaten.
Bake 160*c for an hour, until cooked and firm to touch.

The bagels have come out beautifully, I am thrilled to be so successful at first attempt. Steph used to get me fresh bagels from a Jewish bakery in East London when she was a student, and these came out like that. Much fresher and with a better texture than the supermarket ones [which can be quite hard and dense] I have frozen some of the batch, in a Lock’n’Lock box.

The fruitcakes look equally good, and again will be going into the freezer for future consumption. Since taking these photos, we have thawed and toasted two of the bagels for breakfast, and they still tasted good. I froze 1½ cakes, and the half we kept out and sampled at suppertime tasted delicious. The fruit was well distributed and the spice gave it a lovely colour.

Karen #1 costed hers out, and reckons she pays £1 for four bagels in Sainsbury's, but these only cost 30p for eight “We may have purchased our last ‘shop’ bagel” said Bob. “Not if I see them with a yellow ‘reduced’ sticker for 10p on a Tuesday night!” I replied.

Thank you to the two Karens for the recipes.