Bargain Box Olive Zaatar Buns

Dough:

3  cups flour

1 tsp fast yeast

1 tsp salt

3 Tbl olive oil

1 cup water

Filling

1 Tbl Dried Zaatar (mixture of sesame seeds, ground sumac, dried thyme, oregano, marjoram available at Middle Eastern stores)

2 Tbl olive oil

2 Tbl olive paste (blend black pitted Kalamata olives with garlic in a small processor)

The day before you plan to serve these:

Combine flour, salt, and yeast, oil, and water in a bowl.  Mix until a dough is formed (you may need more water if it is particularly dry).   Use your hand to lightly knead it in the bowl.  Cover the bowl with a plate and let rise until doubled.  Pat down the dough and let it sit covered overnight.  It is not necessary to knead this dough because of the long rising time.

Put the dough on a board and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Make the zaatar oil by combining the herbs and olive oil in a jar.

Divide the dough in two. (You will need a long counter space to roll this dough out on, if you don’t have that divide it into three pieces.) Roll out the first piece to a long strip, trying to square off the ends.  The strip should be approximately 4 inches wide.  Let the first piece rest for ten minutes and roll out the second piece. 

Roll the first piece out longer, the rest period allows it to do this.  Once you have a long strip brush the zaatar oil on it in a thin layer.  Leave about ¼ inch on the far side.  Brush with a thin layer of olive paste (if the olive paste is thick, thin it with olive oil). 

Roll the strip up to make a long rope of dough.  Cut it into six pieces, making the pieces at the end a little longer.

Using your hand, coat a baking sheet with a small amount of olive oil.  Rolling the buns will be easier if your hands have a bit of oil on them.

Take each piece of dough; roll it so that it is longer and a bit more compact.  Turn each piece into a spiral, pat it down to flatten it out, and put it on the prepared baking sheet.  Do the same with the second piece of dough.

Let the buns rest for 30 minutes.  Bake in 375 degree oven for approximately 30 minutes.

Yield 12 buns

Adapted from a recipe from tasteofbeirut.com

New York Crumb Cake for the Bargain Box

Don’t know why this is called a New York crumb cake as opposed to a Los Angeles crumb cake.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups flour

½ cup sugar

2 ½ tsp baking powder

1 egg

½ cup milk

2 Tbl oil

1 tsp vanilla

Crumb topping:

2 ½ cups flour

1 cup of packed brown sugar

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

1 stick of unsalted butter melted and cooled

Powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Brush a baking pan (I used a 9 inch round pan) with oil and dust with flour.

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl stir the egg, milk, oil, and vanilla. With a rubber spatula mix the dry ingredients in with the wet until well combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Combine the dry ingredients for the crumb topping and add the cooled butter and mix until crumbly. Sprinkle on top. Bake for approximately 40 minutes turning the pan half way through the baking.

Cool on a rack and cut into pieces.

Adapted from a marthastewart.com recipe.

English Muffins or Bagels

Save and freeze potato water from boiled potatoes to make English muffins. Otherwise make potato water by peeling and cutting up a small potato and putting it into a blender. Add boiling water and blend until a liquid is formed.

Ingredients

1 package or Tbl of dried yeast

½ cup warm water

1 ½ cups of potato water (if you are using water from boiled potatoes, if you made the potato water from a whole potato cut it with half as much plain water)

1 tsp. salt

Enough flour to make a soft dough approximately 4 cups.

Proof the yeast in the warm water. When bubbly add potato water, salt, and as much flour as needed to make a soft but not sticky dough. Mix with a heavy duty mixer, food processor, or stir with a spoon and knead until well combined.

Let the dough rise until doubled (about 1 hour). It has doubled if you stick two fingers in the dough and the impression remains.

Punch down the dough. The muffins can be baked now but they are even better if you let the dough rise again over night.

Put dough on a floured board and let rest for 10 minutes. Form dough into 10 muffins and let rise on a floured surface for about ½ hour.

Heat a couple of cast iron skillets on the top of the stove over low heat and place muffins on the pan. Bake uncovered until lightly browned, flip them over, and finish baking.

Cool on a rack

For Bagels: Prepare the dough but only let it rise once. Put on a board and let it rest for 10 minutes. Divide the dough into 10 pieces and form each into a bagel by rolling it into a sausage and the bringing the ends together. Put on a floured baking sheet and let rise for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 375 degrees and boil a large pot of water. Gently, usually three at a time because they expand, place the bagels in the hot water and let boil until they become puffy. Turn them over to the other side. Return them to the baking sheet which can have poppy or sesame seeds spread on it. Bake the bagels for approximately 30 minutes or until golden.

Butterscotch Biscuits

Ingredients:

2 cups of flour

2 tsp baking powder (1/4 tsp baking soda if using yoghurt or sour cream or sour milk)

10 Tbls of cold butter cut into pieces

1 cup milk, cream, sour cream, or yoghurt

½ cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

Turn the oven on to 400 degrees. Combine flour and baking powder in a bowl. Using a fork or pastry cutter blend in 4 Tbl. cold butter until well combined so that it is like dry pebbles. Add the milk or cream (cream makes a very rich dough). You can also do this part in a food processor. Roll into a rectangle.

Put ½ stick of cut up butter in a cake pan and put it in the preheated oven to melt.

Mix the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg together in the measuring cup.

Brush butter on the rolled out dough and spread with 3 Tbl of sugar mixture. Place the remaining sugar and spices in the pan with the melted butter.

Roll up the dough lengthwise and cut into 2 inch pieces. Put the pieces in the pan with the spirals facing up close together from the center out. (The butterscotch biscuits in these pictures were made smaller because they were going to the Bargain Box and had to serve a group of people.)

Bake until the tops of the biscuits are golden. Carefully turn the pan onto a plate and scrap the mixture on the bottom of the pan onto the top of the biscuits. If the sugar on the bottom gets too hard, put it back in the oven for a moment to soften it up.

Butterscotch Biscuits are best straight out of the oven.

Aunt Len's Ginger Cookies

½ cup butter

¼ tablespoons bacon fat

1 cup sugar

4 tablespoons dark molasses

1 large egg

2 cups flour

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon each ground ginger, cloves and cinnamon

Mix together the first 5 ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl sift together dry ingredients, and combine them. Form the dough into two long rolls and freeze.

When ready to bake preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Slice the rolls thinly and bake for about 8 to 10 minutes or until brown. Let cookies cool on baking sheet for a few minutes to firm up, and then transfer to racks to finish cooling.

You can use more bacon fat and less butter or no bacon fat and all butter if you wish. Just make it total ¾ cup fat. You can also make the dough into drop cookies, but I like slicing them to get a very thin delicate cookie.