Klopp's Kitchen

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Stefan — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 21:11:47 +0000

I love hummus. It is one of my new favourite snacks to make and is great for parties or get togethers. I have always been shocked at how expensive it is to buy hummus in grocery stores. Over $5 for a small little container is highway robbery considering how cheap the ingredients are. However up until a few months ago I really had no idea how simple it was to make, especially if you have a really good food processor.

Over the course of the last two months I have been experimenting with getting my hummus the way I like it, and I think I finally have a recipe I am happy with.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus Recipe

1 can of chickpeas
1 large red pepper
3-4 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon of tahini
1 large lemon
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon cumin
3 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon coarse salt

Turn on your oven and set it to broil. Cut up your red pepper into 4 pieces. Place the pieces of pepper skin side up on a cookie sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Cook the peppers under the broiler for about 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the pepper cool.

In a food processor chop the garlic until finely chopped. Drain the chickpeas and add to the food processor and mix until the chickpeas are nicely pureed. Add the tahini, the juice of a large lemon, and the red pepper. Mix again until nicely blended. The mix so far will likely be a bit stiff. To make it a little more smooth add olive oil or water until the hummus reaches the right consistency.

Once you have your consistency add the cumin and paprika and mix in. Finally add the salt to taste. Refrigerate the hummus for 2-3 hours before serving to let the flavours settle.

The main thing to keep in mind when making hummus is to constantly be tasting it as you add your ingredients. In this way you will be able to easily determine if you need more or less of a given ingredient. This will allow you to really get the taste you want. Since I usually like a more garlicy and lemony hummus I will often add another clove or squeeze a bit more lemon juice in to get the taste I like. I suggest you do the same!

When serving feel free to drizzle a bit of olive oil on top, as well as sprinkle with paprika.

Hummus is a delicious healthy snack that is incredibly simple and inexpensive to make. There is no reason to buy expensive hummus from the grocery store, when you can make your own that tastes so much better.

Here are a few more photos from making my latest batch of hummus.

Sourdough Bread

Stefan — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 23:49:35 +0000

After getting relatively decent at Jim Lahey’s no knead style bread, I decided to move onto a something a little more challenging; making sourdough bread. The beauty of sourdough bread is that you get to make your own yeast, or sourdough starter. A sourdough starter is essentially just flour and water that begins to ferment when the bacteria in the environment start to eat the sugars in the flour. It is these wild bacteria’s which give sourdough bread it’s distinctive flavour. It takes about a week to 10 days get a sourdough started up and going. Once it is active all you have to do is remember to feed it every day, or once a week if you store your starter in the fridge.

To make a sourdough starter is pretty simple. Start by adding 1 cup flour and 1 cup warm water together in a container and mix thoroughly. Now let the container sit for a good 2-3 days for the bacteria to start to slowly get active.

Now for the next 5-7 days simply add 1 cup water and 1 cup flour then cover the container. This is called feeding your starter. After the first day of feeding you pour off half the starter before feeding the new flour and water. In about a week you should start to see small bubbles on the top of your starter a few hours after you feed it. This will let you know you have a healthy starter. It should also smell a bit … sour, as well as a little sweet. After this point if you make a lot of bread continue to feed the starter daily left out on your counter, or store it in the fridge and you will only have to feed the starter once a week.

Once you have an active starter you can begin making bread with it.

I have to admit my first attempts at sourdough bread were complete flops. I tried to adapt Lahey’s no-knead recipe except replace the yeast with the sourdough starter, but that was a complete failure. I tried a few recipes online as well, but they also failed. All my loaves of bread would turn out extremely flat and tasteless. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon the beautiful Tartine Bread cookbook from a bread bakery in San Francisco, was I finally able to master the sourdough.

I pretty much follow the Tartine country sourdough recipe, except instead of using a leaven I use my starter 4 hours after I have fed it. I found the results better than when I tried to use a leaven.

Since the process is a little involved I made myself a check list to make sure I didn’t skip any steps. To make this bread I found you need to have a little patience.

For a single loaf:
100g sourdough starter (4 hours after feeding)
400g warm water (80 degrees)
500g flour (can be a mix of white and whole wheat, or all white)
20g salt

Start by mixing the starter, 350g of water in a medium sized bowl. Make sure the starter is fully mixed with the water. Then add the flour. Use your hands to fully incorporate the flour and water together. Scrape off your hands and bowl.

Let the dough rest for 20-40 minutes.

Add 20g of salt and the remaining 50g of water. Squeeze the dough, water, and salt between your fingers until the salt is fully dissolved and the water is mixed into the dough.

Move the dough into a smaller vessel. I use a 1 litre glass measuring cup. Now for the next 3-4 hours every 30 minutes you will knead the dough by turning it in vessel. To do this grab the dough from the bottom of the vessel, pull it up and over itself and down into itself on the other side of the vessel. Do this for each corner (4 times) of the dough. The total number of times you turn the dough should be around 8-9 times over the course of the 4 hours.

