Fenugreek Olive Oil Cake – Helbeh

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Baking, fenugreek, healthy sweets, helbeh, levants recipes, middle easern, Nigella seeds, sesame seeds, spice cake, sugar syrub cake, sweets, syrup cakes, الحلبه

“Even if honey be your cup,
Restrain your taste; don’t lick it all up.”
“ان كان حبيبك عسل, ما تلحسوش كله”
(An old and traditional Arabic saying)

It’s been a long time since the last post I had, but I must admit that I can’t go away for ever, my love for cooking and sharing the love exceeds any limits. Today I’m back with one of my family’s favorite winter sweets, Helbeh. The recipe had been on my Facebook page and I’m supposed to post it for a long time ago, but since it’s winter sweets, It will be perfect in these chilly days.

It’s a traditional Palestinian sweets, similar to many other Levant’ sweet cakes, a sweet spicy cake soaked in sugar syrup. Helba or Helbeh named in arabic for the seeds, Fenugreek, which is the star that gives the distinctive nutty taste and enticing smell that makes your kitchen smells welcoming warm and aromatic. This sweet cake is very healthy since using olive oil to make the dough which is very good for health and cholesterol. Besides Fenugreek, this cake contain Nigella seeds, sesame seeds, it also have fennel seeds, and anise seeds (both grounded).

Fenugreek, an aromatic bittersweet spice, has strong flavor. It’s a small seed, that is actually a legume that grows in India and in some places of the mediterranean. Mostly dry roasted and used in curry, and pickles. This little seed has proteins, fibre and Vitamin C, niacin, potassium, iron and alkaloids. It’s very nutritious and healthy; it increases milk production among nursing mothers, helps reduce symptoms of PMS, reduce cholesterol, increases the libido, reduces heartburn, you can lose weight by reducing the appetite, and cure skin inflammations.

Nigella seed looks like black sesame seed and has a faint cumin flavor. Nigella seeds are very healthy especially known for skin and hair. It also have a bitter taste, so less than 1 tablespoon is perfect for this dough recipe.

I took the recipe from my mother in law, she’s very talented and her sweets always yummy. Her way is to toast the dried seeds a little, but not to burn it, this will give the cake very tasty aroma then grind it, in this recipe I used all-purpose flour. Some recipes use semolina flour instead of all-purpose flour, others use both together. When using semolina flour alone, you can soak the Fenugreek in water then boil it and use it as whole in the dough without grinding it, some of the soaking water is used to make the dough too.

Always make the cake at least a day before you want to serve it, as the flavors need time to come together.

Fenugreek Olive Oil Cake – Helbeh

1 cup semolina or farina flour
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon yeast
2 tablespoon anise seeds
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
1 tablespoon black seeds
3 tablespoon fenugreek seeds
2 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon caraway seeds
3 tablespoon sugar
dash of salt
3\4 cup olive oil
about 1 1\2 cup milk
1 tablespoon oil or tahini for the tray.

In a pan, toast the fenugreek seeds a little for 2-3 minutes on low heat, shake and stir frequently and try not to burn them. In a coffee blender, grind 1 tablespoon of anise seeds with the caraway and fennel seeds and the toasted fenugreek.
Add the ground spices and the yeast, sugar, and salt to flour and farina, mix together. Add the olive oil and mix it with dry ingredients. With your finger tips, rub the flour with the oil until it soaked.

Warm the milk, add it to the dough and knead together, until you have a soft and smooth dough, let rest for 15 minutes.
Grease 12×17 inch sheet tray with oil or tahini, spread the dough evenly and smooth its surface. let rest in a warm place covered for 1 hour.

Heat the oven at 400 f, bake for 15-20 minutes, bring it to the upper rack and let golden brown a little.
Once you get it out from the oven, soak it with the cold sugar syrup, let stand until cool.

Enjoy it, and remember to left some for the next day, since it will become more delicious.

For the sugar syrup:
2 cups sugar
1 1\2 cups water
1\2 teaspoon lemon juice

In sauce pan, add sugar to water, bring to boil, let boil on low heat for 15 min, add the lemon juice at the end.
Let to cool.

