Time for a picnic

The sun is shining. I'm sitting outside with my boy, enjoying the garden picnic and having faith in the beach picnics coming soon. This bread tastes like summer.

I've made something similar years ago- probably a recipe from Mr Oliver. This time I was reading the new Finnish Food and Travel magazine when a recipe by a Finnish chef Timo Linnamäki caught my eye - The below recipe is my take on the idea.

The great thing about the recipe is that everyone can fill the bread with whatever they prefer. Next time I'll try parma ham and blue cheese or mozzarella with pancetta and tomatoes... Mozzarella should be fun on a picnic - who can stretch the longest string ?

Anyways, give this a try. I guarantee you'll feel the summer coming.


 Picnic Bread

3 dl hot water
1small pot (200g) turkish yoghurt
2 small bags of dry yeast (11g each)
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt
4 dl wholegrain wheat flour
4 dl ordinary flour  (+ the help needed for working the dough i.e. 1-2 dl - depending on the weather and flour)
1-2 handfuls of mixed seeds (sunflower. pumpkin)

Fill the bread with your favourites - this is what I used this time.
shredded spinach
1 red onion
a couple of spring onions
half a packet of feta
2 tbsp chili-paprika sauce (by Tannisen a Finnish brand)
2 boiled eggs
mint and basil

Mix the water and yoghurt. Add the yeast, honey, salt and 1 tbsp of olive oil. Mix and leave for a few minutes. Add the flour gradially mixing and kneading well. Add the seeds.
The dough is pretty wet at this stage. If you want, you can add 1 dl of flour but I let it rise for 30min and used then a lot of flour while working with the dough on the table.

While you wait for the dough to rise, sauté the onions on a pan and wilt the spinach on them. Leave to wait.

Add 1 tbsp of olive oil to the dough and scrape it on the table (with generous amount of flour). I worked directly on the parchment paper so there was no need to move the bread in the end. Roll the dough to the size of an oven pan. Add the filling and roll the bread. Form a big bagel out of it.

Put the oven on to 200 degrees (C)  and put the baking tray in the oven. Leave the bread to rise for at least 15 min. Cut the surface and spread some water on it so that some more seeds will stick onto it.

Bake the bread with the fan on for 10 minutes and then without the fan for 15-20 min. Take out of the oven but leave to cool on the baking tray.

Yes, the name says it all : Chocolate - coconut - pistachio - muffins

 

One of the recipes that caught my eye in the magazine pile was a new take on chocolate muffins. Chocolate-coconut- pistachio sounded exotic and decadent to a point where we just had to try the recipe. And yes, these were delicious, although a bit dry - probably as we did not follow the recipe to the letter due to lack of some of the ingredients. You may want to halve the amount of desiccated coconut in the recipe below... 

Chocolate-coconut-pistactio muffins

75g unsalted, peeled pistachios
150g dark chocolate
75gbutter
3 eggs
150g sugar
150g flour
1tsp baking powder
50g desiccated coconut flakes  (only half of this if you like them moister)

Preheat the oven to 200C. Crush the pistachios and mix with the coconut flakes.

Melt the chocolate and butter together. Mix evenly and let cool.

Whisk the eggs and sugar to form a pale foam. Mix with the flour and baking powder. Add the chocolate mixture and half of the pistachio-coconut mix.

Divide the mixture into cupcake tray. They don't rise just as much as many of the other muffins mixtures so fill the wholes well.

Bake the bigger ones for 20min and the small ones 10-12 min. Let cool for 5 minutes in the tray and move then on a rack.

Delicious with coffee.