Now move the dough to an unfloured work surface. Flour the top of the dough, then flip it over onto the floured side. Fold the dough onto itself so the floured side of the dough is now all along the outside. Then work the dough into a round ball. Try to incorporate as little flour into the dough as possible.

Let rest on the work surface for at least 30 minutes.

Flour the top of the dough, then flip over onto the floured side (as we did before). Now stretch the dough out to the left, then fold over onto itself. Do the same on the right, then top and finally bottom of the dough. Finally shape the dough into a ball and transfer into a basket or bowl lined with a floured towel. Cover with the towel and let rest for another 3-4 hours.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees with a cast iron pot inside for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes remove the pot from the oven, carefully put the dough inside the pot, then score the top of the bread (this is important to get the bread to rise to it’s full potential). Place the lid back on the pot and put back in the oven. Reduce the heat of the oven to 450 degrees and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Remove the lid from the pot and bake for a final 20-30 minutes. Remove the pot from the oven, and put the loaf of bread on a wire rack to cool. Once cool feel free to cut into the bread and enjoy the delicious sourdough!

Out of all the bread I have baked so far, I think the sourdough is by far my favourite. The crust is crunchy, the crumb inside delicious and soft, and it rises up so nicely.

I also have to say the Tartine Bread cookbook is absolutely fantastic and worth buying. The book is highly detailed in explaining the steps and why you do them. In addition the photography in the book is killer, and outlines each step with photos. I cannot wait until the next time I am in San Francisco so I can try out their bread and treats.

Now that I have a highly active starter there will be many more loaves of sourdough in my future. If anyone wants to skip starting their own sourdough starter, I would be happy to give you some of my starter, as I have plenty.

Here are a few more photos from my loaves.

Longchamps’ Cheesecake

Stefan — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 20:28:35 +0000

My friend Oliver requested that I try my hand at making a cheesecake. I had only ever attempted a cheesecake once a few years back when the grocery store had a huge sale on cream cheese. My attempt back them was a huge failure, and I think I was turned off since them from making another attempt.

Fast forward a few years, a new confidence in the kitchen, I figured it was time to master a cheesecake once and for all. I found a fitting recipe from the ever faithful Maida Heatter and got to work. What I discovered was that making cheesecakes are a lot simpler than I had thought, and really makes me wonder how I blundered that first one so badly.

1 3/4 cups graham-cracker crumbs
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
8 tablespoons unsalted butter

16 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 large eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Finely grated rind of 1 large lemon

Butter the sides of a 9/3 spring form pan, and place a piece of parchment paper along the bottom.

Stir together the crumbs, sugar, and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Melt the butter, then add it to the mixture, stirring (or mixing with your hands) until evenly distributed.

Separate about 1 1/2 cups of the the mixture into another bowl for use later. Press the remaining mixture into the sides of the pan. You should not go all the way to the top of the pan, rather go about 2 inches up from the bottom. Make sure your sides are nice and straight. Use your thumb or finger to push down the crumbs to even things out.

Next place the reserved crumbs in the bottom of the pan and spread them out patting them into the pan. Place the pan in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl of an electric mixer beat the cheese until it is soft and smooth. Add the sugar and salt beat until mixed into the cream cheese. Then one at a time add the eggs, beating well after each addition. Finally add the cream, vanilla and rind.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan, and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes. After baking turn off the heat of the oven, and open the oven door about 8 inches and let cool. Once cool, use a knife to separate the pan from the side of the cake, and remove the spring form. Put the cake in the fridge and cool for at minimum 2 hours before eating.

When serving the cake you can garnish it with fruit sauce. Blueberries or Strawberries work well.

I was happy with my latest attempt at a cheesecake. While I did find the top of the cake cracked slightly, I think it was due to having too hot an oven. I have also read that baking the cake in a water bath also helps to prevent cracking.

Another winning recipe from Maida Heatter.

Home Made Pizza

Stefan — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 20:06:14 +0000

Initially inspired by my friend Rob, who often makes his own pizza, and with the great success I was having with Jim Lahey’s bread recipes I went to work on making my own home made pizza.

The recipe is easy to follow, and the dough is ready in 2-3 hours with minimal work. The crust turned out really nice. Thin and crunchy on the outside, with a bit of softness in the middle.

500 grams bread flour
10 grams dry yeast
5 grams salt
3 grams sugar
300 grams warm water

Mix together all the ingredients in a medium bowl. Cover with a towel and let sit for at least 2 hours.

After the initial rest scrape the dough onto a floured work area, and shape it into a ball. Split the ball in two to form two round balls. Cover with a damp towel and let sit an additional 30 minutes.