 

المقادير

2 كوب طحين
1كوب سميد
3 ملعقه كبيره حب حلبه
2 ملعقه كبيره ينسون حب
2 ملعقه كبيره سمسم
1ملعقه كبيره قزحه
1 ملعقه كبيره كراويه حب
1 ملعقه كبيره شومر حب
1ملعقه صغيره خميره
حليب سائل حوالي  1 1\2 كوب
3/4 كوب زيت زيتون
رشة ملح
3 ملعقه كبيره سكر

الطريقه

تحمص الحلبه بمقلاه على نار خفيفه قليلا مع الانتباه والتحريك لحتى لا تخترق ولمده دقائق فقط ثم تطحن بمكينة الفهوه مع الكراويه اوالشومر وملعقه من اليانسون الحب.
نضع جميع المقادير الناشفه ونخلط. ثم نضيف الزيت ونخلط وباطراف الاصابع نفرك المواد مع بعضها لحتى تتشرب الزيت.ثم نعجنها قليلا بالحليب مع اضافة الحليب بين الحين والاخر بكميات قليله حتى تتكون عجينه طريه.
نتركها ربع ساعه ترتاح ثم نفردها في الصينيه بعد دهنها بالطحينيه او الزيت, نقطعها حسب الرغبه الى مربعات. ونتركها ساعه تخمر.
نخبزها على 400 د حتى يحمر وجهها. نكون محضرين القطر ويكون بارد ونسقيها.
للقطر:
هذه الكميه يلزمها 2 كوب سكر مع 1 1\2 كوب ماء.
نضعها على النار حتى تغلي نخفف الحراره ونتركها ل 10 دقائق اخرى.
نضع بضع قطرات من عصير الليمون في اخر دقيقه.
نتركها تبرد تماما

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B is for Banana: Cocoa Bottom Banana Pecan Bars

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Baking, Banana, banana bars, cakes, chocolate cake, cocoa bars, cocoa bottom banana pecan bars, healthy food, overripe banana, pecan, what to do with overripe banana

What’s the best healthy treats to do with overripe bananas?

My kids and the bananas is like on and off, sometimes they can be gone in a couple of days and some other times they stay until browned then no body will touch them (They call them rotten and would rather throw them in the garbage, you may had this issue with your kids too). To me, it’s the best healthy sweetener to use in cakes and smoothies, every time I have some ripened banana, I just peel and freeze them in a zip lock plastic bags, that’s a good way to save the banana until you have a use for them.

Here is a great way to use up these overripe banana on your shelf and your kids will thank you for. They even will not notice the trick part of using those what they called “rotten bananas”. Another recipe to use the banana is in these healthy delicious Banana Oat Muffins.

I had this recipe from kitchen aid cookbook, and since I tried the recipe, it became my family stable. A very moist, light and fluffy bananaishy cake, your house will be filled with banana smell, it uses a large amount of bananas, you can add some other spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, but I prefers it as is. The addition of cocoa powder to half of the cake batter makes it kids friendly, you know kids love anything calls and tastes chocolate, they will finish every bit of it, trust me.

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
5 ripe bananas, mashed
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease a13x9-inch baking pan. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer (or you could do it by hand), beat sugar and butter at a medium speed until creamy. Add the bananas, egg, and vanilla, continuing to beat until well blended.
Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture, and beat until well blended. Stir in the chopped pecans.
Divide the batter in half. Stir the cocoa into one half, and spread the chocolate batter into the bottom of the greased pan. Top with the plain batter, and swirl with a knife as desired.
Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack. Cut into bars.

The Dutch Crunch (Tiger Bread), Daring Bakers March Challenge

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Baking, bread and rolls, daring bakers, daring kitchen, dutch crunch bread, milk bread, rice paste, soft white bread roll, Tiger bread

A special Thank YOU, I want to acknowledge all my blog buddies who have been veryhelpful to me on my journey to grow my blog. You made my day, and seriously, I was stuntly jumping happily all day yesterday and today to see you all besides me. Each of you have been very supportive with your likes or kind words and comments and I am grateful and humbled by your kindness, that the least I have to say, THANK YOU! Also, I’m extending same Thank YOU to WordPress.com team for selecting me at freshly Pressed, I have been honored with your promotion. Thanks to everyone else; non-bloggers and social media friends, you are appreciated too.THANKS from the bottom of my heart.

