Essential Ingredient: Glucose Syrup

My master's thesis has been handed in, woohoo! Now, back to the kitchen to make an absolute sugar craft staple: glucose syrup.

Glucose syrup is a handy ingredient to prevent sugar from crystalising in recipes like caramel or chewy sweets, and it's also a good substitute for sugar in frozen desserts. In the United States, corn syrup occupies this role, and often here in Ireland people reach for golden syrup in its place. Because, oddly enough, glucose syrup is very difficult to gets your hands on.

I remember a time when you could get it from the pharmacy, and in small tubes from the baking section of the supermarket. But now, you can only get it online. Luckily, it's very easy to make.

In a large, heavy based saucepan, cook a pound (455 grammes) of sugar with 4 fluid ounces (120 millilitres) of water and a tablespoon of lemon juice. Cook on low, stirring only until the sugar dissolves. Up the heat to medium low, and cook slowly without stirring until it reaches 114 °C (237 °F). This could take about 30 minutes or more. If there are any grains of sugar on the sides of the pan, wash them away with a pastry brush dipped in hot water.

Turn off the flame, and allow to cool down completely without being moved, bumped, or disturbed. Once completely cool, transfer to a clean, sterile jar without scraping the sides of the saucepan; you can scrape the bottom. Scraping the sides would reintroduce sugar crystals and be the ruin of your syrup.

Glucose syrup will keep for up to a month in a cupboard, but after that it could start to crystalise.

Soft White Bread Rolls (Wheat-, Egg-, and Dairy Free)

There are very few things in this life that are better than freshly baked bread. And luckily, using this recipe, it can be enjoyed if you are a spelt eater

 I remember when I was a little girl, Mum used to bake delicious white bread. The excitement of watching the dough rise, then watching the loaf go into the range (yes: we had a range. I was brought up in very rural West Clare in the '90s), then watching it emerge as a delicious treat waiting to happen. When it was St. Patrick's Day, Mum used to tint the dough green, so we could have green toast. It was exactly the kind of novelty that little children revel in, especially my brother, who is called Patrick.

I'm just wondering how many other applications there are for this dough: it seems incredibly versatile. This recipe uses exactly the same bread recipe as I used to make the pork dim sum, but applied to a slightly different context. I also discovered that this bread dough can be used to make delicious thin crust pizza, but I want to experiment with deep dish pizza, which has always been a favourite of mine.
FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Wheat
☑ Nuts
☑ Eggs
☑ Dairy

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Yeast
☒ Refined sugar products


INGREDIMENTS
For 10 small buns, or 8 medium sized buns

• 12 ounces (340 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1 quarter-ounce (7 grammes) package of instant yeast
• ½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) baking powder
• 6 fluid ounces (180 millilitres) hand hot water
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) sugar
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) sunflower oil

METHOD

First, prepare the yeast dough.

• In a large mixing bowl, mix 8 ounces (225 grammes) of the flour, the yeast, sugar, oil, and warm water together. Mix into a sticky paste, cover, and leave to rise in a warm place for 45 minutes, or until doubled in size and very spongy in appearance.
• Once risen, remove from the oven and sieve in the rest of the flour, the baking powder, and salt and mix together by hand until fully incorporated.
• Knead in the bowl until it forms a dough ball, and until the bowl is completely clean. Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead continuously for 4 minutes.
• Return the dough to the bowl, cover again, and leave to rise again for 1 to 1½ hours, or until about doubled in size.

Next, assemble and cook the rolls.

• When the dough is fully risen, take it out and gently deflate it. Gently flatten the dough into a circle, and cut the circle into 10 or 8 pieces. If you like, you can use a digital scale to be more precise with the division.
• Take each piece and wad up into a ball, keeping the surface nice and taught. Place on a floured baking tray about an inch apart, so they can grow into each other.
• Cover lightly with a piece of cling film, put back in the warm place, and proof for a further 25 to 35 minutes, until doubled in size and touching.
• While the dough is proofing, preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F, Gas Mk.7), with a oven proof jug of boiled water on the bottom to make it steamy.
• When the buns are risen, sprinkle with a little bit of flour, score the tops in a cross shape, then place in the steamy preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes, until brown on top.
• Once cooked, allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before eating.

Like with any kind of bread rolls, they are best eaten on the day they are eaten. I follow the adage: today it's bread, tomorrow it's toast, the next day it's for the birds.

However, these can be frozen raw. Once you have formed the dough balls, freeze on a tray before proofing the second time, pack them into bags once frozen, and freeze them for up to 2 weeks. When you want them, line them up on a floured tray as instructed, and allow to thaw and proof in a warm place for about 4 or 5 hours. Bake as instructed.

Low Effort Tray Bake Sponge (Wheat and Dairy Free)

The last few weeks have been unbelievably busy for me. Between work and members of family being ill (and courting a young boy thing) I've been up the walls, and my usual sponge cake recipe is quite bitty and requires a few delicate steps. So, I decided to give a one-step mix a go, and it turned out quite successfully!