After the second reset preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Cover a 13/18 cookie sheet with parchment paper, then cover with olive oil. Put one of the rounds of dough on the sheet and spread out the dough the length of the sheet. Then continue to push the dough out towards the edge of the sheet until most of the sheet is covered.

At this point you are ready to put on some toppings and bake your pizza. I found most pizzas for me were taking about 20-30 minutes depending on how many toppings I was using.

Along with the dough, I also made my own pizza sauce. It is pretty easy to do, and just requires a nice can of chopped tomatoes and your food processor.

1 large can of Chopped Tomatoes (choose the best quality if you can)
3 cloves of garlic
15 fresh oregano leaves

Separate the tomatoes from the juice and place the tomatoes in your food processor with the garlic and oregano leaves. Pulse the tomatoes, garlic and oregano together. If the sauce is too thick add some of the tomato juice you removed earlier until you get the right consistency.

Making pizza is a really simple task, and can save a lot of money. The pizza dough can be made ahead of time, and freezes extremely well. There is almost no reason not to make your own pizza.

Zuger Kirschtorte

Stefan — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:56:53 +0000

My friend Oliver recently celebrated his 31st birthday. For his birthday I wanted to bake him something special, that was both traditional, elegant, and would hopefully taste really good. I remembered seeing a recipe in Maida Heatter’s New Book of Great Desserts a recipe for a cake that was exactly what I was looking for, the Zuger Kirschtorte.

A Zuger Kirschtorte comes from the town of Zug in Switzerland. It is a layered cake that starts with a base of meringue, a layer of butter cream, a sponge cake soaked in a Kirsch syrup, another layer of butter cream, and finally a meringue top. The whole cake is covered in butter cream, and has roasted almond slivers around the side.

Making this cake was a process. I did it over two days. The first day making the meringue’s and the sponge cake. The second day putting it all together. You might be scared off by the amount of effort this cake requires, but I have to say it is absolutely worth it.

As with every recipe I have tried so far from Maida Heatter, I have had fantastic results. Not only did the cake look amazing, it also tasted fantastic. I am definitely going to continue to try more of her recipes over the coming months, and have already ordered a few more of her cook books!

No Knead Bread

Stefan — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:17:26 +0000

I recently got the bread cookbook called My Bread from New York baker Jim Lahey. I had wanted to get into bread baking, and found this book had a lot of really great reviews.

Since getting the book I have been making at least 1-2 loafs a week. The basic premise of Jim’s bread is a no knead approach. Essentially you mix your ingredients and make the dough. Then you let it sit for a good 12-18 hours. After letting it sit you shape the bread, and wrap it in a tea towel and let sit for another 2 hours. Finally you bake it in a cast iron pot at high temperate for an hour or so.

Recipe
400g Bread Flour
8g salt
1g yeast (almost any yeast will do)
300g water

Mix flour, salt and yeast in a medium sized bowl. Then add the water and mix with a wooden spoon or your hands until you have formed a somewhat sticky dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in a warm dark location to ferment.

In about 12-18 hours (or longer) the dough should have roughly doubled in size. Take a clean tea towel, and dust with flour or any seeds/grains you want on your bread. Remove the dough from the bowl and shape into a ball, placing the ridge down. Fold up the tea towel and place in a warm dark place again for another 2 hours. In the last 30 minutes before the end of the 2 hours, heat up your oven to around 450 degrees. Place a cast iron pot with lid in the oven to heat up.

While you wait for the pot to heat up, cut out a round piece of parchment paper to fit into the pot. Once your pot has heated up for 30 minutes, remove the lid from the pot, place the parchment paper inside, then drop the dough out of the tea towel onto the parchment paper. Cover the pot with the lid and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes remove the lid from the pot, and continue to bake for another 25-30 minutes until the crust is nice and brown.

Remove the pot from the oven, and take the bread out and place on a rack to cool. Make sure the bread is fully cooled before slicing into it (no matter how tempting it is to try it hot).

That is the basic recipe. Once you are able to master the recipe it really opens up the possibilities of what type of bread you want to make.

I have to say I am really happy to have picked up the My Bread cookbook. While the basic recipe for Jim’s bread is pretty simple, the book goes into good detail on how the process works, and why each step is important. I really loved his enthusiasm for his craft, and his love of bread. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a good introduction into no knead bread making. Here are a few more photos from the loaves I have made thus far.

Baked German Chocolate Cake

Stefan — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 00:12:04 +0000

The coffee shop next to my apartment serves up a really nice German Chocolate Cake. I often get a slice when I am in the mood for a cappuccino and something sweet. When I saw that the Baked cookbook had a recipe for a German Chocolate Cake I figured I would attempt to make one.

The cake itself is relatively easy to make. In it’s simplest form it is just 3 chocolate cake layers, separated with a pecan/coconut filling. The cake layers were dense with a nice chocolate taste.