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

I have to say this is my first time I make this kind of bread, or even know about it. But it was very delicious. The beautiful combination of crunchy sweet topping with very very soft inside, that the most signficant feature for the bread also I liked the color pattern on the top of it.

I made the same recipes given by Sara and Erica, and it turned out very successful bread. I made the soft white roll bread, I didn’t use all the 4 cups of flour, it took about 3 1\2 cup to make 6 large rolls of bread. I made the crunchy topping, and put a thick layer over the bread, didn’t let the bread to rest after the adding, I just pop it immediately in the oven.

I made some sandwiches from the bread, very light and healthy caprese sandwich with fresh mozzarella, tomato, arugula and spinach. On the side I made some baked potato chips.

Thanks Sara and Erica for this wonderful recipes, we all like it and enjoy making sandwiches out of it.

A little about Tiger Bread:

The bread is generally made with sesame oil and with a pattern baked into the top made by painting rice paste onto the surface prior to baking.The paste dries and cracks during the baking process. The rice paste crust also gives the bread a distinctive flavour. It has a crusty exterior, but is soft inside. Typically, tiger bread is made as a white bread bloomer loaf or bread roll, but the technique can be applied to any shape of bread.

The name originated in the Netherlands, where it is known as tijgerbrood or tijgerbol where it has been sold at least since the early 1970s. In the USA, it is generally sold as “Dutch crunch”. Though recently, some stores began to sell it as “Dutch crust”. In the United States it is also sometimes known as dragonette bread.

The Dutch Crunch Bread (Tiger Bread)

Soft White Roll

Servings: Six sandwich rolls
This recipe approximates the quintessential white sandwich roll found throughout the Bay Area. The recipe is simple, quick, and addictive.

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon (1 packet) active dry yeast
¼ cup warm water (105-110º F) (41-43°C) (No need to use a thermometer – it should feel between lukewarm and hot to the touch).
1 cup warm milk (105-110º F) (41-43°C) (We’ve tried both nonfat and 2%, with no noticeable difference)
1½ tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (plus additional olive or vegetable oil for greasing bowl during rising)
1½ teaspoons salt
Up to 4 cups all purpose flour

Directions:
1. In the bowl of an electric mixer or large mixing bowl, combine yeast, water, milk and sugar. Stir to dissolve and let sit for about 5 minutes (The mixture should start to bubble or foam a bit and smell yeasty).
2. Add in vegetable oil, salt and 2 cups of flour. Using the dough hook attachment or a wooden spoon, mix at medium speed until the dough comes together. (The photo to the right is with the first 2 cups of flour added).
3. Add remaining flour a quarter cup at time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, as shown in the photo below (For us, this usually required an additional 1½ to 2 cups of flour).
4. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 4 minutes, until smooth and elastic.
5. Place in a lightly greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 1 hour, or until doubled (or more) in size

6. Once the dough has risen, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into 6 equal portions (if you’d like to make rolls) or 2 equal portions (if you’d like to make a loaf) (using a sharp knife or a dough scraper works well). Shape each into a ball or loaf and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet (try not to handle the dough too much at this point).

7. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 15 minutes while you prepare the topping.
8. Coat the top of each roll or loaf with the topping as described above. While the original recipe recommends letting them stand for 20 minutes after applying the topping, I got better results by putting them directly into the oven.
9. Once you’ve applied the topping, bake in a preheated moderately hot 380ºF/190°C/gas mark 5 for 25-30 minutes, until well browned. Let cool completely on a wire rack before eating.

Dutch Crunch Topping

Servings: This recipe should make sufficient topping for two 9×5 loaves (23cmx13cm) or 12 rolls. If you make only 6 rolls in the first soft white roll recipe, you can cut the topping recipe in half.

