Tag Archives: cooking

Cooking and Baking in a Breadmaker

Posted on by

bake brownies breadmaker

USING THE OVEN

Here at the cortijo, we generally don’t often use the wood-fired bread oven unless we are planning to cook a number of different dishes on the same day. These might include a typical roast dinner or pizzas, bread and possibly cake, then it makes it worthwhile heating up the wood-fired bread oven for several hours.  I’ve recently been experimenting with baking cakes and cooking things in the breadmaker. I normally make sourdough if it is sunny and it means we can cook it using purely solar energy. I use the BAKE program which is No. 12 on our Princess breadmaker and it takes 60 minutes.
 

COOKING JACKET POTATOES

My first experiment was jacket potatoes. I chose 2 medium-sized potatoes, pricked them with a fork and wrapped them in foil. I took the paddle out of the bread tin and placed the potatoes on either side of the spindle. At the end of the cooking time, I opened up the parcels and cut each potato in half. I pricked the surface with a fork and smeared over some butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. I put a couple of slices of cheddar cheese on one side of each potato and then wrapper them up again and put them back in the breadmaker. There was still a lot of residual heat left from cooking the potatoes and so by leaving them for another 30-40 minutes, they could finish cooking and the cheese could melt.
 

BAKING A CAKE

My second experiment was to bake some brownies and this is the recipe I used. I didn’t want to use the pan that came with the breadmaker so bought an additional one. I measured the machine and reckoned that if I bought one for a maximum width of 18cm I would be OK and chose a 7″ or 17.8cm round PME cake tin. As it turned out, although that was the size of the base and sides sloped gradually outwards and the final edge diameter was 19.6cm. Luckily it was possible to squeeze and force the tin slightly to get it in.

breadmaker"cakeI didn’t want it to sit too near the base and the heating element, so put an upturned ramekin on the turning spindle.

Here are some links to recipes that I have tried in the breadmaker.

RECIPE 1: Brownies

 

Red pepper and white bean soup

Posted on by

This soup is made in the pressure cooker. It can either be completely vegetarian or you can add a ham bone or some chopped Serrano ham to make a meatier version.

INGREDIENTS:
200g white beans, soaked overnight
1 onion, finely chopped
1 red pepper, finely chopped
400g can of tomatoes
vegetable or chicken stock

Fry the onion in olive oil until soft in the pressure cooker. Add the red pepper and fry for another couple of minutes.

Add the beans and tomatoes and pour over the stock. Bring to the boil. Give it a final stir before closing the lid and bringing up to pressure. Cook for 30 minutes once the pan is at pressure.