With all the baked recipes I have tried so far, it tasted good but wasn’t phenomenal. I think I may have to try another recipe to give this cake another go in the future.

Lastly one interesting note about German Chocolate Cake’s is that they are not German at all. They are an American invention, that was given the German chocolate due to the brand name of chocolate used in the first recipe.

Macarons with Feet!

Stefan — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:13:04 +0000

I finally did it. I was able to make Macarons with feet! In the past I have had some really terrible attempts. Misshaped, too big, no feet. It was a little frustrating to not be able to get them right. When I was finally able to make them correctly I had to have a great sigh of relief.

For any of you wondering how I was able to finally overcome my problems with the macarons, here are some tips that I felt helped me.

Use a Scale: In the past I had always tried to make Macarons measuring my ingredients (cups, ml, etc). Unfortunately you can never be guaranteed to get the exact measurements correctly this way. Using a scale gave me the ability to get exact measurements so that my batter was perfect
Use an Oven Thermometer: Again another problem I have had in the past was that my oven temperature was never what the dial said it was. Using an oven thermometer gave me the ability to get the temperature exactly right.
Multiple baking sheets: When baking the macarons I put several baking pans underneath the initial pan.

For a recipe I just used a standard macaron recipe I found online. I really think the scale and the oven thermometer had the most effect on how well my macarons turned out. Now that I have been able to get them right I think I will be making some again very soon!

What to do with left over pie dough?

Stefan — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 01:43:28 +0000

Make mini apple almond tarts and apple crumble ramekins of course. Here are some photos of a few things I baked a few weeks ago.

Maple Syrup Pie (Tarte au Sirop d’érable)

Stefan — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 01:40:49 +0000

During my recent visit to Montreal I had really wanted to try a Tarte au Sucre. I had made one a tarte au sucre last year, and wanted to see how it compared to a traditional slice. While in the Jean-Talon market I went to one of the stalls that sold pies and asked if they had any tarte au sucre. The lady told me that they didn’t, but had a similar pie made with maple syrup.

I was intrigued. That night we all had a slice of the pie. It was delicious. The crust was a standard pie crust, while the filling looked a little like a pumpkin pie filling. When I cut the pie maple syrup came seeping out of the filling. The flavor of the pie was intense. No hints or hidden tastes of maple syrup, this was straight up what you see is what you get maple syrup flavor. I knew after trying this pie that I had to make one when I got home. So before leaving Montreal I went to the market one more time, bargained myself a good deal on 5 liters of maple syrup, and made a little prayer the baggage handlers wouldn’t notice my bag being over the weight limit.

I made it home with no extra baggage fees. A week after getting home I set off to make this pie!

Maple Syrup Pie Recipe

All Butter Pie Crust

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
/12 cup cold unsalted butter
1/4 cup cold water

I like to make my pie crusts in a food processor, however you can do it by hand as well. Essentially combine the flour, sugar and salt. Then cut the butter into the flour mixture until pea size. Finally sprinkle the water into the mixture and mix a bit more. The mixture should now resemble a course meal. Form a ball with the dough, being careful not to overwork the dough. Finally form the dough into a disc shape about 1/2 inch thick, cover with wax paper, and place in the fridge for at least 1 hour before rolling. When you take the dough out of the fridge let it stand out for 2 minutes before you roll it as it will most likely be too hard for you to roll immediately.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Roll out your dough and place in a standard 9″ pie pan. Cover the dough with a layer of tin foil then fill the middle of the pie with dried beans. Place the pie crust in the oven for pre-baking. Let bake for 15 minutes to set the pie. Then remove the tin foil and the beans and lower the temperature to 375 degrees and bake another 10-15 until the pie crust is a golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Maple Syrup Filling

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
5/8 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups maple syrup

The base of this pie filling is a simple roux. Start by melting the butter over low heat in a heavy saucepan. Once all the butter is melted gradually stir in the flour. Once all the flour is added continue to stir for another 3-5 minutes until you have a roux. Next gradually add the milk and cream. Continue to stir the mixture until it becomes thick and creamy. Finally add the maple syrup and cook for another 10 minutes. The mixture should be silky smooth. Finally pour the filling into the pre-baked pie shell.

Place the pie in the fridge to help set the filling. Leave it no longer than 1 hour in your fridge however, as the filling will begin to separate. Once the filling is set, leave at room temperature until it is eaten.

If you have left over pastry you can roll it out and cut out leaves or other figures to place on your pie.

I really loved this pie. I had to make it in my Emile Henry pie pan as I couldn’t find a smaller glass pan, but it still worked out. The pie itself doesn’t look incredibly amazing, however the taste is just fantastic if you love maple syrup. It is a pretty easy pie to make as well.

I think I may attempt to make another Tarte au Sucre at some point again to compare with the maple syrup pie, however from what I remember this is my clear cut favorite of the two.