Crusty cornmeal bread (aka polenta bread)

Not the cake-like stuff you often see recipes for, this is pretty much a normal loaf with added flavour and a wonderful thin crispy crust.  And it's yellow.

Make a sponge of 90g water, 90g strong white flour, and 1/4 tsp dried yeast. Mix, cover, and leave at room temp overnight.

In the morning, mix together 300g cornmeal*, 150g strong white flour*, 1/2 tsp yeast, 12g salt, and stir together. Add 280g water and the sponge mixture, mix, then knead for 5 - 10 min. Place back in the bowl until about doubled in size (this will probably take 3 hrs+). Turn out, gently flatten and, using a dough scraper, fold in half, then half again, then form into a ball (as best you can!). Leave on work surface for 15 min, covered by the upturned bowl. Repeat the folding and place in a greased 1 lb loaf tin, levelling and tucking the edges of the top down the sides using the dough scraper to increase the tension over the top surface.  Rest for an hour or so.

Preheat oven to max and put the bread in the oven for 20 min, after which turn oven down to 210 deg C. Bake for a further 20 min. Turn loaf out of tin and bake for a further 10 min. Cool the loaf.  Makes brilliant toast.

*for a less dense loaf, decrease the cornmeal and increase the strong white by the same amount. 

This is quite a wet dough (hence the use of the loaf tin), but less sticky than pure wheat.

Misc links to recipes - to be transcribed later

Russian Black Bread
Russian Black Bread 2
Black Bread
Basic white tang-zhong bread

Russian Slice

V.1 

Freeze all the left over cake pieces from making cakes and use them to make a lovely recipe – Russian Slice.

Line a deep sided flan dish with short crust pastry, bake blind and cool.  Warm some jam and add a flavouring (I used a small bottle of almond essence, the flavour needs to be quite strong) mix well.
Cut the cake pieces into chunks and pour over the jam, coating the cake and gently stir to coat all the pieces.
Spread the mixture into the pastry cake. Cover with a thin layer of sponge (swiss roll type).  Cover with cling film, place a plate or something the same diameter as the flan and weigh down the filling for a few hours.
Remove cling film and cover with glace icing and decorate. I used with cherries and feathered the icing.  (NB - doesn't have to have the icing)

V.2

Ingredients

8 oz dry chocolate cake (any type)
12 oz dry white cake (any type) or madeira
2 oz butter
1 tbsp lemon juice
6-7 heaped tsp seedless raspberry jam
3 tbsp dark rum

Break the white and chocolate cake in chunks in a mixing bowl.  Rub the two cakes together with your fingers to produce a dry crumb mixture (?).  Gently melt the butter.

Place the seedless raspberry jam into the bowl with the Tbsp lemon juice.  Pour in the melted butter.  Add the rum and mix together well.  Taste the mixture to see if you need more rum.  Your Russian Slice recipe mixture will be a dark brown/red and thick textured.

Line a small loaf tin with plastic wrap.  Add the Russian Slice filling.  Make the top even with the back of a spoon.  Cover the Russian Slice with the plastic wrap and place into a fridge for a few hours.

Take the Russian slice out of the loaf tin.  Slice and serve as desired.  You can place a slice on top of some shortcrust pastry or eat it as it is.

Enjoy your Russian Slice Recipe just like from a bakery.


(?) or keep pieces quite large, perhaps.

Schneewittchenkuchen

Sponge cake mixture – divide into 3 in proportion 3:1:1.  Add cocoa powder to one of the smaller portions.

Pour the large portion into the baking vessel, smooth over.  Carefully pour over the cocoa mix, smooth over.  Finish with the small white portion, smooth over. 

Drain the cherries, retaining the liquid.  Push the cherries into the batter until almost submerged. Bake & cool.

Cover with Birds Dream Topping or white chocolate Angel Delight, made thick; finish as level as possible.  Make a jelly using Vege-Gel and the retained cherry liquid, and when cool but not set pour/spread over the Dream Topping/Angel Delight, leave a few minutes, and subtly marble. 

Leave to set.

Method 2.

