Parmesan Grissini

This was our first attempt on making parmesan grissini.It was a little labor intensive but the energy and enthusiasm of my 7 year old in the holidays came in handy for this. We gave some sticks as part of the Christmas gift ot our neighbors and they loved it.


Ingredients:

All purpose flour                  - 2 cups
Gluten                                 - 2/3 cup
Cracked red pepper            - 1 tsp
Carraway seeds                  - 1 tsp
Active dry yeast                  - 3 tsp
Warm milk                           - 1 cup
Salt                                      - as per taste
Oil of choice                        - 3 tbsp( I used canola oil)
Parmesan cheese(grated) - 1/4 cup

Mix the dry ingredients together. Slowly add the oil and the milk and mix well until they all come together. Finally add the parmesan cheese to the dough until all of it blends into the dough well. Knead the dough for 3- 5 minutes on a floured surface until it forms a smooth dough.

Place the dough in a warm place covered until it doubles. It should take an hour to couple of hours depending on the temperature and moisture conditions.

Once it is doubled, knead for a minute. Roll the dough on a floured surface to a 1/4 inch thick rectangle with a rolling pin.
Meanwhile heat the oven to 400 F.
Cut the dough into long strips about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick.
Roll these strips into the form of rounded sticks as in the picture below.

Dough rolled out into stciks before baking

 Place them on a baking sheet/tray. Bake them for about 10-15 minutes. Turn them over in between.
They should bake to a firm to hard consistency.
Serve with any dip or with soup.The whole wheat tastes great as a snack with coffee or tea too.
We had ours with a clear soup the next day.
 Merry Christmas!!

baked grissini

Grissini with chocolate barks

Whole wheat version

Tips:

1.You can use just  bread flour or part Whole wheat flour & all purpose flour instead of all purpose and gluten(the riginal recipe used bread flour).
2. Instead of kneading the dough by hand I placed the dough in my Ninja food processor and ran it in the dough mode for a couple of minutes.
3. Use alternative dry spices for different flavours.
4.I used to store grated parmesan cheese. The other option could be to buy a block of Parmesan cheese and grate it for the recipe.
5. I placed the dough covered in an Aluminium foil in the oven rack. It took a couple of hours for it to rise.
6. You can reduce the amount of oil to the recipe as we did with the whole wheat version.

Chocolate marbled pound cake

Dry Ingredients:

All purpose flour                     - 1 and 1/2 cups

Sugar                                      - 1 and 1/4 cups

Unsweetened cocoa powder   - 1 tbsp

Orange zest                             - from 1 orange

Baking soda                            - 1/2 tsp

Baking powder                        - 1/2 tsp

Salt                                          - 1/4 tsp

Wet Ingredients

Greek yogurt(thick curds)       - 8 ounces

Butter                                      - 8 tbsps

Eggs                                        - 3

Chocolate syrup                      - 1 tbsp

Directions:

Sift the flour. Add the rest of the dry ingredients except the cocoa powder in a large vessel. Divide this into three parts.

Dry Ingredients
 
 In another bowl, break the eggs and whisk them. Then add the yogurt and whisk it to get a fluffy texture.Melt the butter and add it to this mixture, blend well.

 

wet ingredients

wet ingredients for marbling

 

Line the baking pan with an aluminium foil. Spray oil on the foil and the rest of the pan.
This helps to take out the cake easily.Layer half of the non-chocolate mix.

first layer

Add the chocolate mixture in drops over the first layer, try to avoid the sides of the dish so that the marbling remains in the center of the cake without spreading too much on the outer side of the cake.

chocolate layer

Then top with the rest of the non-chocolate mix over this and swirl with a brush.Bake in the oven for 375 F 15 minutes and reduce temperature to 350 F until done. 

Baked cake

Spicy thukkadas

• http://www.subbuskitchen.com/2009/09/thukkada-spicy-thukkada.html#.UwP8RH-9KSP