Potato Frittatas

“When baking, follow directions.  When cooking, go by your own taste.”  goes the twitter account of Laiko Bahrs @SFFoodGalo. Did they read my mind? Straying away from normal, now out comes the measuring spoons #blameitontheblog. Here goes the first one that I did not procrastinate on and put it to paper. It was a sunny morning and the onset of spring does some pretty wonderful things to you. I had seen the prettiest mini bite on YouTube, and decided to try it out for breakfast.

Ingredients

Two medium sized potatoes

Single cream 200 ml

7 eggs

2 tablespoons grated cheese

2 teaspoons Herbs mixture

Oil for greasing muffin pan

Equipment

Muffin pan

Potato peeler

Vegetable grater

Oven

Making the basket

Take two medium sized potatoes, wash well and peel. Grate the potatoes. You will get around a cupful of grated potato. Wash this well with lots of water and dry it completely. I pick up a fistful and squeeze the water completely out of it. Pat it dry with the kitchen towel. The trick lies in getting the grated potato as dry as possible. Next add an egg to the potatoes and mix thoroughly. Add salt to the mixture. This is not necessary as the filling is considerably tasty.

Take a muffin tray and grease. Add half a fistful of the grated potato plus egg mixture to the muffin base. Shape it into a basket that just touches the top of the muffin form. Cover the surface and sides of each pan completely.  Bake in an oven at 180OC for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow cooling for 15 to 20 minutes before pouring the filling

Variation of the basket: For bacon lovers, line the muffin pan with bacon, instead of potato.

Making the filling

Take 6 medium sized eggs and crack into a pan. Add 200 ml single cream, 2 tablespoons grated cheese (any cheese of your choice would do, I used cheddar), and a teaspoon of a mix of herbs of your choice (I used a mixture of thyme and oregano). Mix this well.

Pour this into the cooled baskets on your muffin pan.  Fill the basket to around 2/3. Bake in a fan assisted oven at 180 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes.

It will rise in the oven and almost overflow out of the muffin pan, but will fall back into place once it is removed out of the oven. The potato shreds will gain a golden brown colour and the filing will be of a bright yellow colour.

Serve with leafy greens.

This recipe calls for making 18 to 20 baskets

It’s an easy to make mini bite and super tasty.

Give it a try. Tell me how it turns out.

L.

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Cinnamon Is How I Roll

I've been stacking up boxes of cinnamon powder for a few months now. Why cinnamon you ask? Well, crazy thing is that my store shut down and all this was going straight to the bin. So I bought it all home. All of them. About five! And these aren't the teeny tiny 100 gms bottles but more like a 500 gms box each. So I figured I'd make something cinnamony, but just never got to it. This recipe calls for yeast and so far my relationship with yeast is not really working out that well. We never seem to be on the same page really. But trust me, this is my tried and tested recipe, and, if I can make these, so can you.

Lets get started, shall we?

For the dough

3 1/2 tspn dry yeast

1/2 cup lukewarm water

3/4 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

1 egg

4 cups flour

1 tspn salt

For the filling

oil for brushing onto the dough surface

1/2 cup sugar

3 tspn ground cinnamon

For the icing

hot water

icing sugar to form a smooth paste

vanilla essence

Activate the yeast by dissolving in the water. Leave to rise for 10 mins.

Beat the sugar, oil and egg till well combined. 

Add the buttermilk and yeast.

To this add the flour and salt beating at a low speed. 

Once the dough begins to form shape, transfer it into a well greased bowl for rising. Cover with a damp towel.

Leave it in a warm place for at least 2-3 hours to rise. It must double in size.

For the filling, mix the icing sugar and ground cinnamon. Leave aside

For th icing, mix the icing sugar and water to make a thin paste. Add a few drops of vanilla essence for flavor.

After the dough has risen, flatten it out to a square, well roughly, 1/4 of an inch thick.

Brush a little oil onto the dough.

Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar onto the entire surface.

Roll the dough and cut circles about an inch thick making 16 cinnamon rolls.

Take a well greased pan and place them about half an inch apart.
Cover with a damp cloth and leave for about an hour to rise again.

 

Bake in oven for 15 mins at 170°C for a fan assisted oven till skewer, when inserted, comes out clean.

Once done, glaze the cinnamon rolls with the icing when still hot.

Tadaaaa all done!

You've made yourself some pretty darn good cinnamon rolls. This is best enjoyed anytime of the day with your favorite cuppa tea(or coffee ;) ) or just by itself really.

Happy baking!

xxx

-M

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How To Make Buttermilk

A recipe recently called for buttermilk, and lets face it, we don't keep buttermilk in our fridge. So, I realised I had milk and lemon juice. So why not make buttermilk at home. 

All you need is a glass of full fat milk and a tspn of lemon juice.

Mix the two and can be used after 5 minutes.

xx

-M

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Baby, You're So Classic

Taddaaaa!

Been off a last couple of days so went on a hunt for that classic fluffy vanilla cupcake recipe. I found many that required sour cream. Let's face it, not everyone has sour cream in the fridge, and being that lazy to go downstairs and buy some, I kept browsing for a recipe that had ingredients that I have at home, like you know, sugar, butter, eggs, flour, the things we know when creamed, beaten, combined and baked make CAKE. Yeah cake. Wouldn't hurt for some now right? So yeah being the weekend, the weather was acting up, not a surprise there, and I really didn't want to leave the comfort of my bed.

Classic vanilla cupcake recipe everyone!

What you'll need

3 cups all purpose flour

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 1/2 tspn baking powder

a tspn of salt

1 cup buter (cold, cut into cubes)

4 eggs (since the ones I had were pretty small, I used 5 eggs)

1 cup milk

2 tspns vanilla extract

Funny thing about this recipe is that it asks for the butter to be added to the dry ingredients, making it a coarse mixture, instead of the usual butter and sugar being creamed together.

Preheat your oven to 350 F/180 C.

In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Mix it all together.

Add in the cold butter making a coarse mixture.

 Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Add the vanilla extract to the milk and pour in half into the batter. Beat for about 1 1/2 minute and then add the rest of the milk mixture.

Line your muffin tray and bake for 20 minutes.

Makes 16 cupcakes.

Your end result must be a soft, fluffy, buttery, intense vanilla cupcake.

Do try it out and let me know in the comments.

Happy Baking!

xxx

M

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I Feel Lucky Like A Four Leaf Clover

"When I look into your eyes, its over

You got me hooked with your love controller

I'm tripping and I could not get over

I feel lucky like a four leaf clover."

- I'm into you , JLo

You know that time when you get a song stuck in your head and keep humming to it all day long. Yeah? Well this was it! I to be honest I didnt even know the lyrics to it until my sister pointed it out the other day about having the "I feel lucky like a four leaf clover" line. I was looking up shamrock cookie cutters on ebay and was surprised, not only about the lyrics (since lyrics to these songs make little or no sense), but also about the fact my sister actually knew the lyrics to this particular song. LOL She's a huge Abba fan.

Anyway, my cookie cutter arrived a few days back and I couldn't wait to get cook(ie)ing. See what I did there. *pats self*

A link to the recipe here:

Sugar Cookies

xxx

-M

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