Sponge cake mixture – divide into 2 in proportion 1:1.  Add cocoa powder to one of the portions.

Pour the dark portion into the baking vessel, smooth over.  Carefully pour over the light mix, smooth over.

Drain the cherries, retaining the liquid.  Push the cherries into the batter until almost submerged. Bake & cool.

Cover with basic buttercream.  Make a jelly using Vege-Gel and the retained cherry liquid, and when cool but not set pour/spread over the buttercream, leave a few minutes, and subtly marble. 

Leave to set.

Armenian Nutmeg Cake v.4
Adapted from a recipe on the Billington's Sugar Website

110g self raising flour
110g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg
110g butter
110g Light brown sugar
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
175 ml milk
1 egg, beaten
100g walnuts, chopped
ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to Gas 5/190°C/375°F.  Sift the flours and ½ teaspoon of the ground nutmeg into a mixing bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar. Press half the mixture into a greased 20cm cake tin.  Combine the bicarbonate of soda with the milk and stir into the remaining dry ingredients with the egg, another 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg and 3/4 of the walnuts, mixing well.  Pour into the tin and sprinkle over the rest of the nutmeg and walnuts, and some ground cinnamon.  Cook for about 35 minutes until golden.  Cool in the tin for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to become cold.

Armenian Nutmeg Cake V.3 

Ingredients

240 ml milk

1 tsp bicarb of soda
280 gm plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
300 gm brown sugar
170 gm butter, cubed, chilled
1.5 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg, at room temperature
100g walnuts, chopped
Edible dried rose petals
60ml runny honey

Directions:
Preheat oven to 170C. Line a 21cm springform tin with baking paper on the base and sides and wrap some foil around the outside of the tin as the butter tends to leak from the springform tin when baking. In a large food processor add the flour, baking powder, brown sugar and butter and process until it resembles fine breadcrumbs (you can also do this with a pastry cutter or by rubbing the butter between your fingers). Place half of the above mixture in the base of the springform patting it down with fingers to make a base and set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the egg and nutmeg for 2 minutes until fluffy and pale (you can do this by hand, just whisk for a few minutes longer until you get it to the right consistency). In a cup mix the baking soda and milk and add to the egg with the vanilla and whisk until combined. Then add the remaining half of the flour and butter mixture and mix until smooth (you can still use the whisk for this as it is still quite liquid). Add 75g of the walnuts, stir to distibute, pour on top of the base crumbs and then sprinkle the rest of the walnuts on top. Bake for 50-60 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean - many have found that while the top looks cooked, the batter is runny underneath so try the skewer in several places.  
When cake is ready, remove from oven and allow to cool. While doing this, heat honey gently and then using pastry brush, spread honey over the top of the cake. Sprinkle edible rose petals which will stick to the honey. Serve warm.

Armenian Nutmeg Cake V.2  Prep Time: 15 minutes. Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes.
Ingredients

250ml milk
1 tsp baking soda
200gm all-purpose flour
100gm  walnuts, divided
2 tsp baking powder
320gm brown sugar
150 gm unsalted butter, chilled, cubed
1 egg (optional)
1.5 tsp grated nutmeg

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C. Lightly grease (or line) an 8″ springform tin.

Place the flour and baking powder in the bowl of your processor; add the brown sugar and pulse a couple of times to mix.  Add the chilled butter and process until you get a breadcrumb like mix. (You can do this by hand too, but a processor is far quicker and easier)

Divide this mixture into half. Press half (435gm approx) into an 8″ springform tin, pushing up some into the sides if you like. Pat firmly to create a base.

In the bowl of the processor, add the milk and baking soda to the remaining biscuit mix with the egg and freshly grated nutmeg, and process for 2-3 minutes till you have a smooth batter, then mix in 75g of the walnuts.  Pour this batter over the pressed crust.  Toss the remaining walnuts in a tsp of flour, and sprinkle on top gently.

Bake the cake at 180C for about 35 to 45 minutes till the top is a golden brown or till a skewer pushed through the centre of the cake comes out clean.  Mine took about an hour.  Cool the cake in the tin before demolding. It is best eaten while still warm, though it’s good cold too.