Note, however, that you should not prepare the topping until the bread you’ve selected to bake is almost finished rising (~15 minutes from baking).

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons (2 packets) active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (105-115º F) (41-46°C)
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon salt
1½ cups rice flour (white or brown; NOT sweet or glutinous rice flour) (increase by 1 cup or more for home-made rice flour)

Directions:
1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and beat with a whisk; beat hard to combine. The consistency should be like stiff royal icing – spreadable, but not too runny. If you pull some up with your whisk, as shown below, it should drip off slowly. Add more water or rice flour as necessary. Let stand 15 minutes.
2. Coat the top of each loaf or roll with a thick layer of topping. We tried coating it with a brush but it worked better just to use fingers or a spoon and kind of spread it around. You should err on the side of applying too much topping – a thin layer will not crack properly.
3. Let stand, uncovered, for any additional time your recipe recommends. With the Soft White Roll, you can place the rolls directly into the oven after applying the topping. With the Brown Rice Bread, the loaves should stand for 20 minutes with the topping before baking.
4. When baking, place pans on a rack in the center of the oven and bake your bread as you ordinarily would. The Dutch Crunch topping should crack and turn a nice golden-brown color

Baked Potato French Fries:

Cut the potato into thin sticks, season with salt, black pepper, and paprika. Spray an oven sheet with some oilve oil then spray the potato sticks to coat. Put in 400 f preheated oven for 20 min.

Chocolate Chip Shortbread with Earl – Grey Infused Glaze

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Baking, butter cookies, chocolate chip, cookies, cooking with tea, Dessert, Earl Grey, Earl Grey glaze, shortbread, tea glaze, tea time

There comes a time in every week ( or maybe in every day) when nothing is more satisfying than a snack of fresh-from-the-oven cookies, alongside a cold and creamy glass of milk or warming cup of tea.

When I’m talking shortbread cookies, I think of simplicity and little ingredients. This recipe of shortbread has no eggs in it, no baking powder, yet it calls for no cooling after mixing the dough. We don’t need to put everything from the pantry into a batch of cookies—a little restraint can go a long way toward helping us remember the pleasure of the simpler things.

But the absolute best part about shortbread? Butter! Shortbread cookies usually have a high percentage of fat and slightly less sugar than other cookies, leaving you with a not-too-sweet cookie that has a nice buttery flavor to it. The butter gives this classic cookie its just-so-slightly crumbly texture, which makes biting into a piece pure bliss. Butter also makes each bite melt a bit on your tongue as you munch on the cookies.

The glaze is new to me, the first time I used it or even see any recipe calling for it. Delicate Earl Grey tea infused glaze gives this unique flavor to the Cookies, calming and refreshing Earl Grey tea taste.

For optimum flavor, use unsalted butter to allow the flavors of butter, chocolate, orange and tea to stand out.

1 cup butter, unsalted
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp grated orange peel
2 cups all-purpose flour
1\4 cup cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 f. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper or leave them ungreased.

Using an electric mixer on low-speed, cream the Butter, orange peel and Sugar together in a bowl until combined, Stop the mixer to scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Continuing on low-speed, gradually mix in the Flour, cornstarch and Salt. Scrape the bowl. When dough has formed, add in the chocolate chips, then complete the mixing by hand with a wooden spoon.

Roll dough into 1\4 inch thick rectangle on lightly floured board. Cut dough lengthwise into 4 rows and diagonally into 8 rows. Place shortbread 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheet.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until bottoms begin to brown. Cool 5 minutes. Remove from pan, cool completely on wire rack. Prepare Earl Grey-Infused Glaze. Drizzle over shortbread.

Earl Grey Infused Glaze:

makes 1\3 cup or enough to drizzle on the cookies

1\4 cup boiling water
3 bags Earl Grey tea
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon butter, softened

pour boiling water over the tea bags, let steep 3-5 minutes. Remove tea bags.
In a small bowl, stir together powdered sugar and butter. Gradually stir in enough tea to make glaze thin enough to drizzle.