The texture is a bit different: it's still light and fluffy, but the crumb is nice and firm, which makes cutting it very, very easy. I was running a youth group today, so I knocked up a nice jam sponge tray bake with chocolate glaze. Each year at Easter, I break all my chocolate eggs into a box and use them for baking with; my mother hates it.

I used the exact same measurements for my usual go-to sponge recipe, but I simply doubled the liquid and used only oil instead of a combination of oil and butter. Instead of cross referencing, though, I'll write it up for you. This is the basic recipe, which is dairy free, but if you combine it with a buttercream for chocolate icing it will obviously no longer be dairy free.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Eggs
☑ Dairy

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

Dry

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cornflour
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) baking powder
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) caster sugar

Wet

• 2 medium eggs
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) sunflower oil
• 2 fluid ounces (60 millilitres) water
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence

METHOD

• Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4, or moderate). Grease a loaf tin and set aside.
• In a mixing bowl, sieve together the dry ingredients. Take a spoonful of the dry mixture and use it to dust the inside of the greased tin. Tip the excess back into the bowl.
• In a jug or smaller bowl, open the eggs and add in the oil, water, and vanilla essence. Beat with a fork until fully combined and pale.
• Make a well in the middle of the dry mixture, and pour in the wet mixture. Using a balloon whisk or the same fork, mix the wet and dry together until you have a nice smooth batter.
• Pour the batter into the tin, and bake in the centre rack of the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. You will know it's done when it's springy to the touch, and a cocktail stick of knife poked into the middle comes out clean.
• Once cooked, take from the oven and cool in tin for about ten minutes to firm up a little, then take out of the tin to cool fully.

Like my regular sponge recipe, this can be shaken up to change the flavour. You could use coffee instead of water to make coffee cake, or almond essence instead of vanilla, you could add in some grated lemon zest and use lemon juice instead of the water, use brown sugar instead of white to make it toffee flavour, you could swap some of the cornflour for cocoa powder to make it chocolatey. It's really very versatile.

I split mine in half and filled it with raspberry jam, then topped it off with a simple chocolate glaze and sprinkles. My youth group enjoyed it anyway!

THIS TIME IN 2014: No blog
THIS TIME IN 2013: Buttercream Icing: the King of all Icings

Soda Bread with Oats and Sunflower Seeds (Wheat Free)

Soda bread is ever so simple, and is the perfect bread for a beginner as it needs no yeast. This kind of bread recipe, known as a quick bread, relies on the very basic principle of acid + base = gas for leavening, and as this is an instant reaction it can be cooked straight after preparation. It has been a staple of Irish kitchens for many a year, and its stale crusts has teethed many an Irish country toddler.

However, as nice and easy as it is, it can be really boring if made with plain old flour (even if it is wholemeal, which is flavourful and complex), so to spice things up a bit it's nice to add seeds, herbs and spices, other grains, or even finely chopped nuts. My cousin visited recently and left behind a packet of sunflower seeds, which I found add such a delicious flavour, and bring life and colour to an otherwise visually boring.

Also, soda bread is traditionally made with buttermilk: the acidity of the buttermilk reacts with the bread soda causing lift, and it gives the bread richness. However, if you don't plan on making soda bread often, it would be impractical to keep buttermilk in he fridge, as it would go off before you used it all. If you want to make your own buttermilk, simply add 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) of lemon juice to every 8 fluid ounces (240 millilitres) of normal milk, stir and allow to rest for 10 minutes, stirring every little while.

Let's get onto the recipe itself.

INGREDIMENTS:
This will yield one 8x4 inch (21x10 centimeter) loaf.

• 1 pound (455 grammes) spelt flour, white or whole meal
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) bread soda (bicarbonate of soda)
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) rolled oats
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) sunflower seeds 
• 12 fluid ounces (340 millilitres) buttermilk
• 2 or 3 fluid ounces (60 or 85 millilitres) water, if needed

HOW-TO

• Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4, or moderate). Grease and flour a loaf tin.
• In a large bowl, mix the flour, bread soda, salt, oats, and sunflower seeds until fully blended. Make a well in the middle.
• Pour the buttermilk into the well, and using your hand (don't use any tools for this, soda bread needs a sensitive hand only) and gently mix together the wet and dry ingredients until just brought together. 
• This mixture should not be like usual bread dough, or even like biscuit dough, it should be  sticky and make an absolute mess of your hand; imagine the texture of thick porridge. If you need to add the water to get the right consistency, add it an ounce (30 millilitres) at a time.
• Pour into the tin and put into the oven. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out with one or two crumbs clinging to it, and the loaf sounds hollow underneath.
• Once removed from the oven, wrap in a clean, damp tea towel.

Simple as that! Slice thick, slice thin, eat toasted, eat straight, with butter, jam peanut butter, whatever! This is perfect student food, as it is cheap, keeps well and freezes better. Store in an airtight container, and cut as needed to prolong the shelf-life.

Incidentally, the green bits are sunflower seeds, not mould, before you ask!